Contexto:

Texto de 1937, publicado na revista do instituto para pesquisa social de Frankfurt.

Vocs devem ter percebido que esse estilo apresentativo no tem nada a ver com nenhum dos
textos at ento lidos.
O que realmente chato nesse texto - e eu diria, em tudo o que at ento li de Marcuse - que
ele fora barra para ser dialtico. O texto todo ele concebido num movimento de vai-e-vem
que, supostamente, traria tona as contradies imanentes ao objeto. No entanto, o mximo
que esse movimento faz lembra o feijo com arroz da redao de vestibular: "algumas pessoas
defendem que X, mas isso um equvoco". A contradio enxertada desde fora, nunca
demonstrada. Da o encadeamento de referncias diversas para poder estabelecer o nexo entre
as partes, em lugar de fazer surgir o nexo.
Marcuse, ideia de beleza parece ser a mesma de A Dimenso Esttica, escrito XXXX anos depois.
O autor:
Ideias centrais
[colar tpico central de cada parte]

Cumpridas e obsoletas:

Relacionadas a Adorno e Horkheimer:

Crtica de Adorno a Marcuse na TE (341 de Kentor)

Pargrafo a pargrafo

Parte I
#1 (89) "A doutrina segundo a qual"
Conhecimento Prxis (Grcia Antiga)
Abertura da D.Esclarecimento: relao entre saber e dominao prtica da natureza
Discusso parcialmente levada a cabo tambm por Habermas quando sob orientao de
Adorno (Cincia e Tcnica como Ideologia), como se ver:
#2 (89) Hierarquia aristotlica
Saber orientado s necessidades VS conhecimento filosfico depurado de finalidade
Teoria, a atividade de contemplar; theoros o espectador sem propsito dos jogos
olmpicos, j em alguma medida o sujeito do juzo de gosto
Emergncia de binmio TIL vs BELO Materialismo da prxis burguesa vs Felicidade e
Esprito
o Abandono da ideia de que conhecimento prxis
o em muitos sentidos, a grande vibe da Arte consiste numa oposio ao critrio de
UTILIDADE.
o Adorno: intil estiola utilit. 255 (As obras de arte so os substitutos das coisas que
j no so pervertidas pela troca, do que j no governado pelo lucro e pelas
falsas necessidades da humanidade de-gradada.)
o Heidegger, com quem Marcuse mantm dupla afinidade mesmo nesse ensaio
(Dasein e leitura de Aristteles, segundo Andrew Feenberg), tambm recorre
inutilidade como resistncia ao imperativo do mundo tcnico.
Notar tambm o anacrnico: Marcuse refere-se a algo que na Grcia Antiga seria tpico do
mundo burgus (tal como Adorno e Horkheimer fazem figura de Ulisses)
#3 (90) "Existe um tema recorrente"
Vida prtica instvel e no-livre:
"Que um fim exterior por si s j atrofie escravize os homens, implica o pressuposto de
uma ordem perversa das condies materiais de vida, cuja reproduo regulada pela
anarquia de interesses sociais opostos entre si, uma ordem em que a manuteno da
existncia geral no coincide com a felicidade e a liberdade dos indivduos"
Da necessidade de que a eudaimonia - a ideia de felicidade - s pudesse ser alcanada
com a transcendncia da faticidade da vida. (novamente: facticidade e Dasein)
#4 (91) "Essa transcendncia atinge"
Transcendncia metafsica tem impacto sobre demais reflexo: polarizao entre
sensibilidade e razo reproduz a existente entre as necessidades materiais e a pretensa
pureza da verdade.
(No difcil retomar esse tpico hoje quando se acusa algo ou algum de
"cartesianismo", de hipostasiar a oposio entre res extensa e cogito imaterial. Poder-seia extrapolar e dizer que essa polarizao existe em todas as condies de trabalho em
que h dominao: o corpo contra o intelecto, etc.)

#5 (91) "Em todas as classificaes ontolgicas do idealismo antigo se expressa a perverso de

uma realidade social em que _o conhecimento da verdade sobre a existncia humana j no
assimilada (sic) na prxis_"
Separao entre vida material e felicidade ideal, a transcendncia, reflete a ciso de
classes.
"Tudo que propriamente importante para os homens, as verdades supremas, os bens
supremos e as felicidades supremas, so um 'luxo', distanciando-se por um abismo do
sentido do que necessrio."
Bem, Belo e Verdadeiro: cio e elite, no universalidade, no despencar do alto para o
plano do necessrio. A esfera da cultura permanece superior, necessariamente.
Ideologia: "...a posio de dominao social desses setores seria corroborada pela teoria
ao menos na medida em que a preocupao com as verdades supremas deveria ser sua
'profisso'." (92)
#6 (92) Idealismo exprime contradio social como estado ontolgico. Mas o idealismo de Plato
em si crtico, no ratifica ordem social.
"A exigncia idealista fundamental consiste propriamente em que esse mundo material
seja transformado e aperfeioado conforme as verdades adquiridas no conhecimento
das ideias. A resposta de Plato a essa exigncia seu programa de uma reorganizao
da sociedade." (Repblica: o cognitariado administrativo seria desprovido de
propriedade, etc.,)
Aristteles? Mais realista, mas idealismo resignado. "A distncia entre faticidade e ideia
aumentou justamente porque so concebidas de uma maneira mais prxima (...) A
histria do idealismo tambm a histria da resignao em face do existente." (93)
#7 (93) "Alvio de uma m forma histria da existncia"
Matria possibilidade, mais prximo ao no-ser; converte-se em realidade quando
participa do mundo "superior". "Toda verdade, bondade e beleza s pode lhe advir 'do
alto'..."
A negao do valor epistmico das condies materiais "tranquiliza o idealismo" no que
concerne aos processos vitais materiais.
OU SEJA, diviso do trabalho metafsica do necessrio vs belo, matria vs ideia.
#8 (94) "Na poca burguesa"
Necessrio vs belo, trabalho vs prazer modificao.
1. Universalidade e validade geral da "cultura", em vez de privilgio sobre ocupao com
valores supremos (passagem de casta e estamento para classe social). A desapario do
privilgio se deve ao fato de que o que define o indivduo no ontologicamente dado
mas, na metafsica burguesa, a "competio livre [que] confronta os indivduos entre si
como compradores e vendedores da fora de trabalho". Processo geral de abstrao de
qualidades dos indivduos e das coisas pr-condio da universalizao do esprito e da
ideia do acesso a essa dimenso.

"Assim como na prxis material o produto se separa do produtor, autonomizando-se na

forma coisificada geral do 'bem', assim tambm na prxis cultural se solidifica a obra, seu
contedo, em um 'valor' de validade universal." (95) Cultura - como produo de bens
imateriais, pelo menos no sentido de afastados da prxis material - integrada a
processo civilizatrio.
#9 (95) Conceito de cultura
1. Em sentido antropolgico, unidade entre reproduo ideal (discursiva, espiritual) e
reproduo material (da civilizao, do trabalho) formando "unidade historicamente
distinguvel"
2. Sentido estrito, destacamento da cultura em relao ao todo social e sua elevao
("joga o mundo espiritual contra o mundo material, na medida em que contrape a
cultura enquanto reino dos valores e dos fins autnticos ao mundo social da utilidade e
dos meios")
[d pra ouvir ressonncias anti-heidegger aqui? Linguagem de Tradio e
Linguagem Tcnica]
"Esse conceito de cultura [separada do processo social, diferenciada da civilizao] surgiu
ele prprio no plano de uma configurao histrica determinada da cultura, que na
sequncia ser designada como cultura afirmativa" (95)
"Cultura afirmativa aquela cultura pertencente poca burguesa que no curso de seu
prprio desenvolvimento levaria a distinguir e elevar o mundo espiritual-anmico, nos
termos de uma esfera de valores autnoma, em relao civilizao. Seu trao decisivo
a afirmao de um mundo mais valioso, universalmente obrigatrio, incondicionalmente
confirmado, eternamente melhor, que essencialmente diferente do mundo de fato da
luta diria pela existncia, mas que qualquer indivduo pode realizar para si "a partir do
interior", sem transformar aquela realidade de fato. Somente nessa cultura as atividades
e os objetos culturais adquirem sua solenidade elevada tanto acima do cotidiano: sua
recepo se converte em ato de celebrao e exaltao" (95-96)
Seria possvel exprimir a ideia da seguinte maneira: a equao entre cultura e
transcendncia s se solidifica na condio de ela ser acessvel a todos, na medida em
que consegue exprimir uma forma de "privilgio" universalmente disponvel. A ciso
entre os grupos humanos rebatida para dentro da conscincia. Poder-se-ia dizer que
no existe "ideologia" na Grcia Antiga porque a "falsa conscincia" no "socialmente
necessria" para a manuteno da ordem, porque no preciso alimentar os escravos de
discursos que estabilizem a contradio - ela simplesmente suprimida; no caso da
sociedade burguesa, o carter necessrio da falsa conscincia est diretamente ligado
aporia do "privilgio universal" que o ncleo duro da promessa de transformao das
condies sociais que fazia (e ainda faz) parte do discurso burgus. (No discurso do
impeachment, o signo vazio do "futuro" subscrito por alguns reaas servia a isso: ao
mesmo tempo promessa e postergao).
Um desvio: jovem Lukcs olha pros tempos "prenhes de sentido" porque no percebe
que a aparncia de organicidade dos gregos de uma violncia infinitamente maior que
o "desterro transcendental" vivenciado pela sociedade burguesa. A categoria romntica
do sujeito/indivduo no ajuda na compreenso do quadro, porque a fixao do mundo

grego na lgica da identidade do pensamento e da coisa obstrui toda e qualquer reflexo

sobre a negatividade; s muito tardiamente aquilo que ficou de fora da metafsica antiga
se deixou pensar.
#10 (96) "Embora a distino entre civilizao e cultura"
Cultura reafirma e oculta condies sociais de vida, ou seja, vira ideologia.
#11 (96)
Felicidade como objetivo ltimo (Antiguidade), porque "[p]rimeiro importa a luta pela
conservao". Estado da tcnica no permitia "tempo livre", no sentido de
disponibilidade para a satisfao de algo mais que a mera necessidade;
Felicidade no idealismo antigo se resguarda da reproduo material e se garante como
promessa.
#12 (97) "O indivduo abstrato"
Nova exigncia de felicidade, apagamento das mediaes relativamente ao espao social;
"Na medida em que numa tal postulao se confere ao indivduo um plano mais amplo
de exigncias e satisfaes individuais - plano que a produo capitalista em expanso
comeou por preencher com cada vez mais objetos de satisfao possvel enquanto
mercadorias , nessa medida a libertao burguesa do indivduo significa a possibilidade
de uma nova felicidade. A validade universal da mesma seria imediatamente suprimida,
uma vez que na produo capitalista a igualdade abstrata dos indivduos se realiza como
desigualdade concreta: s uma pequena parte dos homens dispe do poder de compra
necessrio para adquirir as mercadorias exigidas para assegurar sua felicidade." (97)
A Indstria da Cultura se insere nesse gap, na medida em que a "cultura afirmativa" - o
reino #tudodebom do esprito - ocupa o hiato entre a promessa de igualdade, que
permanece meramente pro forma na sociedade burguesa, e a aspereza persistente das
condies de trabalho, num duplo movimento de compensao e encucamento
normativo.
Marcuse se refere a essa emergncia da ideologia da seguinte forma: a burguesia
ascende com o apoio do proletariado, e atraioa-lhe sem desmentir a promessa de
igualdade. "[N]o podia abandonar o carter universal da exigncia, o de se aplicar a
todos os homens, sem se denunciar a si prpria, proclamando abertamente aos setores
dominados que com referncia melhoria das condies de vida tudo permanece como
est para a maioria dos homens; isto podia ser feito tanto menos quanto a crescente
riqueza social tornava a satisfao efetiva da exigncia universal [de igualdade, de
disponibilidade para o prazer] uma possibilidade real e contrastava com a misria
relativamente crescente dos pobres na cidade e no campo" (98), da "a destinao do
homem a quem se nega a satisfao universal no mundo material hipostasiada como
ideal". (98)
#13 (98) Caracterizao da cultura afirmativa.
Ela idealista: necessidade do indivduo respondia com caracterstica humnitria universal,
misria do corpo, beleza da alma; servido exterior, liberdade interior; egosmo brutal, mundo
virtuoso do dever. Tudo isso parecia progressista e, porm, "com a estabilizao da dominao

burguesa elas [essas caractersticas] se colocam crescentemente a servio do controle das

massas insatisfeitas e da mera auto-exaltao legitimadora: elas oculta a atrofia corporal e
psquica do indivduo". A figura para a resposta ao gap em Marcuse a de que existe controle da
insatisfao e promoo de discurso legitimador.
#14 (99) O momento verdadeiro da falsa conscincia, uma vez que, em relao ao seu carter de
"necessrio", porta uma "recordao daquilo que poderia existir".
"Na medida em que a grande arte burguesa configuraria o sofrimento e o lamento como eternas
foras do mundo, romperia continuamente no corao dos homens a injustificada resignao do
cotidiano (...) Quando a dor e o lamento, a penria e a solido so alados por ela a foras
metafsicas, quando situa os indivduos por cima das mediaes sociais confrontando-se entre si
e com os deuses em pura imediatez anmica, nesse exagero se encontra a verdade superior: que
um mundo como este no pode ser modificado por meio disso ou daquilo, mas unicamente
mediante o seu desaparecimento." (99)
Provavelmente Marcuse se refere ao romantismo mais afastado da prxis. Essa ejeo da cultura
como algo de superior ainda resguarda a promessa, o que est dizendo. Quando, por exemplo,
medimos essa noo de cultura - que critica a prxis material - contra um conceito mais "cho"
de cultura, como algo simplesmente dado, ento se torna visvel que uma delas contm um
germe crtico, e o outro concorre para se tornar um discurso apologtico da ordem: "mas ele
comem, bebem, consolam-se..."
#15 (100)
"A exigncia de felicidade contm um tom perigoso em uma ordem que resulta em opresso,
carncia e sacrifcio para a maioria. As contradies de uma ordem como esta impelem
idealizao dessa exigncia" (sumrio)
Marcuse contrape a essa espiritualizao da cultura o materialismo filosfico antiestico.
Parte II
#1 (101) "A cultura afirmativa adotou a exigncia histrica da libertao universal do indivduo
com a sua idia do carter humanitrio puro."
A cultura afirmativa sustenta um momento de promessa de transformao:
A unidade representada pela arte, o puro carter humano de suas pessoas irreal;
constitui o oposto do que ocorre na realidade social efetiva. A fora crtico-revolucionria
do ideal, que justamente em sua irrealidade conserva vivos os melhores anseios dos
homens em meio a uma m realidade, readquire nitidez naquelas pocas em que a
traio dos setores saturados em relao a seus prprios ideais se realiza expressamente
(102-3)
O problema que ela dotada de uma fora inercial, que as coisas so de tal modo arranjadas
que a ideia dela no se possa realizar. Muito prximo ao que Adorno chama de "promessa de
felicidade que se rompe".
#2 (103) Espiritualizao da cultura desde Herder (Romantismo). Definio de CULTURA como
"expresso da alma, da substncia do indivduo" contraposta de CIVILIZAO.

#3 (104) "Desde Descartes o carter de substncia da alma ..."

Cogito se substrai ao racionalismo materialista (mundo material exterior mensurvel e
calculvel). Ao mesmo tempo, especializao: mens imaterial independente da matria e anima
como sujeito das paixes (fisiologia).
"A alma permanece um reino intermdio, fora de domnio, entre a inabalvel certeza de si do
pensamento puro e a certeza fsico-matemtica do ser material" (104-5). Ocorre uma
desqualificao da alma, porque no justificada racionalmente. A alma da traduo de Leo Maar
fundamentalmente a personalidade, as inclinaes do sujeito.
#4 (105) A estranheza da filosofia da razo em relao alma
"A ideia da alma parece indicar os planos da vida com que a razo abstrata da prxis
burguesa no consegue lidar", porque a sociedade burguesa precisa do esvaziamento do
indivduo para funcionar.
"Na medida em que o pensamento no imediatamente razo tcnica, desde Descartes
ele gradualmente se separa da vinculao consciente. com a prxis social, mantendo a
reificao (Verdinglichung) por ele prprio promovida. Se nessa prxis as relaes
humanas aparecem como relaes materiais objetivas (sachlich), como leis das prprias
coisas (Dinge), a filosofia por sua vez abandona o indivduo a essa aparncia (Schein), ao
se retirar para a constituio transcendental do mundo na subjetividade pura. A filosofia
transcendental no atinge a reificao: ela apenas investiga o processo do conhecimento
do mundo j reificado" (105-6)
i.e., o racionalismo cartesiano j ele prprio sintomtico da sociedade burguesa
emergente
#5 (106) "A alma no atingida pela dicotomia entre res cogitans e res extensa", nem
meramente um nem outro. Em Hegel, estatuto similar: algo que ainda no esprito, e que no
autnomo. Basicamente, a dimenso do afeto e das emoes, que teriam algo de selvagem
em relao racionalidade mas que no seriam completamente reduzidas ao corpo e
satisfao de necessidades.
#6 (106) A cultura afirmativa, entretanto, entende como alma tudo aquilo que no esprito.
O que se pretende referir como alma "permanece para sempre inacessvel ao esprito
lcido, ao entendimento Verstand, investigao emprica dos fatos" (106-7)
#7 (107) Conceito de alma na cultura afirmativa. Comea no Renascimento - ideia de
subjetividade emprica, "vida interior". "O interesse pelas at h pouco tempo negligenciadas
"situaes individuais, nicas, vivas" da alma era parte do programa de "viver sua vida
profundamente e at o fim"" (107)
Esse pargrafo cita Herbart e Dilthey. Dilthey, hermenutica visa extrao do contedo
anmico e reelaborao desse contedo na recepo.
"A organizao desse mundo por meio do processo de trabalho capitalista converteu o
desenvolvimento do indivduo em concorrncia econmica e confiou a satisfao de suas

necessidades ao mercado. A cultura afirmativa protesta com a alma contra a reificao,

mas termina sucumbindo a ela mesmo assim. A alma resguardada como nico plano da
vida ainda no absorvido no processo de trabalho social." (107-8)
Em muitos sentidos, crtica cultural pode ser algo entendido como uma mensura de
possibilidades. Nesse caso, Marcuse parece estar direcionando-se a um quadro que
incorporado pelo capital. A ideia de cultura como algo que diz respeito dimenso formativa do
indivduo, p.ex., ideolgica: ignora a produo social mas ao mesmo tempo aponta uma
dimenso recalcada no sistema de produo; porta uma crtica implcita ao trabalho abstrato no
capitalismo mas, ao mesmo tempo, uma resignao em relao necessidade de transformao
radical do sistema. possvel, se no quisermos s decretar de maneira desumana que a
dimenso das paixes, preferncias e os interesses especficos dos seres humanos so pura e
simplesmente arregimentados, tentar focar o problema de outro modo: por um lado, existe um
processo real de individuao por meio do qual surgem as feies particulares do indivduo, por
outro, um processo igualmente real de personalizao, que transforma essas feies da
experincia numa referncia discursiva. um processo real de espectralizao do sujeito que
corre em paralelo imagem fantasmagrica das mercadorias. Por isso Marcuse dir que
"Existe um cerne de verdade na afirmao segundo a qual o que acontece com o corpo
no pode afetar a alma. [ uma referncia a um lugar-comum cristo, possivelmente
herdado da mstica gnstica ou por sntese s correntes helenistas em voga em Roma Hegel associa-o ao estoicismo como figura de conscincia] Mas esta verdade assumiu
uma forma terrvel na ordem vigente. A liberdade da alma foi utilizada para desculpar
misria, martrio e servido. Ela serviu para submeter ideologicamente a existncia
economia do capitalismo." (108)
E no pargrafo seguinte:
#8 (109) "A alma patrocina uma comunidade interior abrangente dos homens, de durao
secular (...) A desigualdade e a ausncia de liberdade da concorrncia cotidiana [so] unificadas
pela formao da alma e a grandeza da alma no reino da cultura, em que os indivduos
participam como seres livres e iguais" Por isso: "quem olha para a alma enxerga os prprios
homens"
#9 (109) Marcuse prope que a "cultura afirmativa" endossa no uma emancipao da
sensualidade, como ela apenas discursivamente o faz, mas uma subordinao da sensualidade
dominao da alma. Como eu disse antes, a diferena entre o processo de individuao e o de
personalizao, como adequao do indivduo a um contexto discursivo. Isso se daria assim
porque a cultura afirmativa se incumbiu no somente da consolao como da encucao
normativa. Por isso: "A interiorizao da fruio por meio da alma se torna uma das tarefas
decisivas da educao cultural" (109-10). Desse prazer sensrio espiritualizado e transfigurado
para o reino da cultura surgiria a ideia de amor romntico.
#10 (110) "Na ideia do amor se assumiu o anseio pela constncia da felicidade terrena, pela
bno da independncia, pela superao do fim. Os amantes [representados na] da poesia
burguesa amam contra a volubilidade cotidiana, contra as imposies do realismo, contra a
subservincia do indivduo, contra a morte." A ideia de que, numa sociedade baseada na
oposio, a superao da adversidade no se d pela solidariedade e sim pelo elevamento do

prprio indivduo sobre todos os demais. Marcuse oferece a duas formas de se conceber a
relao com o mundo que poderiam ser resumidas como algum tipo de construtivismo radical
ingnuo ou como um objetivismo igualmente ingnuo. O caminho que Marcuse aponta seria
uma espcie de pragmatismo, uma sociedade de indivduos que se reconhecem reciprocamente.
#11 (110) Novamente, Marcuse olha a contradio inerente representao do amor burgus
na cultura afirmativa: por um lado, algo de individual, por outro, aponta no sentido contrrio
ao isolamento do indivduo. Como essa ideia de amor extremo, como "entrega gratificante da
individualidade solidariedade incondicional de pessoa a pessoa", oposta prpria sociedade,
ela aparece realizvel somente na morte, enquanto superao das limitaes experienciadas
pelo indivduo.
#12 (111) Ento o amor se realiza socialmente de modo ideolgico: "ameaa se converter
meramente em obrigao e hbito". A exclusividade que ele exige dotada de um carter
normativo, na medida em que passa de fenmeno da alma - o amor romntico - a uma
dimenso institucional, relativo pessoa. Exige-se a manuteno da relao amorosa. [Isso me
lembra um poema de Pessoa: No quero, Cloe, teu amor, que oprime \ Porque me exige amor.
Quero ser livre. \ A 'sperana um dever do sentimento. (Ricardo Reis)]
Por isso "Justamente nesse ponto deveria existir uma harmonia preestabelecida entre
interioridade e exterioridade, possibilidade e realidade efetiva, que justamente por toda parte se
encontra destruda pelo princpio anrquico da sociedade". A traduo em ingls dessa
passagem fala no numa "atrofia dos sentidos" mas numa "deturpao da sensualidade"
associada inverdade da fidelidade normativa e no natural.
#13 (111) As relaes afetivas so as nicas em que ocorreria uma "efetivao" imediata do
sujeito. Em contrapartida, a alma responsvel por alcanar aqueles valores superiores sem o
compromisso de dar-lhes uma realidade efetiva. Por isso Marcuse volta oposio entre "alma"
e "esprito/mente": a disposio subjetiva pode dar um desconto quilo que algum sabe que
objetivamente ruim - voc pode substituir sua conscincia de que a msica de sucesso dos seus
16 anos pura indstria pela ideia de que aquilo fez parte de um perodo importante de sua
formao -, pode reconciliar "no interior" as contradies exteriores. Vale a pena citar mais:
"Se existe uma alma ocidental, germnica...a ela corresponderia tambm uma cultura
ocidental, germnica...de modo que a sociedade feudal, capitalista, socialista seriam
apenas manifestaes de tais almas, e suas duras contradies se dissolveriam na bela e
profunda unidade da cultura" (112)
Marcuse olha para a ideia de Herder de penetrao emptica como condio de acesso
histrico. A interpretao adequada para Herder, algo que foi depois integrado pela
hermenutica de Schleiermacher, dependeria dessa possibilidade de fazer rasura das categorias
particulares que dizem respeito experincia formativa da pessoa e a tentativa de reconstruir o
contexto socio-cultural como determinado pelo esprito, por isso cada poca "tem o seu sentido
em si". A ideia de interioridade um elemento do relativismo histrico e cultural e serve como
escusa para a barbrie.
#14 (113) Marcuse continua: "Na cultura da alma foram absorvidas aquelas foras e
necessidades que no puderam mais encontrar seu lugar no cotidiano". Uma concepo comum

da funo da arte entre os estudiosos de literatura a de que ela preserva a esfera da

experincia particular do contato com a prxis cotidiana universalizante, que ela compensa a
insuficincia do mundo institucionalizado em relao a essas experincias. Marcuse est dizendo
que a funo da cultura e da alma acolher o reprimido. O problema da cultura afirmativa ser,
no entanto, o falseamento desse quadro: a "caracterizao afirmativa" de um "anseio por uma
vida mais feliz" acaba por distanciar esse anseio do contexto em que ele surge. Por isso:
Ou elas [as qualidades humanas] seriam interiorizadas como deveres da alma individual
...ou ento, representadas como objetos artsticos (113).
Ou seja, ou aquilo que deveria ser o estado natural do exterior realizvel somente na vida
ntima do sujeito ou essa realidade da vida feliz coisa de cinema, que a vida no imita. A
sublimao esttica ao mesmo tempo assinala a necessidade e a promessa de felicidade e
justifica seu incumprimento.
[ Um filme como o Fabuloso Destino de Amlie Poulain torna isso irrisoriamente visvel:
at mesmo a apologia da felicidade pequeno-burguesa do cotidiano precisa confessar
que essa felicidade no seno privada, e por isso os gestos da personagem so de curto
alcance e envolvem, obviamente, uma negligncia em relao aos seus prprios
interesses ]
#15 (113) No medium da beleza os homens puderam participar da felicidade.
Marcuse fala a de uma beleza que s pode existir na arte porque, na realidade emprica, ela
dotada de um carter selvagem. A traduo de Leo Maar traz "fruio" como "essncia da
beleza", que se adequa evocao de Kant na mesma passagem, mas devemos focar na ideia de
"prazer" (fruio um termo que faz assepsia da ideia de prazer sensrio, que como a
discusso vai se desenvolver). S isso faz sentido: que o carter essencial do belo seja seu poder
de estimular o prazer.
#16 (114) "A sociedade burguesa libertou os indivduos, mas como pessoas que se mantm sob
controle". A traduo em ingls traz "em xeque", porque "a proibio do prazer uma condio
da liberdade". Ou seja, preciso manter a tenso entre aquilo que necessrio ter e aquilo cujo
acesso negado. Esse pargrafo parece bem obscuro, mas eu o entendi da seguinte maneira:
como as relaes de dominao so mediadas pela troca - ou seja, o trabalhador no est l
como pessoa - fazer uso do corpo do outro como fonte de prazer imediato algo condenvel,
"prostituio", enquanto aceitvel que este corpo seja fonte de lucro. Essa contradio
tambm se exprime no fato de que preciso haver uma massa humana desprovida de outra
coisa que no sua fora de trabalho, de modo a poder mobilizar a fora de trabalho para a
produo de mais-valia, de transform-la numa mercadoria, coisa desprovida de caractersticas
pessoais.
No entanto, a extrema objetificao do corpo como fonte de prazer se converte no seu oposto
como promessa de superao do "ideal afirmativo" que separaria a cultura da existncia. A
passagem bonita:
Quando se supera o vnculo com o ideal afirmativo, quando existe fruio sem qualquer
racionalizao e sem o mais leve sentimento de culpa puritano no plano de uma
existncia provida de sabedoria, quando os sentidos se libertam inteiramente da alma,
ento surge a primeira luz de uma outra cultura. (115)

Marcuse, o transudo.
#17 (115) Mas essa dimenso que superaria a afirmao da cultura fica aqum da cultura e,
portanto, merc da troca. Porque somente o prazer espiritual tolerado, a beleza se limita a
ser uma prefigurao de algo que se poderia realizar. Marcuse continua discutindo a relao
entre beleza e verdade social na esttica romntica (116). A ideia de que a verdade s pode
aparecer sublimada no medium da arte, j que as demais reas da cultura tm compromissos
com a praxis:
#18 (117) A teoria no pode oferecer o consolo que o belo oferece. Aqui, Marcuse descamba
para a poesia filosfica: "O efmero que no deixa atrs de si uma solidariedade dos
sobreviventes necessita ser eternizado para ser suportado, pois se repete em cada instante da
existncia e antecipa a morte tambm em cada instante". Isso tudo para dizer que a ideia da
cultura afirmativa , na condio de um meio de sublimao, uma contradio em relao ao
que ela quer preservar.
Por isso,
#19 (117) "a soluo [propiciada pela cultura afirmativa] s pode ser aparente". Aqui Marcuse
faz um trocadilho: a categoria metafsica da aparncia, como aquilo que diferente da essncia
e muitas vezes seu desmentido, tambm a mesma empregue para a "aparncia" da arte, isto
, dimenso fenomenal da construo de uma obra, s vezes tambm comensurvel com a
ideia do estatuto ficcional das representaes artsticas. Da: de um lado, o prazer s aparece na
forma idealizada; do outro, a idealizao em si impede a realizao. Isso faz com que o prazer
esttico tenha algo de asctico. O tpico que Marcuse vai encadear a partir daqui, embora via
Goethe, o da suspenso voluntria da descrena: sabemos que uma obra de arte s uma
representao, que aquilo que ela promete s prometido na condio de no ser realizvel, e
no entanto essa representao um fenmeno real, que essa promessa efetivamente feita no
mesmo instante em que desmentida. Por isso:
#20 (118) "O decisivo nessa situao no que a arte apresente a realidade efetiva ideal, mas
que a apresente como realidade efetiva bela." Ou seja, como se ela fosse, em relao sua
forma, uma concretizao do ideal. Adorno coloca isso da seguinte forma: "No recai sobre os
homens e as coisas nenhuma luz na qual a transcendncia no transparece. Na resistncia
contra o mundo substituvel da troca, a resistncia do olhar que no quer que as cores do
mundo sejam aniquiladas irredutvel. O que prometido na aparncia [da arte] aquilo que
desprovido de aparncia." (DN 335)
#21 (119)
"A cultura afirmativa foi a forma histrica em que se preservaram as necessidades dos homens
que iam alm da reproduo material da existncia, e nessa medida se aplica a ela, bem como
forma da realidade social a que corresponde, a afirmao: o direito se encontra do seu lado."
Existiria na cultura um "rompimento privado da reificao". Aqui o argumento de Marcuse se
aproxima do de Heidegger sobre a apario da essncia da coisa no momento em que ela
representada, a ideia de que a transfigurao operada pela obra em relao realidade torna o
objeto mais verdadeiro, porque desinstrumentalizado. Numa "metafsica" da arte, a aparncia
no a traio da essncia, mas a essncia aparecendo.

#22 (119) Esse pargrafo sobre a concretizao do ideal. Nessa concretizao estetizada do
ideal de humanidade ou felicidade social, ocorre uma traio desses mesmos ideais, na medida
em que o mecanismo de consolo tambm um mecanismo de controle. (Adorno costumava
dizer que o trao caracterstico do autntico amor pelos homens a intransigncia, a tolerncia
seria algo como a figura invertida do dio do burgus justia social.) De qualquer modo, o que
Marcuse diz aqui da cultura afirmativa , como j vimos e mais uma vez, que ela se torna uma
compensao, e, como tal, apenas ratifica a situao que ela est compensando. Por isso ele diz
que "O indivduo, remetido a si mesmo, aprende a suportar e de certo modo at a amar seu
isolamento." (120)
#23 (121) A personalidade o portador do ideal cultural.
Esse pargrafo diz respeito forma como a individualidade toma parte num comrcio social
promovido pela cultura afirmativa. Basicamente, diz respeito ao cultivo pessoal (Bildung) como
signo de vida elevada - mais ou menos como hoje se imaginam outras figuras de sucesso, como
ter piscina em casa. O que importa que essa insularidade da experincia particular deixa
intocadas as coisas, "uma de suas virtudes [da personalidade] o respeito s relaes de
dominao dadas" (122).
#24 (121) Nem sempre foi assim.
A ideia de que a subjetividade era precisamente aquilo que se responsabilizava pelas prprias
condies, que tomava parte no contexto de forma ativa. A ideia que hoje se faz da
subjetividade , no mximo, a de que o homem se integra; seu papel ativo, por exemplo, na
construo do mundo s pode ser pensado como atividade interior, isto , como uma forma de
relativismo epistemolgico e tico que responde s limitaes que a sociedade lhe impe. um
sujeito recalcado, um sujeito que renuncia. A "personalidade" de que fala Marcuse, a que
participa da cultura hipostasiada como reino espiritual, aquilo que se sacrificou como sujeito
da transformao social para gozar mais tranquilamente da condio fantasmagrica da cultura.
Parte 3
#1 (122) A situao se altera quando uma mobilizao parcial (...) j no suficiente para a
preservao da forma estabelecida do processo de trabalho, exigindo-se em seu lugar a
"mobilizao total" pela qual o indivduo deve ser subordinado disciplina do Estado autoritrio
em todos os planos de sua existncia. (122-3)
Passa-se de um modo de cultura burguesa, de um paradigma da Bildung pessoal, para
uma outra relao com a cultura. Para Adorno, a Indstria da Cultura situar-se-ia aqui, no
processo de "auto-abolio" da cultura afirmativa.
#2 (123) A ruidosa luta do Estado...
um trao do contexto. A permanncia da funo da cultura com a transformao do contexto
poltico e social diz respeito, pode-se dizer, consolidao de seu carter instrumental.

#3 (123) O grande tpico aqui a formao de uma "falsa coletividade" que compensa o vazio
da interioridade burguesa. Na velha cultura, o leitor solitrio do romance ou do poema imagina
comungar do esprito da poca, ou tomar parte nas aflies do autor, ou reconhece-se no
personagem, ou projeta-se como eu da lrica; na forma autoritria que opera a dissoluo da
cultura afirmativa, o cultivo pessoal declina na dinmica do f e dos times de futebol: voc veste
a camisa. Por isso Marcuse fala numa "renncia e enquadramento no existente". A ideia de
Marcuse que houve uma longa domesticao cultural da subjetividade burguesa, e que isso
cooperou com o amansamento da sociedade no contexto de recrudescimento da opresso
institucional. O sujeito, noutras palavras, em si a figura fundamental da ideologia burguesa, na
medida em que se pe sempre s ordens.
[ Aqui eu voltaria indagao que pus outro dia sobre a subjetividade: por que que
precisamos disso? Bom, a meu ver, s precisamos enfatizar a condio do sujeito como
sujeito histrico porque da mesma figura que o sistema capitalista se serve para dar
continuidade injustia. Tambm a revoluo burguesa queria mudar as regras do jogo
para poder tomar parte no privilgio aristocrtico. No mundo redimido, no mundo em
que no h privilgio, o sujeito no seria uma ideia a defender, porque o indivduo no
veria sua existncia ameaada pela objetividade. O conceito em si de subjetividade se
aboliria, da mesma forma como o marxismo seria uma lembrana pr-histrica no
contexto da humanidade emancipada. ]
#4 (124) Os novos mtodos do processo...
Acontece de uma nova conformao social subtrair a dimenso emancipatria da anterior, num
crescendo da dominao. A nostalgia das formas da cultura vem da.
#5 (124) Marcuse enfatiza a afinidade entre "interioridade idealista" (sujeito e Bildung) e
"exterioridade herica" (o membro do grupo que ouve X). Nos dois casos, h uma recusa da
racionalidade como critrio para relao com o objeto e uma nfase sensibilidade. A partir do
instante em que se supe a razo como um universal normativo, a crtica no deixa nada
intocado, ao passo que a alma/sensibilidade, como registro particular, no tem nada que fazer
quilo que no lhe toca. "Justamente porque a alma vive alm da economia, a economia
consegue se impor to facilmente a ela". A funo social daquilo que no seria passvel de troca
operar todas as trocas, no fundo. De qualquer modo, a ideia de que a sensibilidade
mobilizada pelo discurso poltico. Ns vimos na votao do impeachment, por exemplo, a
quantidade de pessoas que se dirigiam a famlia, Deus e demais elementos da vida privada: eles
no estavam tentando justificar o voto, mas simulando a possvel afinidade a manter com os
espectadores, apelando benevolncia das boas almas que tambm amam sua famlia, seu Deus
e o futuro da nao.
#6 (125) Configurao heroica da cultura tem a ver com uma maior integrao necessidade do
presente, pelo que as exigncias de cultivo da "cultura afirmativa" aparecem como um entrave.
A cultura burguesa da erudio obsoleta. Em lugar dela, a nova cultura traria de forma
imediata os sinais de sua funo: subservincia, autossacrifcio, pobreza e senso do dever,
vontade de poder (ou de diferenciao), perfeio tcnica, etc. (126-7)

Marcuse diz: "Se anteriormente a ascenso cultural deveria prover uma satisfao para o desejo
pessoal de felicidade, agora a felicidade do indivduo deve desaparecer na grandeza do povo"
(127). Claro que isso diz respeito funo da arte como cimento social do Estado autoritrio,
mas no exatamente o mesmo que ocorre na Indstria da cultura? O imperativo participao
muito mais intenso e vivenciado de maneira real do que os contedos do processo de
participao. O sujeito que se dedica a aprender a gozar uma determinada forma cultural muito
mais se doa ao quadro social em que aquela forma tem um valor normativo do que realmente
aproveita o objeto cultural especfico. Isso o mesmo que dizer que mais difcil gostar de
Mozart do que se deixar levar por uma composio especfica, por um lado, mas tambm que o
que se ganha em relao experincia emancipatria do prazer e da felicidade
consideravelmente menor do que o investimento feito em suportar Justin Bieber. Por isso
Marcuse diz que ocorre um declnio da aparncia de felicidade concomitante abolio da
reivindicao dessa felicidade para si: as pessoas curtem porque todo mundo curte. difcil dizer
NO! na sociedade que interiorizou a sua prpria autoridade total.
#7 (127) Depois Marcuse fala na eliminao o carter afirmativo da cultura. No que consiste? Na
cultura deixar de ser esse reino paralelo do cotidiano e realizar-se. Mundo da produo ruim,
cultura como aparncia de tudo o que bom. Cultura assim uma metfora e uma alegoria da
recusa do mundo ruim, e o Belo/prazer/etc. seria a forma como aparece essa recusa do mundo;
em contrapartida, no mundo justo, a cultura no precisaria funcionar como meio de ratificao
da ordem social. O simples apagamento dessa aparncia, no entanto, colocaria a cultura numa
relao metonmica com o mundo da produo, numa relao de contiguidade: a boca est para
a ingesto de alimentos da mesma forma como a cultura passa a estar para a reproduo
material da sociedade.
#8 (128) H uma intensificao do processo de reintegrao da cultura no sistema da troca, que
ocorre j (mesmo na cultura afirmativa) e que no pode ser anunciada. Quando Marcuse diz que
a "felicidade j de incio calculada nos termos de sua utilidade", ns poderamos extrapolar isso
na opinio mais ou menos corrente de que a nossa participao cultural, alm de fundamentarse em nossa sensibilidade como sua origem, pauta-se tambm no nosso gozo como seu objetivo
nico. Uma coisa o prazer esttico como reconciliao do mundo necessrio com o mundo
possvel, um prazer que ele mesmo anuncia o mundo possvel; outra coisa o prazer esttico
que degenerou em cosmtica: ele recobre a aspereza do cotidiano sem conter nenhuma
promessa de libertao efetiva, to s remetendo, assim, prpria ordem estabelecida. Os
ditames das imagens culturais, a normatividade da felicidade subjetiva egosta hoje muito
maior do que em qualquer paradigma burgus de cultura como algo atinente esfera privada:
no apenas temos de participar, mas somos obrigados a sentir prazer nessa participao.
#9 (128) Por qu? Depois de introduzir com um raciocnio similar autoabolio do sujeito na
sociedade redimida - isto , ao carter progressivo da autoabolio da cultura afirmativa Marcuse dir, no pargrafo seguinte, que "simplesmente manter viva a ansiedade pela
satisfao perigoso na situao vigente". A ansiedade pe um hiato entre a necessidade e a
satisfao que propriamente onde se instala o aspecto emancipatrio da experincia

individual. A prpria subjetividade burguesa uma mediao entre a esfera pblica em que as
relaes intersubjetivas so dotadas de carter necessrio e normativo e a esfera privada que
sublima a necessidade de reproduo da sociedade nas figuras do amor ertico e da famlia. O
fato de que a forma reconfigura, por exemplo, a relao do sujeito a um determinado contedo
similar reconfigurao da relao que sujeito e objeto mantm no discurso da cultura
afirmativa: com a reconfigurao, h um afastamento do mundo que abre para a reflexo crtica
sobre esse mundo. Tambm a famlia protege o indivduo da sociedade destrutiva. A cultura
poderia ser abolida tranquilamente quando a satisfao prometida fosse realmente oferecida
aos homens, quando no precisssemos mais converter numa forma artstica uma felicidade no
satisfeita no cotidiano. No entanto, como isso no foi realizado, preciso oferecer um
sucedneo de satisfao, e a abolio da distncia serve a isso: o que se quer a substituio da
velha "cultura afirmativa" por uma forma mais eficiente de afirmao do todo social. Se
pensarmos aqui na indstria da cultura: trata-se da serializao - e no da manufatura - do
prazer. Na medida em que no se responsabiliza pelos momentos totais de construo de sua
vida interior, o esforo do sujeito consiste em enrijecer as suas faculdades de modo a se tornar
capaz de suportar a mesmidade do prazer que lhe oferecido. Todos os rtulos do prazer esto
sempre j disposio.
#10 (129) No pargrafo seguinte, Marcuse fala de duas imagens que resolvem a situao frgil
da cultura afirmativa: de um lado, a extino da civilizao como momento repressivo (o que nos
levaria imediato ao pas de Cocanha), e, do outro, a "democratizao" forosa da cultura.
Marcuse prefere o pas de Cocanha porque o segundo, pautado na coisificao da cultura,
imprimiria um carter necessrio ao que, por definio, seria j a compensao da necessidade.
O que falso na imagem da satisfao infinita, diz Marcuse, que as necessidades no se
podem esgotar simplesmente. Numa sociedade no reprimida, numa sociedade que no precisa
sublimar a dor ou buscar a satisfao num reino paralelo, o sofrimento no se extinguiria,
apenas no teria uma forma socio-eeconomicamente determinada. Nesse sentido, a superao
da cultura afirmativa no seria a abolio daquilo que conquistado .
//////////////////
Contrary to previous attempts at understanding the Marcuse project, Douglas Kellner states in
his opening essay to Art and Liberation: The Collected Papers of Hebert Marcuse, Volume 4, that
aesthetics is not the key, primary, or central element in his [Marcuses] thought, however, it is
an important part of Marcuses project (p. 3). Furthermore, Kellner insists that in the thirty
years after Marcuses death, most people have misinterpreted all, or at least part, of Marcuses
work, attempting to ascribe value to, or criticize that which is non-existent.
For example, Kellner takes issue with the first interpretation posited by Barry Katz (1982) and
furthered by Timothy Lukes (1985) which understood Marcuses aesthetics as a transcendental
ontology that would cancel the totality of existence without being cancelled by it(p. 2). Katz
contests the idea put forth by Lukes, that Marcuses aesthetics leads to withdrawal from politics
and an escape inward; and agrees more with Berthold Langerbein (1985) that Marcuse

emphasizes and repeatedly attempts to mediate between art and politics in order to preserve a
separate aesthetic dimension. However, Kellner asserts that Langerbein fails to address the
other dimensions Marcuse mediates, such as philosophy and critical theory.
In regards to more recent scholarship, such as Charles Reitz (2000), where Reitz states that
Marcuses work can be divided into two spheres art-against-alienation and art-asalienation. Kellner largely agrees, and yet suggests, that splitting his work this way is what leads
people to misinterpret Marcuses work as tending towards withdrawal, or aestheticising politics.
Marcuses project was to develop perspectives and practices of liberation that combined critical
social theory, philosophy, radical politics, and reflections on art and cultural transformation (p.
3). Readers need to be able to see the totality of the Marcuse Project as the various
components sometimes stood in tension with each other (p. 3). E.g. art is both alienation and
against it all at once. The remainder of Kellners opening essay walks the reader through a his
interpretations of Marcuses chronologically presented essays that follow beginning with a
segment of Marcuses dissertation written in 1922 and ending with a posthumously published
interview (1984). Kellners opening essay not only provides an interpretation of Marcuses essays
within the book, as well as other major works (Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man, An
Essay on Liberation, and The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics); but
also provides useful historical and biographical information that sheds light onto the character of
Herbert Marcuse.
The first piece by Marcuse is the introduction to his dissertation. In this piece Marcuse begins to
grapple with art in a critical way, and the reader begins to see the seeds of what will be the
Marcuse project. In this essay classic Marcusean aesthetic tensions emerge: liberation/alienation
in art and artist; engagement for change by art in the world/escapism to idealized realms. There
are also hints at concepts later developed by Lacan, in which art is an attempt to find that which
is ultimately real and will completes the soul. Marcuse also clearly shows his reverence for
traditional artistic high culture, a theme that remains (with notable deviance) throughout his
writings on art.
In The Affirmative Character of Culture we are introduced to Marcuse the radical. Marcuse as
anti-(materialism, capitalism, positivism, affirmative culture). Here, he appears to embrace the
very notions of bohemia through a Hegelian mind-soul link, universal empathy, individuality and
his characterization of transcendence and the ideal; where transcendence is the good, the
beautiful and the true, the ideal is that which in its very unreality keeps alive the best desires of
men amidst a bad reality (p. 92). Marcuse does not articulate utopia or illusions as a particularly
bad thing, but dialectic in nature, asserting that while utopia may be an unattainable ideal, it is
not bad to have this. Furthermore, it is the illusions portrayed in art, which make utopia real,
even if never attainable.
The 1967 essay Art in the One-Dimensional Society outlines Marcuses core beliefs about art,
revolution and politics, as well as offering a rare tip-of-the-hat to popular culture in the name of
Bob Dylan (as the only revolutionary language left today (p. 113)). This essay illuminates
Marcuses understanding that art is a human need and a way of experiencing reality. Marcuse
states here that art can only be revolutionary when it refuses to become part of any

Establishment, including the revolutionary Establishment (p. 115). Furthermore, art is

essentially aesthetic; art may not be instrumentalized and maintain authenticity as art; art is
perpetual revolution. This essay also suggests that authentic art is a method for combating onedimensionality: that art is a technique, and that a technique is the opposite of technology (and
by extension the technological rationality that plagues the one-dimensional world); technique is
creative and liberatory, whereas technology is destroys and oppresses.
These lines of thought are continued in Society as a Work of Art and Art as a From of Reality
Marcuse says that reality is a creation of art, plus imagination. One way in which it accomplishes
this is through purification of society: Art purifies, it removes what is and remains unreconciled,
unjust and meaningless in life (p. 126). Furthermore, The utopian idea of an aesthetic reality
must be defended even in the face of ridicule, which it mus necessarily evoke today. For it may
well indicate the qualitative difference between freedom and the prevailing order (p. 128).
However, art is unable to be harnessed for change: art to be allowed to be art, in order for the
liberation and transformation of society to continue. In Art as a Form of Reality, Marcuse adds
that art can never become reality without cancelling itself out; and the so-called living art is, in
reality, a new society and this aesthetic vision is part of the revolution. Art is inherently other,
and it is through human development and liberation that art may be truly enjoyed.
In Art and Revolution, Marcuse illuminates the contradictions in art as a weapon of classconsciousness. Art can indeed become a weapon in the class struggle by promoting changes in
the prevailing consciousness. However, it cannot be created as a weapon, furthermore, by
virtue of being subversive, art is revolutionary and thereby associated with revolutionary
consciousness. Part of the problem with designing art to combat class, is that it cannot, due to
aesthetics, reflect the true reality of what is going on and still be art.
Lyric Poetry After Auschwitz is an unfinished manuscript in which Marcuse struggles with the
question of whether lyric poetry is possible after the world has born witness to the extreme
depravity and horrors of humanity and technology, as presented in the symbol of Auschwitz.
Through this struggle, the question is not fully answered, however, it is clear that Marcuse
believes art is still possible, and furthermore, it is necessary.
The final pieces in the book are interviews with Marcuse about his lifes work. In these
concluding pieces, we get a glimpse of Marcuses reflection on nearly 60 years of work in critical
aesthetics regarding: the essential otherness of art and how it is both more and less real;
whether there is revolutionary quality of rock and roll; and, the relationship between politics,
art, revolution, beauty, and any potential utility.
My major critique of Marcuse is his failure to do much in the way of modern musical and art
forms, such as rock and roll, aside from large-scale dismissal of the potential libratory and radical
potentials. What remains necessary is an explanation as to why, for example, Bob Dylan is a
legitimate and revolutionary artist/language of revolution, but all the other contemporaries of
Bob Dylan are basically inherently self-defeating? Why is Bob Dylan authentic, as opposed to
everyone else doing the same thing?
Kellners approach to Marcuse is historical, which provides brilliant critical insight into the
development of Marcuses thought as it continues to be refined and attempts handle the
creative contradictions of the aesthetic world. Unfortunately, Kellners opening essay provides

the reader with Kellners interpretation of Marcuse, before the reader has a chance to interpret
Marcuse. While the historical and biographical background was helpful, the book could have
benefited from a much shorter introductory essay accompanied by smaller interpretive essays
and critiques matched to Marcuses essays.
From <http://www.unrestmag.com/art-and-liberation/>

Nicole Callahan
Herbert Marcuse, The Affirmative Character of Culture
In The Affirmative Character of Culture Marcuse begins with original philosophy of antiquity,
where knowledge was said to function as the determinant of practice. Knowledge, in the hands
of Aristotle, morphed into a hierarchy of two forms: at the base a functional understanding of
everyday necessity, and at the summit philosophical knowledge. Marcuse broadens these forms
into the separate and somewhat oppositional forces of the necessary and the beautiful . These
elements and the rift between them are the fodder for his exploration of affirmative culture.
Through the entire chapter, Marcuse builds on these oppositional and complementary forces,
and molds them into a complex rubric of conceptual order.
He locates necessity in the material world of labor and matter, which is ruled by the mind and
characterized by immediacy and order. Simultaneously, he excludes philosophical knowledge
from the material world and instead relegates it to its own realm of beauty, sensuality, pleasure,
and happiness, which is ruled by the soul, characterized as ultimate, and manifested in art and in
history s theoretical discourse.
Marcuse begins with his definition of idealism, which says its basic demand is a transformation
and improvement of the material world congruent with the truth and knowledge of the Ideas .
He then draws upon Plato s program of reorganization and Aristotle s more historically minded
idealism, in order to introduce us to his own agenda of order, and his use of history: The history
of idealism is also the history of its coming to terms with the established order. (92)
He then moves on to look at historical forms and specific labor divisions to see how the
relationships between necessity and beauty, labor and enjoyment have changed and evolved.
The bourgeois epoch signaled the beginning of free trade, when people became both buyers and
sellers and the individual gained hypothetical equality, and unmediated access to society.
According to Marcuse, the cultural works produced become universal values that act upon all
individuals so as to bind everyone into a

Universally obligatory, eternally better and more valuable world that must be unconditionally
affirmed: a world essentially different from the factual world of the daily struggle for existence,
yet realizable by every individual for himself from within without any transformation of the
state of fact. (95)
\
Marcuse s model of bourgeois culture, excludes anything relating to the social process, and
separates civilization as a subordinate feature of society.
This pared down conception of culture, is what Marcuse calls affirmative culture.
Marcuse then goes on to identify the central problem with the bourgeois epoch philosophy,
which is that abstract equality is not actual equality. In an attempt to gloss over this
incongruence, the bourgeois responded to individual discontent by projecting the ideal of
humanity. Using art, they played upon humanity by elevating suffering and tragedy into eternal
forces. While this is generally manipulative more than anything else, Marcuse finds an element
of truth in the idea that the world can only be changed though destruction. He goes on to
assert that real gratification can only come if we work against idealist culture (100).
Where the philosophy of the bourgeois epoch harped on sorrow and suffering understood in the
mind, Marcuse goes on to show a historical example of converse elements not entertained in
bourgeois society. The enlightenment, he says, places emphasis on the body, on feeling, and on
the soul. The idea is to achieve happiness by embracing experiences, in contrast to the
bourgeois epoch, which did so by purging sorrow and distancing it from the individual.
In enlightenment thinking, Marcuse says that culture needs to be changed through the interior
of one s soul. The beauty of culture is an inner beauty. The soul is the real substance of the
individual. Here emotions reside, in the one realm untouchable by the external world.
Affirmative culture aligns itself with the soul, and not the mind. In his discussion of the soul, love
and friendship are evidence of Marcuse s functioning affirmative culture. Love, however,
requires an intimate level of socialization, which begins to erode the idea of the isolated soul and
leads to the breakdown of the individual. To Marcuse, this would require a surrender that can
only truly happen in death.
Marcuse then moves on to explain how art became constructed as truth through/because of its
emancipatory power, which then became a form of commodified pleasure or happiness. The
discussion turns to the idea that any satisfaction gleaned from art is in fact illusion. However,
beauty, unlike the soul, can be tangible, and in this quality it is uniquely positioned to traverse
the realms of illusion and reality. It is the power of illusion that Marcuse highlights:
This is the real miracle of affirmative culture the injection of cultural happiness into
unhappiness and the spiritualization of sensuality mitigate the misery and the sickness to a
healthy work capacity. (122)

Marcuse then presents his final example of the authoritarian and utilitarian cultures, where the
individual no longer has an internal identity, and affirmative culture no longer has a realm in
which it can reside.

QUESTIONS:
1) What does Marcuse mean when he says that the world cannot be changed piecemeal but
only through its destruction? (99) How (or is?) such a conception affirmative?
2) And a similar question What does he mean when he says that the ideal can only be
realized against the ideal? (100)
3) Marcuse talks about beauty as a central and integral feature of art and as a result
happiness/pleasure. What about art that dismisses beauty? Can it ever function in a way that
Marcuse imagined?
4) Marcuse says of affirmative culture: right is on its side (120) He frequently labels things as
good or bad . Is this justifiable? Do we all read the same understanding of right or wrong? How
does this relate to the concept of the politically correct?
From
<http://as.vanderbilt.edu/koepnick/AestheticNegativity_f06/materials/thoughtpapers/callahan_
marucse.htm>
Herbert Marcuse The Affirmative Character of Culture.
The most vexed question facing art in general and literature in particular today is that of social
relevance. Can literature address the problems facing us as a race, a society, a species? This
question poses many others, too often dismissed or ignored as being facile, too obvious or too
fundamentally potentially detrimental to the established notion that the artist / writer can
effectively take action on an issue, as Sartre called it, action by disclosure . What if Sartre was
wrong, and writing is not action at all, but inaction under the guise of action? Can literature
effect any change in the world of praxis? If it can, should it? On what authority does the writer
speak? How can one avoid works being allocated a programmatic social function within a state
system of domination?

Marcuses essay is concerned with culture and its affirmative character. This term refers to
bourgeois culture which designates itself as the realm of authentic values and self-contained
ends in opposition to the world of social utility and means [...] Its decisive characteristic is the
assertion of a universally obligatory, eternally better and more valuable world. Marcuses essay
is startling because it calls into question that which the liberal middle class prides itself on most:
its history of humanitarian intervention through the sphere of culture. Those who engage in this

10

way are venerated as saints: Swift, Blake, Dickens, whilst the names of actual activists are often
obscure. The problem with affirmative culture is that its values are not realisable in real life
they are not even meant to be realised by the society which manufactures cultural artefacts.

The essay begins by tracing the history of affirmative culture. It opens with the assumption that
the goal of philosophy is to find demonstrably correct guidance for living, but shows that from
Aristotle onwards, philosophy has implied a dichotomy between what is purely ideal on the one
hand, and everyday materialism on the other. Marcuse does have sympathy with the notion of
hermetic philosophical endeavour as the highest pursuit, as to invest ones happiness in the
material is to make oneself a slave effectively to chance: a complex and opaque set of
contiguous factors and circumstances. This striving for idealism, however, is at the root of the
problem. Even at its inception philosophy finds itself facing a contradiction: between purity of
thought, and common existence. Philosophy in striving for truth is accused of being an elitist and
escapist pursuit, requiring certain concrete conditions (education and free time; in short, wealth)
which must be inaccessible to most, and probably actually depend upon the exploitation of
others. A dangerous precedent is set, that philosophy takes care of the idealist search for truth,
whilst common material existence is left to its own devices. Social stratification takes place,
determined by the workings of the economy, in which philosophy cannot help but collude.
Abstract systems of thought are apparently sympathetic to mans plight, but idealism
surrenders the earth it is either useless or perhaps potentially counter-productive. A
philosophy that seeks to be practical (that of Hobbes, for example) is viewed with suspicion by
those its content threatens, and derision by pure philosophy, which cannot stomach its
compromises and non-metaphysical, unscientific nature.

Idealism is then probably shamefully aware of its own irrelevance to common life, but its
impractical, apolitical nature is not neutral. Adorno points out that the apolitical is always
political, in that it signals its own interest and comfort in the established conditions. Marcuse
states that the history of idealism is also the history of coming to terms with the established
order; elsewhere he implies that the radical doubt that rationalism takes as its starting point is a
symptom of philosophys shame at the state of the world. His repeated use of the loaded term
appeasement suggests criticism of the traditional separation of the intellectuals from the
rulers; a separation which should not suggest the impartiality which many assume it does.
Affirmative culture is absolutely tied to the development of the bourgeoisie. The capitalist
system corrupts human relations, reducing individuals to the status of commodities. It cannot
provide happiness, which is also reified into commodity. Happiness exists as a tool of the system;
it is unattainable, instead perpetually deferred as a means of selling products or keeping people
compliant. For Marcuse, happiness may come only in the struggle of necessity against idealism.
He thus implies that although it was understandable, it was regrettable that metaphysics came

to occupy a position so divorced from life. Precisely what Marcuse is advocating in its place,
however, is unclear, a point I shall return to below.

Marcuse views all cultural production as economically determined . This determinism does not
admit the distinction which most people might assume exists between high and low culture;
Marcuses target is not the kind of mass or popular culture which is commonly identified as
reflecting contemporary social values, but rather art which prides itself on its autonomy and
therefore imagines it can disinterestedly engage on socio-political issues and promote a set of
moral values. This disinterest or critical distance, Marcus argues, is fictitious. It is not the
creation of a realm which may be populated with Platonic ideals for the illumination of mankind,
rather a by-product of the historical evolution of the bourgeoisie, who have removed art from its
obviously ritualistic pre-bourgeois function only to have it serve a further ritual purpose, albeit
one which does not declare itself in fact is usually not even aware of itself. This purpose is the
maintenance of the social status quo, or the mobilisation of society towards the ends of states.
Art with a character of protest simply results in the appeasement of the mind, with no change
in the world of fact. In fact, the potential for such change is effectively reduced, as both the
producer and the consumer of the cultural object may consciously believe they have taken some
action because of the imaginative experience they have had. It follows from this that intellectual,
philosophical, and artistic protest in fact maintains the conditions it ostensibly protests against.
This should not be a surprise to us, however, for it is unthinkable that the ruling class system
would allow the production of anything which would really threaten its own interests: only in art
can bourgeois society tolerate its own ideals, because what occurs in art occurs with no
obligation.

The manner of affirmative culture is not dissimilar to that of religion, in its reliance on the
Kantian notion that moral values are pre-existing and their existence can be somehow proved or
inferred by reason. According to Marcuse, this secular striving for an abstract set of moral values
has a tranquilising effect which accords with the capitalist stress on deferment of happiness; if
moral truth or justice may be attained in the future this potentially legitimises present suffering
in that cause. In Hegel as in Christianity, present man is a stoic, prepared to give up the present
to the future. History is presented as the prehistory of the coming future in which ideals will be
somehow made tangible. But the sacrifice required is absolutely not a worthwhile one: Marcuse
in 1937 is already writing from a point of disillusion with the aims of Enlightenment, and as a
German Jew is well placed to see the inevitable blurring together of utopianism and fascism.

Bourgeois culture must restrict the attainment of freedom to art, as it cannot allow it in life.
Similarly, sensual gratification must occur only through art (Marcuse goes as far as comparing art

11

to a kind of brothel, in which people can receive regulated exposure to beauty). This is the new
ritual function of art: the displacement and playing out of liberal ideas from life. Characters in
novels find solace in self-awareness. Generally, thinking characters are socially isolated, implying
that any meaningful solidarity that might result in action is impossible, or blighted by
compromise of divergent philosophies. The romantic subject finds his archetype in Hamlet,
which serves as an apt dramatisation of the problem: the man so constrained by the potential
roles suggested to him by his over-developed intellect that he is incapable of choosing any of
them. Hamlet also includes a meta-textual representation of the ineffectiveness of art as
prompting action. Hamlet plans the play as a means of definitely exposing Claudios guilt, and he
is euphoric after it apparently succeeds in this. However, he again gives himself up to
prevarication and vacillation, and we begin to suspect that the play itself may have been a
substitute for, rather than a spur to, action.

Whilst idealist philosophy is labelled affirmative by Marcuse, he concedes that it is at least on

the correct side, in that it espouses causes which would be of benefit if they could be
transformed into fact. He is harsher on positivist philosophies, which he says imply that things
must be the way they are. This area is not fully dealt with in the essay, despite its raising many
important issues. A positivist philosophy such as biological determinism may imply things are the
way they are because of a cause, but in its pure form it may neither endorse nor refute this
cause. As long as its truths are correct, and it has no choice but to tell them, it must exist in the
form it does, irrespective of social consequences. Also, it is not clear precisely how determinate
Marcuses own Marxist economic determinism is, or what implied natural human relations may
be possible without it. Is Marxist criticism itself a form which may fulfil a function of consolation
for would be revolutionaries? How can one avoid its appropriation by means-justifying state
systems? Marcuse neither poses nor implies answers to these questions within his essay, but a
possible response might be that of Adorno, who advocates the necessity of shifting onus onto
the reception of art rather than the production; every reader must become a critic capable of
deconstructing the methods of a work and disinterestedly viewing it as part of a contextualised
totality of cultural production. Marcuse therefore pre-empts the postmodern practice of
carrying out this deconstruction within the work itself, perhaps therefore implicitly endorsing
certain strands of artistic production which attempt to address the issues with which he is
concerned. Marcuse, however, gives few examples of non-affirmative culture (those which are
given are justified only in a vague way, as sincere expressions of emotions with no specific object
the music of Beethoven and Mozart are cited), but does talk of the hard truth of theory as a
preferable, reactive response to culture embedded in and compromised by historical
development. Theory and criticism attempts to stand apart from history. Non-affirmative
culture, Marcuse says, would be unrecognisable as culture because it would be separate from
class interests. What this would mean in effect is impossible to gauge, Marcuse concedes man
liberate from capitalism and the interests of nations is unthinkable.

Marcuse devotes space to exemplifying that philosophers including Kant and Hegel have
effectively dismissed the concept of the soul, yet insists that literature insists on an outmoded
conception of soul that which is not mind. Religion is damned in the essay as excusing, via
the notion of the freedom of the poeticised soul, the poverty, martyrdom, and bondage of
the body , so why does supposedly enlightened art rely on this anachronistic conception of soul
to such an extent? The answer is because soul is a convenient way of isolating values in the
individual and away from life. Souls, once imbued with whichever poeticised concepts the ruling
class have use of, can easily be appropriated (we need only think of Stalins description of artists
as engineers of souls). The soul in art is a preserve of constant, abstract values - in order to
achieve its effect, which occurs through the cultural education of individuals. To do this, it
necessarily calls into existence concepts such as truth, falsehood, justice, injustice. The action of
literature proves the existence of these concepts, as there must be criteria against which
characters may be judged, if the didactic effect of the work is to be achieved. Demagogues
address their speeches to the soul; the soulful are the most compliant citizens - as their revolt
takes no coherent form. They are the products of affirmative culture; the soul is its invention.
The supposedly objective, timeless values or concepts of the soul (for example, truth), like the
soul itself, do not necessarily exist; they are subjective constructs which themselves emanate
from power relations. Marcuse follows Nietzsche in claiming that which we may assume to be
self-evident moral values are in fact the residue of systems of bourgeois domination. The soul
takes flight at the hard truth of theory.

Affirmative culture therefore obscures the real, chaotic conditions of life via its insistence that
problems can be overcome with reference to moral coda. What is more unclear is the extent of
the deliberateness of this obscurity. Most producers of affirmative culture are acting in good
faith, but are unable to transcend their place in the capitalist system. Marcuse seems to state on
the one hand that the system is absolutely determinate, but on the other hand the very
existence of his argument suggests it is possible to transcend this system. Marx was able to
explain the existence of anti-capitalism by explaining capitalism as a necessary stage of
development, which would be supplanted. Marcuse is unable to do this without providing the
function of philosophical consolation deferred to futurity, which he accuses idealist and
progressive philosophy of doing.

Marcuses work is highly relevent today. The enlightenment project has failed. There is no preexisting realm of abstract values; truth and justice alike are constructs. Worse still, they are
constructs which have been engineered by a bourgeois mentality in order to serve its own
convenience. What we call morality is actually the preservation (or reinforcement) of the
bourgeois status quo, just as charity is a function of individualism and apology is a function of
poor manners. A century of mass technological slaughters, each undertaken according to some

12

means-justifying end or other has offered proof of our failure. The self itself is revealed as a
construct, and it is constructed through text: language speaks us. It is our textual experiences
which locate us within the symbolic social order, and this order delineates our possibilities. We
have a mania for text, all of which prompts and is prompted by our urge to commit ourselves
into the hands of further ideological myths. These texts have neither autonomy nor critical
distance; they are manifestations of the economic structure in which we exist. And with the all
pervasive expanse of capitalism into even those few enclaves which art held as its last refuges
(nature; the unconscious), our relations are further reduced. In fact, art is responsible for
compromising the security of these areas by romanticising them; romanticisation idealisation
through art - is the perfect treatment before corporate branding occurs. We are reminded of
Marcuses poeticised soul, which can then be harnessed in the cause of oppression, it can do
honour to a bad cause .

What is especially interesting about Marcuses work is its profound opposition to the
mainstream assumptions which exist today, even within academic communities, about the
potential of artists to engage in a meaningful way on social issues. A large proportion of books
sold ostensibly address social or political issues. Many of these are novels written by respected
writers and check the various boxes of modernist or postmodernist cultural production. There is
a glut of novels (after Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea) that offer a revision of history from hitherto
neglected class, racial or gender subjectivities. There are also those which revert to and subvert
genre forms in order to highlight our cultural prejudices. Again, there are those which project
dystopian visions, which should serve as warnings to us. And there are writers who attempt a
formal subjective realism as a means of highlighting the inauthenticity of our simulacra
populated times.

It might be argued that literature which really advocates social change falls into two categories:
that which operates by narrowing perception (most didactic literature, including both protest
and state sanctioned art, falls into this first category) and that which operates by widening it. For
didactic literature, authorial intention is paramount; it must be able to have its intended effect
on its audience, and it mobilises an army of rhetorical devices in this cause. It therefore makes
use of its audience, unashamedly sending them into battle on a diet of propaganda (always
justified on the basis that it is counter-propaganda). It operates on the level of allegory, its real
meaning must be constructed with reference to data outside of itself. We are suspicious of such
texts when they are produced by or for a dominant ideology. This is obvious in the case of
Gorkys work for the USSR, but perhaps less obvious when a work endorses a more nebulous
ideology capitalism indirectly. The capitalist system is not even indirectly the object of the
work, but is its pervasive context. It lubricates the happenings of the work and its supposed
values form a comfortingly coherent moral backdrop to the action. Works of protest tend to be
taken more seriously than those which endorse a system. But these are potentially equally

problematic, necessarily calling constructions such as good, truth and justice into being. They
also depend upon their contexts, without which they become appropriable by those with
ulterior motives.

Whilst most of us might be sophisticated enough to reject state sanctioned literature, as

advocated, for example, by the Soviet regime, the dominant novel form is still for a kind of
Lukcsian realism that is recognisably real and so accessible for an ordinary reader, which
contains a coded blueprint for social improvement, or castigates negative traits in much the
manner of Greek tragedy. This realism may be given a kind of zeitgeist glossing (the non-linear
novel which, however, is reassembled by the reader into a linear structure, and thus reinforcing
the notion of linear time rather than challenging it), our character sympathies and antipathies
may be aggregated or directed at extra-human determinate factors, but there is clearly still a
preferred reading which is there for the inference.

It is possible that the second category of non-propaganda protest literature can avoid some of
these problems. This art seeks to operate outside of history, and tends to attempt its own
criticism or deconstruction, to signal itself as a textual construct. These texts signal within their
form (via such devices as, in the case of Kafka, the actualised metaphor or the inviting of clashing
interpretations) that they are texts which may be interpreted, but this open ended exegesis is
not a means to an end but an end in itself; the onus is shifted onto the activity of the reader as
critique, rather than passive (perhaps flattered by his success in the face of difficult decoding,
but nonetheless passive) decoder of discourse or message. As I said above, Marcuse and
Adornos stress on the critical activity of the reader contributes to the formal justification for this
literature.

The potential of this (expressionist) strand of literature for achieving anything is however
diminished by several factors:
1. Its tools have become common currency, and so are rather blunted.
2. It is inaccessible to most readers, or open to a unitary, and therefore mistaken interpretation.
3. By its nature, it cannot itself advocate action, but merely negates the prompts of others.
4. It is compromised by its commodity status.

13

5. It takes time to read, and its reading is a mental substitute for action. It is still almost the
antithesis of action.

It is interesting to consider whether it is possible for artistic forms to accommodate Marcuses

criticisms, or whether it is not necessary (perhaps, for the reasons given above, it is futile) for
literature to make this effort, when as long as readers are sophisticated enough, they will be
able to see beyond the intentions of a text and read outside of their own cultural and situational
prejudices. It is interesting also to consider exactly what common experience now means.
Todays class structure is very different to that of fifty years ago. It is globalised, meaning that it
is quite possible for many in the West to live without seeing the conditions under which the
world proletariat exist. In developed economies, social conditions for the poor have undoubtedly
drastically improved. It is tempting to claim this improvement as the result of the culmination of
libertarian thought, in fact it is more likely to be a result of the shifting pattern of location of
primary industry away from its owners. Cultural production is stratified; intellectuals are still
largely unconcerned with necessity, the middle class are content with realism, and the rest
have ready access to a host of depraved entertainments. The middle class have a huge appetite
for ostensibly engaged culture (which emerges in all forms at all cultural levels, from serious
novels to comic relief appeals) but now as then, it is practically impossible to measure or even
estimate any effect it may have. Does reporting on a food crisis in Africa ultimately have any
effect on policy? Does going to see the global warming film An Inconvenient Truth make people
significantly alter their environment-damaging behaviour? The essay condemns the utilitarian
principle still the basis on which political-ethical decisions are made, as a further by-product of
capitalism; it might be described as the amount of good we can afford. This again has enormous
implications, which are left undiscussed. Marcuse may have valorised a critical, activist stance.
This stance has now become a middle class posture, which capitalism is only to happy to exploit.
Punk culture is mainstream and big business, rebellion is viewed as a necessary stage on the
route to acquiescence in global societys entrenched capitalist mechanisms, carbon emissions
are offset according to opportunist systems result in more pollution being released, whilst the
offsetters are happily assuaged in the illusion that the issue has been dealt with. And finally,
those state ideologies which have realised that a modicum of protest is actually an appeasing
release of pressure are the longest lived, most pervasive, and therefore most repressive.
From <http://golyadkin.blogspot.com.br/2011/01/herbert-marcuse-affirmative-character.html>
2. The Aesthetic Dimension
The bookends of Marcuse's literary, philosophical, and political life are both works on aesthetics.
In 1922 he completed a doctoral dissertation entitled Der deutsche Knstlerroman (The German
Artist-Novel). In 1978, one year before his death he published The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward
A Critique of Marxist Aesthetics. Between these two works are several small works on aesthetics.
However, even the works that do not deal directly with aesthetics still contain (we might say) an

aesthetic dimension. It is not possible to discuss the role of aesthetics in all of Marcuse's works.
Therefore, the role of aesthetics in Marcuse's critical theory in general will be discussed. There
are three key works on aesthetics which were written at different times that reveal the overall
point of Marcuse's aesthetic theory.
Even in his youth, Marcuse had a love for the classics of German and world literature (Marcuse
2007a: 4). After serving military duty and after his brief period of political engagement Marcuse
returned to his literary studies. However, in the aftermath of his reading of Marxism, Marcuse's
literary studies had a decisive political orientation. He was interested in the revolutionary and
transformative function of art.
This turn to art and literature was a return to an earlier love with a new mission. This new
mission was of course inspired by his encounter with Marxism and its crisis. The turn toward
literature was also a quest for revolutionary subjectivity. Put another way, from the beginning to
the end of his literary career Marcuse looked for spaces of a critical consciousness that had not
been completely whittled down by the oppressive and repressive forces of capitalism.
Revolution and social change demands a space for thought and action that make resistance to
the status quo possible. Well before he began to use the term the Great Refusal, he was in
search of such.
In his dissertation of 1922, The German Artist-Novel, the artist represents a form of radical
subjectivity. In this work Marcuse makes a distinction between epic poetry and the novel. Epic
poetry deals with the origin and development of a people and culture while the novel does not
focus on the form of life of a people and their development, but rather, on a sense of longing
and striving (Marcuse 2007a: 72). The novel indicates alienation from social life. The details of
Marcuse's argument will not be addressed here. The point is to show that there is a certain
orientation of thought in Marcuse's 1922 dissertation that is motivated by his encounter with
Marxism and will stay with him as his project becomes more philosophical. In short, the artist
experiences a gap between the ideal and the real. This ability to entertain, at least theoretically,
an ideal form of existence for humanity, while at the same time living in far less than ideal
conditions produces a sense of alienation in the artist. This alienation becomes the catalyst for
social change. This function of art stays with Marcuse and will be developed further as he
engages psychoanalysis and philosophy.
As a dialectical thinker, Marcuse was also able to see both sides of the coin. That is, while art
embodied revolutionary potential, it was also produced, interpreted, and distributed in a
repressive society. In an oppressive/repressive society the forces of liberation and the forces of
domination do not develop in isolation from each other. Instead, they develop in a dialectical
relationship where one produces the conditions for the other. This can be seen throughout
almost all of Marcuse's writings and will be pointed out at different points in this essay. The task
here is to take a look at how this dialectic of liberation and domination occurs within the context
of Marcuse's aesthetic theory. This should not be taken to mean that there will never be a point
in time when human beings are liberated from the forces of domination. This simply means that
if an individual group seeks liberation, their analysis or critique of society must come to terms
with how things actually work at that moment in that society if any form of liberation is possible.
As Marcuse saw it, there is a form of ideology that serves domination and creates the conditions

14

for liberation at the same time. This will be discussed later. Also, there is a form of liberation that
lends itself to be co-opted by the forces of domination.
Just as art embodied the potential for liberation and the formation of radical subjectivity, it was
also capable of being taken up by systems of domination and used to further or maintain
domination. This is the theme of Marcuse's 1937 essay The Affirmative Character of Culture.
Culture, which is the domain of art, develops in tension with the overall structure of a given
society. The values and ideal produced by culture calls for the transcending of oppressive social
reality. Culture separates itself from the social order. That is, the social realm or civilization is
characterized by labor, the working day, the realm of necessity, operational thought, etc
(Marcuse 1965: 16). This is the realm of real material and social relations as well as the struggle
for existence. The social realm or civilization is characterized by intellectual work, leisure, nonoperational thought, freedom, (Marcuse 1965: 16). The freedom to think and reflect that is
made possible at the level of culture makes it possible to construct value and ideals that pose a
challenge to the social order. This is the emancipatory function of art. However, art itself does
not bring about liberation it must be translated into political activity. Nevertheless, art is
important here because it opens up the space for thinking that may then produce revolution.
The separation between culture and society does not suggest a flight from social reality. Instead,
it represents an alien or critical space within social reality. The ideals produced by culture must
work within society as transformative ideas. In The Affirmative Character of Culture Marcuse,
in good dialectical fashion, shows how culture separates itself from society or civilization and
creates the space for critical thought and social change but then succumbs to the oppressive
demands of bourgeois society. It does this by separating culture from the everyday world
(Marcuse 2007a: 23). In affirmative culture art becomes the object of spiritual contemplation.
The demand for happiness in the real world is abandoned for an internal form of happiness, the
happiness of the soul. Hence, bourgeois culture creates an interior of the human being where
the highest ideals of culture can be realized. This inner transformation does not demand an
external transformation of the real world and its material conditions.
In such a society the cultivation of the soul becomes an important part of one's education. The
belief that the soul is more important than the body and material needs leads to political
resignation insofar as freedom becomes internal. The soul takes flight at the hard truth of
theory, which points up the necessity of changing as impoverished form of existence (Marcuse
2007b: 222). Hence, the soul accepts the facts of its material existence without fighting to
change these facts. Affirmative culture with its idea of the soul has used art to put radical
subjectivity under erasure.
In his last book The Aesthetic Dimension (1978) Marcuse continues his attempt to rescue the
radical transformative nature of art. In this text he takes a polemical stance against the
problematic interpretation of the function of art by orthodox Marxists. These Marxists claimed
that only proletarian art could be revolutionary. Marcuse attempts to establish the revolutionary
potential of all art by establishing the autonomy of authentic art. Marcuse states: It seems that
art as art expresses a truth, an experience, a necessity which, although not in the domain of
radical praxis, are nevertheless essential components of revolution (Marcuse 1978: 1). It is the
experience that art tries to express that Marcuse will focus on and it is this which separates him
from orthodox Marxist.

It must be remembered that for Marcuse and the Frankfurt School there was no evidence that
the proletariat would rise up against their oppressors. In addition to developing theories that
disclosed the social and psychological mechanisms at work in society that made the proletariat
complicit in their own domination, Marcuse saw possibilities for revolution in multiple places.
Some of this will be discussed later. The student revolts of the 1960s confirmed much of the
direction of Marcuse's critical theory form early on. That is, the need for social change includes
class struggle but cannot be reduced to class struggle. There is a multiplicity of social groups in
our society that seek social change for various reasons. There are multiple forms of oppression
and repression that make revolution desirable. Hence, the form of art produced, and its
revolutionary vision may be determined by a multiplicity of oppressed/repressed subject
positions.
Orthodox Marxism focused on the proletariat by excluding all other possible sites for revolution.
For this reason, Orthodox Marxism itself becomes a form of ideology and produces a reified
state of affairs. In orthodox Marxist aesthetics
The subjectivity of individuals, their own consciousness and unconscious tends to be
dissolved into class consciousness. Thereby, a major prerequisite of revolution is
minimized, namely, the fact that the need for radical change must be rooted in the
subjectivity of individuals themselves, in their intelligence, and their passions, their drives
and their goals. (Marcuse 1978: 34)
In orthodox Marxism, radical subjectivity was reduced to one social group, the proletariat.
Marcuse greatly expands the space where radical subjectivity can emerge. Marcuse argues that
liberating subjectivity constitutes itself in the inner history of the individuals (Marcuse 1978:
5). Each subject as distinct from other subjects represents a particular subject position. For
example; white female, working class, mother of two, born in the mid-west, etc. However, with
each distinct feature of the individual subject corresponds a structural position. That is, in a
given society gender, race, class, level of education etc, are interpreted in certain ways.
Experiences and the opportunities provided by them are often affected by subject and structural
position and produce what Marcuse calls the inner history of the individual (Marcuse 1978: 5).
Given that there are many subject positions that are positions of repression and
dehumanization, radical subjectivity and art may come from any of these positions. Economic
class is just one structural position among many. Hence, it is not only the proletariat who may
have an interest in social change.
From <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcuse/>

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