Industrial society is static while appearing dynamic
Evidence
Today’s fight against this historical alternative finds a firm mass basis in the underlying population, and finds its ideology in the rigid orientation of thought and behavior to the given universe of facts. Validated by the accomplishments of science and technology, justified by its growing productivity, the status quo defies all transcendence. Faced with the possibility of pacification on the grounds of its technical and intellectual achievements, the mature industrial society closes itself against this alternative. Operationalism, in theory and practice, becomes the theory and practice of containment. Underneath its obvious dynamics, this society is a thoroughly static system of life: self-propelling in its oppressive productivity and in its beneficial coordination. Containment of technical progress goes hand in hand with its growth in the established direction. In spite of the political fetters imposed by the status quo, the more technology appears capable of creating the conditions for pacification, the more are the minds and bodies of man organized against this alternative. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 144
Categorization
- XREF: The claim that advanced society is ‘a thoroughly static system of life’ directly parallels the attention-economy critique (Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism as containment without transcendence) central to this reader’s stated purpose. — connects to: Contradictions in industrial society do not resolve themselves automatically — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 877; Exchange of labor-power injects novelty into circulation while system stasis persists — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1553; Containing qualitative social change is industrial society’s defining achievement (+1 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The inversion — dynamic-appearing society that is really static, with productivity harnessed to block its own liberating use — is among the densest, most paradigm-shifting formulations in Marcuse.
Broader Connections
- Containing qualitative social change is industrial society’s defining achievement
#expands(0.88) - Exchange of labor-power injects novelty into circulation while system stasis persists
#corroborates(0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1553 - Contradictions in industrial society do not resolve themselves automatically
#expands(0.82) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 877 - A social order persists until new productive relations mature within it
#corroborates(0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1539