freedom by providing us with opportunities to buy our happiness. In this state of "unfreedom", consumers act irrationally by working more than they are required to in order to fulfill actual basic needs, by ignoring the psychologically destructive effects, by ignoring the waste and environmental damage it causes, and by searching for social connection through material items. It is even more irrational in the sense that the creation of new products, calling for the disposal of old products, fuels the economy and encourages the need to work more to buy more. An individual loses his humanity and becomes a tool in the industrial machine and a cog in the consumer machine. Additionally, advertising sustains consumerism, which disintegrates societal demeanor, delivered in bulk and informing the masses that happiness can be bought, an idea that is psychologically damaging. There are alternatives to counter the consumer lifestyle. Anti-consumerism is a lifestyle that demotes any unnecessary consumption, as well as unnecessary work, waste, etc. But even this alternative is complicated by the extreme interpenetration of advertising and commodification because everything is a commodity, even those things that are actual needs. Reception The critical theorist Douglas Kellner wrote that One-Dimensional Man was one of the most important books of the 1960s and one of the most subversive books of the twentieth century. Despite its pessimism, represented by the citation of the words of Walter Benjamin at the end of this book that "Nur um der Hoffnungslosen willen ist uns die Hoffnung gegeben" ("It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us"), it influenced many in the New Left as it articulated their growing dissatisfaction with both capitalist societies and Soviet communist societies. The philosopher Ronald Aronson wrote in 2018 that One-Dimensional Man is more prescient than Marcuse could have ever realized and that it is more relevant today than ever. See also Repressive desublimation Totalitarian democracy Minority rights J. L. Talmon Drux Flux, an animated short inspired by One-Dimensional Man. Unflattening, a scholarly graphic novel expanding on many ideas from One-Dimensional Man. Critical theory Criticism of capitalism Inverted totalitarianism Superficiality References External links Bibliographic listing including reviews and courses using the book Full text on-line at marcuse.org 1964 non-fiction books Books critical of capitalism Beacon Press books English-language books Frankfurt School Sociology books Works by Herbert Marcuse