Science and the Revenge of Nature: Marcuse and Habermas by C. Fred Alford

By C. Fred Alford

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How Marcuse combines these elements is a major theme of the next two chapters.  Rather, science and technology do the real work—they conform to the "law of the thing"—so man can realize his freedom beyond this domain.  However, one of the most fundamental answers is given by Alfred Schmidt, though he is not referring to Marcuse's work, but to characteristics of utopian thought in general.  The existentialist writers, including Sartre and Heidegger, who have been concerned with the quest for authenticity, the shedding of the repressive "ready made" life that society shackles us with in favor of true spontaneity.

His rules, and not those of the object, prevail.  How these themes interact is explained below.  Though Marcuse does not pursue this point in this essay, one can read Eros and Civilization (1954) as an attempt to develop this notion, as will be shown in the next chapter.  It is not merely that Marcuse "ontologizes" the concept of labor; rather, he transforms the concept itself.  How Marcuse combines these elements is a major theme of the next two chapters.  Rather, science and technology do the real work—they conform to the "law of the thing"—so man can realize his freedom beyond this domain.

Only a perspective that addresses what Marcuse regards as the ultimate shackle on authentic human spontaneity—a natural world that gives up its fruits unwillingly—captures the multi­dimensionality of Marcuse's concept of freedom.  Marcuse links human freedom and fulfillment to the most ambitious scientific and technological project imaginable: total automation.  The outcome is that erotic impulses that would be able to "bind" aggression by directing potentially aggressive energy toward social tasks are themselves weakened, and so require even higher levels of repression to control agression, which weakens eros still further.

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