| In pre-capitalist societies,the use of technology could,in principle,be controlled.With the emergence of capitalist mode of production,the application of technology appears out of control,and causes increasingly serious ecological crisis and social crisis.The antagonism between technology and human is becoming more and more serious in contemporary society.Driven by the logic of capital,capitalist countries,regardless of the safety of the people of the world,exploit natural resources without any degree of technology,and take technology as a means of social control to build an integrated society based on the integration of the realm of thought and the unidirectional nature of thought.What appears here is the "technological rationality" based on the "technological preconception".Under the ideas of "technical rationality",sense of inquiry,reflection and critique of capitalism will no longer be possible,positive thinking principle to overcome the negative thinking,and the analytical philosophy and philosophy of positivism analysis language as representatives of the capitalist world philosophy into a philosophical one,And the healing task of this philosophy to the society has essentially become a political task,a political task to serve the capitalist totalitarian society.At the same time,under the control of "technological rationality",science and technology are no longer neutral,but political tools serving the capitalist society.The instrumentalism of technological rationality consolidates the totalitarian society and rationalizes and legitimizes the totalitarian capitalist society.Based on this reality,the question is: can technology still be effectively controlled? Is it still possible for human beings to be free from the control of technology? Marcuse,who pushed the critical thought of technology of the Frankfurt School to the ivory spire,has a firm stand of inheriting and developing Marx’s historical materialism.He not only concretely investigated the unique phenomenon of modern capitalist countries taking technology as a new form of social control,but also extended the rational way of technological control through perceptual aesthetic liberation from Marx’s historical materialism.As a turning point in the development of technology criticism,Marcuse’s technology criticism integrated German classical philosophy,Western Marxism,Heidegger’s existentialism and rich ideological resources of the Frankfurt School,and also reflected the time mark projected by the contemporary capitalist society on itself.At the same time,to some extent,it also shows the hesitancy and pessimism of the past technology critical theory on the fundamental problem of the future liberation road.Therefore,through the study of Marcuse’s critical thought of technology,we can not only have a clear overall grasp of the historical development of technology control in the capital-dominated society and the evolution of the critical thought of technology,but also more clearly present the significance and limitations of Marcuse’s critical thought of technology.Historical materialism and the theoretical achievements of the political economic criticism of historical materialism in the economic field are the fundamental position of our general evaluation of Marcuse’s technical criticism.In a sense,the significance of Marcuse’s technology criticism is reflected in his new diagnosis of capitalist technology control and its exposed new trends,while its limitations are the limitations projected by capitalist society on individuals,that is,Marcuse did not really go beyond the realistic base of capitalism.Failure to propose realistic and feasible solutions beyond the technical control of totalitarian societies.As a grand theoretical narrative of the law of the development of human society and history,historical materialism provides a principled path to diagnose the historical formation and realistic operation mechanism of capitalist technology control and to transcend capitalist technology control from the perspective of world outlook and methodology.As the theory of historical materialism,validation and development of Marx’s critique of political economy reveals the capital logic is based on the operation of the capitalist mode of production on the basis of law,internal contradictions and transcend the necessity,possibility and fundamental way of capitalism,but also deeply analyses the capital logic and the internality of relation between science and technology,This paper analyzes the essential attribute that science and technology are subordinate to surplus value production in capitalist production system under the regulation of capital logic.In particular,it is necessary to see that the ideological system of historical materialism and political economy criticism,which aims at the liberation of human beings and the free and comprehensive development of human beings,runs through the overall reflection on speculative philosophy,capital logic and science and technology.In other words,if historical materialism is the essential transcendence of speculative philosophy,then as a great philosophical revolution,it is not only limited to the field of pure philosophy,but is intrinsically related to the criticism of the logic of capital.What appears here is the inherent identity between the standpoint of speculative philosophy and the logic of capital.It is in this sense that Marx once pointed out profoundly that "Hegel stands in the position of modern national economists".If Marx’s critique of political economy focused on the criticism of capital logic,it as a great revolution in economics is not just limited to simple the field of economics,it is to relate the inner criticisms of speculative philosophy,i.e.,according to the historical materialism as the theoretical premise of criticism of the capitalist mode of production,The capitalist mode of production based on the logic of capital and modern science and technology have inherent marriage;It is in this sense that the reflection on the capitalist nature of science and technology becomes an indispensable theoretical link in Marx’s surplus value theory.Therefore,when we consider that historical materialism and the theoretical achievements of political economic criticism of historical materialism in the field of economy are the fundamental position of our general evaluation of Marcuse’s technical criticism,this position is not an abstract but substantive judgment.Therefore,WHEN we deeply reflect on the gains and losses of Marcuse’s technology criticism,it is completely necessary and necessary for us to deeply ponder and learn Marx’s relevant important thoughts again through a way of theoretical retrospection.In general,as an important part of Marcuse’s lifelong philosophy,"technology criticism" reflects the two core concepts of other-humanism: control and liberation.From the initial awareness of anxiety to the radical criticism of technology,Marcuse’s examination of technology stems from his consideration of a major practical problem:why hasn’t human liberation been achieved in the developed capitalist society?Through the comprehensive analysis of the developed industrial society,Marcuse reached a basic judgment: technology and politics have merged into a new form of social control,and this new form of control has covered the politics,economy,culture,psychology,philosophy and other fields in the developed industrial society.In Marcuse’s view,if the industrial society is an integrated society,the integration of today’s industrial society is not maintained by traditional means such as terror and violence,but completed by a new control mode.This new type of control is non-terrorist economic and technological cooperation,which is a new type of totalitarianism or totalitarianism.According to Marcuse,science and technology have lost their neutrality as an element of social structure in the contemporary developed industrial society,and have transformed into a dominant and controlling ideology,which has become a new form of social control.The reason why this new form of control can play the function of ideology is rooted in the strong integration of capitalism,the high integration of political organization and technology,and the overall domination of human existence.In his opinion,technocracy is emanating from the highest center of power,and it has a stable technological control system.This system is a new way for the ruling class to be oppressed by the ruling class,which makes modern people more willing to accept the new oppression in the pleasurable experience of technology.Although Habermas,Fienberg and others have questioned this: As an intermediary,technology can surpass itself to become the decisive factor of society,but the following opinions of marcuse is still noteworthy,the world has become a world technology,because it no longer argued the cause of the problem and stop the footsteps of continued development,it is impossible to return to former technology in the era of social organization and social mode of production.Marcuse’s examination of technology is not only to trace the origin of technological control,he is more concerned about how technology as an ideology is possible in the historical changes of human social structure.In such an investigation,it is natural to show the theoretical connection with Marxism;We can see the profound influence of Marx on him from "Love and Civilization" to "One Dimensional Man",from the thinking on the theory of civilization and history to the criticism on the technological control of developed industrial society.It can be said that it is because Marx inherited the theoretical standpoint and basic views of historical materialism that Marcuse was able to understand from the application of technology in modern society that technology has become a new form of social control.Different from Adorno’s analysis of technology as a general form of social control in Dialectics of Enlightenment,Marcuse distinguished technology as a basic tool to satisfy human survival and development from "modern technology".Therefore,Marcuse did not deny the necessity and importance of technology as a basic tool for human survival and development.What he focused on was the criticism of "modern technology",that is,the criticism of modern technology as a new control mode of capitalist integrated society.From this point,it can be seen that Marcuse’s thought of technology criticism has always been permeated with a historical consciousness.This distinct historical consciousness makes us have reason to make the following judgment,that is,the early and late technology criticism thought of Marcuse is not broken as some scholars understand,but has internal correlation and thought inheritance.If we look at Marcuse’s critical thought of technology from the theoretical logic of "raising problems--analyzing problems--solving problems",we will find that after raising problems from the perspective of technology,he analyzed problems with specific social critical theory,and then took humanism as the strategy to solve problems.In this regard,it is obvious that Marcuse’s critical thought of technology cannot be simply understood as a kind of cultural criticism or aesthetic criticism.It is a critical theory of technology that is carried out in the comprehensive aspects of politics,economy,technology and culture as a whole.Should see,his research view has a certain level of comprehensive,research paradigm also has certain innovative,and tries to under the new social condition,to explore a kind of new social history theory,to reveal the era of technology control be masked the social nature of human liberation seeking another kind of hope and possible,namely perceptual aesthetic liberation.However,due to the marcuse’s failure to make history and its future development trend of the history of technology,objective analysis,more because he failed to stick to marxist historical materialism position and thoroughly paradigm to the critique of political economy,led to his future technical control of transcending capitalism society development scheme is a utopian fantasy.This point is most prominently reflected in his exploration of the road of liberation in the later period of his thought,that is,the road of perceptual aesthetic liberation that seeks individual liberation.In this regard,it is obvious that Marcuse’s technical criticism on the whole does not reach the theoretical height of Marxist philosophy and political economy criticism.Based on the above basic understanding and basic ideas,this paper discusses Marcuse’s technology criticism from the following aspects:In the introduction part,based on the review and evaluation of relevant literature,it aims to raise the question,that is,why the important question "how is it possible to get out of technological control" pursued by Marcuse still has important research value in the historical broad perspective.As far as Marcuse is concerned,this question is mainly directed at the negative effects of technology application in the current era of capitalism.Generally speaking,the social effects of technology application can be manifested as positive and negative effects.When Marcuse uses the concept of "technological control" and raises the question "how is it possible to get out of technological control",he is obviously pointing to the negative effects of technological application in the developed capitalist industrial society,especially the overall control of society after technology has become an ideology.However,deep reflection on what seems to be only a contemporary problem cannot be separated from the basic theoretical standpoint of Marxist philosophy and political economy criticism.Marcuse also had a basic understanding of this issue.In fact,Marx’s critical theory of technology provides a scientific path for the criticism of technology control,which is helpful to drive the criticism of technology control to a new theoretical height and reach a new theoretical realm.At the same time,it also provides a fundamental analytical framework for thinking deeply about the significance and limitations of Marcuse’s critical thought of technology with technology control as the core under the guidance of historical materialism.The first chapter focuses on the analysis of the historical background and theoretical origin of Marcuse’s thought of technology criticism.The three important shifts in Marcuse’s thinking were rooted in several major historical events of the 20 th century--the First and Second World Wars and the increasingly exposed major social problems of the postwar advanced industrial societies.Under such a background,it is obviously not an accident that he set his sights on Marxism and inherited the basic position of Marxism.Although the formation of his critical thought of technology was also influenced by Hegel,Weber,Lukacs,Horkheimer and many other philosophers,but at every stage of the development of critical thought of technology,he tried to integrate their ideological resources with Marxism.Marcuse always believed that Marxist theory and thought had great possibility to lead human beings out of technological control and toward freedom and liberation."Technology control" is the core concept of Marcuse’s technology criticism.Based on the dual theoretical vision of history and reality,the historical generation of "technical control" and its core connotation and control mechanism are analyzed,which constitute the main content of the second chapter.From the historical appearance of "technology control",we should see that in the western society,people began to pay attention to the problem of technology control since ancient Greece;In traditional Chinese culture,the Book of Songs in the pre-Qin period has long recorded the profound connotation of "control is greater than state".In the pre-capitalist era,limited technology applications mostly appeared in the local links of labor activities and related professional fields,so on the whole can be effectively controlled.As humans enter the era of capitalism,especially with the advent of the developed industrial society,in two-way interactive technology and capital,technology application present out gradually,the capitalist society has become a "social" technology,application and technology evolved for the comprehensive control of the society,thus making the developed industrial society to become a social machine to "integration".Under the totalitarian rule of non-terror economic,social and technical cooperation,all the consciousness of alienation or criticism is disintegrated,and then the false consciousness of social assimilation is generated.Positivism and linguistic analysis philosophy are the theoretical expression of this false consciousness.Directly speaking,with "technical control" and the critique of technology as the core of marcuse’s theory of social criticism,is from the reflection and critique of positivism and the philosophy of language analysis,aims to restart the negative thinking,and reveal the modern developed industrial society under control as a new form of society as a result of all sorts of alienation phenomenon.The third chapter focuses on Marcuse’s analysis of the concrete manifestation of technological control in the developed industrial society.In order to explore how technology,as a new form of social control,operates in the developed industrial society,Marcuse went deep into the fields of politics,economy,culture,philosophy and so on,and made an in-depth investigation of the internal and external causes of the operation of technological control.In the political field,the political consequences of technological control are the increasing convergence of the views of different political factions or parties,the increasing alliance of interests between enterprises and labor organizations,and the workers no longer have a sense of identity.In the economic field,the emergence of new technological capital,the technical control logic of consumption and the special operation logic of transnational corporations’ technical control make the capitalist economic system increasingly integrated.In the field of culture,the traditional high-level culture containing the consciousness of resistance and transcendence has evolved into a one-way culture,that is,it has become the "vulgarized" culture that conforms to the reality of industrial society or is required by industrial society.In the technological age,the literary image is no longer negative,the romanticism of art has yielded to the technical rationality of industrial society,the tragedy has lost its legitimacy in the artistic image and artistic content,and the sublimation of the essence of art alienation is becoming "vulgarization".In line with this,there is also the integration of language domain and the closure of discourse domain,that is,open language or dialectical language is being replaced by functional language or operationalist language,thus eliminating the "class consciousness" of the working class in the form of "latent".In the field of philosophy,formal logic replaced dialectical logic,and analytic philosophy and positivism gradually cleared away metaphysical factors in the field of philosophy,and gradually transformed philosophy into a one-dimensional philosophy.What appeared here was the victory of positive thinking over negative thinking.The therapeutic task of philosophy has evolved into a political task,one that serves the integration of capitalist society.How to get out of technical control is the core problem of Marcuse’s criticism of technical control,which is also the theme of the fourth chapter.In terms of the liberation road provided by Marcuse,whether it is to resort to natural liberation,perceptual aesthetic liberation or artistic revolution,the way he imagined for human beings to get out of technological control and move towards freedom and liberation must be to achieve a high balance between technology and human emotion.Marcuse strongly denounced the ecological crisis and social crisis caused by the abuse of technology in the developed industrial society,and his ultimate goal was to look forward to the future beyond the control of technology,which he had never given up.In this regard,Marcuse and Marx have common views on science and technology.,of course,exploring the perceptual aesthetic liberation and artistic revolution,although marcuse thinks he on human liberation is still sticking to the marxist basic position,but he gave the liberation had actually strayed from the path and the theoretical method of Marx’s historical materialism and the critique of political economy basic position and basic direction.The fifth chapter tries to analyze the gain and loss of Marcuse’s thought of technology criticism.In principle,the meaning and limitation of Marcuse’s thought of technology criticism are related to his attitude towards Marxist theory.The reason why Marcuse’s critical thought of technology can push forward the critical thought of technology of the Frankfurt school is that he more firmly inherited and adhered to the theoretical standpoint of Marx’s historical materialism and the theoretical paradigm of the criticism of political economy.In this regard,Marcuse’s critical thought of technology has an important reference significance for contemporary capitalist social criticism.But when the marcuse to aesthetic world of sensual looking for human to get rid of the technical control and integration of the capitalist society that the road to liberation,and social minority as a revolution of the main power,he actually has to give up or deviated from the marxist historical materialism and the critique of political economy and scientific theory field. |
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