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Marcuse Herbert 1898 - 1979 (81)

Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.


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One-Dimensional

Man



Herbert Marcuse was a philosopher of German descent, a leading figure in the neo-Marxist "Critical Theory" developed by the Frankfurt School, one of the founders of the New Left, which emerged shortly after World War II. and united the neo-Marxist thinkers. His radical opposition to the established class made him in the 1960s the spiritual leader of the student movements in the United States and Western Europe.

Herbert Marcuse was born on July 19, 1898 in Berlin and was the son of a wealthy Jewish family; his father was a goldsmith. In 1917 he became a supporter of the Social Democratic Party due to his opposition to World War I but two years later, he resigned because of his disagreement with the party's official policy. After the failure of the German Revolution (1918-1919), he retired from active politics and devoted himself to studying philosophy in Berlin and Freiburg. In 1933, after Hitler came to power, he fled first to Geneva and then to the United States. He became a US citizen in 1940 and worked as an intelligence analyst for the US Secret Service during World War II. In 1950 he returned to his academic career; he taught at Columbia, Harvard, Brandee and San Diego universities, and at the same time he was a visiting professor at many Western European universities, mainly in West Berlin.

In 1964 he published the book "The One-Dimensional Man", in which it is claimed that the capitalist system succeeded in neutralizing the dissatisfaction of the oppressed, creating through insidious manipulation of the media insignificant and material desires, which The only hope for the salvation of modern man from the state of anesthesia and bliss is the reaction of those students who have not been brainwashed and of minorities of the poorer classes, who are not willing to compromise.

Marcuse married three times and had a son from his first marriage. He died on July 29, 1979, in Starnberg, Bavaria, at the age of 81.