Transcending Herbert Marcuse on Alienation, Art and the Humanities (1)
ABSTRACT: This paper discusses how higher education can help us in accomplishing our humanization. It looks at the critical educational theory of Herbert Marcuse, and examines his notion of the dis-alienating power of the aesthetic imagination. In his view, aesthetic education can become the foundation of a re-humanizing critical theory. I question the epistemological underpinnings of Marcuse's educational philosophy and suggest an alternative intellectual framework for interpreting and releasing the emancipatory power of education.
"Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of the truth."
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power #822
What is the relationship of truth to beauty, learning to art, political education to human flourishing? Philosophers from Confucius and Aristotle to John Dewey and Paulo Freire have investigated, as the axial human problem, how education is to help us in accomplishing our own humanization. The contemporary search for a genuinely critical theory and an authentically democratic society continues that project. But what can make theory critical, education liberating, society democratic?
It is necessary to theorize our society critically if we are to have a vehicle for correctly informed transformative practice. The problem is that much of what is called critical theory today is rooted in ideas developed by Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Georg Lukacs. What I want to argue here is that their work has tended to formulate a particular approach to aesthetic educationand a unique version of a philosophical humanismwhich is then presented as critical theoryagainst the debilitating fragmentation ...
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...88); Jurgen Habermas, "Von Lukacs zu Adorno: Rationalisierung als Verdinglichung," in Theorie des kommunikativen HandelnsBand I (Fft: Suhrkamp, 1981).
(4) Karl Marx, Das Kapital(Stuttgart: Alfred Kroener Verlag, 1965) p. 52.
(5) Aeron Haynie, Imperialism and the Construction of Femininity in Mid-Victorian Fiction(Gainesville: University of Florida, Ph.D. dissertation, 1994).
(6) Martin Heidegger in Marcuse's notes to seminar, "Heidegger, Einfuhrung in das akademische Studium. Sommer 1929" Herbert Marcuse Archiv of the Stadt- und Universit. tsbibliothek, Frankfurt, Catalog # 0013.01, p. 6.
Works Cited
1941 RR Reason and Revolution, Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (Boston:Beacon, 1960).
1972 CR Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston: Beacon, 1972).
1978 AD The Aesthetic Dimension, Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics (Boston: Beacon, 1978).
Eliza Haywood wrote Fantomina, a short novel, at a time when the genre was only just being introduced. The novel had not yet gained respect as a literary form. Many people, around the eighteenth century, believed that novels were meant for mothers and their daughters, who were typically at home all day with nothing else to do, since most did not work. Many novelists would adhere to this idea when creating female characters; they often carried few roles. However, Fantomina appears to demonstrate feminist views that were rare, and more radical for its time. Eliza Haywood shows an intelligence and stealthiness in her main character, in contrast to the era’s concept of what a woman should be. This seems to put Fantomina ahead of its time, in many respects.
Cozzens, Lisa. "Plessy v. Ferguson." After the Civil War:. N.p., 17 Sept. 1999. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
In addition, the Progressives were absolutely correct to improve society by education because by having an education, it will prepare an individual to earn a living, but also to prepare the student to play a useful role in a democratic society. With e...
Berger makes his attempt to inform an audience with an academic background that there is a subjective way that we see things all around us every day and based on our previous experiences, knowledge, and other things that occur in our lives, no two people may see or interpret something in the same way. In the essay Mr. Berger uses art as his platform to discuss that we should be careful about how people look at things. Mr. Berger uses rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos, and logos. These rhetorical strategies can really help an author of any novel, essay, or any literature to truly get the information they desire across to the audience in a clear and concise
The Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which stated that separation of blacks and whites were legal as long as the facilities were equal, was overturned by the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The Plessy v. Ferguson case took place in Louisiana in 1896 when a man who was one-eighth white, Homer Plessy, was arrested for sitting in a white-only car. As a result, he argued to the courts that both his thirteenth and fourteenth amendments right were violent. Unfortunately, John Ferguson, the judge presiding over the case, ruled that separate facilities were legal as long as they were of equal quality.
These women authors have served as an eye-opener for the readers, both men and women alike, in the past, and hopefully still in the present. (There are still cultures in the world today, where women are treated as unfairly as women were treated in the prior centuries). These women authors have impacted a male dominated society into reflecting on of the unfairness imposed upon women. Through their writings, each of these women authors who existed during that masochistic Victorian era, risked criticism and retribution. Each author ignored convention a...
Wittgenstein, Ludwig; G. E. M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (eds. and trans.). Philosophical Investigations. 4th edition, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.
The past research about the effect of music on the brain is called the Mozart Effect. The Mozart Effect refers to claims that people perform better on tests of spatial abilities after listening to music composed by Mozart. This experience examined whether the Mozart effect is a result of differences in stimulation and temper. (William Forde Thompson, E. Glenn Schellenberg and Gabriela Husain, 2001). A research was made by Dr.Gordon Shaw at UCI and Fran Rauscher about this Mozart effect. The experience is to use college students who listened to Mozart’s symphonies while they are solving a spatial temporal task. This task is a famous one: the paper folding and cutting test. The results were astonishing. In fact, all the students recorded impressi...
Sandefur, G. (n.d.). American Indian reservations: The first underclass areas? Retrieved April 28, 2014, from http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc121f.pdf
“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed [retrieved October 8, 2017 from https://www.goodreads.com]
Education is defined as the “discipline that is concerned with methods of teaching and learning in school or school-like environments as opposed to various non-formal and informal means of socialization.”(Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008). If one really looks at education, he or she will realize how broad it actually is. Education extends beyond the notion that it is merely for knowledge alone. It is imperative that one view education in an analytical perspective. Mr. Smith suggests that “we must also ensure that students develop critical thinking skills.” Critical thinking is a definite must ...
Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World qualifies as both a precursor to science fiction and an exploration of utopian literature. Cavendish redefines customary representations of women through challenging the boundaries of gender whilst eradicating conventions of the genre. In her essay Gender, Genre, and the Utopian Body, author Marina Leslie suggests that Cavendish realigns three of the dominant modes of discourse which are employed in the representation of women in literature; misogynistic narratives of women-on-top, literary conventions of romance and finally the evolving textual practices of philosophy.
Education is a major component in an individual’s future success in today’s society. The traditional model that we are taught to follow is to achieve good grades in High School so that we are able to get accepted to a good college in order to obtain a good high paying job. However, if the major building blocks of our education are somehow hindered by sociological influences, it would be correct to assume that our future success would also be affected. An example of a situation in which sociological aspects impact that education system can be found right here in the city of Lowell. According to the United States Census Bureau, the median household income for the year 2012 was about $51,714 annually compared with the average income throughout Massachusetts which was about $66,658 annually. Additionally in the year 2012, the statistics for the persons below the poverty level was 17.3 percent, significantly higher than Massachusetts average of 11.0 percent. Lowell is known as an urban environment and a city full of many different and diverse types of people. However, the city of Lowell does contain a large population that are, by today’s standards, considered to be living below the poverty line. ("U.S Census Bureau")
(6) Heidegger, Martin, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Gesamtausgabe- 3), V. Klostermann, Frankfurt, 1991, p. 204.
A basic understanding of African religions will provide an awareness of African customs, the African view of death and life beyond death. In many cases the african religion is polytheistic on their day to day practices.However, they believe in The High God where is overriding beliefs that beyond gods, spirits one god exists. Despite the general belief in a Supreme Being, cults to the “High God” are notably absent from many African religions; prayers of petition or sacrificial offerings are directed toward secondary divinities, who are messengers and intermediaries between the human and sacred realms. In many countries in Africa people pray to different gods and goddess. In West Africa theirs a lot of animism, where they pray to the sky and the earth and the seas.