Modern alienation persists even when the alienated identify fully with their imposed existence.

Evidence

I have just suggested that the concept of alienation seems to become questionable when the individuals identify themselves with the existence which is imposed upon them and have in it their own development and satisfaction. This identification is not illusion but reality. However, the reality constitutes a more progressive stage of alienation. The latter has become entirely objective; the subject which is alienated is swallowed up by its alienated existence. There is only one dimension, and it is everywhere and in all forms. The achievements of progress defy ideological indictment as well as justification; before their tribunal, the “false consciousness” of their rationality becomes the true consciousness. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 130

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the book’s titular ‘one dimension’ concept: alienation becomes objective so total that no critical standpoint survives.
• QUESTION: Marcuse says identification ‘is not illusion but reality,’ yet calls it a progressive stage of alienation — worth chasing how he distinguishes reality-satisfaction from its domination.
• XREF: connects to: Alienation deepens precisely when people happily identify with imposed existence; Alienation presupposes an earlier unalienated human relationship to distort

Broader Connections

• Alienation deepens precisely when people happily identify with imposed existence #corroborates (1.00)
• Alienation presupposes an earlier unalienated human relationship to distort #qualifies (0.80)