{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","uuid":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","normalized_title":"criticaltheoryofcommunicationnewreadingsoflukácsadornomarcusehonnethandhabermasintheageoftheinternet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","isbns":["9781911534044","9781911534051","9781911534068","9781911534075"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Critical%20Theory%20of%20Communication%20New%20Readings%20of%20Luk%C3%A1cs%2C%20Adorno%2C%20Marcuse%2C%20Honneth%20and%20Habermas%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20the%20Internet","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/search"},"page":{"printed_page":140,"pdf_page":144,"physical_index":144,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"4e4ab62da2e9d33acebdc8826e24f7cc9c9f47e0a1eafd7057bf330c87c1f504"},"chapter":"C H R I S T I A N F U C H S CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION","content":"4.6.3. Society’s Essence\n\nMarcuse anticipated the critique of postmodern relativism when he argued in 1936 for a Marxist notion of essence: ‘A theory that wants to eradicate from science the concept of essence succumbs to helpless relativism, thus promoting the very powers whose reactionary thought it wants to combat’ (Marcuse 1937a, 45). It makes practical political sense to argue that there is a truth immanent in society that is not automatically realised and that this truth is given in the need and possibility of a good life for all. Oppression takes on diferent forms and contexts and that oppressed individuals and groups frequently stand in contradictory relations to each other. Truth is subdivided into partial truths that are interconnected. Oppressed groups and individuals share common interests because they are all confronted by the same global system of oppression, at the same time they also have difering sub-interests because oppression is contextualised in many forms. What is needed is a diferentiated unity, a form of politics that is based on unity in diversity.\n\nFor Hegel, the essence of things means that they have fundamental characteristics and qualities as such that frequently are diferent from their appearance. Truth for Hegel is the direct correspondence of essence and existence, only true existence is real and reasonable. In Marxism, Herbert Marcuse is one of the authors who has taken up Hegel’s notion of essence and stresses that essence is connected to possibilities and that a true society is one that realises the possibilities that are enabled by structural aspects such as technological forces, economic productivity, political power relations, world-views, etc. Essence in society is connected with what humans could be (Marcuse 1937a). Ernst Bloch (1959) utilises in this context the ontological category of ‘not yet’ in order to signify concrete potentials that can be realised, but have not yet been attained. Marcuse has given the following definition of the essence of man and society:\n\nConnecting at its roots the problem of essence to social practice restructures the concept of essence in its relation to all other concepts by orienting it toward the essence of man. […] Here the concept of what could be, of inherent possibilities, acquires a precise meaning. What man can be in a given historical situation is determinable with regard to the following factors: the measure of control of natural and social productive factors, the level of the organization of labor, the development of needs in relation to possibilities for their fulfilment (especially the relation of what is necessary for the reproduction of life to the ‘free’ needs for gratification and happiness, for the ‘good and the beautiful’), the availability, as material to be appropriated, of a wealth of cultural values in all areas of life (Marcuse 1937a, 71).\n\nWhat humans can be in a given situation can be described when taking the following factors into account:\n\n140\n\nCritical Theory of Communication","previous_page":139,"next_page":141}