马尔库塞虚假需求理论视域下“内卷”现象的评述

Commentary on the “Involution” Phenomenon from the Perspective of Marcuse’s Theory of False Needs

摘要: 本文以马尔库塞的虚假需求理论为分析框架，对当代社会的“内卷”现象展开深入探讨。研究背景方面，随着中国社会主要矛盾的转变，人们对高质量生活的追求催生出内卷现象，其本质是非理性的内部竞争，而马尔库塞的理论为剖析这一现象提供了独特视角。马尔库塞虚假需求批判理论指出，在资本主义社会，技术、商品与消费逻辑结合，通过大众媒介制造虚假需求，使人们陷入对物质的狂热追逐，失去真实需要和反抗欲望，这种需求是外部强加的，服务于资本增殖，导致社会不公平持续存在。当下的内卷现象可分为“享受型”和“功利型”，前者是个体积极自主参与竞争并以过程为价值实现，后者则是基于利益计算、以结果为导向的策略性竞争，反映了市场化社会中个体应对压力的不同策略。从生成逻辑看，虚假需求制造了过度竞争目标，将 “成功标准” 标准化、量化，使个体陷入单向度思维；同时通过意识形态和技术理性维持内卷机制，让个体主动内化竞争法则。不过，随着个体主体意识觉醒和社会制度性反思，虚假需求在内卷中有消散迹象，但资本也在以新话语重构虚假需求。

Abstract: This article takes Marcuse’s theory of false needs as an analytical framework to conduct an in-depth exploration of the “involution” phenomenon in contemporary society. In terms of the research background, with the transformation of the principal contradiction in Chinese society, people’s pursuit of a high-quality life has given rise to the involution phenomenon, which is essentially irrational internal competition. Marcuse’s theory provides a unique perspective for analyzing this phenomenon. Marcuse’s critique of false needs theory points out that in capitalist society, technology, commodities, and the logic of consumption combine to create false needs through mass media, leading people to become obsessed with material possessions and lose their true needs and desire for resistance. These demands are externally imposed and serve the accumulation of capital, perpetuating social inequality. The current involution phenomenon can be divided into “enjoyment type” and “utilitarian type”. The former involves individuals actively and voluntarily participating in competition and valuing the process as a means of achieving value, while the latter is a strategic competition based on interest calculation and result orientation, reflecting different strategies individuals adopt to cope with pressure in a market-oriented society. From the perspective of the generation logic, false needs create excessive competition goals, standardize and quantify the “success criteria”, trapping individuals in one-dimensional thinking; at the same time, they maintain the involution mechanism through ideology and technological rationality, making individuals internalize the competition rules voluntarily. However, with the awakening of individual subject consciousness and social institutional reflection, there are signs of the dissipation of false needs in involution, but capital is also reconstructing false needs with new discourses.