Book Reviews : Five Lectures. By HERBERT MARCUSE. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970. Pp. 109. $7.50 cloth, $1.95 paper.)
| Author | Larry L. Adams |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591297002300436 |
| Date | 01 December 1970 |
| Published date | 01 December 1970 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
903
his
&dquo;hysterical
hatred
of
the
Jews&dquo;
was,
in
fact,
a
hatred
for
his
mother,
or
that
both
the
working
class
and
the
New
York
Herald
Tribune
were
&dquo;mother&dquo;
symbols
for
Marx.
Thus
Marx
and
all
intellectuals
demonstrate
a
sense
of
inadequacy
about
their
masculinity.
The
fact
that
this
collection
includes
an
interesting
and
well-documented
essay
on
the
influence
of
American
travellers
to
the
Soviet
Union
in
the
1920’s
and
1930’s
seems
to
underscore
the
relationship
between
Marx
as
a
subject
and
the
unreliability
of
the
scholarship.
By
contrast,
McLellan’s
study
of
the
relationship
of
Marx
to
the
Young
Hegelians
is
a
restrained,
if
somewhat
repetitious,
contribution
to
the
expanding
literature
on
the
formative
phase
of
Marx’s
thought.
In
its
understanding
of
the
philosophical
framework
of
the
Young
Hegelians,
but
above
all,
in
its
apprecia-
tion
of
their
position
independently
of
what
later
became
Marxism,
McLellan’s
book
is
far
superior
to
that
of
Sidney
Hook,
its
predecessor.
If
Marx
and the
Intellectuals
is
proof
that
all
that
glitters
is
not
gold,
The
Young
Hegelians
and
Karl
Marx
demonstrates
that
in
a
world
ruled
by
alchemy,
even
lead
can
have
value.
University
of
California,
Los
Angeles
RICHARD
ASHCRAFT
Five
Lectures.
By
HERBERT
MARCUSE.
(Boston:
Beacon
Press,
1970.
Pp.
109.
$7.50
cloth,
$1.95
paper.)
This
small
book
by
Herbert
Marcuse
is
designed
to
reach
a
large
audience,
and
it
deserves
to
do
so.
At
the
same
time,
it
will
hold
substantial
interest
for
those
more
specially
interested
in
his
thought.
These
lectures
not
only
take
up
most
of
the
major
themes
of
Marcuse’s
thought,
but
they
do
so
in
a
progression
which
summarizes
the
course
of
his
previously
published
work,
which
has
moved
from
more
general
and
complex
arguments
(Eros
and
Civilization,
1955;
One-Dimen-
sional
Man,
1964)
to
more
limited
and
current
applications
of
his
theories
&dquo;Repres-
sive
Tolerance,&dquo;
1965;
Essay
on
Liberation,
1969) .
The
first
two
chapters
of
this
work
develop
Marcuse’s
conception
of
the
latent
radical
content
of
Freudianism,
with
special
reference
to
the
meaning
of
human
freedom,
and
of
social
progress.
They
make
dense
and
demanding
reading,
as
does
the
third
chapter,
which
argues
for
&dquo;The
Obsolescense
of
the
Freudian
Concept
of
Man&dquo;
This
chapter
serves
as
a
preparation
for
the
final
two,
which
present
in
brief
compass
Marcuse’s
distinctive
view
of
the
revolutionary
potentialities
of
the
present
situation
in
the
industrialized
West,
and
the
possibilities
for
a
radically
altered
human
future.
The
first
lecture,
entitled
&dquo;Freedom
and
Freud’s
Theory
of
Instincts,&dquo;
pro-
vides
the
best available
short
introduction
to
Marcuse’s
thought.
In
it,
he
explains
that
he
is
not
presenting
a
psychological
explanation
of
politics,
but
on
the
con-
trary,
an
argument
that
the
processes
of
mental
life,
which
were
explored
most
comprehensively
by
Freud,
are
structured
by
the
needs
and
norms
of
society
and
state.
Marcuse
rejects
Liberalism
because,
he
contends,
it
has
developed
its
con-
cept
of
freedom
within
the
limits
of
existing
domination.
The
freedom
to
which
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