Reason for revolt.

• Author: Burke, Richard
• Position: 'The Essential Marcuse: Selected Writings of Philosopher and Social Critic Herbert Marcuse' - Book review

The Essential Marcuse: Selected Writings of Philosopher and Social Critic Herbert Marcuse. Edited by Andrew Feenberg and William Leiss, Boston: Beacon Books, 2007, 248 pages.

In the 1960s the writings of Herbert Marcuse played an influential role in the development of the New Left. Writings such as Eros and Civilization, One Dimensional Man and An Essay in Liberation were important for the rethinking of Marxian doctrine in light of the realities of the late 20th century, and applying it to concerns beyond the scope of orthodox Marxism. In The Essential Marcuse Andrew Feenberg and William Leiss provide an introduction to a thinker whose ideas still remain relevant to our current situation.

Born in 1898 to a German-Jewish family, Marcuse fought in the First World War and took part in the revolution which followed in its aftermath. The failure of the revolution and the rise of fascism afterwards played a formative role in his subsequent career. Throughout his life Marcuse was haunted by the fact that while a revolutionary situation had existed, the German masses were not "ready" for socialism. After Hitler came to power Marcuse fled to Switzerland, where he joined the exiled members of the Institute for Social Research, better known as "The Frankfurt School," which included luminaries of Western Marxist thought such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Walter Benjamin. When the Frankfurt School relocated to the United States Marcuse joined them, eventually taking up an academic career at Brandeis University and later at the University of California, San Diego.

The work of Herbert Marcuse is that of a committed Marxist who was forced to confront the failure of Marxism while remaining true to its goal of a liberated society. His writings stress the importance of utopian visions, the revolutionary function of art, and the necessary of transcendent ideals to social criticism of the existing state of affairs. Marcuse's writings revolve around the theme of developing a new consciousness, one which would refuse the administered and manipulated needs of capitalist society and create a more free and peaceful world.

The first of the essays in the collection, "The Individual in the Great Society," might at first glance appear to be nothing more than a historical relic of the days of L.B.J. A closer look reveals it to be both prescient and relevant to today's political scene. Here Marcuse reveals the underlying contradictions of Johnson's "Great...