Herbert Marcuses Technology Theories Discussion

Overview

• Herbert Marcuse's "The New Forms of Control."

1. Analyze one example of what Marcuse calls "technological rationality" within the entire college admission process (This includes one's prior education and extracurricular activities, the application process itself, and the admission process). Identify how "false needs" have become "vital needs" in the college admission process and why this has happened. For example, what forms of "social control" produce and maintain these norms in the college admission process?
2. Recall Marcuse's argument that technology in advanced industrial societies tends to be used for social control and advancing the values of the political and economic elites. To what extent (if any) will generative AI contribute to a totalitarian society? Specifically, infer how generative AI might be used for what Marcuse calls "terroristic" and "non-terroristic" forms of social control. (A brief explanation of Marcuse's terms and main claims will be useful, but try not to over-rely on summarizing the text. ChatGPT can do that. Be sure to demonstrate your understanding of the text through your application of Marcuse's ideas to generative AI. The application to real-world issues is the critical thinking step.)
   • Recall this key passage from the Marcuse reading about the difference between "terroristic" and "non-terroristic" forms of totalitarian social control:
     • "By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For ‘‘totalitarian’’ is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination that operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests. It thus precludes the emergence of an effective opposition against the whole. Not only a specific form of government or party rule makes for totalitarianism, but also a specific system of production and distribution which may well be compatible with a ‘‘pluralism’’ of parties, newspapers, ‘‘countervailing powers,’’ et cetera" (35). [it is highly recommended to reread the first three pages of the Marcuse reading](attached)