Apolitical Liberating Agents According to Herbert Marcuse

Abstract

In this article, we have tried to address the liberating role that Herbert Marcuse attributes to post-industrial technology, namely automation; as well as the artistic factor and its liberating contribution. As for the technological factor (Automation), its liberating contribution would consist of making alienation and its economic-social form “reification” disappear. This is why Marcuse contests the machinery which is responsible for a particular type of slavery and suggests for the renewal of means of production based on automation provided that they are perfect and generalized. In addition to the explosion of reification, automation would play a very important role in the creation of free time necessary for any liberation of man. It would, therefore, be historical transcendence towards a new civilization. Just as automation does not mean for Marcuse the end of work as work, but rather the end of alienating work. Because Marcuse conceives happiness in work, unlike Marx who would locate it outside. In addition to the liberation of working time into free time and the transformation of work into play, automation would end, according to Marcuse, in overcoming shortage and lack (the Anankè)...

   Apart from the liberating role of the technological dimension, the aesthetic dimension contributes, in turn, to the liberation of man. Due to its effect on the superstructure, art can also contribute to changing the consciousness of men and women who could change the world. Art can undoubtedly contribute to the birth of a “new sensitivity” capable of creating new situations which will negate the established order. Just as the critical function of the imagination lies, mainly, in its refusal to accept, as definitive, the limitations imposed by the established order on freedom. Marcuse also attaches great importance to other components of aesthetics, such as form, the subjectivity of the work of art, autonomy and especially aesthetic sublimation...