Prevailing rationality represses all values it cannot operationally validate.

Evidence

The chief characteristic of this new mode of thought and behavior is the repression of all values, aspirations, and ideas which cannot be defined in terms of the operations and attitudes validated by the prevailing forms of rationality. The consequence is the weakening and even the disappearance of all genuinely radical critique, the integration of all opposition in the established system. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 6

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is Marcuse’s own definition of one-dimensionality: rationality as a filter that represses whatever it cannot operationally define, integrating all opposition.
• SEED: Essay angle: the operationally-validated rationality test applied to today’s discourse — how platform metrics, engagement data, and ‘pragmatics’ filter out values that can’t be quantified.
• XREF: connects to: Efficiency is treated as uncontestable truth rather than a contestable value — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 121; Organizations suppress morality because it cannot be rationalized — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 611; Modern rationality is procedural rather than substantive across all value spheres — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 392 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Organizations suppress morality because it cannot be rationalized #exemplifies (0.90) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 611
• Efficiency is treated as uncontestable truth rather than a contestable value #exemplifies (0.88) — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 121
• Modern rationality is procedural rather than substantive across all value spheres #expands (0.85) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 392
• Modern rationality has expanded until almost nothing remains genuinely irrational or incomprehensible #expands (0.80)