Page 38 - Cultural Theory

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••• Cultural Analysis in Marxist Humanism •••

Freud had seen the instincts as destructive unless they are channelled and
controlled by culture. Left to their own devices, the instincts operate according to the
‘pleasure principle’ as largely unconscious driving forces through which people ori-
ent themselves towards their world. The rational deliberations of the ego are geared
towards achieving instinctually driven goals and, therefore, to forming a representa-
tion of the world through which the instinctual demands of the id can be controlled
and co-ordinated. Cultural control over the instincts works through a ‘reality princi-
ple’, and this underpins the conformity of individuals to the demands of civilization.
People learn that their instincts cannot be immediately and fully satisfied, and so
they also learn to renounce and restrain them so that they can be satisfied – at least
in part – over the longer term. The effects of parental socialization within the family
reinforce conscious control by the ego. It is through this socialization that a super-
ego is formed as external demands are ‘introjected’ as a moral conscience. The super-
ego is, then, the sediment of a person’s past experiences. The moral controls imposed
by the superego may run counter to the potentialities for instinctual gratification
that are possible under present conditions.
Civilization, therefore, tends to involve the cultural domination of the ego and the
superego over biological needs and instincts. Where Marcuse differs from Freud is
that he pointed to the possibilities that conscious actions have for eliminating extra-
neous and unnecessary barriers to gratification. The impact of culture on human
needs is not fixed and completely determined, and, under appropriate conditions, it
can be a means of liberation and instinctual expression. Through conscious action
and the application of reason, Marcuse argued, it is possible to create social condi-
tions that maximize opportunities for instinctual gratification. Culture and technical
civilization, then, have the potential to channel instincts in both negative and posi-
tive ways. They can deny and suppress them totally, replacing them with false needs
and desires that can be satisfied only from within the existing form of society; or they
can create the conditions under which, as far as possible, individuals can exercise a
true freedom in the expression and satisfaction of their instincts.
Marcuse’s diagnosis of contemporary conditions in the advanced capitalist soci-
eties is that the rationalization of culture has, through processes of socialization and
ideological incorporation, established a conformist character type that is unable to
challenge structures of domination and is, indeed, unaware of the extent of its own
domination. The institutionalization of the ‘performance principle’, as the specific
form taken by the reality principle, leads people to adopt a calculative and acquisi-
tive orientation towards their work, emphasizing its alienated form (Marcuse, 1956:
45). Indeed, they come to accept this technological domination as normal and nat-
ural. At the same time, however, the performance principle enhances productivity
and rational control, thus creating the preconditions for an alternative, and non-
repressive, reality principle. Recognition of this liberating potential is what gives
Marcuse’s theory its critical dimension. It has the power to explain the social forms
that are associated with the cultivation of false needs and the denial of instincts, and
it is thereby able to show the conditions under which people can liberate themselves

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