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QUESTIONS

5a) Even writing in the 1950s, Marcuse vividly describes how modern society has become one-dimensional; that is, we have identified so much with the needs imposed on us by industrial capitalism that we are no longer cognizant of our dreams and desires, individually and collectively. What are some examples from contemporary popular culture that you think contribute to this one-dimension? Are there aspects of contemporary consumer culture that you think might do the opposite and actually empower or liberate individuals?

5b) “We are again confronted with one of the most vexing aspects of advanced industrial civilization: the rational character of its irrationality. Its productivity and efficiency, its capacity to increase and spread comforts, to turn waste into need, and destruction into construction…People recognize themselves in their commodities. The very mechanism which ties the individual to his society has changed, and social control is anchored in the new needs which it has produced (Marcuse, p. 287

Differences between Boudieu’s objectified, embodied, and institutionalized cultural capital