Herbert Marcuse, in his book One Dimensional Man (Beacon Press, 1964), argued that advanced industrial society (like that in the United States in his time) manifests a kind of totalitarianism that does not make principal use of violence or physical control (the means favored by previous totalitarian societies) to impose itself on its subjects. What are its mechanisms of control? How has society, language, thought, art, imagination, and, thus, humanity become “one-dimensional”? If that one-dimensionality is achieved via gratification of genuinely felt desires, and is manifest in a lack of social conflict, why is it a problem (from the perspectives of the whole and the individual)?
What, on the other hand, would two-dimensionality involve, for the individual and society? What would the presumed value of this two-dimensionality be, especially if it involved the restoration of conscious antagonisms, even conflict, within and between individuals and groups? How is the project of “pacification” (or “pacified existence”, now a real possibility as a result of advanced industrial techniques and technology) a prerequisite for human freedom? How would a restored two-dimensionality be both the source and reward of such pacification? How would such a project, and indeed “authentic self-determination” require “effective social control over the production and distribution of the necessities [of life]”? (ODM, p. 251)
How does Marcuse’s analysis connect with Dewey’s? Was Dewey concerned with increasing “one-dimensionality”? Did Marcuse advance our understanding of the requirements of establishing a genuinely “democratic” life? What relevance do you find in these efforts to diagnose ailments of the human condition to how you now perceive that condition in 2022?
