Herbert’s Herbivore: One-Dimensional Society and the Possibility of Radical Vegetarianism

Abstract

Careful reading of Herbert Marcuse’s texts, including Counterrevolution and Revolt, One-Dimensional Man, An Essay on Liberation, and Eros and Civilization, reveals his subtle attention to the human–animal dialectic and its role in human liberation. More specifically, animals mark the irrationality of advanced industrialized society for Marcuse, and his subtle but keen treatment of the animal question in politics provides an opening to radically rethink politics for animals and humans. Working from Marcuse’s critical theory, I explore the contemporary one-dimensional animal, which I argue imbricates both animals and humans in the violence and destruction that characterizes advanced industrial society. Using Marcuse’s concept of one-dimensional society and his discussion of animals as my theoretical framework, I specifically consider vegetarianism in its capacity to militate against the contemporary political economy of meat. I conclude that Marcuse’s insights point to a radical vegetarianism aligned with anti-capitalist politics that offers the development of sensuous, pleasurable, life-affirming sensibilities that support true liberation for both animals and humans.

Notes

¹ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1964), p. 257.

² Ibid., 2.

³ Ibid., 9.

⁴ Ibid., 237.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Paul Alexander Juutilainen, Herbert’s Hippopotamus: Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise (De Facto Fiction Films, 1996).

⁷ Barbarella Fokos, “The Bourgeois Marxist,” The San Diego Reader, Calendar Highlight UCSD, available online at: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2007/aug/23/bourgeois-marxist/# (accessed August 23, 2007).

⁸ Herbert W. Schneider, “The Piety of Hobbes,” in Ralph Ross, Herbert W. Schneider, and Theodore Waldman (eds), Thomas Hobbes in His Time (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1974), p. 85.

⁹ Herbert W. Schneider, “The Piety of Hobbes,” p. 86.

¹⁰ C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 29.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid., 66.

¹³ Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1972), p. 60.

¹⁴ Timothy W. Luke, Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), p. 142.

¹⁵ Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1969), p. 14.

¹⁶ Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, pp. 60–61.

¹⁷ Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophic Inquiry into Freud (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966), p. 166.

¹⁸ Steven Vogel, Against Nature: The Concept of Nature in Critical Theory (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996), p. 135.

¹⁹ Ibid., 102.

²⁰ Ibid., 134.

²¹ Ibid., 137.

²² Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, p. 166.

²³ Vogel, Against Nature, p. 137.

²⁴ Pierre Vidal-Naquet, “Plato’s Myth of the Statesman, the Ambiguities of the Golden Age and History,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 98 (1978), p. 132.

²⁵ Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, p. 68.

²⁶ Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, pp. 68–69.

²⁷ Here I am referring to Luce Irigaray’s text, This Sex Which Is Not One. See Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One, Catherine Porter and Carolyn Burke (Trans.) (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985).

²⁸ Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, p. 68.

²⁹ Here Marx notes that alienated labor under capitalism renders humans to be freely active only in their animal functions such as eating and drinking, procreating, or in his home or dressing up: “What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.” Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd Edition (New York, NY: WW Norton, 1978), p. 74.

³⁰ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, p. 237.

³¹ Ibid., 237.

³² Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, pp. 54–55.

³³ Bob Torres, Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights (Edinburgh, UK: AK Press, 2007), p. 67.

³⁴ Ibid., 45. See also David Nibert, Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).

³⁵ Melissa Dahl, “84% of Vegetarians Go Back to Eating Meat,” New York Magazine, available online at: <http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/12/84-percent-of-vegetarians-go-back-to-eating-meat.html> (accessed December 3, 2014).

³⁶ Rebecca Riffkin, “In U.S., More Say Animals Should Have Same Rights as People,” Gallop, Social Issues, available online at: <http://www.gallup.com/poll/183275/say-animals-rights-people.aspx> (accessed May 18, 2015).

³⁷ Mark Damian Duda, “Public Opinion on and Attitudes Toward Hunting,” Presentation, Pathways 2014 Conference (Estes Park, CO), available online at: <https://warnercnr.colostate.edu/docs/hdnr/hdfw/2014/Presentations/007.A4.hunting_public_support/007.A4.001.public_opinion_on_and_attitudes_toward_hunting/Public%20Opinion%20on%20Hunting%20-%20Oct.%206%202,014.pdf> (accessed October 5–9, 2014).

³⁸ Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” in Paul Connerton (ed.), Critical Sociology (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 301.

³⁹ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, p. 1.

⁴⁰ American Meat Institute, “The United States Meat Industry at a Glance,” available online at: <http://www.meatami.com/ht/d/sp/i/47465/pid/47465> (accessed March 2011).

⁴¹ Kate Royals, “From Farm Animal to Filet Mignon: The Path from Farm to Plate of Local Meat in Western Massachusetts,” MassLive, available online at: <http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2014/04/farm_animal_to_filet_mignon_th.html> (accessed April 17, 2014).

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ For a more detailed discussion of the jargon of gastronomic authenticity, see Katherine E. Young, “Adorno, Gastronomic Authenticity, and the Politics of Eating Well,” New Political Science: A Journal of Politics & Culture (September 2014), pp. 387–405.

⁴⁴ Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (New York, NY: Continuum, 2000). In her analysis of meat-eating in The Sexual Politics of Meat, Adams notes that animals are objectified and fragmented through media, language and cultural images, rendering them unrecognizable and easily consumed as meat.

⁴⁵ While environmentalists condemn large-scale meat operations for their environmental impact, both in terms of environmental degradation and resource consumption, the belief that sustainably produced meat is naturally beneficial to humans often goes unquestioned. For example, a recent book excerpt featured in Scientific American noted: “Meat consumption is a part of our evolutionary heritage; meat production has been a major component of modern food systems; carnivory should remain, within limits, an important component of a civilization that finally must learn how to maintain the integrity of its only biosphere.” Vaclav Smil, “Should Humans Eat Meat? [Excerpt],” Energy and Sustainability News, Scientific American, available online at: <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/should-humans-eat-meat-excerpt/> (accessed July 19, 2013). Likewise, Michael Pollan points to the environmental problems of industrialized food production but also to the evolutionary and historical importance of meat eating in Omnivore’s Dilemma, ultimately advocating humane treatment and swift death for animals. See Michael Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma (New York, NY: Penguin, 2006), pp. 314, 328. While meat consumption is part of human history, there is anthropological evidence to support that it is fairly recent and not a biological necessity; humans’ teeth, intestines, lack of claws, and general sickness from the cholesterol and saturated fat in meat, some prominent nutritional and anthropological scientists argue, demonstrate that we are actually natural herbivores. See Kathy Freston, “Shattering the Meat Myth: Humans are Natural Vegetarians,” The Blog, Huffington Post, available online at: <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/shattering-the-meat-myth_b_214390.html> (accessed November 17, 2011). Whether carnivorism or vegetarianism is natural is perhaps a moot point from a Marcusean perspective, because the real issue is that irrespective of our “primitive” carnivorous past, current knowledge, technology, and resources demonstrate that meat is no longer a necessary foodstuff and, in fact, causes harm to bodies (animal and human) and the planet.

⁴⁶ See Gilles Deleuze’s characterization of Nietzsche’s discussion of the ass in Thus Spoke Zarathustra in Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche & Philosophy, Hugh Tomlinson (Trans.) (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 180–182.

⁴⁷ Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” p. 76.

⁴⁸ Bradley J. Macdonald, “Marx and the Human/Animal Dialectic,” in J. Grant and V. Jungkunz (eds.), Political Theory and the Animal/Human Relationship (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2016). Note that while Macdonald offers a very brief interjection of Marcuse’s work in his conclusion, pointing to the same passage in Counterrevolution and Revolt discussed above, Marcuse remains a contemporary but remote firebrand whose political imaginary is largely left unexplored.

⁴⁹ Douglas Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, pp. 269–270.

⁵⁰ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, p. 41; Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, p.16.

⁵¹ Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, p. 19; Timothy W. Luke, Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture, pp. 142, 146.

⁵² Andrew Feenberg, “Afterword: The Liberation of Nature,” in Andrew Biro (ed.), Critical Ecologies: The Frankfurt School and Contemporary Environmental Crises (Toronto, CAN: University of Toronto Press, 2011), p. 350.

⁵³ Herbert Marcuse, “The Ideology of Death,” in Douglass Kellner and Clayton Pierce (eds), Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, Volume Five: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation (London, UK: Routledge, 2011), p. 128.

⁵⁴ Eliza Barclay, “A Nation of Meat-Eaters: See How It All Adds Up,” Morning Edition, NPR, available online at: <http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/06/27/155527365/visualizing-a-nation-of-meat-eaters> (accessed June 27, 2012).

⁵⁵ Herbert Marcuse, “The Ideology of Death,” p. 124.

⁵⁶ Ibid., 125.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 126.

⁵⁸ Ibid., 130.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 131.

⁶⁰ Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, p. 10.

⁶¹ Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, p. 68.

⁶² Douglas Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, p. 178; Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, p. 156.

⁶³ Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” p. 309.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 310; Douglas Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, pp. 281–284.

⁶⁵ Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” p. 311.

⁶⁶ Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, p. 59.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 14.

⁶⁸ Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” p. 301; Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, p. 68.

⁶⁹ United States Department of Agriculture, Office of Communications, Agriculture Fact Book 2001–2002, March 2003, p. 15, available online at: <http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf>.

⁷⁰ J. Richard Conner, Raymand A. Dietrich, and Gary W. Williams, “The U.S. Cattle and Beef Industry and the Environment,” TAMRC Commodity Market Research Report, No. CM 1–00, World Wildlife Fund (March 2000), pp. 8–9.

⁷¹ See Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2009); Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (New York, NY: Continuum, 2000).

⁷² Karl Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd Edition (New York, NY: WW Norton, 1978), p. 54.

⁷³ Douglas Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, pp. 173, 370.

⁷⁴ Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, p. 25.

⁷⁵ Bob Torres, Making a Killing, p. 56.

⁷⁶ Douglas Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, p. 184.