One-Dimensional Man
One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society is a 1964 book by the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, in which the author offers a wide-ranging critique of both contemporary capitalism and the Communist society of the Soviet Union, documenting the parallel rise of new forms of social repression in both these societies, as well as the decline of revolutionary potential in the West. He argues that "advanced industrial society" created false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought. )
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- Read more about it in Herbert Marcuse: One-Dimensional Man
- There has been discussion on this topic for about 100 years, but the most prominent is in the books Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor Adorno or One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse. They are a bit heavier than this article but they go into the problem with far more depth.
The Frankfurt school in general deals with this problematic of Capitalism losing its revolutionary potential and becoming a stagnant, homogenous, unchanging system. Walter Benjamin, the spiritual father of both the above authors, in fact did extensive work attempting to uncover the wondrous possibilities of early high capitalism before it collapsed under the rule of Louis Bonaparte, which was the subject of Marx’s quite famous article The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Disagree with Marx if you want but he did believe that capitalism, if left to run wild, would produce a new form of hypermobile, freely associating society, but when that gets close to happening in times of crisis a certain section of elite seize power for themselves and prevent the revolutionary social changes from occuring, thus producing this endless mediocrity.
- Recently, "The Situation is Hopeless... But Not Serious" - Paul Watzlawick
All of Nietzsche. Antioedipus. Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Wittgenstein's Notebooks. The works of Vilem Fluser. Basically most major/famous philosophers are a solid bet.
- If you think your job isn't BS you probably haven't read enough adversarial content.
0) The Conspiracy Against The Human Race
1) The Machine Stops
2) The One Dimensional Man
3) A City Is Not A Tree
4) Influence
5) La Technique
6) anything from James C. Scott
7) ...
Figuring out the links is left as an exercise to the reader.
- Maybe the future is not that bleak. I would love to see A.I. take over strictly commercial art. And paradoxically enough, this is NOT the case here. Yes, A.I. generated the finalist image, but WE as humans make that art. The picture is sterile up until the very moment it sparks social discussions as it is doing right now. A.I. overtaking jobs is a very human subject. It does not matter how much A.I. evolve, art will only become art if appreciated by humans. Even when A.I. evolve enough to be in a level self-evolving and be influenced by art, their needs will be different from ours, and we will still maintain control over how art impact us.
What we are seeing is not the death of art, but a flaw in our social system, with the livelihood and dignity of individuals being directly tied to their functional importance to society, like cogs in a machine. That is what I think we need to attack.
For all things art, I hope A.I. will help us divorce from the insidious form of commercial art and leave us time to focus on actual art that usher positive social change. An interesting take on that is in Marcuse's One Dimensional Man.
- Deschooling Society - Ivan Illich One-Dimensional Man - Herbert Marcuse Tools for Conviviality - Ivan Illich On Liberty - J. S. Mill The Annals - Tacitus The Histories - Tacitus
