Herbert Marcuse, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Technological rationality is what happens when reason ceases to interrogate the ends of human life and becomes instead the instrument of its own apparatus. The transformation is precise: rationality, which was once a critical force capable of measuring the given against what could be, becomes a force of adjustment and compliance.1 The apparatus that human beings have themselves created begins to shape their thoughts, feelings, and actions according to its own technical requirements, and in this process, the autonomy of reason — its capacity to stand over against the world and judge it — loses its meaning.2
What takes reason's place is a system of truth values internal to the functioning of the apparatus itself. Propositions about business methods, organizational control, effective procedure — these become true or false not by reference to human need or emancipation but by reference to what the system requires in order to run.3 I called this technological truth: instrumental in the twofold sense that it serves expediency rather than standing as an end in itself, and that it follows the pattern of technological behavior — which is to say, it demands unconditional compliance and subordinates thought to pregiven external standards.4
The deeper point, which the analysis of Max Weber helped me clarify, is that this is not a neutral or purely formal development. Technology itself is domination — methodical, scientific, calculated control of nature and of human beings.5 Specific purposes and interests of domination are not imposed on technology from the outside after the fact; they enter the very construction of the technical apparatus.6
Weber's error was to treat formal rationality as value-free when in fact it had absorbed the valuations peculiar to capitalism into its very definitions, and then declared those valuations neutral.7 The consequence, worked out at length in One-Dimensional Man, is that the closed operational universe of advanced industrial civilization — with what I called its terrifying harmony of freedom and oppression, productivity and destruction — is pre-designed in this idea of Reason as a historical project.8
The process by which logic becomes the logic of domination is not an accident or a corruption from outside; it is the trajectory of Western rationality itself when the stabilizing tendencies of positive thinking triumph over the subversive elements of negative thinking.9 Technology becomes, in this movement, the great vehicle of reification in its most mature and effective form: the web of domination becomes the web of Reason itself, and the transcending modes of thought seem to transcend Reason itself — which is precisely the crisis.10
Rationality is being transformed from a critical force into one of adjustment and compliance.Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, pp. 68–69
Autonomy of reason loses its meaning in the same measure as the thoughts, feelings and actions of men are shaped by the technical requirements of the apparatus which they have themselves created.Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, pp. 68–69
Propositions concerning competitive or collusive behavior, business methods, principles of effective organization and control, fair play, the use of science and technics are true or false in terms of this value system, that is to say, in terms of instrumentalities that dictate their own ends.Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, pp. 68–69
We may call this set of truth values the technological truth, technological in the twofold sense that it is an instrument of expediency rather than an end in itself, and that it follows the pattern of technological behavior.Some Social Implications of Modern Technology, pp. 68–69
Not only the application of technology but technology itself is domination (of nature and men) - methodical, scientific, calculated, calculating control.6. Industrialization and Capitalism in the Work of Max Weber, p. 168
Specific purposes and interests of domination are not foisted upon technology 'subsequently' and from the outside; they enter the very construction of the technical apparatus.6. Industrialization and Capitalism in the Work of Max Weber, p. 168
Max Weber's analysis of capitalism was not sufficiently value-free, inasmuch as it took into its 'pure' definitions of formal rationality valuations peculiar to capitalism.6. Industrialization and Capitalism in the Work of Max Weber, p. 168
The closed operational universe of advanced industrial civilization with its terrifying harmony of freedom and oppression, productivity and destruction, growth and regression is pre-designed in this idea of Reason as a specific historical project.One-Dimensional Man, pp. 102–103
the stabilizing tendencies conflict with the subversive elements of Reason, the power of positive with that of negative thinking, until the achievements of advanced industrial civilization lead to the triumph of the one-dimensional reality over all contradiction.One-Dimensional Man, pp. 102–103
technology has become the great vehicle of reification-reification in its most mature and effective form... The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society is fatally entangled in it. And the transcending modes of thought seem to transcend Reason itself.One-Dimensional Man, pp. 134–135