Literary Analysis Essay on One-Dimensional Man

Introduction

Herbert Marcuse, in his text, one-dimensional man, presented one of the most critical books today. The analyzed and presented an image of a one-dimensional society that has impacted many youths' perceptions about life, specifically their interpretations about life and how it should be handled. The author criticizes the modern societies in which liberal democracy and capitalism are everyday happenings. Marcuse's objective thesis explains that contemporary societies are an artifact of freedom, all the more ominous, it play-acts as an era of liberty. Notably, the author maintained that modern societies are closed societies that integrate various aspects of life. As Douglas Killer highlighted in his introduction, Marcuse's work presents the most vital information about modern western nations, communist, and capitalists. Besides, it represented the hopes of a liberal philosopher that an individual's happiness and freedom could be expanded beyond the controlled thought and behavior widespread established in the societies. However, the author claimed that rulers threatened societal civilization to its very core. In some cases, it represents unimaginable freedom hitherto. Notably, the book details specific tendencies in a present Industrial society that has influenced a new era of civilization. The primary characteristics of this new phase of behavior and thoughts are the repression of all values, ideas, and aspirations, which cannot be defined in terms of attitudes, operations validated by popular types of rationality. The objective of this paper therefore discusses one dimensional man as presented by Herbert Marcuse. The paper will review existing and the most current literature materials and provide a personal view about the discussed topic

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Literature Review

According to Bounds (2017), Herbert Marcuse's one-dimensional man developed a systematical vision explaining how economies, technologies, and states coevolve to dominate both the natural environments and human beings. The authors highlighted how the nature of earth's ecology and humanity reshapes to serve interests that benefit from the existing and the on-going creation of such types of dominations. The authors have noted that Marcuse believed that the concepts of freedom of speech are controlled mainly by various forms of societal control. For instance, when a person spend individual time in individual thoughts, the thoughts remain within the confounds of what is allowed within his/her societal aspects. The study further aims at briefing specifically how media influence and manipulates their societies. The study examines the media effects, as explained in Herbert Marcuse's book. The main argument presented in the book that countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom are more advanced through less liberal than they appear (Bounds, 2017). Despite their appearance as democrats, they are organized in such a way to make significant opposition all but impossible. The author maintained that Marcus believed the media has a vital role in securing social control though he did not repute them as being liable for the political submissiveness in modern society. Essentially, he argued that media reinforce the highly repressive social, cultural, and economic shifts that exist independently. Such variation includes the emergence of repressive desublimation, technological rationality, and emasculation of the arts. The authors have defined media as an entertainment and information tool. In reality, the media is an agent of manipulation.

The concept of alienation is further explained in detail in the works of Marx (Reveley, 2013). Social media use often makes people feel connected, but they are only connected in the imaginative world. Active participation in social media with activities such as sharing Facebook likes and commenting have over a long time, perpetuated the myth of consumer sovereignty (Reveley, 2013). According to a Facebook case study, there are claims that the internet is slowly transforming ordinary users into becoming active participants alienated by their consumer habits.

Herbert Marcus' book One Dimensional Man contains ideas about the media effects on society. His works were one of the most influential associated with Marxist thinkers. Marcuse believes that the media's role is vital in controlling society (Bounds, 2017). The media reinforces a series of long, impressive social, economic, and cultural independent shifts between the members of the organization. Marcuse have had a significant influence in the grounding of the foundations of theories concerning the internet and social media.

The theoretical works can assist us in a critical understanding of the term social media, internet-based programs like blogs, for instance, Wordpress and Tumbrl, and other networking sites such as LinkedIn, VK, and Renren (Bounds, 2017). There are also user-generated sites for sharing media content such as YouTube and Vimeo. Microblogs such as Twitter and Weibo, as well as wikis with the most popular one being Wikipedia (Bounds, 2017). With all these social media elements existing, it will be most likely that almost every person around the world uses one or many of the platforms.

All the existing media are, to a more significant extent, social in many ways, mainly due to the way they reflect on the society in complex ways. The media are referred to as social since they offer means of interacting, community and collaboration, and communication between people of different cultures and diversities across the globe.

The social media are related and originated in the capitalist's community, thus reflects individualism and exploitation structures of domination and exploitation (Bounds, 2017). Various dimension thoughts that reflect on social media are the computer, dialectics, labor, ideology, as well as the dialectical logic essence. These thoughts, in many ways, as explained later, demonstrate the dominance and control of social media on society.

There is a huge contradiction between social media appearance and essence. The ideology of social media comprises of a significant antagonism among its appearance and the essence. The nature of media is believed to be bringing people together (Bounds, 2017). However, the reality in the capitalist society is that social media has led to new methods of exploitation, individualism, and alienation.

However, the ideology of social media makes the concept appear as something positive without with few or no limitations (Bounds, 2017). The doctrine does this by splitting off the negative reality of exploitation, alienation, and domination emanating from social media. This makes the concept of social media to be one dimensional. This is a form of reductionist rationality that comfortably justifies the objectification of individual activities for capitalist purposes (Bounds, 2017). This disguises exploitation, alienation, and domination of social media on the people as rational sociality and fun.

In reality, many people take it so seriously, having many Twitter followers and may even boast of it to the other with fewer followers. The most liked Facebook pages are seen as more important the same way as having many Facebook followers. In the real sense, these platforms don't give you the chance to relate with these people because these are just empty promises.According to Trigger (1996), social closure is created by the mechanism of integration that may also closure of the imaginary escapes. The closure may cause a gap of a happy consciousness that accepts the parameters of happiness. On the view of the people's basic needs of satisfaction, other issues connect the system, such as anxiety, aggression, and underlying fear. Based on culture, there is an order of progress that arises from the high culture to the mass culture, such those displayed by the background music played in the supermarkets helps to break the distance between the present reality and the people's perception. In Marcus' argument on technological power the society, in general, is included without pointing fingers to particular groups such as the makers of politics. The society, therefore, as a whole, is regarded as the active agents of manipulation and repression. In some instances, Marcus denies the existence of social classes in society since people cannot behave according to their social position regardless of their classes in the society. The opposition also is believed to exist between the society and the government due to the presence of older dichotomies involved between the people and the government.

Differences have been existing between the definition of two terms by Marcus and Max Weber which in reality means the same thing. According to Marcus, manipulation implies the broader meaning of power that undermines the practice of resistance (Goodin 1996).On the other hand, Max Weber refers to ability as the probability that an individual or an agent may succeed by overcoming the resistance of another. Both power and manipulation are therefore believed to interfere with the writings on technology, political parties as well as the information about the media. Therefore, Marcus on manipulation concludes that it causes a person to behave in manners that can deviate their desires, which means that the society has no way to establish what they need.

On the part of technology impacts, Marcus believed that technology could be used as a tool to is applied to trace individual rationality and the changes among the people. In his focus on the coming generation changes, Marcus believed in the development of autonomous self-interest among the people since technology makes individuals completely heteronomous that can only be achieved by compliance and adjustments. Due to the existence of rational self- interest and individualism, there is a motivational sense of life that fuels the technology efficiency, which is entirely reasonable in the age of technology that which is becoming a force of over man. Social media, according to Marcus, on the fate of individuals, it removes individual dignity by sublimating personal crowd information. The crowd affects the information as it reduces the individuals into standardized objects, which only focus on self-interest.

Marcuse (2013) stated that Marcuse had a critical vision on various issues that talked about capitalism and this was concerned with different issues such as historical forces, social contradictions as well as political conflicts. These unusual categories were drawn from the Freudian metapsychology. He argues that Marcuse's critiques are great concerning various environmental crises of a capitalist society. This has made this critique to remain significant for many years after the people knew the One-Dimensional man through different print or publications. Marcuse(2013), suggests that our understanding of the different environments, be they social or natural, is influenced by various factors such as political, cultural, and technological factors in the environments that we are based in.

Marcuse (2013) suggested that nature does not die, and that is the reason that it is difficult to untangle nature from science. It is having stated that he claimed that humanity could, therefore, be controlled through different ways such as the one-dimensional comfort of consumption. Marcuse (2013) noted that there are needs that humans are attached to, which are heteronomous, and they include true needs as well as false needs. The true needs are those that are vital human requirements as opposed to false needs that are mostly concerned with injustices, aggressiveness as well as toil. Marcuse (2013) stated that science could be seen as the primary source of the theories and practices that meditate the domination of humans through nature's domination. Science is very instrumental or can be...