Herbert Marcuse: Eros and Civilization
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- The very theoretical backdrop for Herbert Marcuse's later work, and one of the most important books concerning the Critical Theory. Right from the start, Marcuse seeks to refute the Freudian idea that repression is a necessity for a functioning society. Marcuse claims Freud did extremely well at defining the western subject, yet his most important insights are lost with Neo-Freudian and modern psychology. We see that throughout this book, Freud's entire foundation can be viewed from a sociological lens, and that with this lens, we can truly see nature of modern repression, and more importantly, we can find a potential way out.
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Time:
Intro: 0:00
Freudian Psychoanalysis: 2:03
Sociological Construction of Drives: 6:12
Reality Principle and Civilization: 8:00
Subject as a Negation: 15:13
Art as Liberation: 17:09
A Message: 22:58
Hi, friends! Was super excited to get this video out as this was one of my favorite videos to make. I have a request though, these CZcams videos are only possible with the help of Patreon. If you guys enjoy these videos, consider pledging just a couple dollars a month to keep this project alive! Appreciate you all: www.patreon.com/epochphilosophy
There hints of "Eros" among the American power elite in non-Disney cartoons. Bugs Bunny was a male kisser, the Loony Tunes jabbed later confirmed womanizer Bing Crosby for womanizing and Tex Avery had Red Hot Riding Hood being persued by a perfect metaphorical representation which was a limousine-riding wolf. Even as he arrived in America, there was also a hint of it in Betty Boop cartoons.
Marcuse was a Nazi propagandist in denial
Only channel on CZcams I take notes to while watching !
THE best resource on Marcuse. Unmatched! Formidable! Really great work bro👍
Incredibly kind. Thank you. Super cool comment/notification to see late at night! These comments mean a ton.
I feel like all these videos are a slow build-up to the eventual 1-hour video on Hegel
The eternal return!
I would like to recommend Wilhelm Reich’s ”Selected Writings” in it, he comes to the same conclusion as Marcuse but he takes the practical advice even further.
This is really incredible, I really need to read Marcuse
It really is a great book.
_Wilhelm Reich wrote the original... Psychoanalytic Marxist book. He actually was a third-generation psycho-analysist._
_By the way, the FDA burned his books and threw him in jail, bc he knew how to turn the deserts to green, making it rain, and the reverse, and, how to cure cancer and mental illness. Don't overlook Reich in your studies_
Yo great video, love the graphics and chill vibe bruh.
The funny thing is that the type of capitalism Marcuse was critiquing was welfare state capitalism (which we now see as far left LOL). Imagine what he would think of capitalism after the 80s....
If it ain’t laissez faire capitalism it’s not capitalism. Anything else is a mixed economy.
@@lamalamalex cringe
@@bigfloppywithasideoffries6547 whats so cringe? Are you 11 years old?
@@freckleheckler6311 hahahaha
@@bigfloppywithasideoffries6547 can you explain?
I really appreciate your videos and I hope you can keep making them. This one especially. Hopefully this will help with the algorithm. So many more people should see this.
Thank you for this! Helped me better grasp some of the concepts in the text! Great channel, keep up the good work.
Now would be a great time to deal with Erich Fromm, his own psychoanalytic concept of the social character his live long controversy with Marcuse 😁
Would love to see some videos done on Erich Fromm. Particularly from his works "Sane Society" and "The Fear of Freedom".
Somtum Somtum Me as well! Especially since, as many observers of the Fromm/Marcuse debate have noted, their criticisms and positions have much more in common than both would agree. Which isn’t a surprise, since both started out together back in Frankfurt. Strictly speaking, Fromm was the one who made the Marx/Freud synthesis possible.
YES!
I agree! Fromm is not highly regarded enough. His idea of the social character is a similarly compelling synthesis of Freud and Marx, and I'd be curious to see how the debate between him and Marcuse is tackled. I wonder if Marcuse was a bit unfair on Fromm's view, who as Jakob says is maybe closer to his view (albeit distinct) than Marcuse says.
Wait, "Thanatos" isn't really pronounced "Thantanos", is it?
No
Marcuse was a Nazi propagandist in denial. A lot of his erotic liberation stuff resembled Nazi Germany's sex culture. Whites are most likely to bred with whites. Unless he encouraged interracial-only eroticism, which he did not, he was a fit Nazi propagandist. He cared more for fornication than homosexuality.
holy fuck maybe im just high but this was so intellectually satisfying to hear. it feels like my mind has been blown
Hell ya brother
Nice to rescue Freud from popular culture
Your videos are excellent. Amazing work!
Wow, great video. I think your videos about Marcuse are the best in this channel, really excellent job ❤️
two minutes in and already loving. this. thanks
excellent video from a relevant author!
It also seems to me a wise move to review Marcuse after reviewing Heidegger.
Just add that Marcuse, as a former student of Heidegger, sent him many letters (never answered) asking him to clarify his position on the technique and the holocaust.
Thanks for all of your effort’s. You really seem to breathe live into these works, as well as compare them to their predecessors, and contemporary’s. It really shows that the human condition, has always been such a question. It shows how through out time man’s intelligence hasn’t increased. The most brilliant people of are time, would have no advantage in debate with the brilliant of any other age. We’ve just managed to accumulate a lot more stuff/burdens!
Wow!! I will have to see what you offer on patreon!
Appreciate that, friend! Any support helps a ton!
geez, best channel i ever came across.
Thank you so much my friend. Promise not to let you down!
Amazing high quality thoughtful content, I found your channel through your first Zizek video and you really are motivating me to read more theory. Thank you.
Explain how I can contribute through amazon
me apasiona la filosofía, llegué aquí buscando acerca de Slavoj Zizek....gracias por tus videos traducidos al español...saludos desde Argentina!
I was wondering about death drive right when you got to it. I've never read Marcuse but he's on my list and especially now that I know my ideas are in common with his.
Marcuse is extremely interesting. Makes perfect sense he was a celebrity among the civil-rights, mid-20th century left.
Thank you for making this video. I has inspired me into reading this work in the future
Amazing work! Keep it up!
I want and choose to believe you are a disembodied circular floating audio wave spectrum.
Also, awesome stuff as per usual.
Are you saying I'm infact God? If so, yes, I am. I am a floating audio wave spectrum.
Haha, thanks though my friend!
Nice content.Please keep it on ,its great.Subscribed
Beautifully explained 🥺♥️
I think that the great quote about our standard of living being pervasive over our time (12:41) could fit very well with what the movie Fight Club was trying to say, perhaps taken from Marcuse 's himself!
Thank you. Could you pls also make a video on Marcuse's theory on Hegel's ontology and historicity
this ended so beautifully
12:53 XD
Great video, keep up the good work!
Thank you so much! Great video!!
This was a lot to take in.
I do wonder if there is a cross over of the performance principle and the pleasure principle.
Like what of people who take pleasure in performing utilitarian tasks like planning out logistics in manufacturing or what of the king who takes pleasure in commanding people around?
It seems difficult to universalize these principles across all humans.
Quite lovely. Thank you.
Good job. Grettings from Ecuador.
Very good video and every different way you fail to say thanatos makes it even better
It's actually a deep-state conspiracy. You guys have it all wrong it's THAN-TAN-OS! Stop buying into that non-sense. No, just kidding I fucked that part up. Sorry lol.
Thanks for making it past that.
@@epochphilosophy why do we keep using greek and latin words anyway? its a dead language ergo it should not be used
@@antoniorodriguez5849 😂
Great video!
thank you
Great, thanks!
This is just amazing.
Delicious essay! Thank you for that! That one knocked me out! Very grateful for that. Thank you thank you thank you!
Great video! It sounds like a lot of the ideas explicated by Marcuse in Eros and Civilization are quite similar to those found in One-Dimensional Man; for example, his critique of the existing forms of domination and oppression and his utilization of Freud's analysis of the development of the repressive mental apparatus. I am wondering if you're familiar with Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man and if so what is the connection between the two books?
Marcuse promotes “polymorphous perversity”
@@timberrr1126 Reminds me of how Engels described the poor's sexual culture as polyamourous. Who were the beneficiaries of Marcuse's repressive desublimation?
.
@@chrisgrant1319 desublimation isn’t a word is the Oxford or Merrimac dictionaries.
“By offering instantaneous, rather than mediated, gratifications,[4] repressive desublimation was considered by Marcuse to remove the energies otherwise available for a social critique; and thus to function as a conservative force under the guise of liberation.”
We have to?! Dang! We don't! do you ever think about just going out into the forest, as a human, into the wild and just.... well?...
Jeez! you nailed it with this essay! and so where do you and I go from here friend?
Wow…thank you.
Nice!
I think looking into doing a video on one dimensional man would be awesome. I've also heard that Lyotard is a good contemporary theorist that doesn't get much attention on Theory Tube.
Look forward to the new video. Nice surprise 👌
very good!
Haven't read Marcuse yet, but it sounds very interesting.
Wow Briliant , just brilliant
BRILLIANT
Yes. Capitalism is more collectivist than most people realize. It is practically built on conformity. It demands that people follow the trends so that those setting the trends make more money.
I’m wondering if Nietzsche did not already pretty much formulated most fundamental concepts of Eros and Civilization. But then again, most modern thoughts start with Nietzsche and surely Marcuse’s work resonates more with the world as it is today.
“General happiness and comfort have likely increased in the technological continuation of modern capitalism.”
I wonder if this is true at all. Comfort yes, happiness? Well just judging by the suicide rates and prevalence of mental health problems I don’t really see it. I do think technological progress holds great potential, for example, towards a post scarcity society. I also think that in such a society innovation would actually speed up because all people are free to explore their creativity. Many people who start risky innovative or creative lives are often from comfortable upper middle class backgrounds because this gives them the security to take the risk necessary for such a life. So I think I agree with Marcuse here.
However, the incentive to innovate seems to be exactly this death drive so far, we make the greatest leaps forward during war. By contrast, the true incentive to produce radical new technology for, for example, green energy goes painfully slow and is already hijacked by capitalist modes not really interested in improving the world as far as I can see.
I intuitively agree completely that this Pinker-like assumption is vastly exaggerated/disguised by numerical metrics that merely approximate value in a constricted "bounded rationality" and I wonder if it takes a sublimation of the death drive toward a collectively mutual ends against an individually perceivable common enemy to realign this focus toward an escape velocity that passes such a threshold of class or even more broadly "humanity consciousness" a la Watchmen. I think to your initial point though about technology and the internet specifically, allows one to embrace a customized individualized 'hyperreality' as a sort of false consciousness critical mass pressure valve, especially considering corporate power's ability to dominate the space of digital simulacra by means of our convenient de facto assumption that "property rights" should somehow and for some reason carry over to the digital realm despite the transparent lack of scarcity in the medium.
But yeah, broadly speaking, even in feudalism though the serfs did not own the land, they at least still had some sort of general control over the product that land produced in the sense that aside from the fealty their labor was not completely alienated by things like productivity monitoring technology inside the workplace and basically an addictive digital panopticon for marketing/perpetual alienation that masquerades as a substitute for social interaction outside the workplace.
Reminds me of Epicurus. Had heard that Marx did his college thesis on him. Anyone ever read it?
ok I need to read this book now holy shit
It’s been a while since I considered Marcuse. He is a very influential figure. I appreciate how you summarize focused on his primary points, with some, but not too much quotations. However, I just cannot get to the place from which he speaks. He fled the holocaust, but somehow believes that he/we can imprint our own desires into reality? That human nature is such that the evil is primarily in structures, and not closer to home…even inside us all?
Great great great. People at my school read Adorno and ignored Marcuse.
Last laugh -> Marcuse.
_How can Eros be a "primary conflict" in the self? Only if something external blocks it's expression can it be conflicting. In itself, there IS no conflict. Thanatos is NOT a primary drive; it is a secondary drive that arises only when Eros is blocked. When a person is satiated, they are gentle; only the unsatiated being is cruel. The life energy (libido) turns on itself. There is no primary energy of death; it is the ill use of the primary drive. Eros is no conflict; society's blocks are!_
This book is one of the most destructive books of our time . The disregard to all other form of psychology prior shows that !
When I was a kid the book of gnomes was everywhere. As an adult I was given a copy lol.
Much of it is pasturialism, a sort of harkening to the traditional village structure, or even earlier basing much off the Sami people.
In this book work is something done comminally. Done to meet needs, no more. Most people are able to partake in trades like carpentry and milling and the like. Most spend their extra time specializing.. Tolkien was focused on a similar situation...
Tengo pendiente leer Eros y civilización, y siempre lo estoy posponiendo, como lo de sacar tiempo para aprender inglés XD
Sin embargo, si entendiste de lo que se trata este video
To me, this is by far the most important piece of philosophy created and I cannot tell you how thankful I am for your effort to create this brilliant video! Keep it going! Hoping for more Frankfurt School videos to come :)
Also: Do you have a PayPal? I'd love to donate a little something via PayPal, if possible.
Thank you so much for the comment. Appreciate the kind words a ton. But, of course! Always appreciated: www.paypal.com/paypalme/rb5network?locale.x=en_US
Greatest book ever!
YEP- One of the greatest book ever indeed. I read back in the 1970s from a Marxist viewpoint and those ideas (along with many others of Marcuse's works) have stayed with me now into my mid-70 y.o.) .Great video and a faithful and fruitful rendition of this seminal work in 'social(ist)l psychology'.Read Marx,read Freud et al and CHANGE this Hellish world of the commodity fetish, the Society of the Spectacle (DeBord). Vinceremos!!!..
I had to come back to video since Matt Taibbi.
We can critique Marcuse, I have a few critiques myself tbh (mainly on art as liberation), but that article was so fucking bad lmfao.
ThanAtos* not Thantanos, as the narrator keeps saying. Makes one thing the narrator can’t read, despite this being an excellent video
In 3:41, the word "psyche" is misspelled
I think i just had my mind blown.. holy shit
Was just looking into this book!
Yup. No one has done a cohesive video on this book so I figured I would do so! It's a good one.
Epoch Philosophy just finished the video - makes me want to read it all the more! Great job man
When you are hungry eat. When you are tired sleep.
Who dominates and represses who?
Master slave must at least become slave master roles to at least attempt participation.
tha - na - tos big man not that - na - tos
Today corporate landscapes are shifting and molding to the human too. It’s the easiest time ever to survive as a human being. Skilled workers have the most leverage over their employers. Marcuse was on the right track but was limited by the timeframe of his observations. On a separate point, capitalism doesn’t shape collective conformity. Conformity is an inherent psychological drive observable across all human cultures. Evolutionarily, conformity it comfortable to enhance in group cohesion and tribal stability. Great video, thanks for the upload!
13:25
Also 12:00
Can you do more black philosophers please?
He faded after he became a 'conformist' in his last years.
Simulacra and simulation, when?
I would love to. I want to cover a bit more traditional Marx, some more critical theory and some Derrida and Foucault before I hit Baudrillard, Deleuze, Jameson, etc.
Epoch Philosophy good idea. S&S is also not the best work to first start off with Baudrillard. Id recommend the Consumer Society and Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign are good ones to start with because he went from a big transition from structuralist Marxism to post-struturalism and rejecting many of Marx’s ideas
I read this book 8 years ago, its nice to refresh the memory and this was a great explanation of the book. Now im gonna be that asshole who nitpicks, but its pronounced tha-na-tos not than-ta-nos (im sorry, i sw ear i never do this).
I remember Marcuse. He was indeed a modern day prophet. I am nearly seventy now and I think of how we let down the future. With credit scores, high rents, security clearance etc the young now are fucked. Consumer slaves, modern apes. Worry about where u shop,holiday,eat and fuck. Civilisation destroyed.. Luddites were worried about the machines taking their jobs. AI now shows how the so called professionals, the educated middle class are just as redundant. Nothing they do that a machine can’t do far more efficiently. Oh Huxley, Orwell etc. how did you know? As Marvin, the robot in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy,would say- life. Don’t talk to me about life…
So he encourages identification with a conflict dichotomy at the mass or group level and discourages individuality? Is is any wonder collective inflation is synonymous with collectivism? So people no longer identify with their own culture which helps explain the emotional instability and erratic hostility in youth today who've reject and hate their culture, which is symptomatic of a state of alienation. That would mark the end of the culture, or death of the culture. So it's interesting and eerily validating that the Thanatos drive is actually involved here - something I've associated with the current movement for a while now since it marks the death of the culture - and it's merely inverted to represent nirvana instead. Nirvana is also a state akin to death in it's seeking to escape, or to be liberated from life's suffering and into a 'heavenly' state. Then the dissociated state of narcissism and classic example of the Thanatos drive, that produces socially abhorrent and depraved behavior as it's form of self annihilation, is also merely inverted to be a good thing. It's mind blowing how archetypal this is.
The explicit liminality of these inversions, the trans movement and blurring and restructuring of biological gender roles and stated intention to deconstruct cultural norms and society itself are all indicative of the trickster archetype - the demiurge.
Marcuse is the polar opposite of Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins says anyone can accomplish almost anything if they put their mind to it with hard work and determination. Marcuse says you’re oppressed. . He is 90% responsible for the racial warfare we see today. Since we’re living in Marcuse’s’s world now all I can say is “that didn’t work out too well now did it?”
Now, if only all world leaders did lsd the prison bars would float away, for once the human colossus wakes up there's no one to be imprisoned and no one to build the prison, the nash equilibrium of reality finally being apparent to all.
Or... Yeah, shifting of subjectivity... That's what I meant.
No wait, what I meant to say was just: "hahaha you spelled Thanatos wrong"
Third comment!
Congratulations. I hope this moment was truly everything you wished for and more.
Loose the music that makes it impossible to concentrate on/hear what you're saying.
comment
Tha - na -tos, not Than - ta - nos
With Freud, the mind becomes a tool. But without Jung, it can never become a home. If Marcuse read him he would realize the other half of the Nirvana Principle is actually the drive towards generation of societal systems which generates that "Domination" principle, but has been expounded on for centuries as the generative principle. Materialists not recognizing civilization as a natural phenomena reflective of natural laws has never made sense to me.
Funny how Marcuse dismisses the reality principle
I love this Shit
I disagree about art being free though. Art is subjected to capitalism just like anything else. Artists who are able to satisfy their customers (and sometimes those customers are bureaucrats in cases of state aid) are the ones who not only make money, but which we are exposed to and get to see. A great example of this is the mass media art of films, music and video games. The games we play, and the movies we watch, are often heavily constrained and adjusted so as to "appeal to demographics" or other such tools of marketing in order to make us consume.
He most certainly would've never accepted the fact that his ideas of an erotic society included Nazi sex propaganda. Fornication and adultery for Aryans was even encouraged in Nazi Germany. The majority in the society Marcuse envisioned would been normal, with inter-racial couples only being a fraction of it. He referred to erotic nature in general and not encouraging just non-master race eroticism. It was stupid of him to also focus more on fornication than homosexuality.
The Asperger's asshole in me really wants you to stop saying "Than-Ta-nos". Ha ha ha. Otherwise, thanks for doing an overview on one of my all-time favourite books.
Pure sophistry
You only cover marx adjacent philosophers.. why? mostly i think because of their bulk of throwing ideas. yet.... i am uncertain, why don't you cover lock or hume? Shintoism etc. do you have a political bias your not declaring.
This comment is for the algorithm
Darn that capitalism!
Nature itself is oppressive. You do nothing, you starve and die. To say that's oppressive though is a misrepresentation. It's a misrepresentation for all frameworks, not just nature. To do something, to work is a necessity no matter what. You can always critique the modes and conditions. But critiquing universal facts of living beings is lunacy and akin to temper tantrum of angry child.
You didn’t pay attention. The point is that these factors (alienation, impoverishment, lack, etc.) are measurably worse due to capitalism and their harshness would be alleviated with a different mode of production
At 13:06 the rise of productivity higher than the rise of hourly wages is due to machines. It does not mean that capitalism worked better before that rising productivity than it does now. In fact it's quite the opposite. Capitalism works better with the higher productivity and capitalism is what led to the invention of technologies to increase productivity which leads to a better standard of living for the entire world. This is exactly how capitalism lifted billions of people out of poverty worldwide.
I don't know much about Mercuse which is why I decided to watch this video, but it seems to me that he had way too much free time on his hands and he needed a job so he could do something productive that is useful to somebody else.