Saggio del '69 invecchiato a mio avviso non benissimo, che critica il capitalismo dei consumi guardando ai movimenti dei neri, agli hippy e alla rivoluzione cubana, evocando tesi non lontane da quelle che oggi sostengono gli accelerazionisti (superare l'attuale grazie alla tecnologia e spostarsi verso una società senza fatica orientata la gioco) e atterrando su una rimessa al centro del bello - non lontana dagli ideali della Grecia antica - che resta più evocativa che argomentata. ( )

[Enthält den Aufsatz von 1965: "Repressive Toleranz"]

Quelle: Hein, P.: Stadtguerilla / bewaffneter Kampf in der BRD und Westberlin : eine Bibliographie mit den ersten programmatischen Erklärungen und Interviews der Gruppen ; RAF, Bewegung 2. Juni, Revolutionäre Zellen und Rote Zora. - Hptbd. - Kapitel 1 - außerparlamentarische Opposition 1968 - 1971. - Seite 14. - Gesamttitelnummer 42. - Einzeltitelnummer 42

Great read.

Marcuse was a great thinker and challenged every aspect of modern contemporary thought and philosophy, should be regarded as required reading. ( )

"This “voluntary” servitude (voluntary inasmuch as it is introjected into the individuals) , which justifies the benevolent masters, can be broken only through a political practice which reaches the roots of containment and contentment in the infrastructure of man, a political practice of methodical disengagement from and refusal of the Establishment, aiming at a radical transvaluation of values. Such a practice involves a break with the familiar, the routine ways of seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding things so that the organism may become receptive to the potential forms of a non-aggressive, non-exploitative world."

"Prior to all ethical behavior in accordance with specific social standards, prior to all ideological expression, morality is "a disposition" of the organism, perhaps rooted in the erotic drive to counter aggressiveness, to create and preserve 'ever greater unities'."

"...a sensitivity receptive to forms and modes of reality which thus far have been projected only by the aesthetic imagination."

"Negative thinking is by virtue of its own internal concepts 'positive': oriented toward, and comprehending a future which is 'contained' in the present."

"And the driving force is the refusal to grow up, to mature, to perform efficiently and "normally" in and for society, which compels the vast majority of the population to "earn" their living in stupid, inhuman, and unnecessary jobs..."

"The possibilities of the new society are sufficiently abstract, i.e. removed from and incongruous with the established universe, to defy any attempt to identify them in terms of this universe." ( )

An academic Philosopher, and a German, Marcuse's essay is not an accessible production, but it got quoted a lot in the 1960's. To my eyes, it demonstrated the straitjacket that American academica was enmired in by the 1960's. ( )