Człowiek dwubiegunowy. Marcuse, akrazja i psychopatologia populizmu
The Bipolar Man. Marcuse, Akrasia and the Psychopathology of Populism

Summary/Abstract: In 1964 Herbert Marcuse made a famous thesis about the one-dimensionality of latecapitalist subject. It is one of his most important theoretical concepts, as well as an extension of the thesis put forward by Marcuse in 1937 in his essay Affirmative Character of Culture. The purpose of my article is to critically revise this concept. On the one hand, it is true that cognitive capitalism has strengthened the mechanisms of controlling consumer behavior. But on the other, the postmodern society is reflexive: its production of knowledge and self-knowledge is institutionalized and systemic. The combination of these two processes leads, as I claim, to the creation of a bipolar rather than one-dimensional man and culture. Repressive desublimation today goes hand in hand with reflexivity. As a result, the postmodern subject is an acratic – a human being systematically acting against his or her will. In the second part of the text, I argue that the bipolar structure of the postmodern subject creates conditions conducive to the development of contemporary populism.

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