# Marcuse: Eros and Civilization



## RamistThomist (Oct 20, 2017)

Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization.

Reworks Freud’s categories from the individual to society. To paraphrase Henry van Til, Marcuse is Freud externalized. There is a dialectic between the Eros principle and the Thanatos principle. In order for civilization to thrive, it has to suppress the libido, the free drive. Freud identifies civilization with repression.

While much of the book is neo-Marxist sorcery (and about as intelligible as such), it does show a shift from earlier Marxist scripts. Instead of the enemy being Christian Western Capitalist Man, the enemy is now Christian Western Man in general. While Marx used the language of institutional oppression and systemic structures, it wasn't the most obvious theme. Now it is with his disciples.

The Cultural Marxist end-game is a “non-repressive civilization” (Marcuse 5). “The very achievements of repression seem to create the preconditions for the gradual abolition of repression.”

UNDER THE RULE OF THE REALITY PRINCIPLE

The Hidden Trend in Psychoanalysis

“The reality principle materializes in a system of institutions” (15). In other words, our continually suppressing the Eros-drive reshapes our very psychology which is further instantiated in institutions. Yet this pleasure principle remains latent in civilization.

“As cognition gives way to re-cognition, the forbidden images and impulses of childhood begin to tell the truth that reason denies” (19). Freud’s “return of the repressed in history:” we re-experience traumatic events in our history and this leads to future liberation.

*The Origin of the Repressed Individual*

Man experiences a dialectical conflict between the “life instinct” (Eros) and the death instinct (Thanatos). Key argument: man’s primary mental processes are sustained by the life principle, which is the pleasure principle. The problem: how can man continue in civilization if civilization is a suppressing of this life principle?

New concept of the person:

Id: oldest and largest layer of the person. Free from social forms.

Ego: a part of the id. Influenced by external world. Mediates between id and external world (30). Representation. It is the reality principle making an unending series of detours away from Thanatos.

Superego: established morality. The strictures that society via the ego placed have now become the conscience, sense of guilt.

Marcuse: domination is exercised by a particular group of individuals in order [for them] to sustain and enhance [themselves] in a privileged position. Such domination does not exclude technical, material, and intellectual progress, but only as an unavoidable by-product while preserving irrational scarcity, want, and constraint. (33–34)

*The Dialectic of Civilization*

Key argument: correlation between progress and “guilty feeling” (78). Civilization will be violent in its structure because civilization is simply an expanding of the Father-figure, against whom the sons will always war.

Civilization = sublimation, which is desexualization (83). Marcuse (or Freud, it’s not always clear who is talking) says that culture weakens Eros/sex, which weakens life. At the bottom of page 83, however, Marcuse does criticize this line of thought.

Key argument: technology allows man to increase output while minimizing input, thus freeing “time” for Eros. In other words, in previous eras an emphasis on Eros meant denying civilization, but now with technology we can emphasize Eros while promoting civilization (93).

But the “Regime” (for lack of a better word) won’t allow this to continue uncontrolled, for if man is utterly free, then he is free from external control. How will the Regime do this? Possibly by technology, since technology can abolish both the individual and the “social function of the family” (96).

Since technology has negated the family, who is the new father-figure? The corporo-capitalist bureaucracy. Marcuse notes, “Social control and cohesion are strong enough to protect the whole from direct aggression, but not strong enough to eliminate the accumulated aggressiveness” (101).

*Philosophical Interlude*

Key argument: Freud’s theory contains ontological implications (107). 

Towards the end of the Enlightenment, the ego becomes a “subject against an object” (109). Thus, it will experience “being” antagonistically. It opposes the Greek idea of Logos, which orders and classifies reality.” In other words, it imposes an order onto reality.

Marcuse correctly recognizes that any form of Logos-ontology necessarily leads back to the nous theos, mind of God. Hegel sees the movement of Logos as dominating reason but also overcoming this domination (113). Hegel negates alienation and the circle closes in repose.


Nodal points: Marcuse employs this timely phrase to show certain limitations in the history of Western philosophy. 

Ascending Curve (becoming) vs. Closed Circle (stasis, rest)


Progress (capitalism) vs. Eternal Return (Nietzsche)


Logic of Domination vs. Will to Gratification


Logos-as-Being vs. Will-and-Joy

Key argument: Man’s history represents a splitting between the fantasy principle and the reason-principle (142). Man has a divided ego. For Marcuse aesthetics is self-defeating. If art is committed to form, then it is negated for it cannot then pursue freedom. Form = negation. (Comment: This is just stupid. This is why post-Marxist art is often vile and p0rnographic).

Marcuse wants to use Kant and Schiller’s aesthetic to base a non-repressive civilization, one that contains a new rationality-principle. But here is the problem: Marcuse claims to unify art with reason, but most of his discussion (184-185) seems like an antagonism between the two. For Marcuse sees art-beauty as arising from the dark, latent forces.

Combine this with the Eroticization of society where one frees the libido from non-repressive civilization, and you have the nightmare which is modern art.

*Conclusion and Criticism*
Pros

(1) Marcuse has put his finger on the tendency of modern industrial world to alienate workers, and this alienation often moves in dialectical ways.

Criticisms

(1) It should be evident now how modern society uses Marcuse's categories (and probably his concepts) in its social discourse. Race, Gender, Class are now weapons to marginalize the other. Systems, not individual acting man, now oppress.

(1.1) Marcuse and Cultural Marxism are simply too powerful to fight by adopting their worldview. Hegelian logic is an acid-drip.

(2) As it stands Freud’s apparent definition of freedom is untenable: freedom from authority (be it ego or society) to pursue the id. Such chaos would necessarily reduce to anarchy, which is no freedom at all. How far does Marcuse go with this? I can sense he rejects (correctly) Freud on the personal level but applies him on the social level.


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