Herbert Marcuse on the Frankfurt School: Section 2 of 5

[HumanActivitySystem]

One of the most striking things to me about Marxists in general, is that they are never wrong, in their own minds. No matter how vociferously and clearly their theories fail fundamentally, as in the post-WWI rejections by the working class that was supposed to embrace the Marxists like each were estranged lovers - no - the theory could never be critically flawed - no - the answer is to completely destroy Western Civilization - then it will work! It's like an aggressively mutating cancer.

[TheDavid2222]

I honestly feel like I am the only one left on planet earth who is sympathetic to Fascism in an intellectual manner. The only other Fascist "sympathizers" are usually racist idiots. Does anyone else feel that Fascism has anything worthwhile to say? I advise you read "The Doctrine of Fascism" before answering that.

[SeedsofJoy]

@TheDavid2222 Racism and fascism are mutually exclusive. You can't have fascism without hatred and fear of the minority.

[TheDavid2222]

@SeedsofJoy I don't see that anywhere in the Doctrine of Fascism. In fact, there were Jews in the Italian Fascist party.

[HumanActivitySystem]

@SeedsofJoy Jews were actually overrepresented (in terms of % of pop.) in the early Fascist movement of Italy (which of course was the original). What you're doing, and have been conditioned to do, is to look for the one thing you think a word means, and then associate with that meaning. National Socialism - as in the Nazi's - is actually it's own particular fascistic movement (some argue that it is not Fascism at all). Looking at Mussolini, Hitler & Franco one can find many differences.

[TheEthanwashere]

@TheDavid2222 lmao 

[CommunistWarrior1917]

Very interesting. At the core of Marxism is dialectics. Marxism sees the world as being in constant flux due to the internal contradictions in society. Therefore, no theory can be good for all times and places. Theory must hange with the world, and not try to force facts into a straightjacket.

[iiNDiTC]

Of course we all read das Kapital and continue to read das Kapital

[HumanActivitySystem]

@iiNDiTC And we all know who Britney Spears is and will continue to, so what?

[FeignofCordor]

Marxism is evil

[selvmordspilot]

@FeignofCordor : lol, did your priest tell you that?

[FeignofCordor]

@selvmordspilot

No I used my commonsense and applied all that I have learned about this foul ideology.

[selvmordspilot]

@FeignofCordor : did you remember to apply concern for your fellow human beings along with that common sense of yours? If yes, then your common sense is broken. If no, then maybe you should try that, if you'd like to understand.

Did you even watch the video? And if so, do you have any objections, or are you just repeating what you've been indoctrinated to think... Without thinking for yourself?

[FeignofCordor]

@selvmordspilot

Why do you believe that I don`t have concern for my fellow man?? Where did you get that from? I served in the army for 7 years and at times my life was in danger whilst helping my fellow man. How is hating Marxism being inconsiderate please do tell? Yes I did watch this full video and I know that Marxism is evil in its conception and how it has caused divisions within society even hatred and violence. I call that evil.

[selvmordspilot]

@FeignofCordor : LOL! You are hillarious! So you joined the most violent institution in the world, and call that concern for others? I have no doubt you believe it. I just have no idea HOW you can believe it..

People climb mountains and parachute because they love the thrill. I bet you joined the army for the same reason. And now you pose as if you did it to helpipeople.. I consider self-deception "evil" (= bad).

I dont need to explain why socialism = social concern, you should know yourself.

[FeignofCordor]

@selvmordspilot Its obvious that you`re a youngster with little life experience. I was part of the army that freed Kuwait of the Iraqi army. and in doing so put my life on the line. Tell me what have you ever done? and please do give me one example of a country living free and well under Marxism? and you call me a joke.

[selvmordspilot]

@FeignofCordor : Noone has ever lived free and well "under" marxism, because no marxist utopia has been achieved. Also, if such a society was attained, it wouldn't be called "under" marxism, since no power-authority is present, as the word "under" suggests.

I'm sorry to hear you wasted your youth. I spend mine trying to understand what it takes to end wars, and how to get there.

Now, to be perfectly clear, I dont believe in "evil", but if there was such a thing; war is evil.

[archdeaconj]

@MrNotyag If you attack my argument, claiming there are logical flaws in it or adduce facts which you say refute it, then there may follow a fierce debate after which one of us emerges winner (tho' the other party may never openly admit s/he's wrong). Ideally, there is a move toward truth - tho' only in a rational, civilised exchange, If one of the parties just hurls abuse - or makes sarcastic comments (as in your case) - then there no such move toward truth.

[archdeaconj]

@MrNotyag Look, I just want to know what you mean by 'the answer is utopian anthropological polemic against Western society." The answer to what? Do you mean the solution to Western society's problems? And by polemic, do you mean my argument? Do you mean Marcuse's philosophy? Or do you mean philosophy generally? Tell me what you mean and I'll respond to your comment.

[archdeaconj]

@MrNotyag Sorry, the answer to what?  I'm not with you.

[HokiesAndDawgs]

I take great joy in knowing this man is rotting in hell right now.

[selvmordspilot]

@HokiesAndDawgs : thus you reveal the sadist nature upon which your silly religious faith has been built.

[HokiesAndDawgs]

@selvmordspilot

LOL.....Marcuse is 100% evil. An absolute despicable Zionist Marxist son of a bitch.

[selvmordspilot]

@HokiesAndDawgs : let me start by pointing out, that people like you, who believe that there even is such a thing as evil, are f*cking retarded..

Second off, Marcuse is no zionist, and I have no clue why you'd say that.

Third off; there's hardly anything wrong with being a marxist.; and definately nothing wrong with having a reflected and critical (+revised) view on marx' philosophy.

You, sir, need to get over your tiny bourgeois world-view, and open your eyes to the realities of capitalism..

[HokiesAndDawgs]

@selvmordspilot

LOL...Marxism has always been a systematic way for the Jews to take power over the gentiles in a particular country. Lenin...Jewish...Trotsky...Jew­ish...Marx...Jewish...75% of the commisars in the USSR were also Jewish. Communism is Jewish supremacy, of which I'm against. The fact that they're claim is to be for the "workers" is complete bullshit given that these scumbags start slaughtering them the moment they gain power. So yes, Marcuse was a Zionist Marxist son of a bitch.

[selvmordspilot]

@HokiesAndDawgs : i'm pretty sure you're wrong.

Also, I'm talking about marx' philosophy - that is what he wrote, his critique of capitalism and it's contradictions.

You seem to be talking about what's been done "in marx' name", regardless of the fact that his philosophy was almost entirely disregarded.

Do you have something to say about marxism, as an "ism", that is to say as an ideology and a direction for mankind? Or do you just want to spew anti-semitism as if it's an argument in itself?

[GoldenRatio2]

@HokiesAndDawgs: What a moronic thing to say.

[edslittleworld]

What an evil, EVIL "man"! An agent of destruction of all this recognized as good in America. I cannot believe viewer's comments on the struggle of the common man. Lies, lies, lies. Communism and Marxism has never worked to anyone's advantage except the elite. All it does is turn a state into nothing more than a feudal empire and has destroyed Russia for eternity.

[archdeaconj]

@edslittleworld When people talk about 'the good' in America, I can't even smile. I just feel despair. America is the scourge of the world.

[selvmordspilot]

@edslittleworld : russia never abandoned capitalism - so how would you know? They just gave the state monopoly on all markets - which is obviously stupid. But that has nothing to do with socialism, and the fact that the russian people let their leaders pull them around by their noses - simply proves marcuses point; that the world wasn't prepared for socialist revolution. Russia was crushed by pressure from the US + internal corruption, which in turn was CAUSED, by their capitalist hierarcies.

[thomaserossi]

Hebert Marcuse gave the direction to destroy the modern world. Every problem in the modern world can be attributed to this Socialist hatemonger, racist, and bigot. Everything he said is a lie.

Marcuse deserves to be sent off to the tribal places of the world where he'd meet the kind of savagery he's inflicted on the Western World.

[lousehr]

What a cunt this Marcuse is.

Frankfurt School=Destruction of all that was good in society.

Bringing civilsation to it's kness through the use of social satanic psychotic engineering.

This person definitely went to hell........

[ejkemery]

There is no fool like an old fool. The Frankfurt School has shaped our modern society, yet has the shameful history of having had to flee from the WW II German society it also shaped - through shaping the thinking of its youth. There is much to learn from Marcuse, if you want to study the methods for working evil in social consiousness.

[Matthysable]

Why this cultural destroyer was invited to spew his poison in the first place amazes me!

Freudianism, Marxism, and the Holocaust all have three things in common:

1) our European self-identity is not what we think it is.Our civility is based on coarse sexual drives, our respect for honesty and trust in economy is based on naked avarice, and oour high culture underlined by genocidal hate and racism,

2) all three are Jewish inventions.

3) all three alienate us from ourselves

[CelticKraut]

@Matthysable It's obvious you're a saboteur. You Marxist pieces of trash are so transparent.

[hozayamz]

The entire political spectrum is just a candy store selection of meaningless choices. Coca-Cola, political parties, the Beatles- interchangeable and harmless amusements. Fascism was designed scientifically to appeal to people reacting to communist subversion. Do you actually think the Hapsburg/Rothschild puppet masters would leave anything to chance? Politics is supposed to leave people helpless and docile, in the hands of the Controllers.

[lousehr]

So strange how he spends many years working for the establishment thru the second world war,the vietnam war,the cold war within the US establishment (CIA,OSS etc..) and then all of a sudden he is "vehemently anti-establishment" all of a sudden.

Could it be the fact that the Frankfurt School was initiated as an institution,designed to slowly bring society to it's knees through degradation and moral reduction using the modern mechanics of social science and psychology?

Research deeper pls.....

[lovesGenet]

Marcuse's Eros &Civilization may offer a way out.There is always this drive for freedom and self knowledge held by numerous drives symbolized by thanatos and Eros.Death,generation and life impulses are constantly impinging on the capitalist effort at automatization.Deautomization happensconstantly in spurts where creativity and these urges cross.Art like meditation,religion(?)reminds & repositions the psyche of the unalienated self where ART is not the product of the market!

[tothatextent]

Moron

[barrywinehousexp]

0:57 --i.e. IT'S FUNDAMENTAL ABSURDITY

[barrywinehousexp]

0:57 --i.e. IT'S FUNDAMENTAL ABSURDITY

[archdeaconj]

As Freud (and common sense) says, when the primary energies or drives are repressed, they just build up until they erupt. This does not just occur with aggressiveness in the sense of the fighting instinct but with all basic drives. It is inadequate as an explanation for wars. The masses go to war because they are inculcated with state mythologies and given phony pretexts for war by the ruling elite who, in turn, go to war for economic reasons (in these times, dwindling resources).

[archdeaconj]

The worker no longer has 'nothing to lose but his chains'. We are more trapped within the system today because we are more integrated into it. In Marxists day there were the bosses and the workers. Today, you are more likely to be in middle-management, somewhere on the pyramid between apex and base, in charge of those below you, answerable to those above. How can you organise and who would you organise with? You can hardly form a union with workers of equal status from other companies.

[archdeaconj]

Marx and Marcuse railed against the banality and emptiness of existence in a society where, as the beats put it, 'dreams are traded for gold on the floor of lifes stock exchange'. Modern man is not only alienated in the workplace, where he spends most of his life; he is alienated from his authentic self even when free of the workplace. His life-affirming energies are deadened - all except one: voracious greed for commodities which, at first a compensation, becomes a curse.

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott Your tack here seems to be: Marcuse was for this, against that, I'm not, so Down With Marcuse! Generally, his values are grounded in his socio-political theory. They follow on from his insights into modern society, not the other way round. So it's his philosophy I'm interested in. That can be subjected to logical scrutiny, in a way values can't. Incidentally, the quote 'Members...' illustrates linguistic techniques of persuasion that the Frankfurt School was warning AGAINST.

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott The kindest thing one can say about Buchanan (the unacknowledged source of your quotations) is that he simply misunderstood the Frankfurt School philosophers. This sort of thing was anathema to them. They were appalled by what had been done in Marx's name. They saw linguistic techniques of manipulation - employed in even more subtle and sophisticated ways by the media in consumer-capitalist societies - as parasitic on language and a threat to the spontaneous development of societies.

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott Oh, here we go...just when I thought we were having a civilised debate! What does it matter if I'm a leftist, rightist or pirate with a wooden leg? Let arguments stand on their own merit. Marcuse was AGAINST what you say he was for - not only against but vehemently against. You have a lot of writings by Marcuse online, this interview with Magee...why quote secondary sources anyway, never mind these lies, this mischief, by Buchanan. Pity Marcuse is not alive to defend himself!

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott So how about quoting Marcuse himself to prove that that he was in favour of psychological conditioning? You can't, because he wasn't. He was totally and utterly against it. Look for it, I challenge you. You won't find it. Perhaps you'll then realise it's those rascals you quote who are into this kind of thing, not Marcuse. There's a lot I could say about that. Their deliberate use of linguistic techniques of deception to smear Marcuse and the FS is beyond contempt.

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott See how these smear merchants use linguistic trickery. The writer of your pilfered quotes daren't actually lie and say that the FS was in favour of psychological conditioning. So what does he do? He IMPLIES it. He says: 'The Frankfurt School introduced the idea of psychological conditioning as a means of changing the culture.' What he omits to say is that the FS introduced the idea only in the sense of exposing the extent to which it is endemic in modern society!

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott Another bit of linguistic trickery employed by the writer of your pilfered quotes is to cite part of a 1943 Soviet Party directive on how to silence criticism and then to IMPLY that it came from Marcuse. How does he do this? By introducing the citation as being '...from the horse's mouth' when he has just been talking about Marcuse. Any reader unfamiliar with Marcuse's work would falsely assume it came from Marcuse himself. Why twist the truth this way? Aren't you curious?

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott The same writer denounces leftists [sic] as 'living in comfort...yet viewing America, the society that made their lifestyle possible, with hatred and contempt.' This shameless piece of chicanery makes the reader resentful rather than appreciative of Marcuse who wanted to cure society of its ills and make us happier individuals. And so the question of whether this or that 'leftist' is actually right or not in what he says is sidestepped. It isn't even discussed.

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott By what black magic are we persuaded that someone like Marcuse, for whom the happiness of the individual was paramount, is our enemy? By linguistic techniques of manipulation. This is the alchemy at work, forging the chains of social conditioning, engineering our thoughts, feelings, desires and attitudes, and turning authentic, free individuals into manufactured beings.

[archdeaconj]

@jasabbott If you read Marcuse yourself instead of parroting these smear merchants you'll see they turn on its head what he actually said. 'Individual thought [is] now absorbed by mass communication and indoctrination' (Marcuse) '[The Frankfurt School]...is trying to counter the control of consciousness by the established power structure' (Marcuse) Does this sound like someone who is in favour of psychological conditioning? Full references on request.

[archdeaconj]

Today, in spite of the workforce doubling (with women now working full-time), and new technology, we work longer and harder than ever. We have to be highly motivated, task-assertive, able to do several tasks simultaneously - multi-tasking, we call it even to get a job as a toilet attendant. We grind ourselves into the ground for companies that compete with other companies to persuade people to buy what they dont need and we lose our souls in the process. Thats alienated labour.

[DumblyBrilliant]

@archdeaconj Ha Ha Ha Haaaaaa!

Total bull! Utter and complete rubbish.

So many owrds to tell so many lies and to utterly distort the truth while "sounding" smart. Classic socialist tactic.

Ha Ha Ha.

[archdeaconj]

Any imbecile can say bull, rubbish and the rest, but unless you say WHY you think this way, its of no interest to anyone. Its also cowardly. Cmon, I challenge you, lets have a debate. Why do maintain that what I say is lies and a distortion of the truth? Cmon, justify what you say. Otherwise its just bravado!

[archdeaconj]

@DumblyBrilliant You won't even say exactly WHAT you think 'bull' and 'rubbish' and 'distorting the truth', let alone WHY, so I still don't know. What a coward you are! If you can at least say what it was you were directing your abuse at, then I can try to explain it in dumbed-down language - inevitably losing something, but at least showing that it was not 'bull' [sic]. You will not even give me the chance to do that.

[DumblyBrilliant]

@archdeaconj Do you ever listen to yourself? Your arrogance and nasty pomposity scream from your words and, just like your idiot master Marcuse, you dream up a problem, imagine that everyone feels as you do, impose a solution most do not want and then congratulate yourself for being so clever. You silly lefties live in a world of your own invention and then make everyone elses life a misery as you try to impose these fantasies us.

[archdeaconj]

@DumblyBrilliant Thx for the psychoanalysis, but it has nothing to do with the issue (so doesn't even warrant a rebuttal). I ask you again: WHAT precisely was it that I said that you considered a 'distortion of the truth' - and WHY?

[archdeaconj]

@DumblyBrilliant I am weary of uneducated riff raff pontificating on this or that philosopher they've not read so much as a word of, who are so dumblygullible (you've got the adjectival qualifier right!) they lap up everything they read in the mainstream media then mindlessly parrot it to others - or worse, just shout 'rubbish' or what-have-you without saying why they think it's rubbish (or in your case even WHAT specifically they think is rubbish). Help, someone - give me an intelligent debate!

[DumblyBrilliant]

@archdeaconj Having an intelligent debate with you would not be possible because you are such a bully. Like most Marxists you feel that you can force people by intimidation to come around to your way of thinking. This, you think, is evidence of your superior intellect. Stalin suffered with the same problem you are demonstrating here. I have no wish to enter into a discussion with you as you are clearly not capable of saying anything unless and insult is attached.

[archdeaconj]

@Dumbly What did you expect me to do, turn the other cheek? Look at your initial posting to me. Go on, look. It was vicious and personal - and in response to one by me that was perfectly civil. I'll tell you this: I am never - repeat NEVER - the first to hurl abuse. Go on, search YouTube and see. It's something I just don't do. I don't need to. But when I am unjustly accused of distorting the truth, using 'tactics' and the rest, do you think I am going to let it drop? No way.

[DumblyBrilliant]

@archdeaconj The truth is your ego was brusied because someone dared to disagree with you and so you got nasty. I am bored with this conversation now and it is going no where. So, enjoy yourself and God bless you.

[archdeaconj]

@Dumbly What a preposterous thing to say, even for you! Where else on YouTube have I had a spat with someone (civil) who disagreed with me? Nowhere. Which kicks your pathetic attempt to excuse yourself into touch. Disagreement is the spice of debate. Who wants to be agreed with all the time? Not me. But we're not talking about disagreement, are we. We're talking about abuse and unjustified accusations. So I ask you again: how was I distorting the truth and using 'tactics'?

[DumblyBrilliant]

@archdeaconj Just take a deep breath and read what you have written again. You seem to have no idea how much of an insulting, aggressive and pompous little person you are. I am bored with this. It is a waste of effort. Please, go away.

[archdeaconj]

@Dumbly Amazing isn't it, how your sort thinks it's perfectly alright, perfectly acceptable, to be rude and offensive, yet start squealing about being insulted and intimidated when they receive a taste of their own medicine. What YouTube needs is more people to hound riff raff like you until you behave in a more civilised manner. Then we could all look forward to gentle, urbane, rational debate - and, as is the norm with civilised exchanges, actually learn from one another.

[1844Freddy]

@archdeaconj We work longer, yes, but not harder. People don't work hard, because that would imply that they aren't bored, that they are absorbed and engaged in their work. They mostly just surf the internet for 8 hours then come home and do that more.

[archdeaconj]

@1844Freddy But that's my point. Through use of computers and other technology labour output has increased many-fold. If 20 million was the working population (in the UK) fifty years ago and each worker worked 40 hours / week, then society's output then was 800 million man hrs/ week. Today with women working full-time, it's 1,600 million man hrs / week. With computers, automation etc, society's output must be double or treble or quadruple that! Where is the fruit of all these man hours?

[1844Freddy]

@archdeaconj I think the fact that 'work' is now just sitting in front of a computer makes people not realize how much more time they're spending at work, because it doesn't feel like work, it just feels like a more formal continuation of school and home Internet time, and so the blaise character of modern work makes the lack of 'fruit' to show for it less disconcerting.

[archdeaconj]

@1844Freddy Well it may be less disconcerting to the worker, but my argument was that it's puzzling - to anyone who thinks about it - that the equivalent labour output of today's society is quadruple (at a conservative estimate) what it was fifty years ago (because of new technology and women having doubled the workforce). Where is all this extra labour, inc. machine-equivalent labour, going?

[1844Freddy]

@archdeaconj It's a good question, and I would say towards a self-imposed, subterranean neo-feudalism, perhaps? Feudalism in the middle ages was more overt, but what we have now is not too different--huge portions of society working and not making much progress, having to fight for their basic subsistence with every productive hour, while those at the top have limited productive behavior but most of the wealth and control.

[1844Freddy]

@archdeaconj Think about how serfs would've been controlled 600 years ago if lords had had the techniques of modern psychological propaganda, fused with technological advances in disseminating entertainment. Kings and nobles wouldn't have had to use overt violence, because servitude would have been self-imposed by serfs onto themselves, as it is now. That so much manufactured pleasure is available to us makes us feel guilty for challenging things. Domination by pleasure is neo-feudalism.

[1844Freddy]

@archdeaconj Also, I think you've touched on a central absurdity of capitalism: A more civil and free society would operate under the socialist tenet that society's wealth should be used to grant people the real freedom from toiling all day to secure food and shelter. I think this absurdity is masked by the psychological manipulation of PR firms installing materialistic wants in people, giving a goal to our endless wealth-maximizing.

[archdeaconj]

@1844Freddy I agree, the extra labour is going into producing goods and services for the super-rich - a kind of neo-feudalism, yes. I also think there is enormous waste e.g. in the effort that goes into persuading me to buy this or that product that I don't want, more effort in trying to persuade me NOT to buy that product but some other product I don't want instead. We need not work more than a few hours / day on average - but are socially conditioned to believe otherwise.

[pilkingtonphil]

Great stuff, cheers.

Can anyone imagine this on the TV today? I mean any aspect of it?

The Frankfurt School were right - thank God for Youtube!

[beholdmyswarthyface0]

Thanks! Looking forward to part 3!

[flame0430]

On its way...

[DumblyBrilliant]

@beholdmyswarthyface0 Oh, you poor deluded person. Have you any idea what the Frankfurt School have actually done? Marcuse is lying through his teeth here and if you cannot see that then you are brainwashed into intellectual oblivion.

[GordonMorrice]

Good to see uploading again, Flame! Thank you.