Juli 19, 2012

Marcuse als Prophet der "Befreiung vom Überfluss"?

Zu Herbert Marcuses 114. ein Auszug aus Leszek Kołakowskis Main currents of marxism, Ausgabe New York und London, 2005, S.1122-1123:

"Marcuse combines contempt for science and technology with the belief that we must strive for higher values because all the problems of material welfare have been solved and commodities exist in plenty: to increase the amount can only serve the interests of capitalism, which lives by creating false needs and instilling a false consciounsness. In this respect, Marcuse is typical of the mentality of those who had never to trouble themselves to obtain food, clothing, housing, electricity, and so on, as all these necessities of life were available ready-made. This accounts for the popularity of his philosophy among those who never had anything to do with material and economic production. Students from comfortable middle-class backgrounds have in common with the lumpenproletariat that the technique and organization of production is beyond their mental horizon: consumer goods, whether plentiful or in short supply, are simply there for the taking. Contempt for technique and organization goes hand in hand with a distaste for all forms of learning that are subject to regular rules of operation or that require vigorous effort, intellectual discipline, and a humble attitude towards facts and the rules of logic. It is much easier to shirk the laborious task and to utter slogans about global revolution transcending our present civilization and uniting knowledge and feeling. (...)

There could hardly be a clearer instance of the replacement of Marx's slogan 'either socialism or barbarism' by the version 'socialism equals barbarism'. And there is probably no other philosopher in our day who deserves as completely as Marcuse to be called the ideologist of obscurantism."

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