Radical new demands arise spontaneously at both margins of affluent society, not its center.

Evidence

I observe a tendency towards these new demands at both poles of existing society, namely in the most highly developed part and also in those parts of the Third World engaged in the struggle for liberation … It is not necessary, for example, to impose a demand for peace on the Vietnamese involved in the struggle for liberation, since they have it already … And, on the other hand, in highly developed society, there are those groupsminority groupswhich can afford the new demands, or which, even if they can’t afford them, simply have them anyway since they would otherwise physically suffocate. Here we come back to the beatnik and hippie movement. What we have here is certainly an interesting phenomenona refusal to share in the blessings of the `affluent society’. This is also one of the qualitative changes in demands that are taking place. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2630

Categorization

• DEFINE: Marcuse’s concept of ‘qualitative changes in demands’ is defined here: new needs that affluent minorities and Third World liberation movements already possess rather than must be taught.
• XREF: connects to: Violation of newly adopted values spurs new social movements among the middle class. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4426; Revolution grows from within the oppressor society rather than arriving from outside. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 441

Broader Connections

• Violation of newly adopted values spurs new social movements among the middle class. #contradicts (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4426
• Revolution grows from within the oppressor society rather than arriving from outside. #complicates (0.75) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 441