Marcuse argued bourgeois notions of freedom actually sanctioned existing authority

Evidence

In his “Intellectual Historical Section,” Marcuse developed many of the points made elsewhere in ZeitschrVJt articles. He began by stressing once again the intrinsic connection between freedom and authority, which bourgeois theorists had so often failed to acknowledge. Instead, he pointed out, they posited the notion of negative freedom, most characteristically formulated by Kant, which meant the separation of inner and outer selves. Internal autonomy was preserved at the cost of external heteronomy. The antiauthoritarian pre tensions of bourgeois theory masked the metaphysical sanction it gave to the prevailing social order. And under capitalism this order remained inevitably irrational. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 424

Categorization

• XREF: Marcuse’s critique of ‘negative freedom’ and inner autonomy preserved at the cost of external heteronomy connects to his later One-Dimensional Man critique of repressive tolerance and the Frankfurt critique of the autonomous ego that Horkheimer and Adorno develop in Dialectic of Enlightenment. — connects to: Marcuse argued individual happiness requires the universal attainment of positive freedom — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 238; Bourgeois Enlightenment traded freedom for self-preservation early on; Marcuse’s dialectical method treated totalitarianism as both reaction and continuation of liberalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 404 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Bourgeois Enlightenment traded freedom for self-preservation early on #expands (0.85)
• Marcuse’s dialectical method treated totalitarianism as both reaction and continuation of liberalism #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 404
• Marcuse gave standard philosophical categories a materialist base. #complicates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 15