Herbert Marcuse - Eros and Civilization : A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud

Front Matter by Editor, in Eros and Civilization: Philosophical Inquiry Into Freud. by Herbert Marcuse. (Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1955). pp. iii -8. [Bibliographic Details] [View Documents ]

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Front Matter

[Title Page and Credits]

EROS

AND CIVILIZATION

A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud

HERBERT MARCUSE

With a New Preface by the Author

BEACON PRESS BOSTON

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Copyright 1955, 1966 by The Beacon Press

Library of Congress catalog card number: 66-3219

International Standard Book Numbers : 0-8070-1554-7

0-8070-1555-5 (pbk .)

First published as a Beacon Paperback in 1974

Beacon Press books are published under the auspices

of the Unitarian Universalist Association

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

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WRITTEN IN MEMORY OF

SOPHIE MARCUSE

1901-1951

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Contents

POLITICAL PREFACE 1966

xi

INTRODUCTION

PART I: UNDER THE RULE OF THE REALITY PRINCIPLE

1. The Hidden Trend in Psychoanalysis

Pleasure principle and reality principle

Genetic and individual repression

"Return of the repressed" in civilization

Civilization and want: rationalization of renunciation "Remembrance of things past" as vehicle of liberation 2.The Origin of the Repressed Individual (Ontogenesis)

The mental apparatus as a dynamic union of opposites

Stages in Freud's theory of instincts

Common conservative nature of primary instincts

Possible supremacy of Nirvana principle

Id, ego, superego

"Corporealization" of the psyche

Reactionary character of superego

Evaluation of Freud's basic conception

Analysis of the interpretation of history in Freud's psychology

Distinction between repression and "surplus-repression"

Alienated labor and the performance principle

Organization of sexuality: taboos on pleasure

Organization of destruction instincts

Fatal dialectic of civilization

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3. The Origin of Repressive Civilization (Phylogenesis)

"Archaic heritage" of the individual ego

Individual and group psychology

The primal horde: rebellion and restoration of domination

Dual content of the sense of guilt

Return of the repressed in religion

The failure of revolution

Changes in father-images and mother-images

4. The Dialectic of Civilization

Need for strengthened defense against destruction

Civilization's demand for sublimation (desexualization)

Weakening of Eros (life instincts); release of destructiveness

Progress in productivity and progress in domination

Intensified controls in industrial civilization

Decline of struggle with the father

Depersonalization of superego, shrinking of ego

Completion of alienation

Disintegration of the established reality principle

5.Philosophical Interlude

Freud's theory of civilization in the tradition of Western philosophy

Ego as aggressive and transcending subject

Logos as logic of domination

Philosophical protest against logic of domination

Being and becoming: permanence versus transcendence

The eternal return in Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche

Eros as essence of being

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PART II: BEYOND THE REALITY PRINCIPLE

6. The Historical Limits of the Established Reality Principle

Obsolescence of scarcity and domination

Hypothesis of a new reality principle

The instinctual dynamic toward non-repressive civilization

Problem of verifying the hypothesis

7. Phantasy and Utopia

Phantasy versus reason

Preservation of the "archaic past"

Truth value of phantasy

The image of life without repression and anxiety

Possibility of real freedom in a mature civilization

Need for a redefinition of progress

8.The Images of Orpheus and Narcissus

Archetypes of human existence under non-repressive civilization

Orpheus and Narcissus versus Prometheus

Mythological struggle of Eros against the tyranny of reason -- against death

Reconciliation of man and nature in sensuous culture

9. The Aesthetic Dimension

Aesthetics as the science of sensuousness

Reconciliation between pleasure and freedom, instinct and morality

Aesthetic theories of Baumgarten, Kant, and Schiller

Elements of a non-repressive culture

Transformation of work into play

10. The Transformation of Sexuality into Eros

The abolition of domination

Effect on the sex instincts

"Self-sublimation" of sexuality into Eros

Repressive versus free sublimation

Emergence of non-repressive societal relationships

Work as the free play of human faculties

Possibility of libidinous work relations

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11. Eros and Thanatos

The new idea of reason: rationality of gratification

Libidinous morality

The struggle against the flux of time

Change in the relation between Eros and death instinct

EPILOGUE: Critique of Neo-Freudian Revisionism

INDEX

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Political Preface 1966

Eros and Civilization: the title expressed an optimistic , euphemistic, even positive thought, namely, that the achievements of advanced industrial society would enable man to reverse the direction of progress, to break the fatal union of productivity and destruction, liberty and repression -- in other words, to learn the gay science ( gaya sciencia) of how to use the social wealth for shaping man's world in accordance with his Life Instincts, in the concerted struggle against the purveyors of Death. This optimism was based on the assumption that the rationale for the continued acceptance of domination no longer prevailed, that scarcity and the need for toil were only "artificially" perpetuated -- in the interest of preserving the system of domination. I neglected or minimized the fact that this "obsolescent" rationale had been vastly strengthened (if not replaced) by even more efficient forms of social control.

The very forces which rendered society capable of pacifying the struggle for existence served to repress in the individuals the need for such a liberation. Where the high standard of living does not suffice for reconciling the people with their life and their rulers, the

"social engineering" of the soul and the "science of human relations" provide the necessary libidinal cathexis. In the affluent society, the au

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thorities are hardly forced to justify their dominion . They deliver the goods; they satisfy the sexual and the aggressive energy of their subjects. Like the unconscious, the destructive power of which they so successfully represent, they are this side of good and evil, and the principle of contradiction has no place in their logic.

As the affluence of society depends increasingly on the uninterrupted production and consumption of waste, gadgets, planned obsolescence, and means of destruction, the individuals have to be adapted to these requirements in more than the traditional ways.

The "economic whip," even in its most refined forms, seems no longer adequate to insure the continuation of the struggle for existence in today's outdated organization, nor do the laws and patriotism seem adequate to insure active popular support for the ever more dangerous expansion of the system. Scientific management of instinctual needs has long since become a vital factor in the reproduction of the system: merchandise which has to be bought and used is made into objects of the libido; and the national Enemy who has to be fought and hated is distorted and inflated to such an extent that he can activate and satisfy aggressiveness in the depth dimension of the unconscious. Mass democracy provides the political paraphernalia for effectuating this introjection of the Reality Principle; it not only permits the people (up to a point) to chose their own masters and to participate (up to a point) in the government which governs them -- it also allows the masters to disappear behind the technological veil of the productive and destructive apparatus which they control, and it conceals the human (and material) costs of