[FRA:] Marcuse and heidegger

[Ralph Dumain]

Well, I'm no Habermasian, but let's begin with the critique of 
technology.  Marcuse can be differentiated from Heidegger in that he also 
criticizes capitalism as well as technology.  But the critique of 
technology as an abstract master explanatory category is the province of 
right-wing thought, of Romantic reaction, and of course, of Heidegger.  In 
contrast to Adorno and Horkheimer, Marcuse exhibits the worst Romantic, 
anti-scientific tendencies of the irrationalist tradition.  Marcuse's 
indeterminate conception of a new science is piffle, as is his linkage of 
positivism to fascism, a worse notion than what you find even in _Dialectic 
of Enlightenment_.  It is understandable how on a gut level Marcuse in toto 
appealed on a gut level to radical students of the '60s, given the 
rebellion against bureaucratic-technocratic alienation, but I don't buy the 
whole package.

At 06:30 AM 2/17/2006 -0500, MSalter1 at aol.com wrote:
>Is one issue here the manner in which Marcuse seemed to adopt a one
>dimensional and undialectic view of the oppressively ideological 
>character  of modern
>technology and instrumental (means-end) rationality, with no sense of
>countervailing communicative rationalities as per habermas / hegel, with
>"liberation" restricted to aesthetic / sexual domains?
>
>Michael Salter
>
>In a message dated 2/17/2006 10:03:01 AM GMT Standard Time,
>steve.devos at krokodile.co.uk writes:
>
>Ralph
>
>The most interesting thing in recent emails from you   are the comments
>on marcuse and heidegger - would you care to expand on  what the
>following means ?
>
>Ralph Dumain wrote:
>
> > I'm  highly suspicious of Marcuse's attitude toward technology and the
> >  Heideggerian influence.