Global InformationRepressive desublimation information
Repressive desublimation is a term, first coined by Frankfurt School philosopher and sociologist Herbert Marcuse in his 1964 work One-Dimensional Man, that refers to the way in which, in advanced industrial society (capitalism), "the progress of technological rationality is liquidating the oppositional and transcending elements in the “higher culture.”[1] In other words, where art was previously a way to represent "that which is" from "that which is not,"[2] capitalist society causes the "flattening out"[3] of art into a commodity incorporated into society itself. As Marcuse put it in One-Dimensional Man, "The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship."
By offering instantaneous, rather than mediated, gratifications,[4] repressive desublimation was considered by Marcuse to remove the energies otherwise available for a social critique; and thus to function as an emancipating dynamic under the guise of collectivist politics.
- ^ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (London 2002) p. 75-8
- ^ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (London 2002) p. 75-8
- ^ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (London 2002) p. 75-8
- ^ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (London 2002) p. 75-8