( Tansu KÜÇÜKÖNCÜ ( in Turkish alphabet ) )
------------------------------------------------
One Dimensional Man ( by Herbert Marcuse , 1964 )
Book review and criticism by Tansu KUCUKONCU
Great changes can be performed only if one lives in the needs of changing ways of life
and rejecting conventional ones.
Technological rationality became political rationality.
In high-industry society, what soverigh is an easy, smooth, rational and democratic unfreeness. What may be rational than compression of individualism by making works, which are necessary (as social) but painful, with machines.
Today, political power shows itself via its power on mechanical duration and on instrument's practical organization. Goverment of developed or developing industrial society can keep its continuation when it becomes succesful in running, organizing and using the practical, scientific and mechanismic productivity which is hold by high industrial civilization.
By using the secret power of advertisements, people are getting believed that they have lots of needs -in fact which are not real needs-; in this way people begins to rest, enjoy, behave, use up in convenience with advertisements, they love, hate whom somebodies else love, hate... These are wrong. The needs which have infinite rights to be supplied are the vital ones.
The main problem is that most of the individual are unaware of their slaveness.
The distinguishing factor of highly-industrialized societies is that it chokes the needs which require freeness in an effective way, but at the same time it makes terminating power and compressive work of comfort-society.
Reachableness of alternatives open to individual is not effective in measuring the degree of human liberty.
To be able to choose masters freely does not cancel masters and slaves. Being able to choose freely between a alrge variety of properties and services does not show liberty; if these properties and services supports the social controls over a life of difficulties and fears. Reproduction of needs which are forced to be believed by superiorities, by individual does not constitute the autonomy.
Pre-conditioning begins with social productions of radio and television, and centralization of controls.
People know himself in materials they bought.
Concept is synonym with set of reciprocal operations.
One-dimensional thought is developed systematically by politic-applicators and their social-informatic sellers.
Progress is not an objective term; it goes towards some aims, and these aims are defined by probabilities of making human conditions better.
Stopping of Social Changes
What high-technology promises is a more comfortable life for more people than ever. Machinized working, as a life-long business, makes individuals be slaves which are used up, foolihs, out of humanity.
High-tech brought technological stresss and reflective struggling instead of muscular tiredness. Machines seems like giving a certain ritm of insensibleness to its operators.
Profession autonomy of workers become his professional slaveness.
Accorrding to Marx, machines never creates values, but transer their values to the products; plus-value is generated by exploison of vital labour.
Maneging of running's preference of engineers and university graduates decreases the possibilities of raising.
Today's pressures of weaponization which are technologic at a very high-level,took from goverment officers the priority and power of making important decisions, and gave it to applicators, planners and scientists which were used by wide industrial empires, and were given high responsibilities for the benefits of their employees.
What Limitations Can Bring
Capitalism will keep its continuation of ability to increase the life-standarts for an increasing part of society.
A society, to become an independent one, at first, should create the materialist pre-requisites of independence; first it should create richness such that it can distribute it as appropriate for the freely improving needs of individuals; first it should make its slaves be capable laern, see and think such that they can know that what is going and what they can do to be able to change this.
The transition from 'giving according to working' to 'giving according to needs' should be performed.
Distribution of needs without looking at productivity, reducing of working hours to minimum limits, universal multi-dimensional education; these are the pre-requisites of self-autonomy. For now, creation of these pre-equisites only can occur by insistence of gowerment, but commonness and adoptance of these wiil bring the end of goverment.
It is impossible that underdeveloping countries easily can perform the historical jump from pre-technological society to post-technological society, and then the technological instrument canprovide a base for a real democracy.
Comfort-State and War-State
Comfort-state systematically decreases and compresses (consciously or inconsciously) a. practically useable free time, b. quantity and quality of practically useable goods and services for vital needs, c. rationality which have the ability of getting probabilities of self-determination and making them conceptual.
So it is a state of freenessless.
To be effective, exhausting in a creazy way and this kind of production, these socially should be rational.
If the life governed is confortable, even good, then there is no need to insist on self-determination.
For a governed individual, governing by laws is infinitely confidental than governing by artificial-laws or govrerning without laws.
In this civilization the creasiest calculations can be make rational: termination of five million of people can be preferred to termination of twenty million. For now, it seems it is a dummy job to expect these will bring self-end of this civilization, while it can be able to make itself be clear.
Democracy is the most effective pressive controlling system.
Knowledgelessness and inconsciousness is so much that nationalism can keep its improvement.
People are cheated by nation and communities. They feel pains of this. But here their enemy is the masters who uses the mystical effects of technology and power.
Although poeple know that advertisements or political platforms may not be true or right, they listen to them, read them, and let theirselves be controlled and directed by them. As this, they accept the conventional values and add them to their rational values.
Music of soul is the same time the music of the seller.
Realities of literature and art have always been accepted as it had belonged to a 'high' order; and this high order must have not disturbed the capitalist order, in fact it have not disturbed.
At high levels art is a great rejection.
High-industrialized civilization runs with a high level sexual independence -sexual independence has a market value and it is an element of social rules. The body is allowed to show its sexual charecteristics without stopping its being an instrument of labour.
Operationalism, gaining artic charecteristics, supports and fastens this tendency.
Sexuality combined with working and social relations, thus it became more open to controlled satisfaction.
A satisfaction which creates a unconditional acceptance and weakens the rationality of rejection.
Capacity of society about adjusting practical improvement increases its capacity of adjusting and controlling (satisfying it in a productive way) the capacity of termination.
Playing the Game
To understand the game it should be played, because understanding is in 'experience'.
There is no place for feelings of crime.
Who makes theirselves be united (dual) with the society and accepts theirselves as the leadres and defenders of the unity, can make mistakes, but they don't make faults; they never are quilty.
Language of the Unitic Goverment
Defense laboratories, managing offices, govermenets and machines, time-controllers and operators, professionals of effection and political beauty saloons uses a different language than people do, and for now it seems that they have the right to say the last words. This is a language which orders, organizes and directs people to do, buy and accept.
Calling of party which works for defending and growing of capitalism, as social, and of a despotic goverment as democratic, and of a adjusted election as independent is the results of this kind kind of language.
Personalization is one of the instruments of this language.Usages like 'your deputy, your roads, your favourite store, your newspaper' are directly brought to you, and calling you. These have magical effects.
Abbreviations are another tricks. They changes the direction of your attention, i.e NATO is more symphatic (and far from its originalimpressed meaning) than North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
This prevents direct and conceptual thinking; thus thinking. Because concept cannot find its operation.
Unitic Goverment's Searching
Society which plans and performs the technological transformation of nature changes step by step from individual dependence to dependence on objective order of things (economical rules, market etc.).
Now sovereignity creates a high level of rationality.
Termination is the cost of progress.
Real knowledge and mind have the desire to soverignity on the senses.
Natural sciences developes under the technological a priori that designs the nature as a secret instrument of controlling and organization.
Technological a priori is a political a priori.
But machines of technological world, as machines, are not interested in political aims. Observation and experiment, organization of data, proposal and results never progressed in an unorganized, objective, theoric emptiness.
Today sovereignity continues and improve its existance not only via technology, but as technology. And technology provides the great clearness of widened political powers.
Science, via its self-methods and concepts, designed and improved such an universe that soverignity on nature depended sovereignity in it. This relation is in a fatal tendency for the universe. Duration of technological rationality is a political duration.
They are beliving that they are dying for communities, for party leaders, for motherland, for independence of individuals, for distribution of profits, for proleteria, for its bureucracy. They believe that they are dying with the orders of a state, dying for the money which supports the state. They believe that they are dying for a nation, for brigents which is against it. They believe, but why is it beleived such a darkness ? Believe - die ? -while the important thing is to learn to live.
In fact, discourse is not a combination of its contituent words, but it is just the contrary, words are generated from the entireness of the discourse.
Better products (i.e automobiles) can be generated with less cost. But some others must live. Exaltation of natural is a part of the ideology which defends an unnatural society in its struggling against freedom. It is natural that black are low-level in some places, it is normal that dogs bit the ones at back, it is natural that professions' world should exist. It is natural that big fishes swallow little ones -even if it is not natural for little ones.
To hide, don't wait to be hunted.
