Herbert Marcuse - One-Dimensional Man

Описание: The students' mentor was a famous writer and philosopher called Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse had studied psychoanalysis and was a fierce critic of the Freudians. They had he said helped to create a world in which people were reduced to expressing their feelings and identities through mass produced objects. It resulted in what he called one-dimensional man - conformist and repressed. The psychoanalysts had become the corrupt agents of those who ruled America.

Herbert Marcuse - Interviewed 1978: It was one of the most striking phenomena to see to what extent the ruling power structure could manipulate manage and control not only the consciousness but also the subconscious and unconscious of the individuals. And this took place on a psychological basis by the control and the manipulation of the unconscious primal drives which Freud stipulated.

Following the logic of Marcuse's argument the new student left set out to attack this system of social control. It was summed by the slogan 'There's a policeman inside all our heads - he must be destroyed'. And that policeman was going to be destroyed by overthrowing the state and the corporations that had put him there.
One group, the Weatherman had begun a series of attacks on companies that they said both controlled people's minds through consumer products and made the weapons being used in Vietnam.
Bernadine Dohrn - Founder of Weatherman Revolutionary Group: There's no way to be committed to non-violence in the middle of the most violent society that history has ever created. I'm not committed to non-violence in any way.


Linda Evans - Member of Weatherman Revolutionary Group: We want to live a life that isn't based on materialistic values, and yet the whole system of government and the economy of America is based on profit; on personal greed and selfishness. So that in order to be human, in order to love each other and be equal with each other and not place each other in roles we have to destroy the kind of government that keeps us from asserting our positive values of life.