HERBERT MARCUSE’S CRITICAL THEORY, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE DIALECTIC OF A “FAILURE OF THE NEW LEFT” Cover Image

Teoria krytyczna Herberta Marcusego, ruchy społeczne i dialektyka „klęski Nowej Lewicy”
HERBERT MARCUSE’S CRITICAL THEORY, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE DIALECTIC OF A “FAILURE OF THE NEW LEFT”

Author(s): Przemysław Pluciński
Subject(s): History and theory of political science
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
Keywords: social movements; the New Left; critical theory of society; social change; counterculture

Summary/Abstract: The article addresses the problem of the relationship between critical theory of Herbert Marcuse and the nature of the New Left social movements that were born in the 60s of the twentieth century. Although the so-called New Left is a broader phenomenon for the purposes of this article we made some simplifi cation, reducing it to anti-institutional, anti-hierarchical, critically-oriented social movements and the counterculture. The article also challenges the widespread myth 3M (Marx, Mao, Marcuse). The paper shows the dynamics of views of “late” Herbert Marcuse, above all portraying him as a thinker entangled in “praxis”. It discusses the legacy of the New Left from the perspective of its defeats and victories, fi nally focusing on the latter. Marcuse himself treated all the struggles started by the New Left social movements with hope, as a prelude to the struggle for a better, more just and – what is the most important – possible world. Not without a reason on the Berlin tombstone of German-American thinker appears the word: Weitermachen!

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 29
  • Page Range: 19-31
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish