Laura Westman
December 15, 2008
PSC190 Final Paper

In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse identifies freedom when our society has been stripped of all measures of institutional oppression, when public opinion has been abolished, and individuals are free to think as agents of their own. However, this definition is inconsistent and incompatible with contemporary manifestations and ideas of freedom in American society. Because freedom today is largely based around how Americans perceive their own desires and freedoms relative to each other, we can utilize Althusser’s ideas of how ideologies shape our decisions and Foucault’s analysis of power and knowledge to transform the necessary components of Marcuse’s argument to become possible within contemporary American society.
Marcuse locates freedom under multiple levels of awareness. A person is free when he or she may “exert autonomy over a life that would be his own” (2). For Marcuse, obtaining this autonomy is a multistep process within our industrial and technological society: we must be “beyond necessity,” where we are free from want, understanding that society imposes “false needs” that constrain our true freedom, and we must make our technological system increasingly automated and mechanized to free ourselves of the physical and social restraints imposed by the division of labor within this technological system (4). Only in rejecting these false needs and freeing ourselves from economic, political, and intellectual constraints imposed by a repressive society can we be autonomous and consequently, truly free.
Marcuse argues that the rights and liberties that were once the foundation of American society are no longer the source of our freedom. Instead, our free market and developed industrial society have together created a “comfortable, smooth, reasonable democratic unfreedom” in which we unknowingly subject our own freedom to satisfying what we think are necessary goods and services (2). Our desire for these “needs” is purely historical; because of our technological industry, we are able to create them for what we understand to be the benefit of everyone within society. These “false needs” imposed by our ability to produce them for ourselves result in a sort of “repressive satisfaction,” a “euphoria in unhappiness” (5). The technological structure of society grants us a realm of choices, but the provision of choice in itself defines what we may choose, as well as requiring that we even choose from an array of given options. By imposing false needs and producing different ways to fulfill those needs, society preserves its own status quo and inhibits our own freedom of autonomy.
Our society not only preserves itself by controlling our desires, but also uses its expanding technology and power to control opposition. By constantly increasing the standard of living, our technological and industrial society imposes – purely by possibility – new needs and desires upon us that we cannot reject because we understand technological “controls” to be for the benefit of the entire society (4). Therefore, any form of opposition that repudiates these new needs and possibilities appears “neurotic and impotent” (9). In this way, our technological society inevitably suppresses any opposition through imposing new “false needs” that inhibit our real freedom (4). The process is simple; even “modes of protest or transcendence” are the “ceremonial part of our practical behavioralism,” comprising parts of our institutionalized society (14). Counterculture and subversive movements within this society are “digested by the status quo as part of its healthy diet” and usually impose no changes to the system (14).
Because of these weighty restrictions to free thought and inhibitions of autonomy, Marcuse locates our path to freedom in a negative sense, identifying freedom from the economic, political, and intellectual constraints of our society; these are both intangible and physical constraints. To be free from economic constraints is to be entirely free from want and from work; it requires a disconnection from the “work world’s imposing” of “alien wants and alien possibilities” that only force an individual to “prove himself on the market” in order to make a living (2). Political freedom lies in liberation from a political system over which we, as individuals, have no control and therefore have no freedom within. Intellectual freedom is obtained, Marcuse argues, by a complete abolition of “public opinion” and restoration of individual thought (). These locations of freedom are, however, only attainable by an increased “technological process of mechanization and standardization” of our society, and restructuring that “productive apparatus” of society to focus purely on “vital needs,” instead of the false needs it currently manufactures (2). Because the power of the machines in the productive apparatus is only the “stored-up and projected power of man,” humans can utilize the mechanized technology to increase their own freedom (3). Becoming free from the physical constraints of the productive machine processes of society allows us to begin the journey to freedom: becoming aware of our “servitude,” and distinguishing between vital needs and false needs (7). We find freedom in our acknowledgment and subsequent rejection of our servile position to the system in which we live; restructuring the system itself is then our path to freedom. By identifying freedom within liberation from the economy, major political systems, and intellectual constraints, Marcuse emphasizes the pervasive and powerful connections between each sector of society from which we must be liberated in order to be free. Freedom is found outside all of these impeding structures.
Marcuse may be correct in identifying the way in which political and industrial apparatuses of society inhibit what he defines to be our true freedom, but this criticism is incompatible with our own ideas and possibilities of freedom in America today. This limiting and repressive society of false needs is contradictory today: the system is necessary to ensure cooperation, sovereignty, and coexistence, but established rights and liberties, included in contemporary political rhetoric and social norms, protect people from encroachments from the government and from each other. The United States, as a society, is structured to allow the function and coexistence of many different people. When each person usually acts in his own rational self-interest, the idea of a cooperative society gets lost. We must find a way of operating and being “free” while still existing and thriving together in order to function. Marcuse’s theory of freedom cannot, however, fit the possibilities for freedom in contemporary America. Marcuse focuses on individual freedoms that are inconsistent with the composition we can find today.
American “freedoms” are always positive, relative freedoms that are related entirely to how we perceive our own realities. The freedoms we need, or think we need, which is arguably just as important, are largely related to what other Americans have. They began in the negative sense with the struggle for freedom from Britain and then, by necessity, are redefined as positive freedoms in the Bill of Rights and but have since evolved into a binary definition. This is the first sighting of the tension between individual freedom and its possibilities in the context of a society that must also sustain itself.
Because we have the power to demand freedom when we perceive its necessity, “freedom” in America is always relative and reactionary. We recognize it, acknowledge where we do not have it, and we demand more of it. Freedom is defined less by what specific liberties we claim, but more about who has any given freedom and who does not. Sometimes we demand freedom in response to an encroachment upon freedoms we may already have, like the current protest against Proposition 8 or civil rights and liberties cases. In other cases, we perceive that another person or group has a specific freedom that we do not, seen in American struggles for freedom from the American Revolution through the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements. Our ability to have reactive freedom comes from the nature of our democracy and theoretical ability to make our own demands of our government.
The different types of freedom that we see in the United States today are all in individual pursuit of happiness. Perhaps Marcuse is correct in identifying our desires as “false needs,” but American freedom is truly located in our perceived level of happiness relative to others and our ability to attain that level of happiness. Though we may be contained and our desires may be defined relative to others’, we still have the ability to work to achieve what we believe to be truly important. This is the cornerstone of American freedom.
There are two levels of American freedom: freedom in equality – the relative freedom described above – and freedom of pursuit. We can identify freedom within our own choices, within our ability to define what exactly will make us happy, and within our ability to become successful in that particular endeavor. Within a society built upon the idea of autonomy and sovereignty, freedom of choice, even a regulated freedom of choice, is absolutely necessary. His assertion that our society confines us by controlling our desires does not address the reason why our society can do this in the first place. In a way, we consent to the system, we need it; our operating within it, accepting the desires and working under the political and economic system, is a means of allowing us modes of choice and a system in which we can negotiate both types of freedom. There must, on some level, be a price for civility and stability.
Possibilities for freedom in contemporary America are paradoxical in this same way, but they can be harmonized through the institutions and mechanisms that theorists like Marcuse actually identify as repressive. Freedoms must, consistent with American values, tradition, and history, allow individuals to decide by which means they wish to pursue their own happiness, and grant each individual at least the same opportunities as his fellow citizens have to do the same. It is not clear from where we create our own ideas of what will make us happy. There is also a necessary aspect of negative freedom, a freedom from coercion or in which individuals must be kept free from others who will impede their own autonomy and liberty to make that choice.
Because of this aspect of negative freedom, Marcuse correctly states that we must be freed from economic constraints, but not exactly those he locates. While the obligation to work does seem to constrain our freedom, our society could not function without it. The solution to this problem is in tandem with the vague but valid notion of our society as a cooperative one. The structure of our government and economic systems must reflect this idea through more regulation, working to equalize our opportunities. Regardless of our own given resources, we each must work similarly to pursue our own happiness, and in this way, earn them in the context of the rest of our society. This type of economic equality will transform our relationships to each other and ultimately fix the problems Marcuse identifies within suppressing opposition, as we will choose our own ways of life in more ways than one.
Foucault, Marcuse, and Althusser argue that our perception of autonomy, the way in which we live our lives, and the choices we make are entirely dictated by the society in which we live, rendering us the opposite of “free.” However, the materialization of freedom within the United States today is centered on relative freedoms, defining them in the context of our historical situation and allowing us to decide within our society what we wish to pursue, while still holding society together cohesively. Using this definition, Althusser’s theory of ideology and Foucault’s identification of the relationship between power and knowledge can transform Marcuse’s one-dimensional society to fit harmoniously with possibilities for freedom in American society today. Marcuse finds limits in the places where we find freedom, rendering his ideas useless, inappropriate, and impossible in contemporary American society. Though Marcuse’s theory cannot be directly transposed into American society, his “one-dimensional” thought becomes all-encompassing when paired with Althusser and Foucault’s own criticisms. The combination offers a remedy and explanation for the impossibilities of Marcuse’s arguments within contemporary American society.
Althusser’s ideology transforms Marcuse’s Althusser, however, finds limits to freedom deeper within our own decisions. He argues that our own decisions are influenced by pervasive ideologies, so even our ability to gauge what will make us happy is not our own. This seems like a very pervasive limit to freedom, however, but actually the concept of ideology begins to transpose Marcuse’s argument to fit with freedoms in contemporary American society.
These relative freedoms identified above may seem to be another manifestation of Marcuse’s “false needs,” however, Althusser’s ideas of ideology transform Marcuse’s argument so that it has a possibility and location in contemporary American society. Altusser argues that ideologies are not systems of real relationships, but rather that ideologies are how individuals imagine their own relationship to reality. Althusser identifies this as an augmentation of freedom, however, ideology and Marcuse’s “repressive satisfaction” actually help to construct our own ideas of what will create happiness for us, and how we may obtain it as individuals comprising one society. This transforms Marcuse to fit into American freedom today by explaining our use of the institutions he argues are repressive, explaining how we construct our perception of ourselves in relation to others and to society.
Marcuse also argues that freedom begins when we acknowledge our opposition of servitude to institutions; a subjection that is seemingly inevitable, a necessary evil within American freedom. However, it is what we do with this position of servitude in the context of our perception of reality that truly defines the freedom, or limits to freedom, within our realities. Foucault’s The Eye of Power actually gives us autonomy in this respect, granting us freedom within our perceived relationships to the institutions that govern our lives.
Foucault’s power-knowledge analysis also transforms Marcuse’s arguments by giving individuals a mode of becoming more autonomous within our ideological system. In The Eye of Power, Foucault helps us to understand how we become subjects of the specific society that holds us back, arguing that power within a society relies on freedom rather than destroying freedom to exist and maintain itself. Within our daily practices of power between individuals in society, we are in a constant state of self-awareness that causes us to censor ourselves and to behave. Though Foucault may argue that knowledge and power relationships limit possibilities of action – limiting freedom – it is in these relationships that we find our link to freedom. Foucault’s identification of the relationship between power and knowledge indicates that with an increase in knowledge, we gain power, either over ourselves or over others. Marcuse argues that we must acknowledge our servitude to our society; this in itself is a shift in power-knowledge relationships. When we acknowledge our relationship to society in this way, we gain more power in the form of autonomy, allowing us to operate in what we perceive to be a free way within that structure, in whichever way we would like to pursue our own happiness.
Foucault’s emphasis on visibility also transforms Marcuse’s argument to fit possibilities of freedom in contemporary America. Because the key to understanding American freedom is understanding that we locate freedom within our perception of our own reality, in relation to other individuals and institutions. Foucault emphasizes the importance of visibility within institutions; he argues that visibility and surveillance subject us to the opinions of others constantly. However, visibility, especially within political structures, gives us the idea of control. If we can see every level of society, especially within the people who comprise very large and pervasive institutions, we enjoy the idea of control over it. Consequently, ideas can be expressed and freedoms can be demanded as necessary.
Perhaps we locate these as our freedoms because the constraints on us by our political and economic institutions – as well as their intellectual and social implications - are far too great and powerful for us to reject, and we must find freedom somewhere. However, such definitions of freedom allow us all to operate together within a society. Marcuse’s argument that the “false needs” created by society inhibit our freedom would be true if his definition of freedom were compatible with its manifestations in contemporary American society. Because Americans find freedom in their perception of reality, as long as we can negotiate our own desires and demand freedoms from government and from society, this definition of relative and reactionary freedom stands. Within a combination of one-dimensional ideas, Althusser’s ideology, and Foucault’s The Eye of Power, we can transform the one-dimensional thinking into a compatible model of freedom in contemporary American society.