By the way, I still wonder how Habermas thinks we can reach civil society with rational discussion and debate. He basically assumes "universal pragmatics." But, as he noted, life world is colonized (re-feudalized), so that we need to do some practice to change our communicative condition. And we can expect to make it rational in doing so. However, my understanding, he seems to expect that communicative condition can be also structurally changed. (That is, only structure can change structure. If so, what can we expect from our activity? Finally only we can expect is determination by structure, would that be all?

For further discussion about psychoanalysis, I would like to read "Lacan" in class, if possible.
Of many works, I think the following two books would be good for us.

# The Language of the Self: The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis*, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968
# Écrits: A Selection*, transl. by Alan Sheridan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1977, and revised version, 2002, transl. by Bruce Fink

I posted here about that issue last week to discuss more about that issue. on-page 17, Marcuse cites that scarcity (Ananke) teaches men that they cannot freely gratify their instinctual impulses, that they cannot live under the pleasure principle.
In his notion, alienated labor basically means "absence of gratification, negation of the pleasure principle (p.45), " as you read.
But, he also mentioned "this scarcity (Ananke) is organized by society, so that this organization represses and transubstantiates one's original instinctual needs (p.14-15)." Therefore, under the performance principle, body and mind are made into instruments of "alienated labor" That's what I understood after reading-

[youtube ygn0b-P6RAM&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygn0b-P6RAM&feature=related youtube]

For further discussion about imagination and artistic practice, I would like to share this famous movie entitled "Un Chien Andalou(An Andalusian Dog)" by Luis Buñuel and starring Salvador Dalí, a surrealism artist.

Marcuse seems to argue that we can reach imagination free from repression of the dominant principle In the chapter seven (p.144), Marcuse states, "Artistic imagination shapes the unconscious memory of the liberation that failed, of the promise that was betrayed. art opposes to institutionalized repression the image of man as a free subject; but in a state of unfreedom art can sustain the image of freedom only in the negation of unfreedom.

The point that I would like to say is imagination he mentioned is "artistic imagination." and in his notion, as he mentioned, art looks closer to surrealistic or at least "estrangement of reality." But, I'm wondering whether or not this artistic practice would be possible with such assumption that subject can still recognize reality if there is no surplus repression by the dominant power.

I guess, he might consider surrealism as one possible way of artistic practice, but it finally lead to suspicion about the rigorous subject (he sometimes called this "transcending subject") Isn't it?

Even though Adorno and Horkheimer considered new tech as negative one, they simply identified technology as industrialization. But, currently, it is clear to give us potential possibility to liberate ourselves.
More serious point that I would argue is that the problem is no longer due to ideological dominance. Rather, I think the problem comes from the fact that those who live in the current society already know that they hardly change society so far, even if they can criticize ideology as well as recognize. Current media environment makes it difficult to recognize which power is good and bad. Anyone who is questioned as above may not identified oneself as slave or even blue worker. Actually, the division between slave and master seems not to be effective for understanding who we are, and on which position we are. New technologies, particularly internet, make this boundary blurred. But, at the same time, it makes it possible to accurately recognize the world and to create people power. It's still going on.

I hit on this movie "Truman Show (1998) over again. Even though this movie basically dealt with power relationship between mass media and individual, Truman show can give us some implications about how individuals is affected by mass media in terms of what we perceive and do in our daily lives. Truman, as a symbol of individual in current society, believes what he sees and perceives, but at the end of the movie, he realizes he has not lived his own life, that is, everything he believed, perceived, and lived is what media intends to do. At this point, this move reflected Adorno and Horkheimer's position that media deceive mass, and manipulate them as powerholder's intention by the way of revealing all at the ending scene.

[youtube oYNI_FE-ilM&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNI_FE-ilM&NR=1 youtube]

In relation to this, I would like to question how aesthetic (art) can be politicized. I think Benjamin aimed to investigate how we can politicize "Art (including artistic practice)" facing the fact that Fascism exploits Art as politics in this essay. As shown in article, Benjamin seemed to seek the possibility of politicizing art against Fascism in film art as reproduction mechanism of art works. But, as you know, Fascists in Germany exploited film as propaganda in an opposite way that Benjamin expected. Mass audience didn't change their attitudes, and accordingly failed to have a progressive relationship between art works and themselves. If so, can we still expect to find out the possibility revolutionary function in film? How about internet?

I guess Benjamin stressed a fundamental difference between painter and cameraman in terms of ways of seeing (or perception). That is, painter perceive a "reality" with his/her own eyes, which means that human, as a subject, can perceive an object. natural distance between painter and object becomes possible like that way. Meanwhile, cameraman perceives an object with camera, not his/her own eyes. Supposed that we take a photo of natural scene with camera, we can take many photos, even sometimes it can be fragmented unlike a painting. So, I basically agree with Benjamin's view, because visuality combined with technology has a different meaning. Doesn't it?