Critical Work and Radical Pedagogy:
Recalling Herbert Marcuse
by Charles Reitz and Steve Spartan
2011
We submit to the peaceful production of the means of destruction, to the perfection of waste, to being educated for a defense which deforms the defenders and that which they defend.
Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (1964, ix)
The inner dynamic of capitalism . . . necessitates the revival of the radical rather than the minimal goals of socialism.
Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (1972, 5)
Herbert Marcuse’s political-philosophical vision and cultural critique continue to shed light on current debates concerning repressive democracy, political and racial inequality, education as social control, and the radical meaning of political struggle – especially where issues of alienation, war, oppression, critical inquiry, critical media literacy, and civic/revolutionary action are involved. Marcuse’s caustic condemnations of U.S. military aggression, its need for an “enemy,” the irrationality of U.S. economic waste, destruction, and affluence, etc., are particularly timely and deserve invigorated attention across this nation’s campuses as well as in other cultural and political circles today.
The purpose of this pamphlet is to generate discussion and activism within the public at large, particularly within the labor force, but also especially among college students and teachers in several interrelated social science disciplines – sociology, economics, business ethics, labor education, and history – in the spirit of Marcuse’s critical theorizing.
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