Aesthetic Radicalism and the Counterculture

2015-11-02T12:42:00-05:00

Herbert Marcuse, who in his book One-Dimensional Man, which was widely influential in the counterculture, argued that advanced industrial society creates an uncritical consumerism that it uses to orchestrate social control as it integrates or binds the working class to endless cycles of both production and consumption.

"The basic themes of anticonsumerism can be found in One-Dimensional Man: over-identification and symbolic reliance on consumer goods for personal satisfaction, the creation of desire and the fulfillment of wants instead of basic needs, the irrational expenditure of labor in pursuit of continuous consumption, the waste and environmental damage sustained in order to produce such goods, and the corresponding illogic of planned obsolescence. The inherent multidimensionality of the individual and one’s experience is thus eroded, and with it the capacity for critical thought and opposition. Following the austerity of the Great Depression and the sacrifices of World War II, America’s postwar economic boom and its ascent as a global superpower created an impression of abundance, no matter how unevenly it was actually distributed in society, fueled by technological and scientific advancements—so much so, that it was even possible to proclaim an impending “post-scarcity” society. That plenit...

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Aesthetic Radicalism and the Counterculture