A Study Of Marcuse's Political Philosophy

Political philosophy is an important aspect of Marcuse's theory.Freedom,human rights,liberation and other political-related aspects are all important perspective of Marcuse theory's concern and reflection.Similar to the contemporary political philosophy.Marcuse's political philosophy contains a strong feature of criticism and transcendence,which focus on concrete political realism,and analyze and then reveal the essence and the rule of freedom,human rights,liberation and other political-related aspects on the perspective of philosophy.Different from the contemporary political philosophy,Marcuse's analysis and critical dimensions towards political issues,is mainly based on his methods of negative criticism.Marcuse's theory contains the radical feature,which protests any forms of domination over people.Based on his methodology of dialectical rationality,Marcuse tried to seek a supreme moral value,to prove and to elaborate the political ideal and goal through making a deep and logical discussion and narrative on freedom,human right and liberation and other political-related issues.Simultaneously,different from the Marxism's methodology of political philosophy,which is based on the analysis and investigations on political economy,Marcuse's theory is mainly focused on the reality of western capitalism society,which shift his attention from political economy to philosophy of culture and social psychology.The form of Marcuse's political philosophy derives from three aspects:firstly,his concern on reality from the investigation and reflection on why and how human's spirit,thought and body are being slaved and repressed in the developed capitalism society and Soviet socialist society;secondly,his mastery and absorption of Marx's theory of alienation.Freud's psychoanalytic theories,Schiller 's Aesthetic Theory and the social critical theory of Frankfurt school;Thirdly,his critical reform towards Hegel 's Negative Dialectics,and then applied Hegel's negative methodology to the study of the political-related issues on freedom,human rights and liberation etc.from beginning to end.Due to the fact that human's liberty is repressed in developed industrial society,Marcuse analyzed social realistic situation of human's liberty and revealed its principle behind the fact by following the tradition of western rationalism,which means scientific technology and technological rationality function as an ideological power,which constrain and dominate human's liberty.Dedicated to the vision of the New sensibility of human beings,Marcuse considered aesthetic rationality as the ultimate power to achieve human liberty and liberation.Due to the fact that both capitalism society and Soviet socialist society are all heterogeneous totalitarian regime,Marcuse's political stance started from the view that human right is the most basic right.Marcuse condemned and criticized the danger of totalitarianism which can't guarantee but ruin the human right even worse,and he also revealed that the essence of totalitarianism is to push people back to the situation being slaved.In order to make the hope that human right return back to people come true,Marcuse considered that the premise of guaranteeing human right is to establish a non-repressive civilized society,which is called“New-Socialism".Due to the fact that the material richness in developed industrial society,the homogeneity of people's living and thinking way,and people generally satisfied with the current status quo,Marcuse considered that reason of revolution is the alienation and distortion of human's sensibility instead of the poverty situation of proletariat.Therefore,the main group to changing the current situation that people's liberty is restricted and human right is lack of defence is those social marginal people who have a sense of negative thinking.Marcuse tried to walk on a non-violent revolutionary road by the "Great Refusal",and put forward the theory that the essence of human being is Eros.Human liberation can be achieved by liberation of Eros.And aesthetics is functioned to meet the satisfaction of human's Eros,which is an ideal way to eliminate the alienation and repression on people.Furthermore,aesthetics also contains the function of political effect,which can influence and reconstruct social reality,and then to form a new ideal world.Standing on the perspective of negative criticism,Marcuse analyzed and criticized some political issues about liberty and human right in the developed western industrial society and Soviet socialist society,and tried to discover a liberation road,which has precious theoretical value and practical reference for us to not only have a overall understanding of western developed capitalism society,but also to adhere to the socialist road led by Marxism.However,for the reason that Marcuse's political philosophy about human freedom,right and liberation was based on the abstract human nature and its essence,instead of the concrete Practical Materialism Theory of History and Dialectic Theory of History.Therefore,Marcuse's theory about human freedom,human right and liberation road can only achieved by satisfying Eros and a kind of "aesthetic fantasy",and then to realize self-transcendence inside human's mind.Just because this kind of satisfaction,fantasy and transcendence is limited in human's sensibility and inner world,which has no relationship with realistic world.Therefore,Marcuse's political philosophy inevitably manifested a characteristic of Utopia.