EUGENE GOODHEART
391
Marcuse's advocacy of the polymorphously perverse is not in the in–
terest of a liberal tolerance for the variety of sexual expression.
Polymorphous perversity is an expression of the happiness of
all,
the
promesse de bonheur.
The mythical origin of repression, that is, of social domination,
according to Freud, is to be found in the crime of the sons against the
father, the crime of parricide described in
Totem and Taboo.
The in–
evitable consequence of the crime is psychological guilt and the polit–
ical and social enforcement of paternal authority. The effect of Mar–
cuse's extrapolation of the Freudian argument is an attack on
patriarchal domination . This argument sanctions feminism without
being explicitly feminist.
It is, of course, one thing to establish the theoretical possibility
of a nonrepressive civilizat ion and of a non repressed self, but it is
another thing to create such a civilization and self. The Marxian
possibility is not available to Marcuse. The proletariat , the agent of
Marxian revolution against oppression and exploitation , cannot be
expected to be an instrument of
erotic
liberation. The psychological
repression described by Freud and Marcuse is endemic to the whole
society; it is not confined to a specific class. What is therefore re–
quired is a psychic force to overthrow internal repression .
Marcuse's solution is aesthetic, the playful eroticizing of con–
sciousness already anticipated in Schiller's
Letters on an Aesthetic
Education.
In Schiller, "the stress is on the impulsive , instinctual
character of the aesthetic function." Marcuse also finds support in
the aesthetics of Kant and Hegel. "The truth of art is the liberation of
sensuousness through its reconciliation with reason: this is the cen–
tral notion of classical idealistic aesthetics." Marcuse quotes Hegel:
.. . thought is materialized , and matter is not extraneously
determined by thought but is itself free in so far as the natural,
sensuous, affectional possess their measure , purpose and har–
mony in themselves. While perception and feeling are raised to
the universality of the spirit, thought not only renounces its
hostility against nature but enjoys itself in nature. Feeling, joy ,
and pleasure are sanctioned and justified so that nature and
freedom , sensuousness and reason , find in their unity their right
and their gratification.
To speak of the solution as aesthet ic does not tell us how the
unrepressed self will be created. But leaving aside the pragmatic
