In “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’”, philosopher Immanuel Kant sets out his ideas on the nature of enlightenment and the state of affairs that would allow it to take place.  Kant defines enlightenment as people gaining the ability “to use [their] own understanding without the guidance of another” (Kant 1784/1970: 54) and argues that its occurrence in society is “almost inevitable” as long as citizens are allowed the freedom to make “public use of [their] own reason” (Kant 1784/1970:: 55). Through the constant exercise of this freedom, he postulates that humanity’s “original destiny” (Kant 1784/1970: 57) of “upward progress” (Kant 1784/1970: 58) will continuously be achieved. However, in his discussion of the conditions necessary for intellectual freedom, Kant does not adequately address the limitations which systems of societal oppression can impose on critical understanding. As Herbert Marcuse argues, modern industrial civilization makes individuals discursively dependent on itself through a “manipulation of needs” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 406). This idea is problematic for Kant’s notion that the freedom of “public reason” will lead to enlightened progress because it demonstrates how society can exert a conforming influence upon reason at the level of language, resulting in a world where an individual’s ability to think freely is restricted.

In this blog-post, I will analyze observations that I made at UBC’s Imagine Day orientation event at the Sauder School of Business, where first year students were led on guided tours of the university by upper-year business student mentors. I will show how the patterns of interaction and communication between the students and their student leaders illustrate the implicit critique that Marcuse brings to Kant’s notion that the freedom of “public reason” will lead to enlightened progress.

Kant describes the freedom to the “public use of reason” as the right to openly criticize any societal policies, arrangements, or beliefs. The presence of this freedom will guarantee enlightenment because, according to him, progress revolves around a society’s capacity to continuously “extend and correct its knowledge” ” (Kant 1784/1970: 57). In essence, Kant asserts that enlightenment lies in the constant revision of the status quo and the realization that no aspect of society is incapable of being improved upon by “higher insight” (Kant 1784/1970: 57). Thus, Kant’s argument hinges on citizens possessing the ability to “think freely” (Kant 1784/1970: 59) enough to come up with effective critiques of the established social order. For Kant, the only necessary condition for this to occur is that the act of “addressing the entire reading public” (Kant 1784/1970: 55) with ones ideas be made permissible (i.e. that coercive violence, laws against the freedom of speech, political pressure, etc are absent). He assumes that without explicit institutional pressure, the public use of reason will become sufficiently autonomous to produce ideas that result in the progressive revision of social arrangements. It is here that Kant overlooks the role of systemic oppression in shaping the language use upon which the “public use of reason” depends. Specifically, oppressive social arrangements restrict the ability of individuals to think independently, calling in to question Kant’s claim that the freedom to make “public use of reason” is all that is necessary for enlightenment.

Marcuse’s criticism of modern society illustrates how individuals are made discursively dependent upon the status quo. In an essay from One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse describes the paradox of the “advanced industrial civilization” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 405) in which we live. “Freedom from want” and the individual’s liberation from the “alien needs and alien possibilities” imposed by labour are within reach of society, yet the very “apparatus” that has made this possible continues to impose its “economic and political requirements… on labor time and free time, on the material and intellectual culture” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 406). This imposition creates what Marcuse calls a “totalitarian” society through the “manipulation of needs by vested interests” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 406), which unites groups with originally distinct social aims under “the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 408). On an ideological level, this unification “precludes the emergence of an effective opposition against the whole” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 406) by creating a “pattern of one-dimensional thought and behaviour” in which challenges to the system are inevitably “repelled or reduced” to the terms of “the established universe of discourse” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 410).

Marcuse’s conceptualization of a one-dimensionality of society poses a clear problem for Kant’s thesis that freedom for the “public use of reason” is sufficient to achieve progress because it asserts that such “freedom” fails to produce critical assessments which transcend the discourse of the society in which it is created. As long as individuals are dependent on manipulated needs, their capacity for criticism remains reliant on the assumptions of the society that they are trying to assess, foreclosing the possibility of their formulating a critique which challenges the status quo in a substantial manner. To illustrate how social groups come to depend upon these manufactured “needs”, we will return to the UBC Sauder School of Business’s orientation event.

Here, first-year business majors are being socialized into their role as “Sauder students”. In my observation of multiple student groups, I noticed that the upper-year student mentors all led with the same “philosophy”, in which they would imagine a hypothetical, idealized first-year Sauder student and try to communicate this identity to the newcomers. This could be seen in the kinds of information that they would give, ranging from insider tips on what professors would expect from the dreaded essay assignments and going to office hours to “try and get to know them on a personal basis” to recommendations for utilizing career advice clinics and getting assigned readings done on a timely basis. The common theme of all this information is that it is geared towards producing a certain kind of “successful” Sauder student – one that is hard-working, makes full use of university resources, and adept at obtaining good grades. Note that the emphasis is not on whether this is a “realistic” portrayal of the majority of Sauder students – certainly, if reports from professors and current students are to be believed, very few people go to office hours, almost no one uses the career advice clinics, and readings are done the week before the scheduled exam. Nor is the focus on producing intellectual excellence – the tips on essays, readings, and office hours are intended to help newcomers achieve good, or at least passing, grades.

This information conveyed by the student leaders and eagerly consumed by the first-years illustrates Marcuse’s point on how society creates conforming groups of “one-dimensional” people through the “manipulation of needs by vested interests” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 406), uniting people under “the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment” (Marcuse 1964/2012: 408). In this case, the “Establishment” is the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, which desires the creation of a student body which will produce decent marks and maintain the good image of the institution. In order to do this, it manipulates the material needs of its students by controlling the grading system and the conferral of privileged credentials (the Degree). Of course, it is a “common-sense” understanding that in order to obtain good employment to provide for oneself and one’s future life goals, a student must obtain these credentials. Through various institutional structures (i.e., grading rubrics, department guidelines, university policy, etc.) and the resulting implicit understanding acquired by students, a conformist student population is created with material needs (eventual employment) that are oriented towards the goals of the Establishment (good PR). This “one-dimensional” student identity is then introduced to successive generations of new students through orientations events like Imagine Day.

Note that there is no explicit restriction on going against the grain (no one can stop you from failing if you wanted to). However, despite the “freedom” of speech and argument that we enjoy as university students, most of us will perform what is required by the “Establishment” in order to fulfil our material life goals and satisfactions. Those who do not will in the majority of cases be consigned to a fate of low income and social status. This situation demonstrates perfectly Marcuse’s argument that institutional manipulation of individual needs creates conformist groups with patterns of “one-dimensional thought and behaviour” that precludes any effective opposition against the established institution.

Kant, Immanuel (1784/1970) “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’” In H. Reiss. Kant’s Political Writings. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 54-59.

URL: https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/What_is_Enlightenment.pdf

Marcuse, Herbert (1964/2012) “From One-Dimensional Man.” In Scott Appelrouth and Laura Desfor Edles. Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory (2^nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Pine Forge Press. Pp. 405-412.

URL: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/one-dimensional-man/one-dimensional-man.pdf