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diff --git a/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md b/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md deleted file mode 100644 index af5a90a..0000000 --- a/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1969 +0,0 @@ -[[!meta title="One-Dimensional Man"]] - -* Author: Hebert Marcuse -* Terms: institutionalized, adjusted sublimation - -## Snippets - -### Intro - - From the beginning, any critical theory of society is thus confronted with the - problem of historical objectivity, a problem which arises at the two points - where the analysis implies value judgments: - - 1. the judgment that human life is worth living, or rather can be and ought to - be made worth living. This judgment underlies all intellectual effort; it is - the a priori of social theory, and its rejection (which is perfectly logical) - rejects theory itself; - - 2. the judgment that, in a given society, specific possibilities exist for the - amelioration of human life and specific ways and means of realizing these - possibilities. Critical analysis has to demonstrate the objective validity of - these judgments, and the demonstration has to proceed on empirical grounds. The - established society has available an ascertainable quantity and quality of - intellectual and material resources. How can these resources be used for the - optimal development and satisfaction of individual needs and faculties with a - minimum of toil and misery? Social theory is historical theory, and history is - the realm of chance in the realm of necessity. Therefore, among the various - possible and actual modes of organizing and utilizing the available resources, - which ones offer the greatest chance of an optimal development? - - [...] - - The “possibilities” must be within the reach of the respective society; they - must be definable goals of practice. By the same token, the abstraction from - the established institutions must be expressive of an actual tendency—that is, - their transformation must be the real need of the underlying population. Social - theory is concerned with the historical alternatives which haunt the - established society as subversive tendencies and forces. The values attached to - the alternatives do become facts when they are translated into reality by - historical practice. The theoretical concepts terminate with social change. - - But here, advanced industrial society confronts the critique with a situation - which seems to deprive it of its very basis. Technical progress, extended to a - whole system of domination and coordination, creates forms of life (and of - power) which appear to reconcile the forces opposing the system and to defeat - or refute all protest in the name of the historical prospects of freedom from - toil and domination. Contemporary society seems to be capable of containing - social change—qualitative change which would establish essentially different - institutions, a new direction of the productive process, new modes of human - existence. - - [...] - - As a technological universe, advanced industrial society is a political - universe, the latest stage in the realization of a specific historical - project—namely, the experience, transformation, and organization of nature as - the mere stuff of domination. - - As the project unfolds, it shapes the entire universe of discourse and action, - intellectual and material culture. In the medium of technology, culture, - politics, and the economy merge into an omnipresent system which swallows up or - repulses all alternatives. The productivity and growth potential of this system - stabilize the society and contain technical progress within the framework of - domination. Technological rationality has become political rationality. - -### Freedom in negative terms - - Contemporary industrial civilization demonstrates that it has reached the stage - at which “the free society” can no longer be adequately defined in the - traditional terms of economic, political, and intellectual liberties, not - because these liberties have become insignificant, but because they are too - significant to be confined within the traditional forms. New modes of - realization are needed, corresponding to the new capabilities of society. - - Such new modes can be indicated only in negative terms because they would - amount to the negation of the prevailing modes. Thus economic freedom would - mean freedom from the economy—from being controlled by economic forces and - relationships; freedom from the daily struggle for existence, from earning a - living. Political freedom would mean liberation of the individuals from - politics over which they have no effective control. Similarly, intellectual - freedom would mean the restoration of individual thought now absorbed by mass - communication and indoctrination, abolition of “public opinion” together with - its makers. The unrealistic sound of these propositions is indicative, not of - their utopian character, but of the strength of the forces which prevent their - realization. The most effective and enduring form of warfare against liberation - is the implanting of material and intellectual needs that perpetuate obsolete - forms of the struggle for existence. - - The intensity, the satisfaction and even the character of human needs, beyond - the biological level, have always been preconditioned. Whether or not the - possibility of doing or leaving, enjoying or destroying, possessing or - rejecting something is seized as a need depends on whether or not it can be - seen as desirable and necessary for the prevailing societal institutions and - interests. In this sense, human needs are historical needs and, to the extent - to which the society demands the repressive development of the individual, his - needs themselves and their claim for satisfaction are subject to overriding - critical standards. - -### The irrationality of the rational - - We are again confronted with one of the most vexing aspects of advanced - industrial civilization: the rational character of its irrationality. Its - productivity and efficiency, its capacity to increase and spread comforts, to - turn waste into need, and destruction into construction, the extent to which - this civilization transforms the object world into an extension of man’s mind - and body makes the very notion of alienation questionable. - - [...] - - But in the contemporary period, the technological controls appear to be the - very embodiment of Reason for the benefit of all social groups and interests—to - such an extent that all contradiction seems irrational and all counteraction - impossible. - - No wonder then that, in the most advanced areas of this civilization, the - social controls have been introjected to the point where even individual - protest is affected at its roots. The intellectual and emotional refusal “to go - along” appears neurotic and impotent. - - [...] - - But the term “introjection” perhaps no longer describes the way in which the - individual by himself reproduces and perpetuates the external controls - exercised by his society. Introjection suggests a variety of relatively - spontaneous processes by which a Self (Ego) transposes the “outer” into the - “inner.” Thus introjection implies the existence of an inner dimension - distinguished from and even antagonistic to the external exigencies—an - individual consciousness and an individual unconscious apart from public - opinion and behavior.3 The idea of “inner freedom” here has its reality: it - designates the private space in which man may become and remain “himself.” - - Today this private space has been invaded and whittled down by technological - reality. Mass production and mass distribution claim the entire individual, and - industrial psychology has long since ceased to be confined to the factory. The - manifold processes of introjection seem to be ossified in almost mechanical - reactions. The result is, not adjustment but mimesis: an immediate - identification of the individual with his society and, through it, with the - society as a whole. - -### One-dimensionality - - Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior in which ideas, - aspirations, and objectives that, by their content, transcend the established - universe of discourse and action are either repelled or reduced to terms of - this universe. They are redefined by the rationality of the given system and of - its quantitative extension. - - The trend may be related to a development in scientific method: operationalism - in the physical, behaviorism in the social sciences. The common feature is a - total empiricism in the treatment of concepts; their meaning is restricted to - the representation of particular operations and behavior. The operational point - of view is well illustrated by P. W. Bridgman’s analysis of the concept of - length:5 - - We evidently know what we mean by length if we can tell what the length of any - and every object is, and for the physicist nothing more is required. To find - the length of an object, we have to perform certain physical operations. The - concept of length is therefore fixed when the operations by which length is - measured are fixed: that is, the concept of length involves as much and nothing - more than the set of operations by which length is determined. In general, we - mean by any concept nothing more than a set of operations; the concept is - synonymous with the corresponding set of operations. - - Bridgman has seen the wide implications of this mode of thought for the society - at large:6 - - To adopt the operational point of view involves much more than a mere - restriction of the sense in which we understand ‘concept,’ but means a - far-reaching change in all our habits of thought, in that we shall no longer - permit ourselves to use as tools in our thinking concepts of which we cannot - give an adequate account in terms of operations. - - Bridgman’s prediction has come true. The new mode of thought is today the - predominant tendency in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and other fields. - Many of the most seriously troublesome concepts are being “eliminated” by - showing that no adequate account of them in terms of operations or behavior can - be given. - - [...] - - Outside the academic establishment, the “far-reaching change in all our habits - of thought” is more serious. It serves to coordinate ideas and goals with those - exacted by the prevailing system, to enclose them in the system, and to repel - those which are irreconcilable with the system. The reign of such a - one-dimensional reality does not mean that materialism rules, and that the - spiritual, metaphysical, and bohemian occupations are petering out. On the - contrary, there is a great deal of “Worship together this week,” “Why not try - God,” Zen, existentialism, and beat ways of life, etc. But such modes of - protest and transcendence are no longer contradictory to the status quo and no - longer negative. They are rather the ceremonial part of practical behaviorism, - its harmless negation, and are quickly digested by the status quo as part of - its healthy diet. - - [...] - - Such limitation of thought is certainly not new. Ascending modern rationalism, - in its speculative as well as empirical form, shows a striking contrast between - extreme critical radicalism in scientific and philosophic method on the one - hand, and an uncritical quietism in the attitude toward established and - functioning social institutions. Thus Descartes’ ego cogitans was to leave the - “great public bodies” untouched, and Hobbes held that “the present ought always - to be preferred, maintained, and accounted best.” Kant agreed with Locke in - justifying revolution if and when it has succeeded in organizing the whole and - in preventing subversion. - -### Progress, abolition of labor, totalitarianism - - The society bars a whole type of oppositional operations and behavior; - consequently, the concepts pertaining to them are rendered illusory or - meaningless. Historical transcendence appears as metaphysical transcendence, - not acceptable to science and scientific thought. The operational and - behavioral point of view, practiced as a “habit of thought” at large, becomes - the view of the established universe of discourse and action, needs and - aspirations. - - “Progress” is not a neutral term; it moves toward specific ends, and these ends - are defined by the possibilities of ameliorating the human condition. Advanced - industrial society is approaching the stage where continued progress would - demand the radical subversion of the prevailing direction and organization of - progress. This stage would be reached when material production (including the - necessary services) becomes automated to the extent that all vital needs can be - satisfied while necessary labor time is reduced to marginal time. From this - point on, technical progress would transcend the realm of necessity, where it - served as the instrument of domination and exploitation which thereby limited - its rationality; technology would become subject to the free play of faculties - in the struggle for the pacification of nature and of society. - - Such a state is envisioned in Marx’s notion of the “abolition of labor.” The - term “pacification of existence” seems better suited to designate the - historical alternative of a world which—through an international conflict which - transforms and suspends the contradictions within the established - societies—advances on the brink of a global war. “Pacification of existence” - means the development of man’s struggle with man and with nature, under - conditions where the competing needs, desires, and aspirations are no longer - organized by vested interests in domination and scarcity—an organization which - perpetuates the destructive forms of this struggle. - - Today’s fight against this historical alternative finds a firm mass basis in - the underlying population, and finds its ideology in the rigid orientation of - thought and behavior to the given universe of facts. Validated by the - accomplishments of science and technology, justified by its growing - productivity, the status quo defies all transcendence. Faced with the - possibility of pacification on the grounds of its technical and intellectual - achievements, the mature industrial society closes itself against this - alternative. Operationalism, in theory and practice, becomes the theory and - practice of containment. Underneath its obvious dynamics, this society is a - thoroughly static system of life: self-propelling in its oppressive - productivity and in its beneficial coordination. Containment of technical - progress goes hand in hand with its growth in the established direction. In - spite of the political fetters imposed by the status quo, the more technology - appears capable of creating the conditions for pacification, the more are the - minds and bodies of man organized against this alternative. - - The most advanced areas of industrial society exhibit throughout these two - features: a trend toward consummation of technological rationality, and - intensive efforts to contain this trend within the established institutions. - Here is the internal contradiction of this civilization: the irrational element - in its rationality. It is the token of its achievements. The industrial society - which makes technology and science its own is organized for the - ever-more-effective domination of man and nature, for the ever-more-effective - utilization of its resources. It becomes irrational when the success of these - efforts opens new dimensions of human realization. Organization for peace is - different from organization for war; the institutions which served the struggle - for existence cannot serve the pacification of existence. Life as an end is - qualitatively different from life as a means. - - [...] - - Qualitative change also involves a change in the technical basis on which this - society rests—one which sustains the economic and political institutions - through which the “second nature” of man as an aggressive object of - administration is stabilized. - - [...] - - To be sure, labor must precede the reduction of labor, and industrialization - must precede the development of human needs and satisfactions. But as all - freedom depends on the conquest of alien necessity, the realization of freedom - depends on the techniques of this conquest. The highest productivity of labor - can be used for the perpetuation of labor, and the most efficient - industrialization can serve the restriction and manipulation of needs. - - When this point is reached, domination—in the guise of affluence and - liberty—extends to all spheres of private and public existence, integrates all - authentic opposition, absorbs all alternatives. Technological rationality - reveals its political character as it becomes the great vehicle of better - domination, creating a truly totalitarian universe in which society and nature, - mind and body are kept in a state of permanent mobilization for the defense of - this universe. - -### Revolution - - The classical Marxian theory envisages the transition from capitalism to - socialism as a political revolution: the proletariat destroys the political - apparatus of capitalism but retains the technological apparatus, subjecting it - to socialization. There is continuity in the revolution: technological - rationality, freed from irrational restrictions and destructions, sustains and - consummates itself in the new society. It is interesting to read a Soviet - Marxist statement on this continuity, which is of such vital importance for the - notion of socialism as the determinate negation of capitalism - - [...] - - To be sure, Marx held that organization and direction of the productive - apparatus by the “immediate producers” would introduce a qualitative change in - the technical continuity: namely, production toward the satisfaction of freely - developing individual needs. However, to the degree to which the established - technical apparatus engulfs the public and private existence in all spheres of - society—that is, becomes the medium of control and cohesion in a political - universe which incorporates the laboring classes—to that degree would the - qualitative change involve a change in the technological structure itself. And - such change would presuppose that the laboring classes are alienated from this - universe in their very existence, that their consciousness is that of the total - impossibility to continue to exist in this universe, so that the need for - qualitative change is a matter of life and death. Thus, the negation exists - prior to the change itself, the notion that the liberating historical forces - develop within the established society is a cornerstone of Marxian theory.2 - -### Hell - - Those whose life is the hell of the Affluent Society are kept in line by a - brutality which revives medieval and early modern practices. For the other, - less underprivileged people, society takes care of the need for liberation by - satisfying the needs which make servitude palatable and perhaps even - unnoticeable, and it accomplishes this fact in the process of production - itself. - -### Automation - - (1) Mechanization is increasingly reducing the quantity and intensity of physical - energy expended in labor. This evolution is of great bearing on the Marxian - concept of the worker (proletarian). To Marx, the proletarian is primarily the - manual laborer who expends and exhausts his physical energy in the work - process, even if he works with machines. The purchase and use of this physical - energy, under subhuman conditions, for the private appropriation of - surplus-value entailed the revolting inhuman aspects of exploitation; the - Marxian notion denounces the physical pain and misery of labor. This is the - material, tangible element in wage slavery and alienation—the physiological and - biological dimension of classical capitalism. - - “Pendant les siècles passés, une cause importante d’aliénation résidait dans le - fait que l’être humain prêtait son individualité biologique à l’organisation - technique: il était porteur d’outils; les ensembles techniques ne pouvaient se - constituer qu’en incorporant l’homme comme porteur d’outils. Le caractère - déformant de la profession était à la fois psychique et somatique.”3 - - 3. “During the past centuries, one important reason for alienation was that the - human being lent his biological individuality to the technical apparatus: he - was the bearer of tools; technical units could not be established without - incorporating man as bearer of tools into them. The nature of this occupation - was such that it was both psychologically and physiologically deforming in its - effect.” Gilbert Simondon, Du Mode d’existence des objets techniques (Paris: - Aubier, 1958), p. 103, note. - - Now the ever-more-complete mechanization of labor in advanced capitalism, while - sustaining exploitation, modifies the attitude and the status of the exploited. - Within the technological ensemble, mechanized work in which automatic and - semi-automatic reactions fill the larger part (if not the whole) of labor time - remains, as a life-long occupation, exhausting, stupefying, inhuman - slavery—even more exhausting because of increased speed-up, control of the - machine operators (rather than of the product), and isolation of the workers - from each other.4 To be sure, this form of drudgery is expressive of arrested, - partial automation, of the coexistence of automated, semi-automated, and - non-automated sections within the same plant, but even under these conditions, - “for muscular fatigue technology has substituted tension and/or mental - effort.”5 For the more advanced automated plants, the transformation of - physical energy into technical and mental skills is emphasized: - - “… skills of the head rather than of the hand, of the logician rather than the - craftsman; of nerve rather than muscle; of the pilot rather than the manual - worker; of the maintenance man rather than the operator.”6 - - This kind of masterly enslavement is not essentially different from that of the - typist, the bank teller, the high-pressure salesman or saleswoman, and the - television announcer. Standardization and the routine assimilate productive and - non-productive jobs. The proletarian of the previous stages of capitalism was - indeed the beast of burden, by the labor of his body procuring the necessities - and luxuries of life while living in filth and poverty. Thus he was the living - denial of his society.7 In contrast, the organized worker in the advanced areas - of the technological society lives this denial less conspicuously and, like the - other human objects of the social division of labor, he is being incorporated - into the technological community of the administered population. Moreover, in - the most successful areas of automation, some sort of technological community - seems to integrate the human atoms at work. The machine seems to instill some - drugging rhythm in the operators: - - “It is generally agreed that interdependent motions performed by a group of - persons which follow a rhythmic pattern yield satisfaction—quite apart from - what is being accomplished by the motions”;8 and the sociologist-observer - believes this to be a reason for the gradual development of a “general climate” - more “favorable both to production and to certain important kinds of human - satisfaction.” He speaks of the “growth of a strong in-group feeling in each - crew” and quotes one worker as stating: “All in all we are in the swing of - things …”9 - - The phrase admirably expresses the change in mechanized enslavement: - things swing rather than oppress, and they swing the human instrument—not only - its body but also its mind and even its soul. A remark by Sartre elucidates the - depth of the process: - - “Aux premiers temps des machines semi-automatiques, des enquêtes ont montré que - les ouvrières spécialisées se laissaient aller, en travaillant, à une rêverie - d’ordre sexuel, elles se rappellaient la chambre, le lit, la nuit, tout ce qui - ne concerne que la personne dans la solitude du couple fermé sur soi. Mais - c’est la machine en elle qui rêvait de caresses.…”10 The machine process in the - technological universe breaks the innermost privacy of freedom and joins - sexuality and labor in one unconscious, rhythmic automatism—a process which - parallels the assimilation of jobs.10 - - 10. “Shortly after semi-automatic machines were introduced, investigations - showed that female skilled workers would allow themselves to lapse while - working into a sexual kind of daydream; they would recall the bedroom, the bed, - the night and all that concerns only the person within the solitude of the - couple alone with itself. But it was the machine in her which was dreaming of - caresses …” Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique de la raison dialectique, tome I (Paris: - Gallimard, 1960), p. 290. - - The machine process in the technological universe breaks the innermost privacy - of freedom and joins sexuality and labor in one unconscious, rhythmic - automatism—a process which parallels the assimilation of jobs. - - [...] - - (2) The assimilating trend shows forth in the occupational stratification. In - the key industrial establishments, the “blue-collar” work force declines in - relation to the “white-collar” element; the number of non-production workers - increases.11 This quantitative change refers back to a change in the character - of the basic instruments of production.12 At the advanced stage of - mechanization, as part of the technological reality, the machine is not - - “une unité absolue, mais seulement une réalité technique individualisée, - ouverte selon deux voies: celle de la relation aux éléments, et celle des - relations interindividuelles dans l’ensemble technique.”13 - - 13. “an absolute unity, but only an individualized technical reality open in - two directions, that of the relation to the elements and that of the relation - among the individuals in the technical whole.” Gilbert Simondon, loc. cit., p. - 146. - - [...] - - To the extent to which the machine becomes itself a system of mechanical tools - and relations and thus extends far beyond the individual work process, it - asserts its larger dominion by reducing the “professional autonomy” of the - laborer and integrating him with other professions which suffer and direct the - technical ensemble. To be sure, the former “professional” autonomy of the - laborer was rather his professional enslavement. But this specific mode of - enslavement was at the same time the source of his specific, professional power - of negation—the power to stop a process which threatened him with annihilation - as a human being. Now the laborer is losing the professional autonomy which - made him a member of a class set off from the other occupational groups because - it embodied the refutation of the established society. - - The technological change which tends to do away with the machine as individual - instrument of production, as “absolute unit,” seems to cancel the Marxian - notion of the “organic composition of capital” and with it the theory of the - creation of surplus value. According to Marx, the machine never creates value - but merely transfers its own value to the product, while surplus value remains - the result of the exploitation of living labor. The machine is embodiment of - human labor power, and through it, past labor (dead labor) preserves itself and - determines living labor. Now automation seems to alter qualitatively the - relation between dead and living labor; it tends toward the point where - productivity is determined “by the machines, and not by the individual - output.”14 Moreover, the very measurement of individual output becomes - impossible: - - “Automation in its largest sense means, in effect, the end of measurement of - work.… With automation, you can’t measure output of a single man; you now have - to measure simply equipment utilization. If that is generalized as a kind of - concept … there is no longer, for example, any reason at all to pay a man by - the piece or pay him by the hour,” that is to say, there is no more reason to - keep up the “dual pay system” of salaries and wages.”15 - - Daniel Bell, the author of this report, goes further; he links this - technological change to the historical system of industrialization itself: the - meaning of industrialization did not arise with the introduction of factories, - it “arose out of the measurement of work. It’s when work can be measured, when - you can hitch a man to the job, when you can put a harness on him, and measure - his output in terms of a single piece and pay him by the piece or by the hour, - that you have got modern industrialization.”16 - -### Servitude - - (4) The new technological work-world thus enforces a weakening of the negative - position of the working class: the latter no longer appears to be the living - contradiction to the established society. This trend is strengthened by the - effect of the technological organization of production on the other side of the - fence: on management and direction. Domination is transfigured into - administration.21 The capitalist bosses and owners are losing their identity as - responsible agents; they are assuming the function of bureaucrats in a - corporate machine. Within the vast hierarchy of executive and managerial boards - extending far beyond the individual establishment into the scientific - laboratory and research institute, the national government and national - purpose, the tangible source of exploitation disappears behind the façade of - objective rationality. Hatred and frustration are deprived of their specific - target, and the technological veil conceals the reproduction of inequality and - enslavement.22 With technical progress as its instrument, unfreedom—in the - sense of man’s subjection to his productive apparatus—is perpetuated and - intensified in the form of many liberties and comforts. The novel feature is - the overwhelming rationality in this irrational enterprise, and the depth of - the preconditioning which shapes the instinctual drives and aspirations of the - individuals and obscures the difference between false and true consciousness. - For in reality, neither the utilization of administrative rather than physical - controls (hunger, personal dependence, force), nor the change in the character - of heavy work, nor the assimilation of occupational classes, nor the - equalization in the sphere of consumption compensate for the fact that the - decisions over life and death, over personal and national security are made at - places over which the individuals have no control. The slaves of developed - industrial civilization are sublimated slaves, but they are slaves, for slavery - is determined - - “pas par l’obéissance, ni par la rudesse des labeurs, mais par le statu - d’instrument et la réduction de l’homme à l’état de chose.”23 - - 23. “neither by obedience nor by hardness of labor but by the status of being a - mere instrument, and the reduction of man to the state of a thing.” François - Perroux, La Coexistence pacifique, (Paris, Presses Universitaires, 1958), vol. - III, p. 600. - - This is the pure form of servitude: to exist as an instrument, as a thing. And - this mode of existence is not abrogated if the thing is animated and chooses - its material and intellectual food, if it does not feel its being-a-thing, if - it is a pretty, clean, mobile thing. Conversely, as reification tends to become - totalitarian by virtue of its technological form, the organizers and - administrators themselves become increasingly dependent on the machinery which - they organize and administer. And this mutual dependence is no longer the - dialectical relationship between Master and Servant, which has been broken in - the struggle for mutual recognition, but rather a vicious circle which encloses - both the Master and the Servant. Do the technicians rule, or is their rule that - of the others, who rely on the technicians as their planners and executors? - - [...] - - A vicious circle seems indeed the proper image of a society which is - self-expanding and self-perpetuating in its own preestablished direction—driven - by the growing needs which it generates and, at the same time, contains. - -### Culture - - The greatness of a free literature and art, the ideals of humanism, the sorrows - and joys of the individual, the fulfillment of the personality are important - items in the competitive struggle between East and West. They speak heavily - against the present forms of communism, and they are daily administered and - sold. The fact that they contradict the society which sells them does not - count. Just as people know or feel that advertisements and political platforms - must not be necessarily true or right, and yet hear and read them and even let - themselves be guided by them, so they accept the traditional values and make - them part of their mental equipment. If mass communications blend together - harmoniously, and often unnoticeably, art, politics, religion, and philosophy - with commercials, they bring these realms of culture to their common - denominator—the commodity form. The music of the soul is also the music of - salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value counts. On it centers the - rationality of the status quo, and all alien rationality is bent to it. - - As the great words of freedom and fulfillment are pronounced by campaigning - leaders and politicians, on the screens and radios and stages, they turn into - meaningless sounds which obtain meaning only in the context of propaganda, - business, discipline, and relaxation. This assimilation of the ideal with - reality testifies to the extent to which the ideal has been surpassed. It is - brought down from the sublimated realm of the soul or the spirit or the inner - man, and translated into operational terms and problems. Here are the - progressive elements of mass culture. The perversion is indicative of the fact - that advanced industrial society is confronted with the possibility of a - materialization of ideals. The capabilities of this society are progressively - reducing the sublimated realm in which the condition of man was represented, - idealized, and indicted. Higher culture becomes part of the material culture. - In this transformation, it loses the greater part of its truth. - - [...] - - Domination has its own aesthetics, and democratic domination has its democratic - aesthetics. It is good that almost everyone can now have the fine arts at his - fingertips, by just turning a knob on his set, or by just stepping into his - drugstore. In this diffusion, however, they become cogs in a culture-machine - which remakes their content. - - [...] - - Obviously, the physical transformation of the world entails the mental - transformation of its symbols, images, and ideas. Obviously, when cities and - highways and National Parks replace the villages, valleys, and forests; when - motorboats race over the lakes and planes cut through the skies—then these - areas lose their character as a qualitatively different reality, as areas of - contradiction. - - And since contradiction is the work of the Logos—rational confrontation of - “that which is not” with “that which is”—it must have a medium of - communication. The struggle for this medium, or rather the struggle against its - absorption into the predominant one-dimensionality, shows forth in the - avant-garde efforts to create an estrangement which would make the artistic - truth again communicable. - - Bertolt Brecht has sketched the theoretical foundations for these efforts. The - total character of the established society confronts the playwright with the - question of whether it is still possible to “represent the contemporary world - in the theater”—that is, represent it in such a manner that the spectator - recognizes the truth which the play is to convey. Brecht answers that the - contemporary world can be thus represented only if it is represented as subject - to change3—as the state of negativity which is to be negated. This is doctrine - which has to be learned, comprehended, and acted upon; but the theater is and - ought to be entertainment, pleasure. However, entertainment and learning are - not opposites; entertainment may be the most effective mode of learning. To - teach what the contemporary world really is behind the ideological and material - veil, and how it can be changed, the theater must break the spectator’s - identification with the events on the stage. - Not empathy and feeling, but distance and reflection are required. The - “estrangement-effect” (Verfremdungseffekt) is to produce this dissociation in - which the world can be recognized as what it is. “The things of everyday life - are lifted out of the realm of the self-evident.…”4 “That which is ‘natural’ - must assume the features of the extraordinary. Only in this manner can the laws - of cause and effect reveal themselves.”5 - - [...] - - The efforts to recapture the Great Refusal in the language of literature suffer - the fate of being absorbed by what they refute. As modern classics, the - avant-garde and the beatniks share in the function of entertaining without - endangering the good conscience of the men of good will. This absorption is - justified by technical progress; the refusal is refuted by the alleviation of - misery in the advanced industrial society. The liquidation of high culture is a - byproduct of the conquest of nature, and of the progressing conquest of - scarcity. - - Invalidating the cherished images of transcendence by incorporating them into - its omnipresent daily reality, this society testifies to the extent to which - insoluble conflicts are becoming manageable—to which tragedy and romance, - archetypal dreams and anxieties are being made susceptible to technical - solution and dissolution. The psychiatrist takes care of the Don Juans, Romeos, - Hamlets, Fausts, as he takes care of Oedipus—he cures them. The rulers of the - world are losing their metaphysical features. Their appearance on television, - at press conferences, in parliament, and at public hearings is hardly suitable - for drama beyond that of the advertisement,14 while the consequences of their - actions surpass the scope of the drama. - -### Adjusted desublimation - - In contrast to the pleasures of adjusted desublimation, sublimation preserves - the consciousness of the renunciations which the repressive society inflicts - upon the individual, and thereby preserves the need for liberation. To be sure, - all sublimation is enforced by the power of society, but the unhappy - consciousness of this power already breaks through alienation. To be sure, all - sublimation accepts the social barrier to instinctual gratification, but it - also transgresses this barrier. - - The Superego, in censoring the unconscious and in implanting conscience, also - censors the censor because the developed conscience registers the forbidden - evil act not only in the individual but also in his society. Conversely, loss - of conscience due to the satisfactory liberties granted by an unfree society - makes for a happy consciousness which facilitates acceptance of the misdeeds of - this society. It is the token of declining autonomy and comprehension. - Sublimation demands a high degree of autonomy and comprehension; it is - mediation between the conscious and the unconscious, between the primary and - secondary processes, between the intellect and instinct, renunciation and - rebellion. In its most accomplished modes, such as in the artistic oeuvre, - sublimation becomes the cognitive power which defeats suppression while bowing - to it. - - In the light of the cognitive function of this mode of sublimation, the - desublimation rampant in advanced industrial society reveals its truly - conformist function. This liberation of sexuality (and of aggressiveness) frees - the instinctual drives from much of the unhappiness and discontent that - elucidate the repressive power of the established universe of satisfaction. To - be sure, there is pervasive unhappiness, and the happy consciousness is shaky - enough—a thin surface over fear, frustration, and disgust. This unhappiness - lends itself easily to political mobilization; without room for conscious - development, it may become the instinctual reservoir for a new fascist way of - life and death. But there are many ways in which the unhappiness beneath the - happy consciousness may be turned into a source of strength and cohesion for - the social order. The conflicts of the unhappy individual now seem far more - amenable to cure than those which made for Freud’s “discontent in - civilization,” and they seem more adequately defined in terms of the “neurotic - personality of our time” than in terms of the eternal struggle between Eros and - Thanatos. - - [...] - - In accordance with the terminology used in the later works of Freud: sexuality - as “specialized” partial drive; Eros as that of the entire organism. - -### Crust - - In this general necessity, guilt has no place. One man can give the signal that - liquidates hundreds and thousands of people, then declare himself free from all - pangs of conscience, and live happily ever after. The antifascist powers who - beat fascism on the battlefields reap the benefits of the Nazi scientists, - generals, and engineers; they have the historical advantage of the late-comer. - What begins as the horror of the concentration camps turns into the practice of - training people for abnormal conditions—a subterranean human existence and the - daily intake of radioactive nourishment. A Christian minister declares that it - does not contradict Christian principles to prevent with all available means - your neighbor from entering your bomb shelter. Another Christian minister - contradicts his colleague and says it does. Who is right? Again, the neutrality - of technological rationality shows forth over and above politics, and again it - shows forth as spurious, for in both cases, it serves the politics of - domination. - - [...] - - It seems that even the most hideous transgressions can be repressed in such a - manner that, for all practical purposes, they have ceased to be a danger for - society. Or, if their eruption leads to functional disturbances in the - individual (as in the case of one Hiroshima pilot), it does not disturb the - functioning of society. A mental hospital manages the disturbance. - -### Game - - The Happy Consciousness has no limits—it arranges games with death and - disfiguration in which fun, team work, and strategic importance mix in - rewarding social harmony. The Rand Corporation, which unites scholarship, - research, the military, the climate, and the good life, reports such games in a - style of absolving cuteness, in its “RANDom News,” volume 9, number 1, under - the heading BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY. The rockets are rattling, the H-bomb is - waiting, and the space-flights are flying, and the problem is “how to guard the - nation and the free world.” In all this, the military planners are worried, for - “the cost of taking chances, of experimenting and making a mistake, may be - fearfully high.” But here RAND comes in; RAND relieves, and “devices like - RAND’S SAFE come into the picture.” The picture into which they come is - unclassified. It is a picture in which “the world becomes a map, missiles - merely symbols [long live the soothing power of symbolism!], and wars just - [just] plans and calculations written down on paper …” In this picture, RAND - has transfigured the world into an interesting technological game, and one can - relax—the “military planners can gain valuable ‘synthetic’ experience without - risk.” - - PLAYING THE GAME - - To understand the game one should participate, for understanding is “in the - experience.” - - Because SAFE players have come from almost every department at RAND as well as - the Air Force, we might find a physicist, an engineer, and an economist on the - Blue team. The Red team will represent a similar cross-section. - - The first day is taken up by a joint briefing on what the game is all about and - a study of the rules. When the teams are finally seated around the maps in - their respective rooms the game begins. Each team receives its policy statement - from the Game Director. These statements, usually prepared by a member of the - Control Group, give an estimate of the world situation at the time of playing, - some information on the policy of the opposing team, the objectives to be met - by the team, and the team’s budget. (The policies are changed for each game to - explore a wide range of strategic possibilities.) - -### Guilt - - Obviously, in the realm of the Happy Consciousness, guilt feeling has no place, - and the calculus takes care of conscience. When the whole is at stake, there is - no crime except that of rejecting the whole, or not defending it. Crime, guilt, - and guilt feeling become a private affair. Freud revealed in the psyche of the - individual the crimes of mankind, in the individual case history the history of - the whole. This fatal link is successfully suppressed. Those who identify - themselves with the whole, who are installed as the leaders and defenders of - the whole can make mistakes, but they cannot do wrong—they are not guilty. They - may become guilty again when this identification no longer holds, when they are - gone. - -### The Happy Conciousness - - The Happy Consciousness—the belief that the real is rational and that the - system delivers the goods—reflects the new conformism which is a facet of - technological rationality translated into social behavior. - -### Language, memory and history - - The unified, functional language is an irreconcilably anti-critical and - anti-dialectical language. In it, operational and behavioral rationality - absorbs the transcendent, negative, oppositional elements of Reason. - - I shall discuss17 these elements in terms of the tension between the “is” and - the “ought,” between essence and appearance, potentiality and - actuality—ingression of the negative in the positive determinations of logic. - This sustained tension permeates the two-dimensional universe of discourse - which is the universe of critical, abstract thought. The two dimensions are - antagonistic to each other; the reality partakes of both of them, and the - dialectical concepts develop the real contradictions. In its own development, - dialectical thought came to comprehend the historical character of the - contradictions and the process of their mediation as historical process. Thus - the “other” dimension of thought appeared to be historical dimension—the - potentiality as historical possibility, its realization as historical event. - - The suppresssion of this dimension in the societal universe of operational - rationality is a suppression of history, and this is not an academic but a - political affair. It is suppression of the society’s own past—and of its - future, inasmuch as this future invokes the qualitative change, the negation of - the present. A universe of discourse in which the categories of freedom - have become interchangeable and even identical with their opposites is not only - practicing Orwellian or Aesopian language but is repulsing and forgetting the - historical reality—the horror of fascism; the idea of socialism; the - preconditions of democracy; the content of freedom. If a bureaucratic - dictatorship rules and defines communist society, if fascist regimes are - functioning as partners of the Free World, if the welfare program of - enlightened capitalism is successfully defeated by labeling it “socialism,” if - the foundations of democracy are harmoniously abrogated in democracy, then the - old historical concepts are invalidated by up-to-date operational - redefinitions. The redefinitions are falsifications which, imposed by the - powers that be and the powers of fact, serve to transform falsehood into truth. - - The functional language is a radically anti-historical language: operational - rationality has little room and little use for historical reason.18 Is this - fight against history part of the fight against a dimension of the mind in - which centrifugal faculties and forces might develop—faculties and forces that - might hinder the total coordination of the individual with the society? - Remembrance of the past may give rise to dangerous insights, and the - established society seems to be apprehensive of the subversive contents of - memory. Remembrance is a mode of dissociation from the given facts, a mode of - “mediation” which breaks, for short moments, the omnipresent power of the given - facts. Memory recalls the terror and the hope that passed. Both come to life - again, but whereas in reality, the former recurs in ever new forms, the latter - remains hope. And in the personal events which reappear in the individual - memory, the fears and aspirations of mankind assert themselves—the universal in - the particular. It is history which memory preserves. It succumbs to the - totalitarian power of the behavioral universe - - [...] - - The closed language does not demonstrate and explain—it communicates decision, - dictum, command. Where it defines, the definition becomes “separation of good - from evil”; it establishes unquestionable rights and wrongs, and one value as - justification of another value. It moves in tautologies, but the tautologies - are terribly effective “sentences.” They pass judgment in a “prejudged form”; - they pronounce condemnation. For example, the “objective content,” that is, the - definition of such terms as “deviationist,” “revisionist,” is that of the penal - code, and this sort of validation promotes a consciousness for which the - language of the powers that be is the language of truth.24 - - [...] - - As the substance of the various regimes no longer appears in alternative modes - of life, it comes to rest in alternative techniques of manipulation and - control. Language not only reflects these controls but becomes itself an - instrument of control even where it does not transmit orders but information; - where it demands, not obedience but choice, not submission but freedom. - - [...] - - What is taking place is a sweeping redefinition of thought itself, of its - function and content. The coordination of the individual with his society - reaches into those layers of the mind where the very concepts are elaborated - which are designed to comprehend the established reality. These concepts are - taken from the intellectual tradition and translated into operational terms—a - translation which has the effect of reducing the tension between thought and - reality by weakening the negative power of thought. - -### Science and technology of domination - - The principles of modern science were a priori structured in such a way that - they could serve as conceptual instruments for a universe of self-propelling, - productive control; theoretical operationalism came to correspond to practical - operationalism. The scientific method which led to the ever-more-effective - domination of nature thus came to provide the pure concepts as well as the - instrumentalities for the ever-more-effective domination of man by man through - the domination of nature. Theoretical reason, remaining pure and neutral, - entered into the service of practical reason. The merger proved beneficial to - both. Today, domination perpetuates and extends itself not only through - technology but as technology, and the latter provides the great legitimation of - the expanding political power, which absorbs all spheres of culture. - - In this universe, technology also provides the great rationalization of the - unfreedom of man and demonstrates the “technical” impossibility of being - autonomous, of determining one’s own life. For this unfreedom appears neither - as irrational nor as political, but rather as submission to the technical - apparatus which enlarges the comforts of life and increases the productivity of - labor. Technological rationality thus protects rather than cancels the - legitimacy of domination, and the instrumentalist horizon of reason opens on a - rationally totalitarian society: - - “One might call autocratic a philosophy of technics which takes the technical - whole as a place where machines are used to obtain power. The machine is only a - means; the end is the conquest of nature, the domestication of natural forces - through a primary enslavement: The machine is a slave which serves to make - other slaves. Such a domineering and enslaving drive may go together with the - quest for human freedom. But it is difficult to liberate oneself by - transferring slavery to other beings, men, animals, or machines; to rule over a - population of machines subjecting the whole world means still to rule, and all - rule implies acceptance of schemata of subjection.” Gilbert Simondon, Du Mode - d’existence des objets techniques (Paris, Aubier, 1958), p. 127. - - [...] - - The incessant dynamic of technical progress has become permeated with political - content, and the Logos of technics has been made into the Logos of continued - servitude. The liberating force of technology—the instrumentalization of - things—turns into a fetter of liberation; the instrumentalization of man. - - [...] - - No matter how one defines truth and objectivity, they remain related to the - human agents of theory and practice, and to their ability to comprehend and - change their world. This ability in turn depends on the extent to which matter - (whatever it may be) is recognized and understood as that which it is itself in - all particular forms. In these terms, contemporary science is of immensely - greater objective validity than its predecessors. One might even add that, at - present, the scientific method is the only method that can claim such validity; - the interplay of hypotheses and observable facts validates the hypotheses and - establishes the facts. The point which I am trying to make is that science, by - virtue of its own method and concepts, has projected and promoted a universe in - which the domination of nature has remained linked to the domination of man—a - link which tends to be fatal to this universe as a whole. Nature, - scientifically comprehended and mastered, reappears in the technical apparatus - of production and destruction which sustains and improves the life of the - individuals while subordinating them to the masters of the apparatus. Thus the - rational hierarchy merges with the social one. If this is the case, then the - change in the direction of progress, which might sever this fatal link, would - also affect the very structure of science—the scientific project. Its - hypotheses, without losing their rational character, would develop in an - essentially different experimental context (that of a pacified world); - consequently, science would arrive at essentially different concepts of nature - and establish essentially different facts. The rational society subverts the - idea of Reason. - - I have pointed out that the elements of this subversion, the notions of another - rationality, were present in the history of thought from its beginning. The - ancient idea of a state where Being attains fulfillment, where the tension - between “is” and “ought” is resolved in the cycle of an eternal return, - partakes of the metaphysics of domination. But it also pertains to the - metaphysics of liberation—to the reconciliation of Logos and Eros. This idea - envisages the coming-to-rest of the repressive productivity of Reason, the end - of domination in gratification. - - [...] - - By way of summary, we may now try to identify more clearly the hidden subject - of scientific rationality and the hidden ends in its pure form. The scientific - concept of a universally controllable nature projected nature as endless - matter-in-function, the mere stuff of theory and practice. In this form, the - object-world entered the construction of a technological universe—a universe of - mental and physical instrumentalities, means in themselves. Thus it is a truly - “hypothetical” system, depending on a validating and verifying subject. - - The processes of validation and verification may be purely theoretical ones, - but they never occur in a vacuum and they never terminate in a private, - individual mind. The hypothetical system of forms and functions becomes - dependent on another system—a pre-established universe of ends, in which and - for which it develops. What appeared extraneous, foreign to the theoretical - project, shows forth as part of its very structure (method and concepts); pure - objectivity reveals itself as object for a subjectivity which provides the - Telos, the ends. In the construction of the technological reality, there is no - such thing as a purely rational scientific order; the process of technological - rationality is a political process. - - Only in the medium of technology, man and nature become fungible objects of - organization. The universal effectiveness and productivity of the apparatus - under which they are subsumed veil the particular interests that organize the - apparatus. In other words, technology has become the great vehicle of - reification—reification in its most mature and effective form. The social - position of the individual and his relation to others appear not only to be - determined by objective qualities and laws, but these qualities and laws seem - to lose their mysterious and uncontrollable character; they appear as - calculable manifestations of (scientific) rationality. The world tends to - become the stuff of total administration, which absorbs even the - administrators. The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and - this society is fatally entangled in it. And the transcending modes of thought - seem to transcend Reason itself. - -### Positive and Negative Thinking - - In terms of the established universe, such contradicting modes of thought are - negative thinking. “The power of the negative” is the principle which governs - the development of concepts, and contradiction becomes the distinguishing - quality of Reason (Hegel). This quality of thought was not confined to a - certain type of rationalism; it was also a decisive element in the empiricist - tradition. Empiricism is not necessarily positive; its attitude to the - established reality depends on the particular dimension of experience which - functions as the source of knowledge and as the basic frame of reference. For - example, it seems that sensualism and materialism are per se negative toward a - society in which vital instinctual and material needs are unfulfilled. In - contrast, the empiricism of linguistic analysis moves within a framework which - does not allow such contradiction—the self-imposed restriction to the prevalent - behavioral universe makes for an intrinsically positive attitude. In spite of - the rigidly neutral approach of the philosopher, the pre-bound analysis - succumbs to the power of positive thinking. - - Before trying to show this intrinsically ideological character of linguistic - analysis, I must attempt to justify my apparently arbitrary and derogatory play - with the terms “positive” and “positivism” by a brief comment on their origin. - Since its first usage, probably in the school of Saint-Simon, the term - “positivism” has encompassed (1) the validation of cognitive thought by - experience of facts; (2) the orientation of cognitive thought to the physical - sciences as a model of certainty and exactness; (3) the belief that progress in - knowledge depends on this orientation. Consequently, positivism is a struggle - against all metaphysics, transcendentalisms, and idealisms as obscurantist and - regressive modes of thought. To the degree to which the given reality is - scientifically comprehended and transformed, to the degree to which society - becomes industrial and technological, positivism finds in the society the - medium for the realization (and validation) of its concepts—harmony between - theory and practice, truth and facts. Philosophic thought turns into - affirmative thought; the philosophic critique criticizes within the societal - framework and stigmatizes non-positive notions as mere speculation, dreams or - fantasies.1 - - [...] - - The contemporary effort to reduce the scope and the truth of philosophy is - tremendous, and the philosophers themselves proclaim the modesty and inefficacy - of philosophy. It leaves the established reality untouched; it abhors - transgression. - - Austin’s contemptuous treatment of the alternatives to the common usage of - words, and his defamation of what we “think up in our armchairs of an - afternoon”; Wittgenstein’s assurance that philosophy “leaves everything as it - is”—such statements2 exhibit, to my mind, academic sado-masochism, - self-humiliation, and self-denunciation of the intellectual whose labor does - not issue in scientific, technical or like achievements. These affirmations of - modesty and dependence seem to recapture Hume’s mood of righteous contentment - with the limitations of reason which, once recognized and accepted, protect man - from useless mental adventures but leave him perfectly capable of orienting - himself in the given environment. However, when Hume debunked substances, he - fought a powerful ideology, while his successors today provide an intellectual - justification for that which society has long since accomplished—namely, the - defamation of alternative modes of thought which contradict the established - universe of discourse. - -### Language, philosophy and the restricted experience - - The almost masochistic reduction of speech to the humble and common is made - into a program: “if the words ‘language,’ ‘experience,’ ‘world,’ have a use, it - must be as humble a one as that of the words ‘table,’ ‘lamp,’ ‘door.’ - - [...] - - The self-styled poverty of philosophy, committed with all its concepts to the - given state of affairs, distrusts the possibilities of a new experience. - Subjection to the rule of the established facts is total—only linguistic facts, - to be sure, but the society speaks in its language, and we are told to obey. - The prohibitions are severe and authoritarian: “Philosophy may in no way - interfere with the actual use of language.”9 “And we may not advance any kind - of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. We - must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its - place.”10 - - One might ask what remains of philosophy? What remains of thinking, - intelligence, without anything hypothetical, without any explanation? However, - what is at stake is not the definition or the dignity of philosophy. It is - rather the chance of preserving and protecting the right, the need to think and - speak in terms other than those of common usage—terms which are meaningful, - rational, and valid precisely because they are other terms. What is involved is - the spread of a new ideology which undertakes to describe what is happening - (and meant) by eliminating the concepts capable of understanding what is - happening (and meant). - - To begin with, an irreducible difference exists between the universe of - everyday thinking and language on the one side, and that of philosophic - thinking and language on the other. In normal circumstances, ordinary language - is indeed behavioral—a practical instrument. When somebody actually says “My - broom is in the corner,” he probably intends that somebody else who had - actually asked about the broom is going to take it or leave it there, is going - to be satisfied, or angry. In any case, the sentence has fulfilled its function - by causing a behavioral reaction: “the effect devours the cause; the end - absorbs the means.”11 - - In contrast, if, in a philosophic text or discourse, the word “substance,” - “idea,” “man,” “alienation” becomes the subject of a proposition, no such - transformation of meaning into a behavioral reaction takes place or is intended - to take place. The word remains, as it were, unfulfilled—except in thought, - where it may give rise to other thoughts. And through a long series of - mediations within a historical continuum, the proposition may help to form and - guide a practice. But the proposition remains unfulfilled even then—only the - hubris of absolute idealism asserts the thesis of a final identity between - thought and its object. The words with which philosophy is concerned can - therefore never have a use “as humble … as that of the words ‘table,’ ‘lamp,’ - ‘door.’ ” - - [...] - - Viewed from this position, the examples of linguistic analysis quoted above - become questionable as valid objects of philosophic analysis. Can the most - exact and clarifying description of tasting something that may or may not taste - like pineapple ever contribute to philosophic cognition? [...] The object of - analysis, withdrawn from the larger and denser context in which the speaker - speaks and lives, is removed from the universal medium in which concepts are - formed and become words. What is this universal, larger context in which people - speak and act and which gives their speech its meaning—this context which does - not appear in the positivist analysis, which is a priori shut off by the - examples as well as by the analysis itself? - - This larger context of experience, this real empirical world, today is still - that of the gas chambers and concentration camps, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of - American Cadillacs and German Mercedes, of the Pentagon and the Kremlin, of the - nuclear cities and the Chinese communes, of Cuba, of brainwashing and - massacres. But the real empirical world is also that in which all these things - are taken for granted or forgotten or repressed or unknown, in which people are - free. It is a world in which the broom in the corner or the taste of something - like pineapple are quite important, in which the daily toil and the daily - comforts are perhaps the only items that make up all experience. And this - second, restricted empirical universe is part of the first; the powers that - rule the first also shape the restricted experience. - - [...] - - Ordinary language in its “humble use” may indeed be of vital concern to - critical philosophic thought, but in the medium of this thought words lose - their plain humility and reveal that “hidden” something which is of no interest - to Wittgenstein. [...] Such an analysis uncovers the history13 in everyday - speech as a hidden dimension of meaning—the rule of society over its language. - - [...] - - Orienting itself on the reified universe of everyday discourse, and exposing - and clarifying this discourse in terms of this reified universe, the analysis - abstracts from the negative, from that which is alien and antagonistic and - cannot be understood in terms of the established usage. By classifying and - distinguishing meanings, and keeping them apart, it purges thought and speech - of contradictions, illusions, and transgressions. But the transgressions are - not those of “pure reason.” They are not metaphysical transgressions beyond the - limits of possible knowledge, they rather open a realm of knowledge beyond - common sense and formal logic. - - In barring access to this realm, positivist philosophy sets up a - self-sufficient world of its own, closed and well protected against the - ingression of disturbing external factors. In this respect, it makes little - difference whether the validating context is that of mathematics, of logical - propositions, or of custom and usage. In one way or another, all possibly - meaningful predicates are prejudged. The prejudging judgment might be as broad - as the spoken English language, or the dictionary, or some other code or - convention. Once accepted, it constitutes an empirical a priori which cannot be - transcended. - - [...] - - The therapeutic character of the philosophic analysis is strongly emphasized—to - cure from illusions, deceptions, obscurities, unsolvable riddles, unanswerable - questions, from ghosts and spectres. Who is the patient? Apparently a certain - sort of intellectual, whose mind and language do not conform to the terms of - ordinary discourse. There is indeed a goodly portion of psychoanalysis in this - philosophy—analysis without Freud’s fundamental insight that the patient’s - trouble is rooted in a general sickness which cannot be cured by analytic - therapy. Or, in a sense, according to Freud, the patient’s disease is a protest - reaction against the sick world in which he lives. But the physician must - disregard the “moral” problem. He has to restore the patient’s health, to make - him capable of functioning normally in his world. - - The philosopher is not a physician; his job is not to cure individuals but to - comprehend the world in which they live—to understand it in terms of what it - has done to man, and what it can do to man. For philosophy is (historically, - and its history is still valid) the contrary of what Wittgenstein made it out - to be when he proclaimed it as the renunciation of all theory, as the - undertaking that “leaves everything as it is.” - - [...] - - The neo-positivist critique still directs its main effort against metaphysical - notions, and it is motivated by a notion of exactness which is either that of - formal logic or empirical description. Whether exactness is sought in the - analytic purity of logic and mathematics, or in conformity with ordinary - language—on both poles of contemporary philosophy is the same rejection or - devaluation of those elements of thought and speech which transcend the - accepted system of validation. This hostility is most sweeping where it takes - the form of toleration—that is, where a certain truth value is granted to the - transcendent concepts in a separate dimension of meaning and significance - (poetic truth, metaphysical truth). For precisely the setting aside of a - special reservation in which thought and language are permitted to be - legitimately inexact, vague, and even contradictory is the most effective way - of protecting the normal universe of discourse from being seriously disturbed - by unfitting ideas. Whatever truth may be contained in literature is a “poetic” - truth, whatever truth may be contained in critical idealism is a “metaphysical” - truth—its validity, if any, commits neither ordinary discourse and behavior, - nor the philosophy adjusted to them. - - This new form of the doctrine of the “double truth” sanctions a false - consciousness by denying the relevance of the transcendent language to the - universe of ordinary language, by proclaiming total non-interference. Whereas - the truth value of the former consists precisely in its relevance to and - interference with the latter. - -### Philosophy and science - - This intellectual dissolution and even subversion of the given facts is the - historical task of philosophy and the philosophic dimension. Scientific method, - too, goes beyond the facts and even against the facts of immediate experience. - Scientific method develops in the tension between appearance and reality. The - mediation between the subject and object of thought, however, is essentially - different. In science, the medium is the observing, measuring, calculating, - experimenting subject divested of all other qualities; the abstract subject - projects and defines the abstract object. - - In contrast, the objects of philosophic thought are related to a consciousness - for which the concrete qualities enter into the concepts and into their - interrelation. The philosophic concepts retain and explicate the pre-scientific - mediations (the work of everyday practice, of economic organization, of - political action) which have made the object-world that which it actually is—a - world in which all facts are events, occurrences in a historical continuum. - - The separation of science from philosophy is itself a historical event. - Aristotelian physics was a part of philosophy and, as such, preparatory to the - “first science”—ontology. The Aristotelian concept of matter is distinguished - from the Galilean and post-Galilean not only in terms of different stages in - the development of scientific method (and in the discovery of different - ‘layers” of reality), but also, and perhaps primarily, in terms of different - historical projects, of a different historical enterprise which established a - different nature as well as society. Aristotelian physics becomes objectively - wrong with the new experience and apprehension of nature, with the historical - establishment of a new subject and object-world, and the falsification of - Aristotelian physics then extends backward into the past and surpassed - experience and apprehension.15 - -### A funny paragraph - - The neglect or the clearing up of this specific philosophic dimension has led - contemporary positivism to move in a synthetically impoverished world of - academic concreteness, and to create more illusory problems than it has - destroyed. Rarely has a philosophy exhibited a more tortuous esprit de sérieux - than that displayed in such analyses as the interpretation of Three Blind Mice - in a study of “Metaphysical and Ideographic Language,” with its discussion of - an “artificially constructed Triple principle-Blindness-Mousery asymmetric - sequence constructed according to the pure principles of ideography.”17 - - Perhaps this example is unfair. [...] Examples are skillfully held in balance - between seriousness and the joke - -[Three Blind Mice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Blind_Mice) is a crusty rhyme. - -### A suspect language - - Analytic philosophy often spreads the atmosphere of denunciation and - investigation by committee. The intellectual is called on the carpet. What do - you mean when you say …? Don’t you conceal something? You talk a language which - is suspect. You don’t talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but - rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to - size, expose your tricks, purge you. We shall teach you to say what you have in - mind, to “come clear,” to “put your cards on the table.” Of course, we do not - impose on you and your freedom of thought and speech; you may think as you - like. But once you speak, you have to communicate your thoughts to us—in our - language or in yours. Certainly, you may speak your own language, but it must - be translatable, and it will be translated. You may speak poetry—that is all - right. We love poetry. But we want to understand your poetry, and we can do so - only if we can interpret your symbols, metaphors, and images in terms of - ordinary language. - - The poet might answer that indeed he wants his poetry to be understandable and - understood (that is why he writes it), but if what he says could be said in - terms of ordinary language he would probably have done so in the first place. - He might say: Understanding of my poetry presupposes the collapse and - invalidation of precisely that universe of discourse and behavior into which - you want to translate it. My language can be learned like any other language - (in point of fact, it is also your own language), then it will appear that my - symbols, metaphors, etc. are not symbols, metaphors, etc. but mean exactly what - they say. Your tolerance is deceptive. In reserving for me a special niche of - meaning and significance, you grant me exemption from sanity and reason, but in - my view, the madhouse is somewhere else. - - [...] - - Under these circumstances, the spoken phrase is an expression of the individual - who speaks it, and of those who make him speak as he does, and of whatever - tension or contradiction may interrelate them. In speaking their own language, - people also speak the language of their masters, benefactors, advertisers. Thus - they do not only express themselves, their own knowledge, feelings, and - aspirations, but also something other than themselves. Describing “by - themselves” the political situation, either in their home town or in the - international scene, they (and “they” includes us, the intellectuals who know - it and criticize it) describe what “their” media of mass communication tell - them—and this merges with what they really think and see and feel. - - [...] - - But this situation disqualifies ordinary language from fulfilling the - validating function which it performs in analytic philosophy. “What people mean - when they say …” is related to what they don’t say. Or, what they mean cannot - be taken at face value—not because they lie, but because the universe of - thought and practice in which they live is a universe of manipulated - contradictions. - -### Metalanguage - - Here the problem of “metalanguage” arises; the terms which analyze the meaning - of certain terms must be other than, or distinguishable from the latter. They - must be more and other than mere synonyms which still belong to the same - (immediate) universe of discourse. But if this metalanguage is really to break - through the totalitarian scope of the established universe of discourse, in - which the different dimensions of language are integrated and assimilated, it - must be capable of denoting the societal processes which have determined and - “closed” the established universe of discourse. Consequently, it cannot be a - technical metalanguage, constructed mainly with a view of semantic or logical - clarity. The desideratum is rather to make the established language itself - speak what it conceals or excludes, for what is to be revealed and denounced is - operative within the universe of ordinary discourse and action, and the - prevailing language contains the metalanguage. - -### Ordinary universe of discourse - - The crimes against language, which appear in the style of the newspaper, - pertain to its political style. Syntax, grammar, and vocabulary become moral - and political acts. Or, the context may be an aesthetic and philosophic one: - literary criticism, an address before a learned society, or the like. - - [...] - - For such an analysis, the meaning of a term or form demands its development in - a multi-dimensional universe, where any expressed meaning partakes of several - interrelated, overlapping, and antagonistic “systems.” - - [...] - - in reality, we understand each other only through whole areas of - misunderstanding and contradiction. The real universe of ordinary language is - that of the struggle for existence. It is indeed an ambiguous, vague, obscure - universe, and is certainly in need of clarification. Moreover, such - clarification may well fulfill a therapeutic function, and if philosophy would - become therapeutic, it would really come into its own. - - Philosophy approaches this goal to the degree to which it frees thought from - its enslavement by the established universe of discourse and behavior, - elucidates the negativity of the Establishment (its positive aspects are - abundantly publicized anyway) and projects its alternatives. To be sure, - philosophy contradicts and projects in thought only. It is ideology, and this - ideological character is the very fate of philosophy which no scientism and - positivism can overcome. Still, its ideological effort may be truly - therapeutic—to show reality as that which it really is, and to show that which - this reality prevents from being. - - In the totalitarian era, the therapeutic task of philosophy would be a - political task, since the established universe of ordinary language tends to - coagulate into a totally manipulated and indoctrinated universe. Then politics - would appear in philosophy, not as a special discipline or object of analysis, - nor as a special political philosophy, but as the intent of its concepts to - comprehend the unmutilated reality. If linguistic analysis does not contribute - to such understanding; if, instead, it contributes to enclosing thought in the - circle of the mutilated universe of ordinary discourse, it is at best entirely - inconsequential. And, at worst, it is an escape into the non-controversial, the - unreal, into that which is only academically controversial. - -### Universal Ghosts - - Contemporary analytic philosophy is out to exorcize such “myths” or - metaphysical “ghosts” as Mind, Consciousness, Will, Soul, Self, by dissolving - the intent of these concepts into statements on particular identifiable - operations, performances, powers, dispositions, propensities, skills, etc. The - result shows, in a strange way, the impotence of the destruction—the ghost - continues to haunt. While every interpretation or translation may describe - adequately a particular mental process, an act of imagining what I mean when I - say “I,” or what the priest means when he says that Mary is a “good girl,” not - a single one of these reformulations, nor their sum-total, seems to capture or - even circumscribe the full meaning of such terms as Mind, Will, Self, Good. - These universals continue to persist in common as well as “poetic” usage, and - either usage distinguishes them from the various modes of behavior or - disposition that, according to the analytic philosopher, fulfill their meaning. - - [...] - - However, this dissolution itself must be questioned—not only on behalf of the - philosopher, but on behalf of the ordinary people in whose life and discourse - such dissolution takes place. It is not their own doing and their own saying; - it happens to them and it violates them as they are compelled, by the - “circumstances,” to identify their mind with the mental processes, their self - with the roles and functions which they have to perform in their society. - If philosophy does not comprehend these processes of translation and - identification as societal processes—i.e., as a mutilation of the mind (and the - body) inflicted upon the individuals by their society—philosophy struggles only - with the ghost of the substance which it wishes to de-mystify. The mystifying - character adheres, not to the concepts of “mind,” “self,” “consciousness,” etc. - but rather to their behavioral translation. The translation is deceptive - precisely because it translates the concept faithfully into modes of actual - behavior, propensities, and dispositions and, in so doing, it takes the - mutilated and organized appearances (themselves real enough!) for the reality. - - [...] - - Moreover, the normal restriction of experience produces a pervasive tension, - even conflict, between “the mind” and the mental processes, between - “consciousness” and conscious acts. If I speak of the mind of a person, I do - not merely refer to his mental processes as they are revealed in his - expression, speech, behavior, etc., nor merely of his dispositions or faculties - as experienced or inferred from experience. I also mean that which he does not - express, for which he shows no disposition, but which is present nevertheless, - and which determines, to a considerable extent, his behavior, his - understanding, the formation and range of his concepts. - - Thus “negatively present” are the specific “environmental” forces which - precondition his mind for the spontaneous repulsion of certain data, - conditions, relations. They are present as repelled material. Their absence is - a reality—a positive factor that explains his actual mental processes, the - meaning of his words and behavior. Meaning for whom? Not only for the - professional philosopher, whose task it is to rectify the wrong that pervades - the universe of ordinary discourse, but also for those who suffer this wrong - although they may not be aware of it—for Joe Doe and Richard Roe. Contemporary - linguistic analysis shirks this task by interpreting concepts in terms of an - impoverished and preconditioned mind. What is at stake is the unabridged and - unexpurgated intent of certain key concepts, their function in the unrepressed - understanding of reality—in non-conformist, critical thought. - - Are the remarks just submitted on the reality content of such universals as - “mind” and “consciousness” applicable to other concepts, such as the abstract - yet substantive universals, Beauty, Justice, Happiness, with their contraries? - It seems that the persistence of these untranslatable universals as nodal - points of thought reflects the unhappy consciousness of a divided world in - which “that which is” falls short of, and even denies, “that which can be.” The - irreducible difference between the universal and its particulars seems to be - rooted in the primary experience of the inconquerable difference between - potentiality and actuality—between two dimensions of the one experienced world. - The universal comprehends in one idea the possibilities which are realized, and - at the same time arrested, in reality. - - [...] - - This description is of precisely that metaphysical character which positivistic - analysis wishes to eliminate by translation, but the translation eliminates - that which was to be defined. - - [...] - - The protest against the vague, obscure, metaphysical character of such - universals, the insistence on familiar concreteness and protective security of - common and scientific sense still reveal something of that primordial anxiety - which guided the recorded origins of philosophic thought in its evolution from - religion to mythology, and from mythology to logic; defense and security still - are large items in the intellectual as well as national budget. The unpurged - experience seems to be more familiar with the abstract and universal than is - the analytic philosophy; it seems to be embedded in a metaphysical world. - - Universals are primary elements of experience—universals not as philosophic - concepts but as the very qualities of the world with which one is daily - confronted. - - [...] - - The substantive character of “qualities” points to the experiential origin of - substantive universals, to the manner in which concepts originate in immediate - experience. - - [...] - - But precisely the relation of the word to a substantive universal (concept) - makes it impossible, according to Humboldt, to imagine the origin of language - as starting from the signification of objects by words and then proceeding to - their combination (Zusammenfügung): In reality, speech is not put together from - preceding words, but quite the reverse: words emerge from the whole of speech - (aus dem Ganzen der Rede).7 - - The “whole” that here comes to view must be cleared from all misunderstanding - in terms of an independent entity, of a “Gestalt,” and the like. The concept - somehow expresses the difference and tension between potentiality and - actuality—identity in this difference. It appears in the relation between the - qualities (white, hard; but also beautiful, free, just) and the corresponding - concepts (whiteness, hardness, beauty, freedom, justice). The abstract - character of the latter seems to designate the more concrete qualities as - part-realizations, aspects, manifestations of a more universal and more - “excellent” quality, which is experienced in the concrete.8 And by virtue of - this relation, the concrete quality seems to represent a negation as well as - realization of the universal. - - [...] - - These formulations do not alter the relation between the abstract concept and - its concrete realizations: the universal concept denotes that which the - particular entity is, and is not. The translation can eliminate the hidden - negation by reformulating the meaning in a non-contradictory proposition, but - the untranslated statement suggests a real want. There is more in the abstract - noun (beauty, freedom) than in the qualities (“beautiful,” “free”) attributed - to the particular person, thing or condition. The substantive universal intends - qualities which surpass all particular experience, but persist in the mind, not - as a figment of imagination nor as more logical possibilities but as the - “stuff” of which our world consists. - - [...] - - Now there is a large class of concepts—we dare say, the philosophically - relevant concepts—where the quantitative relation between the universal and the - particular assumes a qualitative aspect, where the abstract universal seems to - designate potentialities in a concrete, historical sense. However “man,” - “nature,” “justice,” “beauty” or “freedom” may be defined, they synthetize - experiential contents into ideas which transcend their particular realizations - as something that is to be surpassed, overcome. Thus the concept of beauty - comprehends all the beauty not yet realized; the concept of freedom all the - liberty not yet attained. - - Or, to take another example, the philosophic concept “man” aims at the fully - developed human faculties which are his distinguishing faculties, and which - appear as possibilities of the conditions in which men actually live. - - [...] - - Such universals thus appear as conceptual instruments for understanding the - particular conditions of things in the light of their potentialities. They are - historical and supra-historical; they conceptualize the stuff of which the - experienced world consists, and they conceptualize it with a view of its - possibilities, in the light of their actual limitation, suppression, and - denial. Neither the experience nor the judgment is private. The philosophic - concepts are formed and developed in the consciousness of a general condition - in a historical continuum; they are elaborated from an individual position - within a specific society. The stuff of thought is historical stuff—no matter - how abstract, general, or pure it may become in philosophic or scientific - theory. The abstract-universal and at the same time historical character of - these “eternal objects” of thought is recognized and clearly stated in - Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World:10 - - “Eternal objects are … in their nature, abstract. By ‘abstract’ I mean that - what an eternal object is in itself—that is to say, its essence—is - comprehensible without reference to some one particular experience. To be - abstract is to transcend the particular occasion of actual happening. But to - transcend an actual occasion does not mean being disconnected from it. On the - contrary, I hold that each eternal object has its own proper connection with - each such occasion, which I term its mode of ingression into that occasion.” - “Thus the metaphysical status of an eternal object is that of a possibility for - an actuality. Every actual occasion is defined as to its character by how these - possibilities are actualized for that occasion.” - - Elements of experience, projection and anticipation of real possibilities - enter into the conceptual syntheses—in respectable form as hypotheses, in - disreputable form as “metaphysics.” In various degrees, they are unrealistic - because they transgress beyond the established universe of behavior, and they - may even be undesirable in the interest of neatness and exactness. Certainly, - in philosophic analysis, - - “Little real advance … is to be hoped for in expanding our universe to - include so-called possible entities,”11 - - but it all depends on how Ockham’s Razor is applied, that is to say, which - possibilities are to be cut off. The possibility of an entirely different - societal organization of life has nothing in common with the “possibility” of a - man with a green hat appearing in all doorways tomorrow, but treating them with - the same logic may serve the defamation of undesirable possibilities. - Criticizing the introduction of possible entities, Quine writes that such an - “overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic - sense of us who have a taste for desert landscapes, but this is not the worst - of it. [Such a] slum of possibles is a breeding ground for disorderly - elements.”12 - - Contemporary philosophy has rarely attained a more authentic formulation of the - conflict between its intent and its function. The linguistic syndrome of - “loveliness,” “aesthetic sense,” and “desert landscape” evokes the liberating - air of Nietzsche’s thought, cutting into Law and Order, while the “breeding - ground for disorderly elements” belongs to the language spoken by the - authorities of Investigation and Information. What appears unlovely and - disorderly from the logical point of view, may well comprise the lovely - elements of a different order, and may thus be an essential part of the - material from which philosophic concepts are built. Neither the most refined - aesthetic sense nor the most exact philosophic concept is immune against - history. Disorderly elements enter into the purest objects of thought. They too - are detached from a societal ground, and the contents from which they abstract - guide the abstraction. - -### Historicism - - Thus the spectre of “historicism” is raised. If thought proceeds from - historical conditions which continue to operate in the abstraction, is there - any objective basis on which distinction can be made between the various - possibilities projected by thought—distinction between different and - conflicting ways of conceptual transcendence? Moreover, the question cannot be - discussed with reference to different philosophic projects only.13 To the - degree to which the philosophical project is ideological, it is part of a - historical project—that is, it pertains to a specific stage and level of the - societal development, and the critical philosophic concepts refer (no matter - how indirectly!) to alternative possibilities of this development. - - The quest for criteria for judging between different philosophic projects thus - leads to the quest for criteria for judging between different historical - projects and alternatives, between different actual and possible ways of - understanding and changing man and nature. I shall submit only a few - propositions which suggest that the internal historical character of the - philosophic concepts, far from precluding objective validity, defines the - ground for their objective validity. - - [...] - - The objects of thought and perception as they appear to the individuals prior - to all “subjective” interpretation have in common certain primary qualities, - pertaining to these two layers of reality: (1) to the physical (natural) - structure of matter, and (2) to the form which matter has acquired in the - collective historical practice that has made it (matter) into objects for a - subject. The two layers or aspects of objectivity (physical and historical) are - interrelated in such a way that they cannot be insulated from each other; the - historical aspect can never be eliminated so radically that only the “absolute” - physical layer remains. - - [...] - - I shall now propose some criteria for the truth value of different historical - projects. - - [...] - - (1) The transcendent project must be in accordance with the real possibilities - open at the attained level of the material and intellectual culture. - - (2) The transcendent project, in order to falsify the established totality, - must demonstrate its own higher rationality in the threefold sense that - - (a) it offers the prospect of preserving and improving the productive - achievements of civilization; - - (b) it defines the established totality in its very structure, basic - tendencies, and relations; - - (c) its realization offers a greater chance for the pacification of existence, - within the framework of institutions which offer a greater chance for the free - development of human needs and faculties. - -### Determinate choice - - If the historical continuum itself provides the objective ground for - determining the truth of different historical projects, does it also determine - their sequence and their limits? Historical truth is comparative; the - rationality of the possible depends on that of the actual, the truth of the - transcending project on that of the project in realization. Aristotelian - science was falsified on the basis of its achievements; if capitalism were - falsified by communism, it would be by virtue of its own achievements. - Continuity is preserved through rupture: quantitative development becomes - qualitative change if it attains the very structure of an established system; - the established rationality becomes irrational when, in the course of its - internal development, the potentialities of the system have outgrown its - institutions. Such internal refutation pertains to the historical character of - reality, and the same character confers upon the concepts which comprehend this - reality their critical intent. They recognize and anticipate the irrational in - the established reality—they project the historical negation. - - Is this negation a “determinate” one—that is, is the internal succession of a - historical project, once it has become a totality, necessarily pre-determined - by the structure of this totality? If so, then the term “project” would be - deceptive. That which is historical possibility would sooner or later be real; - and the definition of liberty as comprehended necessity would have a repressive - connotation which it does not have. All this may not matter much. What does - matter is that such historical determination would (in spite of all subtle - ethics and psychology) absolve the crimes against humanity which civilization - continues to commit and thus facilitate this continuation. - - I suggest the phrase “determinate choice” in order to emphasize the ingression - of liberty into historical necessity; the phrase does no more than condense the - proposition that men make their own history but make it under given conditions. - Determined are (1) the specific contradictions which develop within a - historical system as manifestations of the conflict between the potential and - the actual; (2) the material and intellectual resources available to the - respective system; (3) the extent of theoretical and practical freedom - compatible with the system. These conditions leave open alternative - possibilities of developing and utilizing the available resources, alternative - possibilities of “making a living,” of organizing man’s struggle with nature. - - [...] - - the truth of a historical project is not validated ex post through success, - that is to say, by the fact that it is accepted and realized by the society. - Galilean science was true while it was still condemned; Marxian theory was - already true at the time of the Communist Manifesto; fascism remains false even - if it is in ascent on an international scale (“true” and “false” always in the - sense of historical rationality as defined above). In the contemporary period, - all historical projects tend to be polarized on the two conflicting - totalities—capitalism and communism, and the outcome seems to depend on two - antagonistic series of factors: (1) the greater force of destruction; (2) the - greater productivity without destruction. In other words, the higher historical - truth would pertain to the system which offers the greater chance of - pacification. - -### Negative Thinking - - To the degree to which the established society is irrational, the analysis in - terms of historical rationality introduces into the concept the negative - element—critique, contradiction, and transcendence. - - This element cannot be assimilated with the positive. It changes the concept in - its entirety, in its intent and validity. Thus, in the analysis of an economy, - capitalist or not, which operates as an “independent” power over and above the - individuals, the negative features (overproduction, unemployment, insecurity, - waste, repression) are not comprehended as long as they appear merely as more - or less inevitable by-products, as “the other side” of the story of growth and - progress. - - True, a totalitarian administration may promote the efficient exploitation of - resources; the nuclear-military establishment may provide millions of jobs - through enormous purchasing power; toil and ulcers may be the by-product of the - acquisition of wealth and responsibility; deadly blunders and crimes on the - part of the leaders may be merely the way of life. One is willing to admit - economic and political madness—and one buys it. But this sort of knowledge of - “the other side” is part and parcel of the solidification of the state of - affairs, of the grand unification of opposites which counteracts qualitative - change, because it pertains to a thoroughly hopeless or thoroughly - preconditioned existence that has made its home in a world where even the - irrational is Reason. - - The tolerance of positive thinking is enforced tolerance—enforced not by any - terroristic agency but by the overwhelming, anonymous power and efficiency of - the technological society. As such it permeates the general consciousness—and - the consciousness of the critic. The absorption of the negative by the positive - is validated in the daily experience, which obfuscates the distinction between - rational appearance and irrational reality. - - [examples follow] - - These examples may illustrate the happy marriage of the positive and the - negative—the objective ambiguity which adheres to the data of experience. It is - objective ambiguity because the shift in my sensations and reflections responds - to the manner in which the experienced facts are actually interrelated. But - this interrelation, if comprehended, shatters the harmonizing consciousness and - its false realism. Critical thought strives to define the irrational character - of the established rationality (which becomes increasingly obvious) and to - define the tendencies which cause this rationality to generate its own - transformation. “Its own” because, as historical totality, it has developed - forces and capabilities which themselves become projects beyond the established - totality. They are possibilities of the advancing technological rationality - and, as such, they involve the whole of society. The technological - transformation is at the same time political transformation, but the political - change would turn into qualitative social change only to the degree to which it - would alter the direction of technical progress—that is, develop a new - technology. For the established technology has become an instrument of - destructive politics. - - Such qualitative change would be transition to a higher stage of civilization - if technics were designed and utilized for the pacification of the struggle for - existence. In order to indicate the disturbing implications of this statement, - I submit that such a new direction of technical progress would be the - catastrophe of the established direction, not merely the quantitative evolution - of the prevailing (scientific and technological) rationality but rather its - catastrophic transformation, the emergence of a new idea of Reason, theoretical - and practical. - - The new idea of Reason is expressed in Whitehead’s proposition: “The function - of Reason is to promote the art of life.”1 In view of this end, Reason is the - “direction of the attack on the environment” which derives from the “threefold - urge: (1) to live, (2) to live well, (3) to live better.”2 - -Then read the rest of the whole chapter 9. It's interesting enough that deserves -to be quoted on its entirety. It talks about the completion of the -Technological Project. Like this: - - Civilization produces the means for freeing Nature from its own brutality, its - own insufficiency, its own blindness, by virtue of the cognitive and - transforming power of Reason. And Reason can fulfill this function only as - post-technological rationality, in which technics is itself the instrumentality - of pacification, organon of the “art of life.” The function of Reason then - converges with the function of Art. - - The Greek notion of the affinity between art and technics may serve as a - preliminary illustration. The artist possesses the ideas which, as final - causes, guide the construction of certain things—just as the engineer possesses - the ideas which guide, as final causes, the construction of a machine. For - example, the idea of an abode for human beings determines the architect’s - construction of a house; the idea of wholesale nuclear explosion determines the - construction of the apparatus which is to serve this purpose. Emphasis on the - essential relation between art and technics points up the specific rationality - of art. - - [...] - - In the contemporary era, the conquest of scarcity is still confined to small - areas of advanced industrial society. Their prosperity covers up the Inferno - inside and outside their borders; it also spreads a repressive productivity and - “false needs.” It is repressive precisely to the degree to which it promotes - the satisfaction of needs which require continuing the rat race of catching up - with one’s peers and with planned obsolescence, enjoying freedom from using the - brain, working with and for the means of destruction. The obvious comforts - generated by this sort of productivity, and even more, the support which it - gives to a system of profitable domination, facilitate its importation in less - advanced areas of the world where the introduction of such a system still means - tremendous progress in technical and human terms. - - However, the close interrelation between technical and political-manipulative - know-how, between profitable productivity and domination, lends to the conquest - of scarcity the weapons for containing liberation. To a great extent, it is the - sheer quantity of goods, services, work, and recreation in the overdeveloped - countries which effectuates this containment. Consequently, qualitative change - seems to presuppose a quantitative change in the advanced standard of living, - namely, reduction of overdevelopment. - - The standard of living attained in the most advanced industrial areas is not a - suitable model of development if the aim is pacification. In view of what this - standard has made of Man and Nature, the question must again be asked whether - it is worth the sacrifices and the victims made in its defense. The question - has ceased to be irresponsible since the “affluent society” has become a - society of permanent mobilization against the risk of annihilation, and since - the sale of its goods has been accompanied by moronization, the perpetuation of - toil, and the promotion of frustration. - - Under these circumstances, liberation from the affluent society does not mean - return to healthy and robust poverty, moral cleanliness, and simplicity. On the - contrary, the elimination of profitable waste would increase the social wealth - available for distribution, and the end of permanent mobilization would reduce - the social need for the denial of satisfactions that are the individual’s - own—denials which now find their compensation in the cult of fitness, strength, - and regularity. - - [...] - - The crime is that of a society in which the growing population aggravates the - struggle for existence in the face of its possible alleviation. The drive for - more “living space” operates not only in international aggressiveness but also - within the nation. Here, expansion has, in all forms of teamwork, community - life, and fun, invaded the inner space of privacy and practically eliminated - the possibility of that isolation in which the individual, thrown back on - himself alone, can think and question and find. This sort of privacy—the sole - condition that, on the basis of satisfied vital needs, can give meaning to - freedom and independence of thought—has long since become the most expensive - commodity, available only to the very rich (who don’t use it). In this respect, - too, “culture” reveals its feudal origins and limitations. It can become - democratic only through the abolition of mass democracy, i.e., if society has - succeeded in restoring the prerogatives of privacy by granting them to all and - protecting them for each. - - [...] - - To take an (unfortunately fantastic) example: the mere absence of all - advertising and of all indoctrinating media of information and entertainment - would plunge the individual into a traumatic void where he would have the - chance to wonder and to think, to know himself (or rather the negative of - himself) and his society. Deprived of his false fathers, leaders, friends, and - representatives, he would have to learn his ABC’s again. But the words and - sentences which he would form might come out very differently, and so might his - aspirations and fears. - - To be sure, such a situation would be an unbearable nightmare. While the people - can support the continuous creation of nuclear weapons, radioactive fallout, - and questionable foodstuffs, they cannot (for this very reason!) tolerate being - deprived of the entertainment and education which make them capable of - reproducing the arrangements for their defense and/or destruction. The - non-functioning of television and the allied media might thus begin to achieve - what the inherent contradictions of capitalism did not achieve—the - disintegration of the system. The creation of repressive needs has long since - become part of socially necessary labor—necessary in the sense that without it, - the established mode of production could not be sustained. Neither problems of - psychology nor of aesthetics are at stake, but the material base of domination. - -### Imagination - - In reducing and even canceling the romantic space of imagination, society has - forced the imagination to prove itself on new grounds, on which the images are - translated into historical capabilities and projects. The translation will be - as bad and distorted as the society which undertakes it. Separated from the - realm of material production and material needs, imagination was mere play, - invalid in the realm of necessity, and committed only to a fantastic logic and - a fantastic truth. When technical progress cancels this separation, it invests - the images with its own logic and its own truth; it reduces the free faculty of - the mind. But it also reduces the gap between imagination and Reason. The two - antagonistic faculties become interdependent on common ground. In the light of - the capabilities of advanced industrial civilization, is not all play of the - imagination playing with technical possibilities, which can be tested as to - their chances of realization? The romantic idea of a “science of the - Imagination” seems to assume an ever-more-empirical aspect. - - [...] - - Imagination has not remained immune to the process of reification. We are - possessed by our images, suffer our own images. Psychoanalysis knew it well, - and knew the consequences. However, “to give to the imagination all the means - of expression” would be regression. The mutilated individuals (mutilated also - in their faculty of imagination) would organize and destroy even more than they - are now permitted to do. Such release would be the unmitigated horror—not the - catastrophe of culture, but the free sweep of its most repressive tendencies. - Rational is the imagination which can become the a priori of the reconstruction - and redirection of the productive apparatus toward a pacified existence, a life - without fear. And this can never be the imagination of those who are possessed - by the images of domination and death. - - To liberate the imagination so that it can be given all its means of expression - presupposes the repression of much that is now free and that perpetuates a - repressive society. And such reversal is not a matter of psychology or ethics - but of politics, in the sense in which this term has here been used throughout: - the practice in which the basic societal institutions are developed, defined, - sustained, and changed. It is the practice of individuals, no matter how - organized they may be. Thus the question once again must be faced: how can the - administered individuals—who have made their mutilation into their own - liberties and satisfactions, and thus reproduce it on an enlarged - scale—liberate themselves from themselves as well as from their masters? How is - it even thinkable that the vicious circle be broken? - -### Qualitative Change - - Qualitative change is conditional upon planning for the whole against these - interests, and a free and rational society can emerge only on this basis. - - The institutions within which pacification can be envisaged thus defy the - traditional classification into authoritarian and democratic, centralized and - liberal administration. Today, the opposition to central planning in the name - of a liberal democracy which is denied in reality serves as an ideological prop - for repressive interests. The goal of authentic self-determination by the - individuals depends on effective social control over the production and - distribution of the necessities (in terms of the achieved level of culture, - material and intellectual). - - Here, technological rationality, stripped of its exploitative features, is the - sole standard and guide in planning and developing the available resources for - all. Self-determination in the production and distribution of vital goods and - services would be wasteful. The job is a technical one, and as a truly - technical job, it makes for the reduction of physical and mental toil. In this - realm, centralized control is rational if it establishes the preconditions for - meaningful self-determination. The latter can then become effective in its own - realm—in the decisions which involve the production and distribution of the - economic surplus, and in the individual existence. - - In any case, the combination of centralized authority and direct democracy is - subject to infinite variations, according to the degree of development. - Self-determination will be real to the extent to which the masses have been - dissolved into individuals liberated from all propaganda, indoctrination, and - manipulation, capable of knowing and comprehending the facts and of evaluating - the alternatives. In other words, society would be rational and free to the - extent to which it is organized, sustained, and reproduced by an essentially - new historical Subject. - - At the present stage of development of the advanced industrial societies, the - material as well as the cultural system denies this exigency. The power and - efficiency of this system, the thorough assimilation of mind with fact, of - thought with required behavior, of aspirations with reality, militate against - the emergence of a new Subject. They also militate against the notion that the - replacement of the prevailing control over the productive process by “control - from below” would mean the advent of qualitative change. This notion was valid, - and still is valid, where the laborers were, and still are, the living denial - and indictment of the established society. However, where these classes have - become a prop of the established way of life, their ascent to control would - prolong this way in a different setting. And yet, the facts are all there - which validate the critical theory of this society and of its fatal - development: the increasing irrationality of the whole; waste and restriction - of productivity; the need for aggressive expansion; the constant threat of war; - intensified exploitation; dehumanization. And they all point to the historical - alternative: the planned utilization of resources for the satisfaction of vital - needs with a minimum of toil, the transformation of leisure into free time, the - pacification of the struggle for existence. - -### Terrorized beauty - - Beauty reveals its terror as highly classified nuclear plants and laboratories - become “Industrial Parks” in pleasing surroundings; Civil Defense Headquarters - display a “deluxe fallout-shelter” with wall-to-wall carpeting (“soft”), lounge - chairs, television, and Scrabble, “designed as a combination family room during - peacetime (sic!) and family fallout shelter should war break out.”1 If the - horror of such realizations does not penetrate into consciousness, if it is - readily taken for granted, it is because these achievements are (a) perfectly - rational in terms of the existing order, (b) tokens of human ingenuity and - power beyond the traditional limits of imagination. - -### What brings chance: practice - - Dialectical theory is not refuted, but it cannot offer the remedy. It cannot be - positive. To be sure, the dialectical concept, in comprehending the given - facts, transcends the given facts. This is the very token of its truth. It - defines the historical possibilities, even necessities; but their realization - can only be in the practice which responds to the theory, and, at present, the - practice gives no such response. - - On theoretical as well as empirical grounds, the dialectical concept pronounces - its own hopelessness. The human reality is its history and, in it, - contradictions do not explode by themselves. The conflict between streamlined, - rewarding domination on the one hand, and its achievements that make for - self-determination and pacification on the other, may become blatant beyond any - possible denial, but it may well continue to be a manageable and even - productive conflict, for with the growth in the technological conquest of - nature grows the conquest of man by man. And this conquest reduces the freedom - which is a necessary a priori of liberation. This is freedom of thought in the - only sense in which thought can be free in the administered world—as the - consciousness of its repressive productivity, and as the absolute need for - breaking out of this whole. But precisely this absolute need does not prevail - where it could become the driving force of a historical practice, the effective - cause of qualitative change. Without this material force, even the most acute - consciousness remains powerless. - - No matter how obvious the irrational character of the whole may manifest itself - and, with it, the necessity of change, insight into necessity has never - sufficed for seizing the possible alternatives. Confronted with the omnipresent - efficiency of the given system of life, its alternatives have always appeared - utopian. And insight into necessity, the consciousness of the evil state, will - not suffice even at the stage where the accomplishments of science and the - level of productivity have eliminated the utopian features of the - alternatives—where the established reality rather than its opposite is utopian. - - [...] - - The enchained possibilities of advanced industrial societies are: development - of the productive forces on an enlarged scale, extension of the conquest of - nature, growing satisfaction of needs for a growing number of people, creation - of new needs and faculties. But these possibilities are gradually being - realized through means and institutions which cancel their liberating - potential, and this process affects not only the means but also the ends. The - instruments of productivity and progress, organized into a totalitarian system, - determine not only the actual but also the possible utilizations. - - [...] - - But the struggle for the solution has outgrown the traditional forms. The - totalitarian tendencies of the one-dimensional society render the traditional - ways and means of protest ineffective—perhaps even dangerous because they - preserve the illusion of popular sovereignty. This illusion contains some - truth: “the people,” previously the ferment of social change, have “moved up” - to become the ferment of social cohesion. Here rather than in the - redistribution of wealth and equalization of classes is the new stratification - characteristic of advanced industrial society. |