Non-objective moral ideas serve as harmless social cohesion because they never disturb business
Evidence
The same de-realization affects all ideas which, by their very nature, cannot be verified by scientific method. No matter how much they may be recognized, respected, and sanctified, in their own right, they suffer from being non-objective. But precisely their lack of objectivity makes them into factors of social cohesion. Humanitarian, religious, and moral ideas are only “ideal”; they don’t disturb unduly the established way of life, and are not invalidated by the fact that they are contradicted by a behavior dictated by the daily necessities of business and politics. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 554
Categorization
- XREF: Directly anticipates the modern observation that corporations ‘woke-wash’ or cosplay moral values — asserting ideals precisely because they cost nothing and secure cohesion. — connects to: Social organization neutralizes morality by making action adiaphoric, neither good nor evil — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 613; Coercion and interests alone compel cooperation even without shared values; Social organization displaces autonomous moral drive with instrumental and procedural rationality — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 612
Broader Connections
- Social organization neutralizes morality by making action adiaphoric, neither good nor evil
#expands(0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 613 - Social organization displaces autonomous moral drive with instrumental and procedural rationality
#expands(0.78) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 612 - Coercion and interests alone compel cooperation even without shared values
#corroborates(0.72)