Andrew Feenberg: Marcuse and the New Left – Book Launch

SFU professor emeritus from the School of Communication, Andrew Feenberg, launches his new book on important radical philosopher Herbert Marcuse, The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing: Nature and Revolution in Marcuse’s Philosophy of Praxis.

Marcuse was the most radical member of the Frankfurt School, so radical that he has become the bogeyman of the far right. His political theory was based on an original philosophy that has yet to be understood in its full scope and ambitions. This book traces Marcuse’s contribution from his early phenomenological Marxism to his late reflections on the environment. Marcuse not only supported struggles against imperialism and race and gender discrimination, he addressed the roots of the problems in the new phase of consumer capitalism. He studied with Husserl and Heidegger, two important figures in the phenomenological movement. Their influence shows up in his early analysis of Marx’s Paris Manuscripts of 1844. This was a path breaking study of the ontological interdependence of human beings and nature in Marx’s thought. After joining the Frankfurt School, he enriched Marxism with original interpretations of Hegel and Freud. His most popular book, One-Dimensional Man, was read around the world and influenced the New Left. Already aware of the environmental crisis by the 1970s, he argued that nature is devastated by capitalist science and technology, and he demanded radical change in the human relation to nature. Today, under pressure from the public, science and technology increasingly conflict with the imperatives of capitalist enterprise. Marcuse offers theoretical resources for understanding this conflict. His thought can contribute to the contemporary movement to save the environment.

This talk was followed by a Q&A discussion moderated by Am Johal.