4.5.3. One-Dimensional and Dialectical Thought
One-dimensional thought and reductionism are characteristic for dominative societies that want to legitimatise the domination of one group or class over another and employ simplifications of reality for doing so. Critical theory opposes ideology, fetishism, reification, false consciousness, instrumental reason, technological rationality, and one-dimensional consciousness by the concept of dialectical thinking. Dialectical thinking sees reality as complex, a developing process, full of potentials for change, and as contradictory. It assumes that for each pole of reality there is a second pole that opposes (negates) the first pole and points towards a diferent reality. Dialectical thought is therefore ‘two-dimensional’ (Marcuse 1964b, 85). It operates with ‘transcendent, critical notions’ (Marcuse 1964b, 85): ‘The dialectical concepts transcend the given social reality in the direction of another historical structure which is present as a tendency in the given reality’ (Marcuse 1937a, 86).
4.5.4. The Engaging/Connecting/Sharing-Ideology
At the level of ideology, social media-capitalists, -gurus and -demagogues try to destroy and forestall the complexity, multi-dimensionality and dialecticity of communication and society by presenting only potential advantages and being silent about social media’s aspects of domination, exploitation, control, surveillance, repression, manipulation and neoliberal individualism. Social media ideologies present capitalist online platforms as something purely advantageous. They advance the engaging/connecting/sharing-ideology. Here are some examples (Fuchs 2015, chapter 7):
• Facebook says it provides ‘the power to share and to make the world more open and connected’.1
• Google argues its goal is the organisation of ‘the world’s information’ in order to ‘make it universally accessible and useful’ and ‘make money without doing evil’.2
• YouTube conceives the essence of freedom as possibility ‘to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small’.3
• For Twitter, the freedom of social media is ‘to connect with people, express yourself and discover what’s happening’ and ‘give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly’.4
• Instagram says it is a ‘fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends and family’.5
• Pinterest describes itself as enabling ‘collecting and organising things you love’.6
Herbert Marcuse and Social Media
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