One-Dimensional Man

One-Dimensional Man

Cover of the first edition
Author	Herbert Marcuse
Language	English
Subjects	Capitalism, communism, democracy, industrialization
Publisher	Beacon Press
Publication date	1964
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
Pages	257
ISBN	0-415-07429-0 (2. ed.)

Part of a series on the
Frankfurt School
Major works Dialectic of Enlightenment Eclipse of Reason Eros and Civilization Escape from Freedom Minima Moralia Negative Dialectics One-Dimensional Man Reason and Revolution The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere The Theory of Communicative Action "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Notable theorists Adorno Apel Benjamin Fromm Forst Grünberg Geuss Habermas Honneth Horkheimer Jaeggi Kluge Kracauer Kirchheimer Kompridis Kuhlmann Löwenthal Marcuse McCarthy Negt Neumann Offe Pollock Schmidt Sohn-Rethel Wellmer Wingert
Important concepts Advanced capitalism Antipositivism Communicative rationality Critical theory Culture industry Dialectic Legitimation crisis Non-identity Popular culture Praxis Privatism Psychoanalysis
Related topics Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory Freudo-Marxism Marxist humanism Recognition Reification Social alienation Western Marxism
Philosophy portal Society portal
v t e

One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society is a 1964 book by the German–American philosopher and critical theorist Herbert Marcuse, in which the author offers a wide-ranging critique of both the contemporary capitalist society of the Western Bloc and the communist society of the Soviet Union, documenting the parallel rise of new forms of social repression in both of these societies, and the decline of revolutionary potential in the West. He argues that the "advanced industrial society" created false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought.^[1]

This results in a "one-dimensional" universe of thought and behavior, in which aptitude and ability for critical thought and oppositional behavior wither away. Against this prevailing climate, Marcuse promotes the "great refusal" (described at length in the book) as the only adequate opposition to all-encompassing methods of control. Much of the book is a defense of "negative thinking" as a disrupting force against the prevailing positivism.^[1]

Marcuse also analyzes the integration of the industrial working class into capitalist society and new forms of capitalist stabilization, thus questioning the Marxian postulates of the revolutionary proletariat and the inevitability of capitalist crisis. In contrast to orthodox Marxism, Marcuse champions non-integrated forces of minorities, outsiders, and radical intelligentsia, attempting to nourish oppositional thought and behavior through promoting radical thinking and opposition. He considers the trends towards bureaucracy in supposedly Marxist countries to be as oppositional to freedom as those in the capitalist West.^[1] One-Dimensional Man bolstered Marcuse's fame as a contemporary Western philosopher.^[2]