Because of its size this Chapter is divided into Nine Sections -
Critical theory is of central importance to this thesis. Unlike Weber, the work of critical theorists is explicitly concerned with critiquing domination with an orientation towards praxis focused against domination. If there is one central concept running throughout the literature of critical theory, it is domination. Because this thesis is focused on domination, it is logical to devote considerable space to a theoretical tradition which makes a major issue of domination. Moreover, the ways in which individual theorists have grappled with domination highlight important strengths and weaknesses in the ways in which critical theorists have brought their critiques to bear on aspects of domination, most specifically on issues of praxis, morality, and agency. Critical theory is also oriented towards helping people understand why they are dominated, and then empowering people to do something to ameliorate their misery. This chapter disentangles some aspects of the treatment of domination in the work of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas. In critical theory there is no orthodoxy as to what constitutes domination except in the most general terms. Each critical theorist develops their own approach to domination and its critique. Critical theorists use the concept of domination (Herrschaft) very rarely. Where they do, their definition of it is often so vague as to be next to meaningless, leaving the impression that domination might be associated with almost anything in contemporary society which they find objectionable. Indeed, in the main, critical theorists tend to argue that specific phenomena in modern society are indicative of social dynamics bound up with the domination of some people by other people. On their view, what has changed about contemporary domination is its increasing impersonality and ubiquity, these aspects tending to escalate as rationalization proceeds throughout society. As their critique proceeds, however, domination tends to retreat to the background. Critical theorists agree in trying to problematise domination. The general view common throughout critical theory is that relations of domination are antithetical to an assumed general human interest in emancipation, particularly in the context of Western modernity. Theodor Adorno, for example, constantly emphasised that 3... the domination of men over men [remains] the basic fact2 (in Held, 1980: 71). In the main, a key feature of modernity is typified by escalating intrusions of a peculiar kind of formal rationality or, as some describe it, Îinstrumental reason1 (e.g., Horkheimer, 1974a) or Îtechnocratic consciousness1 (e.g., Habermas, 1971: 81 122), into areas of social life hitherto informed by categories of rationality akin to traditional ethics which ought to guide human actions towards emancipation. The alleged Enlightenment tenet that the point of human social development was an increase in individual freedom was being fundamentally contradicted by the everexpanding effects of rationalization, institutionalising relations of domination through economic, administrative, legal, and cultural spheres. In general, critical theory is strongest when it highlights aspects of contemporary rationalised domination, and couples its insights with a general commitment to critique. But critical theorists are theoretically weak for a number of reasons bound up with themes central to their theory. Indeed, their attempts to develop a universally applicable and comprehensive critical theory of domination with the practical intent of assisting people to challenge relations of domination in which they are caught are seriously flawed. In critical theory attempts to link theory with practice led to premature and readily falsifiable claims. Often claims to universal applicability of theory overlooked specific, regional, cultural, and social differences which contributed to specific forms of domination and resistance to those forms by the dominated. Critical theorists until very recently have also virtually ignored nonviolence. Indeed, Marcuse dismissed it as a species of Îbourgeois ideology1 (Marcuse, 1969). This chapter commences with a brief review of how Hegel and Marx dealt with domination. A major methodological tool of critical theory, immanent critique, is examined in the context of a broader discussion of how critical theorists sought to develop critical social theory beyond Weber. A central issue in critical theory, the question of praxis, then is examined to show how critical theorists both advocated and faltered on the issue of how their theory could or ought be actualised in struggle for emancipation from domination. At this point, the work of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, and some aspects of the more recent work of Jürgen Habermas will be considered. Modern critical theory began from an essentially Marxist perspective, focusing on relations of production, class struggle, and similar central Marxist categories. But very early in the life of the Frankfurt School, most especially in the work of Max Horkheimer and then in the work of Herbert Marcuse, critical theory increasingly took up many of Max Weber1s categories, but with a major difference (Jay, 1973: 259; Held, 1980: 65). This difference may be summarised by saying that where Weber capitulated to rationalization and thence to domination, the critical theorists remained opposed to rationalization and domination. The origins of critical theoretical discussions of domination can be traced back to Hegel's discussion of the ÎMaster and Slave1 relationship in The Phenomenology of Spirit (Hegel, 1977). In some respects, the 'Master and Slave' discussion can be interpreted as a metaphor for the opportunities and difficulties presented when individuals strive to authenticate themselves in the world. Hegel outlines how consciousness cannot develop to truly authentic selfconsciousness without recognition of the other, and yet selfconsciousness remains uncertain as it apprehends others who also attempt to embody selfconsciousness. There are a number of ways to resolve the dilemmas in this situation, and one way Hegel says this can be done is for the two consciousnesses to enter into a mutually selfauthenticating relationship. Dramatically, Hegel describes the tensions in such recognition as a life and death struggle:
They must enter into this struggle, for they must bring their certainty of themselves, the certainty of being for themselves, to the level of objective truth, and make this a fact both in the case of the other and in their own case as well (Hegel, 1976: 44)
. The other way of attempting to authenticate selfconsciousness is through the relationship of domination, in which the Master seeks for absolute selfconsciousness at the complete expense of the Slave, whom they totally dominate:
The master relates himself to the bondsman mediately through independent existence, for that is precisely what keeps the bondsman in thrall; it is his chain, from which he could not in the struggle get away, and for that reason he proved himself to be dependent, to have his dependence in the shape of thinghood (Hegel, 1976: 46).
But Hegel goes on to argue that something very important takes place as the Master exerts domination over the Slave:
... for just where the master has effectively achieved lordship, he really finds that something has come about quite different from an independent consciousness. It is not an independent, but rather a dependent consciousness that he has achieved (Hegel, 1976: 47).
By seeking to achieve authentic selfconsciousness at the expense of the Slave, the Master actually becomes thrall to the Slave because the Master is dependent upon the Slave for the labour needed to achieve authenticity. Through their labour (which is to say their mediation with the world on behalf of the Master) the Slave comes to understand themselves as beings acting in the world: 3 precisely in labour, where there seemed to be merely some outsider's mind and ideas involved, the bondsman becomes aware, through this rediscovery of himself by himself, of having and being a Îmind of his own12 (Hegel, 1976: 49). The Master remains only dependent on the Slave. Hegel is careful not to overlook the remaining bondage of the Slave. The Slave remains under the physical control of the Master, and as such their selfconsciousness remains that of the Slave: 3... it is still inherently a determinate mode of being; having a Îmind of its own1 (der eigene Sinn) is simply stubbornness (Eigensinn), a type of freedom which does not get beyond the attitude of bondage2 (Hegel, 1976: 50). The relationship of Master and Slave can be understood to contain three elements. Firstly, the possibility of a mutually selfauthenticating relationship between people recognising their interdependence, their need for each other, with all the risks which trusting others entails. Such trust negates the second element, metaphorically typified by the central theme in this section of the Phenomenology, the Master and Slave relationship. But in this element lies the apotheosis of the relation of absolute domination in which the Master, the dominator, becomes so dependent on the Slave that it becomes the Slave who glimpses, even if only dimly, the possibility of gaining selfconsciousness, while the Master still strives for selfconsciousness. They must relinquish their domination of the Slave if they are to achieve their goal. The third, and tragic, element lies in the mimetic atrophy of the Slave's selfconsciousness. They might glimpse their selfconsciousness, but, still physically dominated by the Master, their expression of that selfconsciousness is limited to stubbornness, a limited resistance to the Master. Their physical release from domination is what is required to truly set them on the road to freedom. Hegel's discussion of domination is significantly grounded and expanded by Marx in the wider social context, particularly with respect to society's relations of production, and the effects of those relations on human beings and their struggles for freedom and authentic being:
Domination for Marx only has meaning in critical reference to the way in which the control over nature is socially organised. It refers to the contradiction between social production and private appropriation. In this sense domination is for Marx a derivative category; it must be traced back to a disharmony between the contradictions of man's selfformative action, social production, and the constraints of class formation, private appropriation (Connerton, 1980: 74 75).
Connerton's summary of Marx's approach to domination leaves out important details of Marx1s theoretical edifice. For Marx, domination was never a central category, but what concerned him were the causes and effects of domination, specifically in emerging capitalist society. His early discussion of alienated labour, for example, can be interpreted as a discussion of the effects of domination specific to particular social relations, and located the causes of domination in this context in the institution of private property: ... the greater and more formed the power of society appears within the private property relation, the more selfish, unsocial, alienated from his own nature does man become (Marx, in Fischer, 1973: 48). But this discussion is not about Marx, but about some of the heirs to the tradition he helped found. Marcuse, a major heir to the Marxian legacy, noted the explicit link between Hegel's 'Master and Slave' discourse and Marx's early development upon it in the alienated labour discussion in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, and wrote that Hegel's insight on the centrality of labour to the development of human selfconsciousness disclosed to Marx ... that lordship and bondage result of necessity from certain relationships of labor, which are, in turn, relationships in a 'reified' world. The relation of lord to servant is thus neither an eternal nor a natural one, but is rooted in a definite mode of labor and in man's relation to the products of his labor (Marcuse, 1973: 115). To a significant degree, Î... the history of Frankfurt social theory from the 1930s to the 1950s and 1960s is marked by a shift in theoretical orientation away from Marx to Weber1 (Held, 1980: 65). The shift was never total. ÎSecond generation1 critical theory still grappled with Marx and Marxism, and critical theory never fully lost its initial stress upon the requirement that critical theoretical insights be validated in historical praxis. As Max Horkheimer put it in his programmatic essay ÎTraditional and Critical Theory,1 the goal of critical theory is the emancipation of humanity from slavery (Horkheimer, 1976). In general, Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse were in agreement with Weber on the central importance of rationalization in the modern epoch. They parted with Weber because they refused to agree that individuals had to accommodate themselves to the dynamics of modern rationalised domination if identity and Îthe good life1 were to be secured. As was discussed in chapter two, Weber1s theory of domination was essentially an Îeliteoriented1 theory and he never discussed domination from the perspective of society1s dominated members. He did briefly mention reasons why people could be expected to obey commands issued by their dominators. These reasons could be described as Îprotopsychological1 because they tend to go into the mental processes whereby people decide to obey orders, thence acceding to routine domination. When Weber was working, psychology and psychoanalysis were in their infancy, as was sociology which tended to focus on individual interactions rather than structural aspects of society, drawing on psychology and psychoanalysis. Further, Weber placed personal stress upon a split between an Îheroic ethic1 and an Îethic of the mean1, which was partly explicated in ÎPolitics as a Vocation1 with his argument for an Îethic of responsibility1 as appropriate for those with a calling to politics (Weber, 1970; 1978: 385 388). Weber, in arguing for the rejection of a paper submitted for publication in a journal of which he was an editorial adviser, did not dismiss Freud1s theories out of hand, but neither did he accept them because he felt they had not yet reached a sufficiently developed stage to assist sociological investigation (Weber, 1978: 383 384). What later work on social psychology and psychoanalysis tended to highlight were the interior formations of the individual1s social psyche and the relationships between the individual1s psyche and the society. If, as both Weber and the critical theorists generally held, rationalization facilitated the stabilisation of relations of domination, then it appears highly likely that domination in the modern context affects the psyches of individuals in society irrespective of how ubiquitous or anonymous it appears. This was indeed the general thrust of critical theoretical work which sought to link aspects of psychoanalysis to the overall theory (Held, 1980: 110 147). Marcuse, at his most Freudian in Eros and Civilization, for example, pointed to some of these effects:
With the rationalization of the productive apparatus, with the multiplication of functions, all domination assumes the form of administration. At its peak, the concentration of economic power seems to turn into anonymity... The sadistic principals, the capitalist exploiters, have been transformed into salaried members of bureaucracies, who their subjects meet as members of another bureaucracy. The pain, frustration, impotence of the individual derive from a highly productive and efficiently functioning system in which he makes a better living than ever before (Marcuse, 1969: 88).
This issue is important because a more holistic theory of domination requires that attention to given to multiple aspects of domination from structural through to existential. As was argued earlier, a onesided structural approach, as epitomised by Weber, has some strengths including highlighting the connections between domination, action, and rationalization as a worldhistorical process. But this approach neglects the lived experience of being dominated. Such lived experience is what critical theory, especially in its more psychological moments, tends to emphasise, while reconstructing its own structural approach. Critical theory1s attention to the lived experience of being dominated also helps shed light on the problem of resistance from those who otherwise might be expected to struggle for liberation from domination, a problem of crucial importance if a theory is to retain its practical intent, applicability, and relevance for social struggles. An important issue is why critical theorists are vague when it comes to defining domination. Adorno and Horkheimer, for example, in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) did not define domination at all, though it is clearly the central concept in their various discussions on classical Greek mythology, the Reformation, atheism, the culture industry, and the authoritarian state (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1973). Domination is equally central to Marcuse's critiques of contemporary society. But he, too, did not define it with Weber's precision. Rather, in the main, critical theory's definition of domination is situational, the definition of domination being determined by the wider context of a given theorist's discussion, be it a psychoanalysis of the individual's relations with the society, the alleged effects of the mass media or the culture industry on the society and the individual, or theoretical discussions on how contemporary postindustrial society warps reason while appearing to be the embodiment of reason. Minimal critical theoretical definitions of domination can be generally inferred from specific writings and essentially amount to this somewhat tautological summation: Domination refers to socially unnecessary constraints on human freedom (after Schroyer, 1975: 15). Thus Marcuse wrote towards the end of his life that:
Domination is in effect whenever the individual's goals and purposes and the means of striving for and attaining them are prescribed to him and performed by him as something prescribed. Domination can be exercised by men, by nature, by things it can also be internal, exercised by the individual on himself, and appear in the form of autonomy (Marcuse, 1970: 1 2).
Echoing Marx's three components of alienation alienation of the individual from nature, from others in society, and from the products of work Marcuse held that domination could affect individuals and how they conceived of themselves. He then referred to the domination of labour as a disciplined and controlled process central to the individual's experience, and the outward domination of nature through science and technology (Marcuse, 1970: 12; c.f. Horkheimer & Adorno, 1973: 3 80). Granted that linking individual and structural aspects of domination together strengthens the overall critique, the vagueness definition suggests that critical theorists may have lacked an analytically adequate social ontology.
© Mark D. Hayes October 1994 All Rights Reserved