Memory holds an emblematic, mythic foundational place in Marcuse’s thought

Evidence

Marcuse’s work is not, however, exhausted by this description, for at the same time that it develops the vital urgency of Utopian thinking, it also lays the groundwork for the very possibility of such thinking in the first place. At the same time that it develops a new hermeneutic, it establishes the conditions of existence of hermeneutic activity in general. This theoretical foundation takes the form of a profound and almost Platonic valorization of memory, anamnesis, in human existence. Indeed, it is not too much to say that Mnemosyne occupies something of the same emblematic and mythopoetic position in Marcuse’s thinking that the deities of Eros and Thanatos hold in Freud’s late metapsychology. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 225

Categorization

• XREF: The Platonic anamnesis grounding connects directly to the Marxist/Platonist synthesis Jameson develops elsewhere in this book, and to Benjamin’s theologies of memory. — connects to: Marcuse used Freud’s metapsychology to argue a non-repressive civilization is conceivable — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2132; Political crises pushed Marcuse toward Freud and a utopian radicalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 367

Broader Connections

• Marcuse used Freud’s metapsychology to argue a non-repressive civilization is conceivable #complicates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2132
• Political crises pushed Marcuse toward Freud and a utopian radicalism #expands (0.70) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 367