Episode #112 - The Frankfurt School Pt. 5 - Civilization
Episode #112 - The Frankfurt School Pt. 5 - Civilization
In this episode, Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization is explored as a critique of modern capitalist society, particularly the subtle and insidious ways in which repression is maintained through cultural products and consumerism rather than overt coercion. Drawing comparisons to totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany, the episode examines how propaganda in capitalist democracies—especially through mass media—functions not by force, but by shaping people’s desires, beliefs, and identities around work, consumption, and conformity. Marcuse challenges the assumption that human nature is inherently lazy or resistant to creative effort, proposing instead that society conditions people to suppress their intrinsic creative drive—what Freud called Eros—for the sake of economic efficiency. He questions whether this repression is still necessary in a technologically advanced world and suggests that liberation lies in reclaiming this creative energy. Through concepts like “the Great Refusal,” Marcuse calls for a personal and collective awakening that resists oppressive systems from within, using art and critical consciousness to imagine alternative ways of living beyond the confines of consumer capitalism.
Further Reading:
Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud by Herbert Marcuse (1955)
One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society by Herbert Marcuse (1964)
The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing: Nature and Revolution in Marcuse’s Philosophy of Praxis by Andrew Feenberg (2023)
See the full transcript here.
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