The Theoretical Themes Of Herbert Marcuse 's Eros And Civilisation Essay

After reading “What we have to lose” By Theodore Dalrymple, I can conclude that it is a defense of civilization from barbarism. Dalrymple puts forward his main arguments which many come from his own experience with details and examples. Also, the article helps convey to the reader that the greatest threat to our great society comes from within. Dalrymple's article helped enlighten me that today's society has grown so used to civilization that it seems impossible to conceive that it is actually a delicate thing. Dalrymple’s article gives us an important lesson that even though we have countless amount of resources and technology in today's world, society is not unconquerable, and it can vanish.

There are a number of questions that will be discussed in this essay such as, what do sociologists mean when they refer to something as ‘matter’? What is a ‘social

He comes to reason that the advancement of each, if not the same procedure connected to various types of item, then they are at any rate comparable. His examination of the relationship in the middle of development and the individual permits him to take note of that the individual tries to serve itself while in the meantime serving progress, generally as human advancement looks to make solidarity among people while propagating its own self. Freud additionally comes to close through his examination that the social advancement of the individual and the social improvement of the gathering are constantly interlocked. His most significant of conclusions is that both the brain and development battle in the middle of Eros and

Marx’s conception of society has its grounds in a theory of action: as he put it, human beings make their own history. But Marx goes on to argue that they do this is circumstances which are not of their own choosing, and he develops an analysis of how action is organized by these circumstances as material conditions of production which structure and determine the social relationship that are primarily generated by the particular material forces of production utilized, which include not only raw materials but also the technology which is used to extract and work them into products (Jenks 15).

In retrospect of his belief that society is controlled by this idea, the ladder still holds true in today’s American culture. In Marx’s mind, the reality of the abortion era is essentially a result of continuous change in terms of the normal state of society. Traditionally, this culture has been quite conservative in relation to family values but the legalization of abortion changes this drastically and mirrors the pessimistic views of society held by conflict theorists like Marx.

Marcuse critiqued capitalist social structures, as well as the impositions made on human freedom expression and joy. He expressed how we may see ourselves as free, but we are really living in a false democracy and false sense of freedom which subtly masks an authoritarian rule. In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, historical materialism and entertainment culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control. These modern cultures strictly divide, brainwash and influence the way we should live. They really do not represent the real world. Specifically the entertainment business. Entertainers live their millionaire life behind a wall and totally forget and ignore the common folks. They are constantly selling us things we cannot afford, how thin we should

The themes outlined in Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilisation and One Dimensional Man have roots in both Marx’s political economic theory and Freud’s psychology. In explaining the existence of society, Marcuse shows how the motivations of the individual maintain the social world, but are also shaped by structural forces. Through an extension of Marx’s argument and the application of Freud’s psychology, Marcuse explains how the creation of the one-dimensional man maintains social order and suppresses civil unrest. Yet, the revolution Marx envisages could be a possibility, once liberated from one-dimensional thought. Both micro- and macro-social analysis is used by Marcuse, without an attempt to create a meta-theory. Providing a Marxist critique of society, Marcuse argues for human choice and compliance within existing social structures.

“We are left alone, without excuse. This is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free” (Sartre 32). Radical freedom and responsibility is the central notion of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy. However, Sartre himself raises objections about his philosophy, but he overcomes these obvious objections. In this paper I will argue that man creates their own essence through their choices and that our values and choices are important because they allow man to be free and create their own existence. I will first do this by explaining Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote, then by thoroughly stating Sartre’s theory, and then by opposing objections raised against Sartre’s theory.

The sociological imagination raises three core questions. Firstly, what is the structure of the society being studied? Secondly, what relevance does its context in history have? And thirdly, how does it influence and shape those within it? (Mills, 1959: 6-7). The consideration of these questions enables the greatest understanding of the relationship between society and an individual’s position and circumstance, and is what makes the concept sociological.

Freud’s view of civilization emerges from his understanding of the struggle between Eros and Death. Freud expresses the existence of two contrary instincts, Eros and Death, via starting from the speculations on the beginning of life and biological parallels. While Eros preserves the living substance and joins it into larger units, such as societies, Death dissolves these units and brings them back to their primeval state. The death drives appear to be regressive, striving for a return to a less differentiated, less organized state of tensionlessness. In contrast, Eros (which embraces sexual and life-preserving instincts) is progressive in seeking ever more differentiated forms of organized life and even the widening of differences in it

This essay argues that the propositions put forth by Karl Marx in his political essay “Estranged Labour” presents a nuanced and logically sounder theory behind his concept of human nature than Hobbes does in his essay “The natural condition of Mankind”. Marx’s perception was that man’s labour is intrinsically a part of his human nature, and the alienation of this labour drastically negates what it means to be man. Whereas Thomas Hobbes presents that man’s natural state is one of conflict, and that this conflict can only be overcome through rules set forth by the sovereign, only then can men live in peace with each other.

The works of two philosophers Machiavelli’s The Prince and Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy were revolutionary in terms of setting knowledge on new foundations. In the literary work The Prince Machiavelli details the guidelines that leaders should adhere to in order to maintain stability in their controlled lands by accurately summarizing the nature of humans as being ungrateful, vain, and selfish individuals. While Descartes in his work Meditations on First Philosophy ventures on a journey to decipher the relationship between his body and mind and what in actuality exists. Both philosophers embark on a journey to comprehend and uncover the truth.

It was by doing this that the disciplinary self was created - “discipline ‘makes’ individuals”, a phenomenon of the disciplinary era (1977, p.170). Our movement through the institutions defined our individualisation; normalising, examining and hierarchically observing each member of society (Foucault, 1977) - our sense of self emerged from their intersections. In Postcript on the Societies of Control (1992), Deleuze states the S.O.D have made way for the S.O.C. He mainly attributes this shift to the environments of “enclosure” (1992, p.4) – the institutions – beginning to crumble, and the factory – a typical workplace on the S.O.D – being replaced by the corporation (1992). In the S.O.D Foucault claimed that the soldier can be moulded like “a formless clay” (1977, p.135) – these rigid institutions formed us. Now without these institutions we lose this mould, and therefore our concept of the ‘self’. Imagine if instead of pushing clay into a mould we placed it on a desk; it would be shapeless and adaptable. This according to Deleuze is a defining characteristic of the S.O.C; flexibility in our structures moving us from moulds to “modulations” (1992, p.4). These modulations are “a self-deforming cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other” (1992, p.4). Instead of experiencing these rigid disciplines, we are left in this soft, malleable environment, which constantly

As poststructuralism would have it, human consciousness is constructed discursively. Our subjectivity is constructed by the shifting discourses of power which endlessly speak through us, situating us here and there in particular positions and relations. In these terms we are not the authors of ourselves. We do not construct our identities, we have it written for us; the subject cannot be sovereign over the construction of selfhood. Instead the subject is decentered, in that its consciousness is always being constructed from positions outside of itself. It follows then that the individual is not a transparent representation of the self but an effect of discourse. Spivak argues that surprisingly for these figures, when Foucault and Deleuze talks about oppressed groups such as the working classes they fall back into precisely these uncritical notions of ‘sovereign subjects’ by restoring to them a fully centred consciousness. In addition they also assume that the writing of intellectuals such as themselves can serve as a transparent medium through which the voices of the oppressed can be represented. The intellectual is cast as a reliable mediator for the voices of the oppressed, a mothpiece through which the oppressed can clearly speak.

Herbert Marcuse, a Frankfurt philosopher, wrote his book One-Dimensional Man in the 1960’s during at the height of the Cold War. The book One Dimensional Man was both influential and highly critical of modern industrial capitalism and as Marcuse believed, its subsequent exploitation of people and nature, as well as its contribution to modern consumer culture and new forms of social control. One Dimensional Man offers an analysis of the new state of consumerism during the 1960’s through a critical lens. This essay will focus on One Dimensional Man as I explore his view that technological development, alienated labour and consumerism have distorted affluent societies in creating false needs as well as perpetuating unfairness through various