Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Marcuse in 1955 | |
| Born | July 19, 1898 |
| Died | July 29, 1979 (aged 81) |
| Spouse(s) |
Sophie Wertheim
(m. 1924; died 1951)Inge Neumann
(m. 1955; died 1973)Erica Sherover (m. 1976) |
| Education | |
| Education | University of Berlin University of Freiburg (PhD, 1922; Dr. phil. hab., 1932) |
| Martin Heidegger (Dr. phil. hab. advisor) | |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| Institutions | University of Frankfurt am Main Columbia University Harvard University Brandeis University University of California, San Diego Max Planck Society |
Doctoral students | |
Main interests | |
Notable works |
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Notable ideas | |
| Signature | |
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| Part of a series on the |
| Frankfurt School |
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Herbert Marcuse (/mɑːrˈkuːzə/ mar-KOO-zə;[4] German: [maʁˈkuːzə]; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German and American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and then at the University of Freiburg, where he received his PhD under the supervision of Martin Heidegger.[5] He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research, which later became known as the Frankfurt School. In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, Soviet Communism, and popular culture, arguing that they represent new forms of social control.[6]
In the 1960s and the 1970s, he became known as the pre-eminent theorist of the New Left and the student movements of West Germany, France, and the United States; some consider him "the Father of the New Left".[7]
The best-known works of Herbert Marcuse are Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964). His Marxist scholarship inspired many radical intellectuals and political activists in the 1960s and 1970s, and has from then on considerably influenced left-wing political thinking in the Western world. The name "Marcuse" itself, however, remains obscure outside of specialized contexts where critical theory is taught or referenced.[8]
Biography
[edit]Early years
[edit]Herbert Marcuse was born July 19, 1898, in Berlin, to Carl Marcuse and Gertrud Kreslawsky. Marcuse's family was a German upper-middle-class Jewish family that was well integrated into German society.[9] Marcuse moved from Berlin to the suburb of Charlottenburg, the center of West Berlin. Marcuse's formal education began at Mommsen Gymnasium and continued at the Kaiserin-Augusta Gymnasium in Charlottenburg from 1911 to 1916.[9] In 1916, he was drafted into the German Army, but only worked in horse stables in Berlin during World War I. He spent his entire military service in Germany. While in Berlin, he managed to secure permission to attend lectures at the university of Berlin while still on active duty.[5] He then became a member of a Soldiers' Council that participated in the abortive socialist Spartacist uprising. During the instability in Germany immediately after WW1, right-wing snipers were targeting left-wing demonstrators and dissenters. Marcuse was assigned a position as an anti-sniper, searching for and shooting the right-wing snipers.[10][11]
In 1919, he attended the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, taking classes for four semesters. In 1920, he transferred to the University of Freiburg to concentrate on German literature, philosophy, politics, and economics.[9] He completed his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1922 on the German Künstlerroman, after which he moved back to Berlin, where he worked in publishing. Two years later, he married Sophie Wertheim, a mathematician.
He returned to Freiburg in 1928 to write a habilitation under Martin Heidegger,[12] titled Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity (Hegels Ontologie und die Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit, 1932). Written during the Hegel Renaissance across Europe, it focused on Hegel's ontology of life and history, and his idealist theory of spirit and dialectic.[13]
Institute for Social Research
[edit]In 1932, Marcuse stopped working with Heidegger, who joined the Nazi Party in 1933. Marcuse understood that he would not qualify as a professor under the Nazi regime.[9] Marcuse was then hired to work for the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. The Institute deposited their endowment in Holland in anticipation of the Nazi takeover, so Marcuse never actually worked in the school there.[9] Instead, he left Nazi Germany in May 1933 and began his work with the Institute in Geneva, where a branch office had been formed.[9] While a member of the Frankfurt School, Marcuse developed a model for critical social theory, created a theory of the new stage of state and monopoly capitalism, described the relationships between philosophy, social theory, and cultural criticism, and provided an analysis and critique of German Nazism. Marcuse worked closely with critical theorists while at the institute.[13]
Emigration to the United States
[edit]Marcuse emigrated to the United States in June 1934. He served at the institute's Columbia University branch from 1934 through 1942. He traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1942, to work for the Office of War Information, and afterward the Office of Strategic Services. Marcuse went on to teach at Brandeis University and the University of California, San Diego, later in his career.[9] In 1940, he became a US citizen and resided in the country until his death in 1979.[9] Although he never returned to Germany to live, he remained one of the major theorists associated with the Frankfurt School, along with Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno (among others). In 1940, Marcuse published Reason and Revolution, a dialectical work studying Hegel and Karl Marx.
World War II
[edit] | This section needs more citations. (April 2024) |
During World War II, Marcuse first worked for the US Office of War Information (OWI) on anti-Nazi propaganda projects. In 1943, he transferred to the Research and Analysis Branch (R&A) of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Marcuse joined fellow Frankfurt School scholar Franz Neumann in R&A's Central European Section as senior analyst. He rapidly established himself as "the leading analyst on Germany".[14] A compilation of Marcuse's reports was later published in Secret Reports on Nazi Germany: The Frankfurt School Contribution to the War Effort (2013).
Directed by the Harvard historian William L. Langer, R&A was the largest American research institution in the first half of the twentieth century. At its zenith between 1943 and 1945, it employed over twelve hundred, four hundred of whom were stationed abroad. In many respects, it was the site where post-World War II American social science was born, with protégés of some of the most esteemed American university professors, as well as numerous European intellectual émigrés, in its ranks.
After the OSS was dissolved in 1945, Marcuse was employed by the US Department of State as head of the Central European section, becoming an intelligence analyst of Nazism. He analyzed the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, publishing his criticism in the book Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis (1958). He retired after the death of his first wife in 1951.
Post-war career
[edit]
Marcuse began his teaching career as a political theorist at Columbia University, then continued at Harvard University in 1952. Marcuse worked at Brandeis University from 1954 to 1965, then at the University of California, San Diego from 1965 to 1970.[15] It was during his time at Brandeis that he wrote his most famous work, One-Dimensional Man (1964).[16]
Marcuse was a friend and collaborator of the political sociologist Barrington Moore Jr. and of the political philosopher Robert Paul Wolff. He was also a friend of the Columbia University sociology professor C. Wright Mills, one of the founders of the New Left movement. In his "Introduction" to One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse wrote: "I should like to emphasize the vital importance of the work of C. Wright Mills."[17]
In the post-war period, Marcuse rejected the theory of class struggle and the Marxist concern with labor, instead claiming, according to Leszek Kołakowski, that since "all questions of material existence have been solved, moral commands and prohibitions are no longer relevant." He regarded the realization of man's erotic nature as the true liberation of humanity, which inspired the utopias of Jerry Rubin and others.[18]
Marcuse's critiques of capitalist society (especially his 1955 synthesis of Marx and Sigmund Freud in Eros and Civilization, his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man, and his 1965 essay "Repressive Tolerance") resonated with the concerns of the student movement in the 1960s because of his willingness to speak at student protests.[13] He had been given the title "Philosopher of the New Left" for his rejection of the traditions of Western civilization. The New Left provided an attractive alternative to American society and Marcuse was able to appeal to many young individuals through his teachings of utopianism. His ideas critiqued contemporary liberalism and its conservative vestiges of nineteenth-century liberalism.[19] Marcuse soon became known in the media as "Father of the New Left."[13][20] Contending that the students of the '60s were not waiting for the publication of his work to act,[20] Marcuse brushed the media's branding of him as "Father of the New Left" aside lightly,[20] saying: "It would have been better to call me not the father, but the grandfather, of the New Left."[20] His work strongly influenced intellectual discourse on popular culture and scholarly popular culture studies. In particular, he influenced youth because he "spoke their language."[20] He understood the importance of rock and roll,[20] for example, as a symbol for New Left activism. He had many speaking engagements in the US and Western Bloc in the late 1960s and 1970s. He became a close friend and inspirer of the French philosopher André Gorz.
Marcuse defended the arrested East German dissident Rudolf Bahro (author of Die Alternative: Zur Kritik des real existierenden Sozialismus [trans., The Alternative in Eastern Europe]), discussing in a 1979 essay Bahro's theories of "change from within".[21]
Marriages
[edit]
Marcuse married three times. His first wife was mathematician Sophie Wertheim (1901–1951), whom he married in 1924 and had his first son Peter with in 1928. Before emigrating to New York in 1934, they resided in Freiburg, Berlin, Geneva, and Paris. They lived in Los Angeles/Santa Monica and Washington, D.C., in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1951, Sophie Wertheim died due to cancer.[22] Marcuse later married Inge Neumann (1914–1973), the widow of his close friend Franz Neumann (1900–1954). After his second wife Inge died in 1973, Marcuse married Erica Sherover (1938–1988), a former graduate student at the University of California, in 1976.[23]
Children
[edit]In his first marriage with Sophie Wertheim, they had one son, Peter Marcuse, born in 1928. Peter Marcuse was a professor emeritus of urban planning at Columbia University in New York. Although Marcuse did not have any children with Inge Neumann Marcuse, he helped raise her two sons, Thomas Neumann and Michael Neumann.[24] Thomas (now Osha) is a Berkeley-based writer, activist, lawyer, and muralist. Michael works as a philosophy professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.[25]
Marcuse's granddaughter was the novelist Irene Marcuse and his grandson, Harold Marcuse, is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Death
[edit]
In July 1979, Marcuse spoke at the Frankfurt Römerberggespräche in Germany. At the invitation of second-generation Frankfurt School theorist Jürgen Habermas, he was then to visit the Max Planck Institute for the Study of the Scientific-Technical World in Starnberg, where he had delivered lectures and participated in discussions from 1974 to 1979[26] On his way there, however, he suffered a stroke and died on July 29, 1979, ten days after his eighty-first birthday.
In 2003, after Marcuse's ashes were rediscovered in the United States, they were buried in the Dorotheenstädtischer cemetery in Berlin.
Philosophy and views
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