Marcuse held both containment and possible explosion of industrial society as live hypotheses

Evidence

This ambiguous situation involves a still more fundamental ambiguity. One-Dimensional Man will vacillate throughout between two contradictory hypotheses: (1) that advanced industrial society is capable of containing qualitative change for the foreseeable future; (2) that forces and tendencies exist which may break this containment and explode the society. I do not think that a clear answer can be given. Both tendencies are there, side by side—and even the one in the other. The first tendency is dominant, and whatever preconditions for a reversal may exist are being used to prevent it. Perhaps an accident may alter the situation, but unless the recognition of what is being done and what is being prevented subverts the consciousness and the behavior of man, not even a catastrophe will bring about the change. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 96

Categorization

• XREF: Contradicts any reading of Marcuse as a straightforward doom theorist; his own announced ambivalence qualifies the book’s central claim. Also echoes the Frankfurt School’s suppressed ‘productive versus destructive tendencies’ tension. — connects to: Marcuse’s realism rests on the acknowledged possibility of utopia’s failure — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 231; Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man diagnosed disaster while holding out hope for qualitative change — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2583; Industrial society appears rational precisely because it perpetuates the danger
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does Marcuse actually deliver on the second hypothesis anywhere in the book, or does the dominant tendency win out rhetorically?

Broader Connections

• Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man diagnosed disaster while holding out hope for qualitative change #exemplifies (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2583
• Marcuse’s realism rests on the acknowledged possibility of utopia’s failure #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 231
• Industrial society appears rational precisely because it perpetuates the danger #expands (0.72)