Frederick Sollazzo (p.sollazzo @ inwind.it)
What did he say and what can still tell us today Herbert Marcuse (1898-l979)? Although her works now go back to several decades ago, it is desirable to resist the temptation to declare the obsolescence because argormenti treated (the crisis of ideologies, social role of the technical dynamics of the instincts; relationship between art and high culture) are, one hand, yet current e necessitano di essere ulteriormente meditati (come dimostra il corrente smarrimento e disorientamento sociale) e, per l’altro, strettamente legati alla stessa natura dell’essere umano (non è un caso che nei maggiori pensatori occidentali ricorrano spesso temi affini (1) ). Appare così comprensibile una sorta di ripresa di Marcuse, testimoniata da tutta una serie di recenti pubblicazioni (2) .
Una delle tematiche marcusiane più note riguarda i legami tra politica e tecnica, o meglio, un determinato aspetto della tecnica, ovvero il suo impiego in chiave consumistica da cui deriva il suo aspetto falsamente razionale (razionale cioè nei procedimenti ma non negli scopi) which deprives the technical character of its neutrality, explicitly placing it in the service of a particular social setting. Hence the birth of the famous "system" that gives rise to a modification of the concept of domination.
Already in the 1942 essay State and Individual under National Socialism (3) Hitler's totalitarianism i1 is connected to three cornerstones: industry, party, army, is in fact the union to ensure the nation a high degree of production efficiency, maximization of benefits, then, is the most efficient that you go to look for: "The current group in power do not believe nelle ideologie e nel potere misterioso della razza, ma seguiranno il Führer fintantoché egli resterà ciò che è stato fino ad ora, il simbolo vivente dell’efficienza (4) »; ma una mentalità che eleva l’efficienza produttiva a valore di vita non potrà che essere una mentalità pragmatico-calcolante: «Questa razionalità funziona secondo criteri di efficienza e precisione, ma nello stesso tempo è separata da tutto ciò che la lega ai bisogni umani e ai desideri individuali [che in Eros e civiltà verranno chiamati “bisogni autentici”], ed è interamente adapted to the needs of a comprehensive system of domination. The human subjects and their organized labor in a bureaucratic way are only means to an end objective: the maintenance of the apparatus with an increasing degree of efficiency (5) .
the wake of this approach is that currently there is a new form of totalitarianism consumer tech support: "In the face of totalitarian features of this society, the traditional notion of" neutrality "of technology can no longer be sustained. Technology as such can not be isolated its intended use: the technological society is a system of domination which tends to operate from the moment in which the techniques are devised and developed (6) "and even" The term "totalitarian" in fact, does not only apply to a terrorist political organization of society, but also a political organization -technical, non-terrorist, which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests. It this way to prevent the emergence of an effective opposition against the whole system. Not only a specific form of government or party domain produce totalitarianism, but also a specific system of production and distribution system that may well be compatible with a "pluralism" of parties, newspapers, "controbilanciantesi powers," etc. " (7) . Now, if the technique is, as Marcuse argues, slave to the system, how can this free, contributing to the liberation of men? How, then, have the potential to improve the living conditions if it is completely absorbed from the domain? To answer you must keep in mind that for Marcuse the technique is essentially ambiguous and neutral, ie it is devoid of a telos (8) , a final end, it is just a skill that requires an external rationality to lead it. So the current modus essendi repressive technique is derived exclusively from the "old" way in which men experience and technique, especially, it follows that possibiIe is another form of the historical relationship between man and technology. Specifically, the possibilities for a new use of the technique based on the concept of "automation" that can, for the first time in the history of mankind, to offer relief from the struggle for survival, favoring the recovery of energy, space and time by allocated to the expansion of human psycho-physical faculties (9) .
Probably some objections to this proposed move from reading too much (or only) politica di Marcuse (10) : «Non si capisce infatti come una tecnica tutta fusa con il dominio possa riscattarsi e ricostruirsi libera; ovvero come si possa prima – con l’adialettica totalità di un mondo unidimensionale che fonde tecnica e dominio – mettersi contro Marx per poi evocare la prospettiva marxiana di un’organizzazione razionale (e dunque per Marx umana) del regno della necessità.
Ma non si comprende neppure come sia possibile governare politicamente una tecnica liberata. ll giomo infatti che essa fosse tutta permeata di fini liberatori si costituirebbe un altro universo unidimensionale; interventi orientativi e correttivi della politica sarebbero impotenti o superflui, essendo the technique itself is worrying policy (...) space policy because it remains in the shade all the institutional issues (...) I will find themselves in part in One-Dimensional Man : but it seems to me - continues Cerruti - that there Marcuse has lost the ability to solder openings utopian and analytical simplicity, instead replaced by a pessimistic vision of society holistically and the waiver of a foundation to give the utopian perspective of argument rather than aesthetic or moral revolt ' (11) . But the project marcus, although it has profound political implications, it is essentially pre-political because it rests on the possibility of a new style of life, symbolically represented in the concepts of "determinate negation" and "Great Refusal" (12) , implying that the system has expanded the limits, made from non-integrated into it. In fact, for example, the danger of dell'unidimensionalità regenerate even in a free society and prevented from future (hope of) the presence, in that same future society, a mindset radically different from today, exemplified by the role of 'art, even in a future liberated society, will never cease to perform the function of the "alienation Art ", than look at yet, will ensure that potentially forever the two-dimensionality. All this has been defined with the happy expression of the aesthetic dimension, Further The (13) . And it is always for this reason that Marcuse never precisely determined the possible future political institutions: for now we can only note that the system has "cracks" that might be the source of a new company, which may be sought , fantasized, imagined but not yet defined on time: every era has its own institutions, so the actual characterization of future belongs to those who live in future, to new generations. In addition, the 'romantic anti-capitalism "and" aesthetic reasons "does not express the yearnings Marcuse spiritualist and vague, but rather designed a deeply realistic:" I belive, in fact, the ideas That You Have Come Here to Examine today are in realistic fact; Profoundly realistic, and in fact much more Than what we hear from so many of Our more "mature" political leaders today (...) My father belived in the unity of theory and praxis (14) ; not else can you explain the words of Benjamin with which Marcuse closes The One-Dimensional Man " Nur um der Hoffnungslosen willen ist uns die Hoffnung gegeben (È solo a favore dei disperati che ci è data la speranza)» (15) .
Eros e civiltà (16) , una delle opere più note al grande pubblico, segna l’incontro di Marcuse con le categorie proprie del pensiero freudiano; tale incontro non è solo culturalmente interessante, ma si rivela gravido di conseguenze in quanto, nell’interpretazione marcusiana, la psicoanalisi (al pari delle categorie filosofiche fondamentali del marxismo) è intesa come la conoscenza delle condizioni che rendono possibile la felicità, riconciliandola con la ragione, through the unmasking of repression of the instincts (17) . It is no coincidence that from now on Marcuse will address his criticism not so much to society but to the capitalist system, seen as its evolution: it is a form of domination of man by man as an economic setting determinala -policy, which rests on the repression of human faculty stands (and requires) as a direct result of internalizing psychological domain models. This led to a new and original way of interpreting the source of contemporary society, its problems and possible solutions. The
Marcuse comparison with Freud, from the beginning, non-linear ("The conception of man that emerges from Freudian theory, is the most irrefutable indictment of Western civilization - and at the same time, the most steadfast defense of this civilization " (18) ) because while both believe that to build a civilization is indispensable instinctual repression (" Civilization begins when the primary objective has effectively waived the full satisfaction of needs " (19) ), the other two go away when Marcuse says that the instinctual repression underway in this particular society is vastly greater than would be sufficient to maintain the company. Thus, although the company was founded by an act of renunciation of instinctual satisfaction in full, it is true that in today's society there is a surplus of repression that becomes the immediate satisfaction in deferred satisfaction, pleasure in limitation of the same, the joy (game) in hard (work), and the lack of freedom guaranteed by the security crackdown in the system, and this happens because the annihilation of the human mental and physical faculties, assimilated by the system and from this small all'unidimensionalità. "Freud has described this change as the transformation of the pleasure principle in reality principle " (20) , in a way that the reality principle and establishment capitalist coincide.
As for the reasons that induce people to accept this, just recall how Hitler's regime rewarded them for the sacrifices and the loss of his freedom: "The National has offered two compensation: a new economic security and a new freedom of costumes (...) The economic security, if anything can be considered a form of compensation, must be supplemented by some form of freedom, and National has guaranteed this freedom by abolishing some Fundamental social taboos " (21) . Thus, for Marcuse, this is not society but a (historically) given society, in which the bourgeois-capitalist culture and industrialization have relinquished their antagonism ratio- status quo .
For Freud the psychological training of the individual (ontogeny) is comparable to that of the entire civilization (phylogeny), that is, there are differences between individual psychology and social psychology, then, as well as the individual is formed as a result of instinctual renunciation in the same way a civilization originates; Marcuse, however, separates the ontogeny of phylogeny since the former depend entirely on factors permanently connected to human nature, while the latter is also influenced by exogenous factors that shape history. But Freud, Marcuse not only takes an innovative vision of "Civilization and Its Discontents" but also an innovative opportunity exceeded it. If Freud, Eros and Thanatos are two instincts (life and death, respectively) inseparable in every individual, then society as a whole, ie they are two opposing forces, but man needs both, for Marcuse the Thanatos could be limited to such an extent by changing its very nature, making it necessary to use another term to describe this new death instinct, to Nirvana: it represents the death now seen not as pain but as a peaceful conclusion to a fulfilling and peaceful because that peace would be the result of the expansion of Eros that would occupy all the spaces and times taken from the now non-existent Thanatos. «Se l’obiettivo fondamentale dell’istinto non è la fine della vita ma la fine del dolore – la mancanza di tensione – paradossalmente, in termini di istinto, il conflitto tra vita e morte si riduce tanto più quanto più la vita si avvicina allo stato di soddisfazione. In questo caso, principio del piacere e principio del Nirvana convergono (...) Non coloro che muoiono, ma coloro che muoiono prima di quanto debbano o vogliano morire, coloro che muoiono in agonia e tra sofferenze, costituiscono il grande atto di accusa contro la civiltà» (22) ; ed il veicolo di tale mutazione istintuale (e quindi forse anche antropologica) dell’intero stile di vita (23) sarebbe l’arte (inglobando in essa anche l’alta cultura). « L’idea utopica di una realtà effettuale (Wirklichkeit) estetica deve resistere al senso del ridicolo, oggi necessariamente connesso ad essa . Poiché forse proprio in essa va mostrata la differenza qualitativa tra libertà e ordine stabilito» (24) . Il fatto che Marcuse parli di una convergenza fra arte e tecnica non deve indurre a credere che, per l’autore, un’autentica liberazione si avrà solo quando la realtà sarà perfetta come l’arte: quest’ultima rappresenta un universale anelito di felicità il cui contenuto si articola storicamente from time to time, nor the wealth of art lies not in the works or in their contents, but resides in the same conditions of art, the conditions under which meta-aesthetic beauty can only convey the material liberation and happiness. The artistic beauty, in short, does not contain targets that data must be obtained, but rather it means "only" a precondition (mental and probably emotional) necessary to reverse the dominant Weltanschauung, and a clear sign of this mutation when the policy instrument would be used for purposes of liberation, above both the characteristics typical of a blatantly repressive regime, and the "repressive tolerance" (25) capitalist-consumerist: "The work of art must, in its breaking point, revealing the extreme poverty of human existence (and nature), stripped of all paraphernalia of mass culture monopolistic in every way alone into the abyss of destruction, despair and freedom. The most revolutionary work of art must be both the most esoteric, the most anticollettivistica because the goal of revolution is the individual freedom " (26) . So an initial analysis, individual freedom = freedom to achieve that 'The abolition of the capitalist mode of production, socialization, the liquidation of the classes are only the pre-conditions for the liberation of the individual " (27) , here because "The rest is not up to the artist. Construction, real change that would release men and things, as are the tasks of political action, the artist does not participate as an artist " (28) . And in an attempt to give a comprehensive definition of the idea of \u200b\u200bliberation is clear that Marcuse in art, politics, psychology and philosophy are based in a single project, infatti la liberazione, di cui l’arte è ancella, è raggiungibile «solo quando ognuno ha secondo secondo i suoi bisogni (...) Solo il vero contenuto materialistico della 1ibertà nega ogni repressione, sublimazione, internalizzazione, della società di classe. Questa libertà è la realizzazione del pieno sviluppo dei bisogni, dei desideri e delle potenzialità dell’uomo e, nello stesso tempo, la sua liberazione dall’apparato onnipervasivo di produzione, distribuzione e amministrazione che oggi irreggimenta la sua vita» (29) .
1) Ad esempio è significativo notare come il concetto di Eros , centrale in tutta l’opera di Freud, fosse già stato "esplorato’’ da Platone nel Simposio .
2) Cfr. H. Marcuse, Davanti al nazismo , Laterza, Roma-Bari 2001. Contiene: La filosofia tedesca nel ventesimo secolo (1940), Stato e individuo sotto il nazionalsocialismo (1942), La nuova mentalità tedesca (1942), Presentazione del nemico (1942-1943), Notes on Aragon. Art and politics in the era totalitarian (1945), 33 thesis (1947), correspondence with Heidegger (1947-1948). And yet, were recently published the proceedings of the Conference on Marcuse held at Rome in 1998, the centenary of the birth of the author, and now collected in: L. Casini (ed.), Eros, utopia and turned , FrancoAngeli, Milano 2004. Contains: rontantik Linke. Motives romantischen Antikapitalismus eines bei Herbert Marcuse di R. Wiggershaus, La critica dell’organizzazione industriale del mondo moderno di G. Bedeschi, Tecnica e politica, un problema del Novecento di F. Cerruti, Istituzioni e trascendenza in Herbert Murcuse di G. Palombella, La società come opera d’arte di L. Casini, Ontologia e libertà. Una rilettura di Herbert Marcuse di G. Marramao, ‘‘Disaggio della civiltà’’ o vittoria dell’eros? Marcuse Freud and FS chopper, Marcuse and German classics R. Ascarelli Happiness and reason. The contribution of the idea of \u200b\u200bcritical theory Martus S. Petrucciani, Aesthetics and Revolution: the political function of 'art in Herbert Marcuse (1945-1955) E. Theban subversive Der Leib und die Frage nach einer ästhetischen Vernunft. Überlegungen in Anschluss an Herbert Marcuse B. Brick.
3) H. Marcuse, inviduo under the State and National in front of the Nazis , Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2001.
4) Ibid, p.23.
5) Ibid, p. 24, brackets mine.
6) H. Marcuse, The One-Dimensional Man , Einaudi, Torino 1999, p. 14.
7) Ibid, p. 17.
8) See Pansera MT, The criticism of technical reason in Marcuse in Man and paths of technology , Armando, Roma 1998.
9) See H. Marcuse, The disaster of the liberation in 's One-Dimensional Man , cit.
10) "If there is a proposed" maximum "then, that stems from the lesson Marcusian, this was not and is not just a political lapse prograrnma, but first, a program meta-philosophical 'G. Palombella, Institutions Herbert Marcuse and transcendence in , in L. Casini (ed.), Eros, utopia and turned , cit. p. 60.
11) F. Cerruti, technical and political problems of the twentieth century , in L. Casini (ed.), Eros, utopia and turned , cit., Pp. 43-46.
12) See H. Marcuse, Reason and Revolution , Il Mulino, Bologna 1997.
13) L. Casini, The permanence of the aesthetic dimension in Eros and Utopia , Carocci, Rome 1999.
14) P. Marcuse, Greetings Peter Marcuse (opening of the Conference on Marcuse held in Rome in 1998), in L. Casini (ed.), Eros, utopia and turned , cit., P. 16.
15) H. Marcuse, The One-Dimensional Man , cit., P. 260.
16) H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization , Einaudi, Torino 1967.
17) we must not forget that there is also a critique of Marcuse's Marxist ideology reduced positive ( Soviet Marxis m, Bloomsbury Publishing, Parma 1968) and Freud understood as a theory of psychological integration 'Everyone in the status quo , due to the split between "theory" and "therapy" psychoanalytic ( Epilogue: Critique of the neo-Freudian revisionism in Eros and Civilization, cit.)
18) H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization , cit., P. 59.
19) There .
20) lbidem , p. 60.
21) H. Marcuse, inviduo under the State and National , in front of the Nazis , cit., P. 32.
22) H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization . cit., p. 247.
23) About the dynamics of Eros, Thanatos e Nirvana si veda La trasformazione della sessualità in Eros , e Eros e Thanatos , in Ibidem .
24) H. Marcuse, Die Gesellschaft als Kunstwerk , in L. Casini (a cura di), Eros, utopia e rivolta , cit., p. 85.
25) Cfr. H. Marcuse, Tolleranza repressiva , in La dimensione estetica e altri scritti , Guerini, Milan 2002.
26) H. Marcuse, Notes Aragon. Art and politics in the era totalitarian , in front of the Nazis , cit., P. 95, italics added.
27) There .
28) H. Marcuse, 's art in society to a size in Critique of repressive society , Feltrinelli, Milano 1968, p. 148.
29) H. Marcuse, Notes Aragon. Art and politics in the era totalitarian , in front of the Nazis , cit., Pp. 95-96.
('person perspective " , No. 49/50, 2004)
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di Francesco Barresi ( ruutura@hotmail.it) 
