From 55599855b9104f0057427b132630f405612f0d46 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Silvio Rhatto Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2018 07:27:56 -0200 Subject: Books: One Dimensional Man intro --- books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md | 63 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 63 insertions(+) create mode 100644 books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md (limited to 'books/sociedade') diff --git a/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md b/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ffec82 --- /dev/null +++ b/books/sociedade/one-dimensional-man.md @@ -0,0 +1,63 @@ +[[!meta title="One Dimensional Man"]] + +* Author: Hebert Marcuse + +## 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. -- cgit v1.2.3