Domination invalidates dominated people’s own answers about their needs

Evidence

In the last analysis, the question of what are true and false needs must be answered by the individuals themselves, but only in the last analysis; that is, if and when they are free to give their own answer. As long as they are kept incapable of being autonomous, as long as they are indoctrinated and manipulated (down to their very instincts), their answer to this question cannot be taken as their own. By the same token, however, no tribunal can justly arrogate to itself the right to decide which needs should be developed and satisfied. Any such tribunal is reprehensible, although our revulsion does not do away with the question: how can the people who have been the object of effective and productive domination by themselves create the conditions of freedom? — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 118

Categorization

• XREF: The aporia here — no tribunal can decide for the manipulated, yet their own answers are invalid — parallels Marx on false consciousness and later debates on adaptive preferences (Elster). — connects to: Internalized needs remain heteronomous products of dominant interests. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 115; Administered needs cause individuals to identify with and submit to domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 39; Mystification makes the oppressed mistake social domination for natural necessity — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 651
• QUESTION: This is the classic standoff Marcuse never fully resolves; worth revisiting how he squares repressive tolerance with any emancipatory claim.

Broader Connections

• Administered needs cause individuals to identify with and submit to domination #corroborates (0.95) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 39
• Mystification makes the oppressed mistake social domination for natural necessity #expands (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 651