[FRA:] Marcuse question

[matthew piscioneri]

Why is the critique *even* still mildly applicable today - 60 years after 
DoE was penned? IMO, because some of it got to some of the heart of how 
social control is exercised by the mechanisms of culture in all cultures 
which tells us something about the way human organisms organise themselves. 
DoE reveals - however questionably - something of the truth about *our* 
social psychology. What then? Let's face it the myth of Odysses played a 
similar role in the lives of the ancient Greeks as the myth of Abraham 
Lincoln may play today. We are a myth-making species which needs to tell 
younger generations stories so as to ensure their enrolment in the 
prevailing power-paradigm. All culture -- even so mistermed oppositional 
culture or counter-culture -- operates to present exemplarity...even dear 
old Homer [as in Simpson] gets exemplified as the exemplar of the 
average-Joe so as to provide existential succour to the vast numbers of us 
who will always be average. It's always a game; the game on this level of 
realness will never end. My advice is for those who can see through the game 
to get over it and go and smell the flowers.

best,

mattP