Today, the theories developed by Marcuse and other members of the Frankfurt School inspire people in academia and even those outside the academic system. For instance, there is a growing generation of critical theorists, including scholars such as Axel Honneth and Nikolas Kompridis. A lot of scholars today borrow the ideologies suggested by these scholars considering that they play a major role in the criticism of a variety of aspects such as global warming. For those who are not interested in academic matters, Marcuse’s ideologies have led to the creation of political activists, leftist movements, anti-capitalists, and pro-democracy speakers. A lot of people today, especially activists use the readings from Marcuse to rationalize. As a result, …show more content…
Many people, in their efforts to achieve totalitarian direction, have to contend with many negating forces. Marcus calls for the replacement of exploitation, with freedom, but domination and repression remains. Marcus presents an ideology where the people enjoy some capitalist society where they are falsely presented with a life that is comfortable. However, Marcuse calls this some form of smooth, comfortable oppression that creeps into the people and successfully exorcizes or represses the very evident contradictions.
In the year 1972, Marcuse wrote another essay titled “An Essay on Liberation” in which he asserts that voluntary servitude can only be broken through a political practice that goes to the extent of demolishing the roots of containment and contentment (Holman 632). The idea here is that people still have a long way to go to get liberated from false needs (Marcuse 405). The generation of substantial change requires a qualitatively different totality where social liberation goes beyond the economic sphere to touch human existence” (Winters 161). The only way to attain this kind of life is if people think of “the possibility of emancipated subjectivity” (Holman