Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.
Herbert MarcuseRead
The existing liberties and the existing gratifications are tied to the requirements of repression: they themselves become instruments of repression.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that the freedoms and joys we possess are often linked to forms of suppression, thus becoming tools of that suppression.
Herbert Marcuse's quote delves into the paradox of how the liberties and pleasures we enjoy in society can be intertwined with repressive structures. While we may perceive these liberties as positive, they can also serve to maintain and reinforce systems of control, limiting true freedom and enlightenment. This reflects a critical perspective on societal norms and the implications of our gratifications, urging us to reflect on how what we enjoy can sustain the status quo.
Themes
LibertyRepressionControlFreedomSociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the balance between freedom and societal norms during a philosophy class.
More from Herbert Marcuse
All quotes βContemporary industrial society is now characterised more than ever by "the need for stupefying work where it is no longer a real necessity."
Herbert MarcuseRead
Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness and drives of the men and women who could change the world.
Herbert MarcuseRead
By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests.
Herbert MarcuseRead
However, if "free choice" means more than a small selection between pre-established necessities, and if the inclinations and impulses used in work are other than those preshaped by a repressive reality principle, then satisfaction in daily work is only a rare privilege.
Herbert MarcuseRead
The sickness of the individual is ultimately caused by and sustained by the sickness of his civilization
Herbert MarcuseRead
Similar quotes
The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity β even under the most difficult circumstances β to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal
Viktor E. FranklRead
Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.
C. S. LewisRead
Faith fills a man with love for the beauty of its truth, with faith in the truth of its beauty
Saint Francis De SalesRead
Someday no one will remember that she ever existed, I wrote in my notebook, and then, or that I did. Because memories fall apart, too. And then you're left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow. In the beginning, she had haunted me, haunted my dreams, but even now, just weeks later, she was slipping away, falling apart in my memory and everyone else's, dying again.
John GreenRead
Wherever people feel safe β they will be indifferent.
Susan SontagRead
Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. Drunkenness is merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes maudlin; a bloody man, vicious; a coarse man, vulgar.
Willa CatherRead