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PARTISAN REVIEW
slaves him . Complete automation in the realm of necessity
would open the dimension of free time as the one in which
man's private
and
societal existence would constitute itself. This
would be the historical transcendence toward a new civilization .
Much could be said about this passage as an illustration of the
strengths and limits of Marcusean dialectics . The style of argument,
familiar from orthodox Marxism-Marcuse is actually building upon
a passage in Marx's
Grundrisse- suggests
that though things seem
to get worse they're actually getting better , for they're moving toward
a dialectical reversal that will shatter the whole game. Elsewhere in
the same book Marcuse insists that though things seem to be getting
better (more freedom and leisure, higher standards of living) they're
actually getting worse, through what he calls "repressive desublima–
tion," in other words, the distraction of bread and circuses to keep
the masses content and in their place .
Both these arguments imply that common sense is a trap, that
the surface of things is very different from the reality , that society is
never quite what it seems . This tack enables Marcuse to expose the
genuinely paradoxical character of some recent social trends and
"democratic" institutions.
It
enables him to develop a notion of
freedom in some ways deeper than the liberal one, which Matthew
Arnold described as "doing as one likes."
It
enables him to think in
a utopian way, to conceive of transcending the social given. But it also
leads him into a lofty German contempt for empirical reality, includ–
ing the expressed needs and wishes of most individuals. "In the last
analysis," Marcuse says, "the question of what are true and false
needs must be answered by the individuals themselves,
but only in
the last analysis;
that is,
if
and when they are free to give their own
answer" (my italics). Since by his definition they are not free, he feels
obliged to tell them what their real needs are . Moreover, we imagine
that they could only be considered free when their wishes come to
accord with his analysis.
As long as they are kept incapable of being autonomous, as long
as they are indoctrinated and manipulated (down to their very
instincts) , their answer to this question cannot be taken as their
own .
