Herbert Marcuse July 19, 1898-July 29, 1979 by Theresa M. Mackey Northern Virginia Community College
Biographical and Critical Essay "The O.S.S. was formally disbanded in 1945, though Marcuse continued his intelligence work with the Department of State. Marcuse's team prepared a Denazification Guide, made recommendations about potential for help or damage from war survivors, and determined the focus and importance of those underground groups that survived the war. During this time he wrote "Some Remarks on Aragon: Art and Politics in the Totalitarian Era," a work not published until 1993. In 1946 Marcuse returned to Germany on a mission from the State Department to study the degree to which Nazism endured in postwar Germany. He also sought to meet with Heidegger, his former teacher. Although privately he still hoped for reconciliation, this visit made clear that none was forthcoming. After this visit, bitterness rather than wistfulness characterized his memories of Heidegger. "As the era of the Cold War began, Marcuse's focus as intelligence analyst moved to the Soviet Union. Considerations of the Stalinist [line out added by T.W.] Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) crystalized Marcuse's sense of how socialism had been devolving, though he retained faith in socialism itself. In 1949 he and his team published a lengthy analysis of that situation, "The Potentials of World Communism," a report that was declassified only in 1978. He was immediately appointed chief of the Central European Branch of the Division of Research for Europe. After the rise of McCarthyism, however, he began to feel increasingly alienated. After his wife succumbed to cancer in 1951, Marcuse left Washington. "Marcuse's work in U.S. intelligence led him to believe that governments were evolving in a way that put individual liberty, even individualism itself, in danger. His work for the Department of State influenced the development of his thinking in a way that brought together psychology, politics, sociology, and philosophy in a strikingly new way. In 1950 he was asked by the Washington School of Psychiatry to give a series of lectures on the work of Sigmund Freud. He returned to academia, where he continued to study and theorize about politics, sociopsychology, and philosophy. He received Rockefeller grants to study Soviet Marxism, both at Columbia (1952-1954) and Harvard (1954- 1955)." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39154): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39154 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116120596/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
