ABSTRACT
This first chapter on Marcuse, focusing mainly on his post-war works, especially Eros and Civilization and One-Dimensional Man, explores his theorisation of ideology in advanced consumer societies as automatic and unconscious absorption of affirmative goals. It begins by highlighting the dialectical core in Marcuse’s theory in his contrast between one-dimensional thought and two-dimensional or critical thought, but questions how this concept can account for subjective shifts between affirmation and opposition. It then considers how Marcuse attempts to locate the potential for such shifts in Freud’s theory of instincts, and the emancipatory potentials of technology and collective memory. Here it argues that Marcuse emphasises these factors in social change because he sees consciousness as merely an effect of unconscious and material structures, yet the potentials he identifies themselves depend on mass critical consciousness. Next, the chapter looks at how examples that Marcuse gives of automatic absorption of dominant ideas involve forms of rationalisation supported by particular beliefs, and imply a political struggle of ideas. It compares statements by Marcuse from a range of texts and interprets the differences between them as signs of varied ideological positions. The parameters of these positions are sketched to form an early version of the ideology map.
