Marcuse. Death, memory and domain

Abstract

In this paper, I intend to deal with Marcuse’s approach on death and dying, an approach that ponders death not only as a biological event, but (above all) as an event deeply marked by prevailing social politics, which is something that he shares in common with other thinkers of the so-called Critical Theory. The thing is that many fear death as the worst and most terrible evil. Without refraining from seeing it as a biological fact, (nevertheless avoiding the temptation of seeing it as something religious or metaphysical): is it possible to think about death in another way, as something that might be assumed without fear, panic, anguish nor social-political self-deception?