From 1984 to One-Dimensional Man: Critical Reflections on Orwell and Marcuse

Section One

By Douglas Kellner

Occasionally literary and philosophical metaphors and images enter the domain of popular discourse and consciousness. Images in Uncle Tom's Cabin of humane and oppressed blacks contrasted to inhumane slave owners and overseers shaped many people's negative images of slavery. And in nineteenth century Russia, Chernyshevsky's novel What is to be Done? shaped a generation of young Russian's views of oppressive features of their society, including V.I. Lenin who took the question posed by Chernyshevsky's novel as the title of one of his early revolutionary treatises. In the twentieth century, George Orwell's vision of totalitarian society in his novel 1984 has had a major impact on how many people see, understand, and talk about contemporary social trends. {1} Subsequently, Herbert Marcuse's analyses and images of a "one-dimensional man" in a "one-dimensional society" shaped many young radicals' ways of seeing and experiencing life in advanced capitalist society during the 1960s and 1970s --though to a more limited extent and within more restricted circles than Orwell's writings which are among the most widely read and discussed works of the century.

There are, in fact, both some striking differences and similarities between the visions of totalitarianism in contemporary industrial societies in the works of George Orwell and Herbert Marcuse. A contrast between Orwell and Marcuse seems useful at this point in time since they both offer insights that illuminate various features of the contemporary social and political world. In the light of the growth of repressive governments of the communist, fascist, and democratic capitalist systems in the contemporary epoch, it seems appropriate to re-read Orwell's novels and essays and Marcuse's writings since both contain concepts and analyses that provide sharp critiques of the mechanisms and power in institutions which practice socio-political domination and oppression. Moreover, both raise the question of the proper theoretical and political response toward current trends of social irrationality and domination, as well as the possibilities of emancipation. (CLICK TO LINK FULL ARTICLE)

excerpts from http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/Illumina%20Folder/kell13.htm

Section Two [http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/Illumina%20Folder/kell13a.htm]