SOC 3701 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci, Max Horkheimer
11/30-Lecture 22: Critical Theory, Domination and Cultural
Consumption (cont.)
• The philosophers hae ol interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however,
is to change it. -Karl Marx
• Critical Theory is constructed by its positive utopianism: a vison of better reality, which
oeroes the preset oppressie realit. -Max Horkheimer
• Theory of Culture and Ideology
o Capitalism is not solely a source of economic exploitation but a source of
CULTURAL DOMINATION
o What serves as the ideological apparatus of late capitalism? → The Culture
Industry
• Totalitarian Societies
o It is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-
terroristic economic-political coordination which operates through the
manipulation of needs by vested interests
o Instead of being based on hear of external coercion or force, however, the
methods of domination in advanced societies are bead more on the
manipulation of consciousness.
• Bak to Mar: Ideolog ad False Cosiousess
o Marx described the situation in which members of the subordinate classes
aot see that the are eig duped as false osiousess.
o In Marxist terms, ideology can ultimately be identified as the lies, deceptions,
and misinformation given to the working classes in order to maintain the state of
false osiousess.
• Hegemony (Antonio Gramsci)
o The doiat group eerises oral ad itelletual leadership iig the
oset of the asses
o Coercion → It uses the army, the police, prisons and courts of the state to force
other classes to accept its role
o Consent (hegemony) → takes place in the realm of private institutions (family,
hurhes, the edia…)
• the Produts idotriate ad aipulate; the proote a false osiousess hih is
iue agaist its falsehood -Herbert Marcuse
• An illusion of freedom
o Marcuse claims that freedom in industrial capitalist societies is only a semblance
of being free
o We hae politial hoie eletios… ut ol preordaied optios
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