Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud Read online

  EROS AND CIVILIZATION

  Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) was born and educated in Berlin. In 1934 he left Nazi Germany, and took refuge in the USA, where he taught at Columbia University. He then held appointments at Harvard, Brandeis and the University of California at San Diego. He became well known in the 1960s as the official idealogue of “campus revolutions” in the USA and Europe. His books include Reason and Revolution (1941) and One–Dimensional Man (1964), published by Routledge.

  Also published by Routledge:

  One-Dimensional Man

  Reason and Revolution

  The Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, edited by Douglas Kellner

  Volume One, Technology, War and Fascism

  Volume Two, Towards a Critical Theory of Society

  Volume Three, The New Left and the 1960s

  Volume Four, Art and Liberation

  Volume Five, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation

  Volume Six, Marxism, Revolution and Utopia

  EROS AND CIVILIZATION

  A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud

  Herbert Marcuse

  with a preface by

  Douglas kellner

  First published in England 1956

  by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd

  Ark edition 1987

  Transferred to Digital Printing 2005

  Reissued with new preface 1998 by Routledge

  2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

  © 1956 Herbert Marcuse

  Preface © 1998 Douglas Kellner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 0-415-18663-3

  WRITTEN IN MEMORY OF

  SOPHIE MARCUSE

  1901-1951

  Contents

  PREFACE TO 1998 EDITION

  PREFACE

  INTRODUCTION

  PART I. Under the Rule of the Reality Principle

  1. The Hidden Trend in Psychoanalysis

  Pleasure principle and reality principle

  Genetic and individual repression

  "Return of the repressed" in civilization

  Civilization and want: rationalization of renunciation

  "Remembrance of things past" as vehicle of liberation

  2. The Origin of the Repressed Individual (Ontogenesis)

  The mental apparatus as a dynamic union of opposites

  Stages in Freud's theory of instincts

  Common conservative nature of primary instincts

  Possible supremacy of Nirvana principle

  Id, ego, superego

  "Corporealization" of the psyche

  Reactionary character of superego

  Evaluation of Freud's basic conception

  Analysis of the interpretation of history in Freud's psychology

  Distinction between repression and "surplus-repression"

  Alienated labor and the performance principle

  Organization of sexuality: taboos on pleasure

  Organization of destruction instincts

  Fatal dialectic of civilization

  3. The Origin of Repressive Civilization (Phylogenesis)

  "Archaic heritage" of the individual ego

  Individual and group psychology

  The primal horde: rebellion and restoration of domination

  Dual content of the sense of guilt

  Return of the repressed in religion

  The failure of revolution

  Changes in father-images and mother-images

  4. The Dialectic of Civilization

  Need for strengthened defense against destruction

  Civilization's demand for sublimation (desexualization)

  Weakening of Eros (life instincts); release of destructiveness

  Progress in productivity and progress in domination

  Intensified controls in industrial civilization

  Decline of struggle with the father

  Depersonalization of superego, shrinking of ego

  Completion of alienation

  Disintegration of the established reality principle

  5. Philosophical Interlude

  Freud's theory of civilization in the tradition of Western philosophy

  Ego as aggressive and transcending subject

  Logos as logic of domination

  Philosophical protest against logic of domination

  Being and becoming: permanence versus transcendence

  The eternal return in Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche

  Eros as essence of being

  PART II. Beyond the Reality Principle

  6. The Historical Limits of the Established Reality Principle

  Obsolescence of scarcity and domination

  Hypothesis of a new reality principle

  The instinctual dynamic toward non-repressive civilization

  Problem of verifying the hypothesis

  7. Phantasy and Utopia

  Phantasy versus reason

  Preservation of the "archaic past"

  Truth value of phantasy

  The image of life without repression and anxiety

  Possibility of real freedom in a mature civilization

  Need for a redefinition of progress

  8. The Images of Orpheus and Narcissus

  Archetypes of human existence under non-repressive civilization

  Orpheus and Narcissus versus Prometheus

  Mythological struggle of Eros against the tyranny of reason - against death

  Reconciliation of man and nature in sensuous culture

  9. The Aesthetic Dimension

  Aesthetics as the science of sensuousness

  Reconciliation between pleasure and freedom, instinct and morality

  Aesthetic theories of Baumgarten, Kant, and Schiller

  Elements of a non-repressive culture

  Transformation of work into play

  10. The Transformation of Sexuality into Eros

  The abolition of domination

  Effect on the sex instincts

  "Self-sublimation" of sexuality into Eros

  Repressive versus free sublimation

  Emergence of non-repressive societal relationships

  Work as the free play of human faculties

  Possibility of libidinous work relations

  11. Eros and Thanatos

  The new idea of reason: rationality of gratification

  Libidinous morality

  The struggle against the flux of time

  Change in the relation between Eros and death instinct

  Epilogue: Critique of Neo-Freudian Revisionism

  Index

  Preface to 1998 Edition

  Douglas Kellner

  Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization (EC) provides an exciting and compelling articulation of his perspectives on contemporary civilization, domination, and liberation. Written at the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s, Marcuse’s epic of emancipation sketches out his vision of a free and non-repressive civilization during a historical epoch characterized by social repression and attacks on radical thought. His emphasis on liberation, play, love, and eros anticipated the ethos of the 1960s counterculture which in turn made him a guru of radical thought. In addition, the text provides an extremely radi
cal critique of contemporary civilization which was to make Marcuse a darling of the New Left and one of the most influential thinkers of his epoch.

  From the perspective of critical social theory, Marcuse reconstructs Freudian and Marxian theories in order to develop a critical theory of contemporary society, combined with visions of a non-repressive society which draws on Marx, Freud, utopian socialism, German idealism, and various poets and philosophers. In this text, Marcuse’s project went well beyond classical Marxism to envisage new possibilities for liberation in an era when revolutionary action and even critical thinking were threatened by oppressive social forces and conformist ideologies. In his resolutely utopian work, Marcuse articulates the vision of human emancipation that was to distinguish his version of critical theory. Whereas Adorno, Horkheimer, and most other Institute members were reluctant to develop any detailed utopian concepts, or outlines, of an alternative society, Marcuse attempted to sketch out Utopian alternatives to the present way of life. The addition of eros, art, and emancipation to his Hegelian Marxist theory provided new substance to Marcuse’s thought and eventually was to attract a large audience for his critical theory.

  In the first part of EC, Marcuse attempts to explain why repression prevails in advanced industrial societies and to analyze the obstacles to liberation. In the second half of the book, he sketches out perspectives toward producing a non-repressive society. EC is arguably the seminal work of Marcuse’s critical theory which establishes the foundation for much of his later writings. The book contributed to serious philosophical study of Freud, showed links between Freud and Marx which had been, for the most part, previously overlooked, and introduced Marcuse to a wide academic, and eventually popular, audience.

  The opening chapters of EC contain a critical dialogue with Freud’s theory of civilization, above all Civilization and its Discontents. Marcuse wishes to answer Freud’s pessimism concerning the possibility of attaining happiness in civilization and to refute Freud’s argument that a non-repressive society is impossible. For Freud, progress in civilization requires imposed labor and instinctual repression. Freud argues that unimpeded sexual gratification is incompatible with the discipline necessary in the struggle for existence, and that renunciation and delay in satisfaction is a prerequisite for progress. Happiness and sexual pleasure, Freud claims, have no cultural value and are to be subordinated to work, monogamous reproduction, moral rectitude, and social restraint. On Freud’s theory, culture is thus a methodical sacrifice of pleasure and is the social equivalent to repression.

  Freud’s analysis implies that a non-repressive civilization is impossible both because the fact of scarcity requires highly disciplined hard labor to ensure survival, and because human nature requires coercive law and order to keep aggressive and destructive impulses in line. To counter Freud, Marcuse argues that Freud’s own theory shows that socialization and repression are historically specific and subject to social transformation. Then Marcuse argues that a reading of the “hidden trend of psychoanalysis," in conjunction with reflection on the technical-economic potential of the current society, shows that a non-repressive civilization is possible. In this encounter with Freud, Marcuse both uses Freud against Freud and reconstructs some of Freud’s ideas to develop his own anthropology and critical theory.

  Marcuse thus reconstructs Freud’s theory in order to provide an account of how society comes to dominate the individual, how social control is internalized, and how conformity ensues. Although Marx is not explicitly mentioned in the book, many of his ideas are present and the book can be seen as an attempt to use Freud’s theory to carry through a Marxian critique of contemporary capitalism and a transvaluation of values which could be used in a project of social reconstruction. For example, rather than using the standard Marxian categories of exploitation, he uses the concepts of surplus repression and the performance principle to function as concepts critical of capitalist society.

  In his synthesis of Marx, Freud, and radical utopian thought, Marcuse also uses Freud’s categories to provide a psychological explanation for the failures of revolutionary consciousness to develop in the West and in the Soviet Union, which would help account for the workers’ submission to fascism, Stalinism, and corporate capitalism. In so doing, he at once uses Freud as a front for a Marxian critique of capitalism and to revise Marxian theories of human nature and socialism, bringing elements of play, sexuality, and aesthetic sensibility into the Marxian theory – elements neglected or suppressed by most orthodox Marxist theorists. Thus, Marcuse could both enlarge the Freudian concept of repression to include what Marx discussed under the rubrics of alienation and exploitation, and could emphasize the importance of elements of a non-repressive civilization and liberated humanity that were neglected in the Marxian anthropology and theory of revolution, which focused on the alienation of labor and its liberation.

  Consequently, Marcuse goes beyond orthodox Marxism and uses Freud and others to add a psychological and a cultural dimension to radical social theory missing in classical Marxism. Crucially, whereas the usual interpretations of Marx and Freud at the time juxtaposed them as incompatible and contradictory to each other, Marcuse attempts to show how Freudian ideas can be used in a Marxian theory of social critique and social reconstruction. Thus Marcuse shows both how a Marxian critique can correct and radicalize Freud, and how Freud can in turn be used in developing a radical psychology, theory of socialization, and anthropology of liberation – all of which Marcuse believed a critical theory of society needed and could not discover in Marx.

  In an interview in 1978, Marcuse told me that he turned to intensive study of Freud because he was aware of the absence in Marxism of emphasis on individual liberation and the psychological dimension. Marcuse claimed that he wanted to produce a theory which would explain why revolutionary consciousness had failed to develop and which could identify the subjective conditions which led individuals to conform to fascism, Stalinism, and consumer capitalism. He stated that he had read Freud in the 1920s and had also studied the Marx-Freud debates at that time, recalling articles by Siegfried Bernfeld and others. He believed that the first of Wilhelm Reich’s works which he read was the Mass Psychology of Fascism, but did not remember reading Reich’s earlier work until later. Marcuse said that he and other members of the Institute for Social Research believed that Reich “moved too fast from subjective conditions to objective conditions” and “vastly oversimplified” fascism in claiming that sexual repression created personalities who were susceptible to fascism, and in explaining fascism’s success through its ability to manipulate repressed personalities and provide sexual surrogates. Marcuse claimed that he and his Institute colleagues thought that more adequate socio-economic analysis was needed to explain fascism and that a more thoroughgoing mediation between subjective and objective conditions was necessary as well.

  After analysis of the obstacles to liberation in his theory of civilization and domination, Marcuse discusses prospects for liberation in the second half of EC. Marcuse is responding here to cultural pessimism generated by theories of Freud, Weber, his critical theory colleagues, and the failure of the Marxian theory of revolution and socialism to produce what he took to be an emancipated society. EC appeared during a decade when pessimistic cultural philosophies were widespread in intellectual circles, and when social scientists declared the “end of ideology" – which meant the end of utopian-revolutionary projects of social reconstruction. In this climate of cultural despair among left intellectuals and conformity among dominant social theorists, Marcuse turned to study and defended the most radical ideas in the Western cultural heritage. The second half of EC contains sketches of Marcuse’s utopian philosophy and outlines of his notion of a non-repressive civilization which directly counter theories that were rejecting such radical and utopian projects.

  Indeed, Marcuse’s theory of Eros contains an admirable defense of the life-affirming, creative characteristics of human nature. Previous philosophers – from Plato, Aug
ustine, and Kant to the present day – have tended to emphasize the destructive and asocial features of the derivatives of Eros (i.e. sex, passion, desire, etc.). Against this ascetic tradition, Marcuse defends erotic energies as the very principle of life and creativity. His linking of aesthetic and erotic dimensions of human experience is also important in both explicating features of an emancipated individual and a non-repressive society.

  Marcuse finds testimony to the hope of liberation not only in Freud’s instinct theory, but in the classics of modernist art and an oppositional philosophical tradition that stressed the importance of human happiness and freedom. In the 1950s, Marcuse returned to his early interests in literature and aesthetics, taking up once again the study of Schiller, the aesthetics of German idealism, and modernist avant-garde literature. At the same time, he began studying Fourier and utopian socialism. Marcuse sought to investigate the relation between cultural radicalism and political change, and the relation between art and liberation. He felt that Marx had neglected these themes and failed to describe the emancipatory political potential in art. Marcuse emphasized to me the continuity in these concerns with his early interest in literature and aesthetics, but insisted that he now wanted to develop these themes in the context of the Marxian revolutionary theory.

  Marcuse’s work in EC responds to the crisis of revolutionary possibility in the depths of the Cold War period. American capitalism was experiencing an era of expansion described by phrases like the “affluent society" (Galbraith), the “end of ideology" (Bell), “the great American celebration" (Mills), and “the consumer society.” The dominant social theories were both “positivistic," limiting themselves for the most part to describing the “facts," and “affirmative," celebrating and legitimating the existing social order. Marxism too was in a rather sterile and dogmatic phase, controlled by Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, while Social Democracy was repudiating its Marxist heritage. Possibilities for socialist revolution in the advanced capitalist countries, especially the United States where Marcuse now lived, appeared to be at a nadir.