Herbert Marcuse: The Machine That Sells Obedience

In his 1964 masterwork One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse described a society where dissent was smothered not by overt oppression but by consumer satisfaction; where entertainment replaced engagement and even protest became another lifestyle brand. He worried that the very tools that could free us – technology, language, imagination – were being hijacked to make us complicit. Marcuse, who died in 1979, transports to 2025 to talk about a world where the machine doesn't need to suppress us; it just needs to make sure we never pause long enough to notice we're already being subdued.