This is an excerpt from Marcuse’s 1964 book, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Marcuse critiques both capitalism and Soviet communism for social repression. This chapter is dedicated to theorizing the uprooting of this social repression.
The Port Huron Statement was published in 1962 at a United Workers Retreat in Port Huron, Michigan. It was the first time Students for a Democratic Society gathered from across the nation, and became the group’s manifesto. SDS were considered a prominent organization within the New Left.
As students for a democratic society, we are committed to stimulating this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and program in campus and community across the country. If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.