What to Do? Herbert Marcuse from a "One Dimensional Man"

The capabilities (intellectual and material)
of contemporary society are immeasurably greater
than ever before -
which means that the scope of society's domination
over the individual is immeasurably greater
than ever before.

Our society distinguishes itself by conquering
the centrifugal social forces with

Technology rather than Terror,

on the dual basis of an overwhelming efficiency
and an increasing standard of living

(Walmart and Holt Renfrew),

the collusion of Business and Labor
within the strong State testify
to the integration of opposites...

as in the Air Canada negotiations where
union leadership and governement/business
are at odds with membership...

The bourgeoisie and the proletariat
in the Capitalist world are still the basic classes.
However, the capitalist development has altered the
structure and function of these two classes in such a way
that they no longer appear to be agents

of historical transformation.

An overriding interest in the preservation and improvement
of the institutional status quo unites
the former antagonists(proletariat/workers))
in the most advanced areas of contemporary society

with the"liberals" (whom we hate).

Forgive them They know not what they do...
their righteousness is wrong.

And to the degree to which technical progress
assures the growth and cohesion of communist society,
the very idea of qualitative change
recedes before the realistic notions
of a non-explosive evolution.

i.e. we don't want a revolution
if that means no coffee with desert

In the absence of demonstrable agents and agencies of social change,
the critique is thus thrown back to a high level of abstraction.

There is no ground on which theory and practice,

thought and action meet.

Here the cynical may rest in nihilism,

The ghost or the invisible (wo)man
may be an agent of change...

that seems proposterous!

Let us then explore no further
and return to the place where
words and actions shall never meet
and where we are all...more comfortable...

the god of consumption forbids sacrifice...

as in

if only you new the hardship of my story...
do you have a minute...let me explain blah blah blah

the outcasts believe they're special
and in fact use this unique status as fuel

"their reason for being"

magnifying the conundrum...
and enforcing the isolation
of a consumersitic society
that is always in first person

as in my children, my job, my feelings,
my facebook, my art my my my privacy

or said better:

The union of growing productivity and growing destruction;
the brinkmanship of annihilation; the surrender of thought,
hope, and fear to the decisions of the powers that be;
the preservation of misery in the face of

unprecedented wealth

constitute the most impartial indictment.

Only by... changing their way of life, of denying the
positive, of refusing...

One-Dimensional Man will vacillate
throughout between two contradictory hypotheses:

(1) that advanced industrial society is capable of containing qualitative change for the foreseeable future;

2) that forces and tendencies exist which may break this containment and explode the society

(but i love society...amazing, awesome, super super super ...yes of course you do...pain is free...and neccessary...run! run! run!)

I do not think that a clear answer can be given.
Both tendencies are there, side by side -
and even the one in the other.

For example the leader of NGO employs
the same techniques as a CEO and in
fact measures success along the same metrics...

of course what else could be the case you exclaim...

The first tendency is dominant, and whatever preconditions
for a reversal may exist are being used to prevent it.

Perhaps an accident may alter the situation,

but unless the recognition of what is being done
and what is being prevented subverts
the consciousness and the behavior of man,

not even a catastrophe
will bring about the change.

and we all knew/know this...