Herbert marcuse

             Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man.
             Herbert Marcuse in One Dimensional Man speaks out against what he feels are the injustices and manipulations of advanced industrial societies. Technological advancement and bureaucracy impose an all encompasing social control over the people in promotion of the establishment's interests. What emerges is a society of contradiction that superficially appears to promote liberty, possibility, and comfort but actually asserts its control and domination. In the examination of his key concepts of "true" vs. "false" needs, the "Great Refusal," the unhappy consciousness, Eros vs. sexuality, and the "new historical Subject," it is apparent that Marcuse believes that these societies, through their manipulations, are limiting freedom of the individual and thus diminishing the potential for revolution and social change.
             Liberation from the economics, politics, and public opinion (absence of individual thought) of industrialized and bureaucratic societies is impeded by the preconditioning of satisfactions and needs. A need becomes defined by its relevance and attractiveness to the dominant societal institution and it's specific agenda. Those which both promote and comply with this agenda are then imposed upon the individual in society's quest to repress him. These "false," repressive needs only serve to create misery, injustice, and hostility among the masses as they struggle to acquire that which is advertised and popular, the end result being "euphoria in unhappiness" (Pg 5). While the actual satisfaction of "false" needs may be enjoyable for an indoctrinated individual, the pursuit of this satisfaction is one of toil, so discontent ensues. For Marcuse, these needs are frivolous and distracting from the injustice they perpetuate. He argues that the only needs that require universal satisfaction are the biological - food, shelter, clothing - since it is from their satisfaction that all others may be realized.