Counterrevolution and Revolt

Herbert Marcuse

**Counterrevolution and Revolt** is a 1972 book by the philosopher *Herbert Marcuse*. Summary ----------- Marcuse writes that the western world has reached a new stage of development, in which "the defense of the capitalist system requires the organization of counterrevolution at home and abroad." He accuses the west of "practicing the horrors of the Nazi regime", and of helping to launch massacres in Indochina, Indonesia, the Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Sudan. He discusses the problems of the New Left, as well as other topics such as the political role of ecology. Citing author [Murray Bookchin](https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL333834A)'s [Post-Scarcity Anarchism](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2422730W) (1971), Marcuse argues that ecology must be taken "to the point where it is no longer containable within the capitalist framework" by "extending the drive within the capitalist framework." Marcuse offers a discussion of the role of nature in Marxist philosophy informed by philosopher Alfred Schmidt's The Concept of Nature in Marx (1962). Marcuse also offers a discussion of art, including literature and music, in relation to revolution. He cites Arthur Schopenhauer's observation, in The World as Will and Representation (1818), that music "gives the innermost kernel preceding all form, or the heart of things". (Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterrevolution_and_Revolt))