Eros and Civilization is one of the Herbert Marcuse's best known early works. Written in 1955, it is a synthesis of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Its title alludes to Freud's Civilization and its Discontents. Marcuse's vision of a non-repressive society, based on Marx and Freud, anticipated the values of 1960s countercultural social movements. Herbert Marcuse (July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a prominent German-American philosopher and sociologist of Jewish descent, member of the Frankfurt School. ... 1955 (MCMLV in Roman) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883 London) was an influential German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary organizer of the International Workingmens Association. ... Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud [] (May 6, 1856–September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, based on his theory that human development is best understood in terms of changing objects of sexual desire; that the unconscious often represses wishes (generally of a... Civilization and Its Discontents is a book written by Sigmund Freud in the decade preceding his death in 1938. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... In sociology, counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms are at odds with those of the social mainstream, a cultural equivalent of a political opposition. ... Social movements are broader political associations focussed on specific issues. ...

In the book, Marcuse writes about the social meaning of biology - history seen not as a class struggle, but fight against repression of our instincts. He argues that capitalism (if never named as such) is preventing us from reaching the non-repressive society "based on a fundamentally different experience of being, a fundamentally different relation between man and nature, and fundamentally different existential relations". Class struggle is class conflict looked at from a Marxist, libertarian socialist, or anarchist perspective. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Capitalism Capitalism has been defined in various ways. ...

Marcuse starts with the conflict postulated by Freud in "Civilisation and Its Discontents" - the struggle between human instincts and the repression brought on by the socially-tuned conscience (aka superego). Freud claimed that biological clash between Eros and civilisation is inevitable and results in the history of man being one of his repression: 'Our civilisation is, generally speaking, founded on the suppression of instincts.' Sex produces the energy, and it is repressed so the energy can be channeled into progress - but the price of progress is the prevalence of guilt instead of happiness. In Freudian psychology, Eros is the life instinct innate in all humans. ...

Marcuse argues that 'the irreconcilable conflict is not between work (reality principle - life without leisure) and Eros (pleasure principle - leisure and pleasure), but between alienated labour (performance principle - economic stratification) and Eros.' Sex is allowed for 'the betters' (capitalists...), and for workers only when not disturbing performance. He believes that a socialist society could change this by replacing the 'alienated labor' with "non-alienated libidinal work" thus resulting in "a non-repressive civilisation based on 'non-repressive sublimation'". In other words, Marcuse believes that a socialist society could be a society without needing the performance of the 'poor' and without as strong a suppression of our drives as in today's society.

The argument depends on the assumption that repression is largely an historical phenomenon (history of humankind is that of repression). Marcuse concludes that biological repression itself is not the problem but that our troubles stem from the additional 'surplus repression' produced by the specific historical institutions of our own period. The result is a philosophy that is a merger of Freud and Marx, or what one reviewer called an 'eroticized Marx'[1].

See also

• Eros (Freud)

In Freudian psychology, Eros is the life instinct innate in all humans. ...

External links

• preface, 1966 preface, introduction, chapter 1, epilog, index.
• THE NAKED MARX. Review of Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical, Inquiry into Freud. London: Alan Lane: The Penguin Press, 1969 Reviewed by Robert M. Young
• Marx and Freud, Western Socialist, Boston, USA, March-April, 1956; Paul Mattick