herbert marcuse, one-dimensional man (1964)

(390): speaking of freedom of speech, etc. -- "the achievement cancels the premises"

(390): "new modes of realization are needed... such new modes can be indicated only in negative terms because they would amount to the negation of the prevailing modes. thus economic freedom would mean freedom from the economy... political freedom would mean liberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no effective control..."

(391): yes -- "the unrealistic sound of these propositions is indicative, not of their utopian character, but of the strength of the forces which prevent their realization."

(391): true vs. false needs

(391): "the distinguishing feature of advanced industrial society is its effective suffocation of those needs which demand liberation--liberation also from that which is tolerable and rewarding and comfortable--while it sustains and absolves the destructive power and repressive function of the affluent society."

(392): "the spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs by the individual does not establish autonomy, it only testifies to the efficacy of the controls..."

(392): "it is desublimation practiced from a 'position of strength' on the part of society, which can afford to grant more than before because its interest have become the innermost drives of its citizens..."

(394): this is more-or-less the main point, the integration of desire into reproduction--"technical progress and more comfortable living permit the systematic inclusion of libidinal components into the realm of commodity production and exchange. but no matter how controlled the mobilization of instinctual energy may be... no matter how much it may serve as a prop for the status quo -- it is also gratifying to the managed individuals, jsut as racing the outboard motor..."

(394): speaking of the "mobilization and administration of libido [which] may account for much of the voluntary compliance, the absence of terror, the pre-established harmony between individual needs and socially-required desires, goals, and aspirations.'

(395): "to be sure, there is pervasive unhappiness... this unhappiness lends itself easily to political mobilization; without room for conscious development, it may become the instinctual reservoir for a new fascist way of life and death..."

(396): possibility of total, controlled desublimation: "it seems that society's growing capacity to manipulate technical progress also increases its capacity to manipulate and control this instinct... then social cohesion would be strengthened at the deepes instinctual roots. the supreme reisk, and even the fact of war would meet... with instinctual approval on the part of the victims. here too, we would have controlled desublimation."

(396): the ascent of the happy consciousness--"the belief that the real is rational, and that the established system... delivers the goods... the people are led to find in the productive apparatus the effective agent of thought and action to which their personal thought and action can and must be surrendered..."

(396): "one man can give the signal that liquidates hundreds and thousands of people, then declare himself free from all pangs of conscience, and live happily ever after..."

(397): "those who identify themselves with the whole, who are installed as the leaders and defenders of the whole can make mistakes, but they cannot do wrong--they are not guilty..."