[One-Dimensional Man Turns 50]

An illustrious circle pay their respects to the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, icon of critical theory: author and playwright Thomas Ebermann and Andreas Spechtl, head of the discourse pop band Ja, Panik, Robert Stadlober, musician, label operator, known in the German-speaking world above all as an actor, and the musician Kristof Schreuf, former front man of Kolossale Jugend.
The basis is the major system-critical treatise “One-Dimensional Man”, a source of inspiration also for the rebels of 1968 in which Marcuse coined the notion of the Great Refusal. Published fifty years ago, the work gained him international fame. “Der eindimensionale Mensch wird 50” is a multifaceted birthday celebration for a hopeless figure that has remained true to itself since Herbert Marcuse explored its happy consciousness and its enslaved satisfaction – the human being.
According to the quartet, Marcuse’s analysis is more relevant today than ever before. Advances in information technology in recent decades have changed nothing about that: being well-informed and idiocy are kindred states, being critical of current conditions is replaced by functioning in the existing system. What can be done about it? Neither succumb to nostalgia, nor wag the finger – instead, question existing structures, write songs, and engage in passionate recital, dialogue and debate on stage. On an evening of concert theatre, embrace the hope that the dream of the great refusal isn’t over yet. After all, years later Marcuse himself held out the prospect in his “Essay on Liberation” that we might yet experience a fate other than roasting in the “hell of the affluent society”.