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diff --git a/books/sociology/one-dimensional-man.md b/books/sociology/one-dimensional-man.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af5a90a --- /dev/null +++ b/books/sociology/one-dimensional-man.md @@ -0,0 +1,1969 @@ +[[!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. |