Echoes on the Road

“For the established universe of discourse bears throughout the marks of the specific modes of domination, organization, and manipulation to which the members of society are subjected.  People depend for their living on bosses and politicians and jobs and neighbors who make them speak and mean as they do; they are compelled, by societal necessity, to identify the “thing” (including their own person, mind, feeling) with its functions. How do we know? Because we watch television, listen to the radio, read the newspapers and magazines, talk to people.

Under these circumstances, the spoken phrase is an expression of the individual who speaks it, and of those who make him speak as he does, and of whatever tension or contradiction may interrelate them.  In speaking their own language, people also speak the language of their masters, benefactors, advertisers.  Thus they do not only express themselves, their knowledge, feelings, and aspirations, but also something other than themselves.”

– Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man