In his book The One Dimensional Man Herbert Marcuse argues that the "advanced industrial society" creates false needs that allow individuals to be integrated into the system of production and consumption through mass media, advertising and morality. The consequence is a "one-dimensional" universe of thought and behavior, within which critical thinking or anti-systemic behaviors are gradually pushed aside.
In short, the one dimensional man is a result of capitalism commodifying every aspect of our lives. Modern society is giving us comfort and entertainment but taking away our ability to think for ourselves.
Against this prevailing climate, Marcuse championed a "great refusal", the only opposition considered by him adequate to the current methods of thought control. Much of the work consists of a defense of this "negative thinking" as a force of fracture against the positivist system.
Marcuse also reports on the integration of the industrial working class into capitalist society and the new forms of the stabilization of capitalism, reinterpreting the Marxist postulates of a necessary crisis of capitalism and proletarian revolution. In contrast to orthodox Marxist doctrine, Marcuse further emphasizes the unintegrated strength of minorities, outsiders, and radical intelligentsias, in the hope of nurturing critical thinkin which will oppose capitalism.
The book concludes with the pessimistic quote from Walter Benjamin:"It is only because of those who are hopeless that hope is given to us".
See here an extended Summary of Marcuse's One Dimensional man and some more to read about the Frankfurt School and on Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance and Eros and Civilization.
