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Art, Alienation, and the Humanities: A Critical Engagement With Herbert Marcuse (S U N Y Series in Philosophy of Education)

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Art, Alienation and the Humanities: A Critical Engagement with Herbert Marcuse
By Charles Reitz. SUNY 336 pp.

Alienation, reification, estrangement, disempowerment, and exploitation, are some of the concepts Charles Reitz addresses. Reitz presents an elaborate and lucid discussion of Marcuse's misplaced emphasis on aesthetic dimension as a purportedly disalienating dimension and as a means to overcoming the one dimensionality of existence. Reitz's discussion of Marcuse's aesthetic finds a parallel line of discussion regarding Marxian beliefs in the causes of alienation and the means of effective dealienation leading to the dissolution of Marcuse's. The philosophical discussion is complex and requires a good knowledge of the competing philosophical orientations such as those of Dilthey, Comte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Schiller, Goethe, Nietzsche, Marx and Heidegger among others.

Reitz's unique contribution lies not only in presenting Marcuse either as a non-Marxist or even as an anti-Marxist, but in attempting to "recall" viable and promising "theory and conduct of education" embedded in Marcuse's critical theory and work even though he finds Marcuse's argument flawed with contradictions.

Marcuse's work in the United States introduced the American academics to the Frankfurt School's views of Marxism. Later Marcuse came to believe that both the Hegelian "dialectic of historical progress" and historical materialism found in classical Marxism (the inevitablity of the transition from capitalism to socialism) were not sufficiently convincing. Marcuse instead suggests the "aesthetic arguments" as a substitute for the Marxist structural and historical analysis of social change. That is, he opts for Dilthey's belief in "emotional" and "political" potential of humanities and intellectual history as opposed to Marx's historical materialism with labor as its foundation. To Marx, in a commodity driven market "art" finds its highest level of appreciation like any other commodity by the need for it and its price.
In his later years as contrasted with his middle period (1932-1970) and indeed throughout his intellectual life, Marcuse was in Reitz's estimation suffering from a crippling contradiction between Hegelian idealism and Marxian materialism. In Marcuse's estimation according to Reitz,knowledge and particularly educational knowledge is ontological and the word spirit occupies a central position in the pursuit of philosophical truth (ala Dilthey), replacing the core of Marxism -- Historical Materialism. Thus the selection of idealism and the rejection of materialism and the substitution of ontological aesthetic based on the classical German Idealism from Kant to Heidegger for the historical materialism (p.234).

The discussion in "The Future" section is very insightful. Reitz skillfully applies the core of the critical theory and specifically Marcuse's concept of "one dimensional man" to current realities of consumerism, alienation, reification and apathy. Globalization of production, grueling labor process, sold out politicians and politically, economically, and socially overpowering transnational corporations are reasons for Reitz's suggested course of ction.
On many issues regarding Marcuse's Marxism, anti-Marxism, idealism etc., Reitz is tormented between the pole of respect for an intellectual giant whose ideas appear to be timeless and the pole of distrust of a "third way" or approach to analyzing society that shakes the foundation of Marxism, historical materialism, by introducing the "libido" and the "erotic will" as meaningful substitutes categories.

Neither Marcuse believes nor Reitz is accusing him of arguing that aesthetics are free from political influence, and or neglecting the impact of commodification of sex, and the impact of abuses of the sensual and the sublime on the alienation process. Marcuse sees technical progress and the advancement of science as prerequisites for freedom, provided that their direction is altered and their goals are redefined free from the influence of alienating forces so they may become a vehicle of liberation -- "technology of liberation" -- an aesthetic morality which is vehemently opposed to the pollution of life by the "spirit of capitalism." The revolution demands a solid "real foundation" composed of the historical and the sensuous -- life instincts which must be rescued from crude materialistic reductionism. It is difficult to see these as anything but revolutionary and I am sure that Reitz agrees that it is all good materialism.
To Marcuse "The radical social content of the aesthetic needs becomes evident as the demand for their most elementary satisfaction is translated into group action on an enlarged scale...from...drive for better zoning regulations to...decommercialization of nature...control of the birth rate.....The quantity of such reforms would turn into the quality of radical change..." sufficiently so as to "weaken" the structural power which stands in opposition to them (An Essay On Liberation, p. 28). Here Marcuse is the Green of the late twentieth century, or is it the Greens including Reitz who reiterate Marcuse of yesteryear.

Marcuse however is walking a fine line between idealism of greater good for everyone and Marxism and its emphasis on structural causes of mass misery and alienation. Marcuse adds an interesting statement regarding the interplay of objective and subjective realms which are discussed in detail by Marx. To Marcuse "[T]he term `aesthetic,' in its dual connotation of `pertaining to the senses' and `pertaining to art,' may serve to designate the quality of the productive-creative process in an environment of freedom" (Marcuse p.24). To Marx, aesthetics and in particular art in an alienated (capitalistic) environment cannot function beyond the realm of consumption. In order for arts to be liberating and disalienating, the social environment in which art is relegated to mere objects of consumption must be transformed into a free society in which art becomes art in itself. But Reitz is certainly looking at broader issues of exploitation and reification disguised and sadly presented as individual freedom regardless of the means (escapism in the form of sex, violence, sports, and consumerism) by which the whole structure is reproduced and in the spirit of postmodernism the wholehearted acceptance of these as inevitable.

In the 1930s Aldous Huxley predicted the rise of sexual freedom, promiscuity, warfare, militarism and aggression accompanied by reduction in political and economic freedoms. Well aware of these similarities, Reitz presents the reader with hope and aspirations by increasing the level of anxiety as did Marcuse's lecture on the ills of capitalist societies back then.

Mehdi Shariati