Single thought

The concept of «unique thought» was first described by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, in 1819, as that thought that supports itself, so that it constitutes an independent logical unit —however broad and complex it may be— without having to refer to other components of a system of thought. In 1964, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, a Freudo-Marxist and member of the critical current known as the "Frankfurt School", described a similar concept that he called "one-dimensional thinking" (one-dimensional thinking), in the context of of the critique of the ideology of the advanced technological society. For Marcuse, this type of thinking results from the "closure of the universe of discourse" imposed by the dominant political class and the media that provide mass information:

His universe of discourse is populated with hypotheses that are self-validated and that, repeated incessantly and monopolistly, become hypothetical or dictated definitions.

With a meaning similar to that of Marcuse, but returning to the original adjective of «unique», the concept was reintroduced in the last decade by the Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, who defines it based on an anti-capitalist left-wing idea:

What is the unique thought? The translation into ideological terms of universal pretension of the interests of a set of economic forces, especially those of international capital.

Its use has subsequently spread as a rhetorical formula to disqualify the ideas of the ideological opponent, regardless of their orientation; suggests that the person thus crossed out is "closed in spirit", as opposed to the "openness" of the person applying the qualifier.

Origin and evolution of the concept

The term in the work of Schopenhauer

The first to define the «unique thought» as a conceptual unit was the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, in his masterpiece and one of the main works of German romanticism: The world as will and representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung). In the sense that he gave to the term, "unique" denotes rather 'unity' than 'unity'. or 'integration'. Based on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Schopenhauer concluded that our representations of the diversity of the world are the expression of a unity, which he encompassed in the concept of “will”. A unique thought is, in Schopenhauer's system, one that sustains itself, that becomes integral in the will:

A system of thoughts must always have an architectural hindrance, so that one part supports the other, but not the other; the foundation supports the rest without being supported by it, and the top is supported without it supporting it anymore. On the other hand, a unique thought, as broad as it may be, must preserve the most perfect unity. Even if one is forced to divide this thought into parts, one must be careful that each of those parts contains the whole as the whole contains it to it, that no part is the first or no last, that, for each one, the whole is completely different, but that the smallest of them cannot be fully understood without previously being the whole.

The concept in the work of Herbert Marcuse

Marcuse did not refer directly to a "single thought," but described a concept clearly related to the more current use of the term: "one-dimensional thought." In his essay One-dimensional man ( One-dimensional man ), Marcuse made a profound critique of the state of technological society of his time. He describes the mechanisms through which a "positive" thought (scientist or positivist) has prevailed in public discourse and in the work of science, validated exclusively by technology. This way of thinking—positive and operational—is what Marcuse called "one-dimensional thinking." In this scheme of thought, reflection on complexity and contradiction, issues that would imply qualitative elements, are absolutely unimportant or find no place in the discursive space.

For example, "free" are the institutions that work (and that work) in the countries of the free world; other transcendent modes of freedom are by definition anarchism, communism or propaganda. "Socialists" are all intrusions in private companies not carried out by the same private company (or by government contracts), such as universal and comprehensive sickness insurance, the protection of natural resources against devastating marketing, or the establishment of public services that may harm private benefit. This totalitarian logic of the accomplished fact has its counterpart in the East. There, freedom is the way of life instituted by a communist regime, and all other transcendent modes of freedom are either capitalist, or revisionist, or leftist sectarianism. In both fields, non-operational ideas are non-conductists and subversive. The movement of thought stops in barriers that seem to be the very limits of Reason.

Marcuse was essentially pessimistic about the possibility of counteracting one-dimensional thinking, convinced of its triumph and imposition. He proposed, however, an alternative, such as incorporating denial ("negativity"), mainly referring to the contribution of a second dimension —criticism—, but which would also include the "act of refusing" to participate in the manipulation.

The re-creation or reintroduction of the term by Ignacio Ramonet

The reintroduction of this expression is attributed to the sociologist, left-wing journalist and honorary president of Attac, Ignacio Ramonet. He would have re-created it in January 1995, in an editorial in Le Monde Diplomatique, where he was editor until 2008. In this article, Ramonet critically alluded to the ideological landscape after the fall of the wall of Berlin, in which, in his opinion, neoliberal economism had emerged as the only acceptable thought, to the point of monopolizing all academic and intellectual forums. This exclusive pre-eminence, in his opinion, made the citizens of the advanced countries feel that they were involved in something viscous and suffocating, which prevented any discussion outside their narrow limits.

For Ramonet, this ideology was the intellectual expression and with universalizing pretense of the interests of international financial capital. Its main features were the preeminence of the economic instance over politics and the consideration of the market as the only means for an efficient allocation of resources. As corollaries of these two pillars, he cited globalization (disappearance of economic borders), competitiveness (to survive in the market), the international division of labor (to lower wage costs), hard currency (consequence of monetary discipline) and, in general, a tendency towards the reduction of the State in all its forms.

Ramonet predicted that dire consequences would follow from the widespread adoption of this ideology. Likewise, he listed a series of contemporary phenomena in the article that would have refuted the idea that, thanks to the generalization of the beliefs that he had encompassed in the expression "unique thought", a time of prosperity was lived.

Use of the term in the language of late 20th and early 21st century politics

Once recovered by Ramonet, the term reached a great diffusion in the left and the anti-globalization movements. They found in it a way of concentrating in a single expression the set of assumptions, paradigms and assumptions that, in their opinion, prevented ideological debate. The term evoked for them what was known in academic circles as the "Washington consensus." Its diffusion brought with it a certain vulgarization, and it began to be used in a pejorative way against any policy perceived as antisocial. Curiously, in the ideological circles that defended the Washington consensus —and even more extreme positions of liberalism—, this ideology was also alluded to as the only possible one, as expressed by Margaret Thatcher with her famous “There is no alternative” (“There is no alternative"), which other politicians would later imitate, such as former German Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who used "There are no alternatives" ("Es gibt keine Alternativen").

Its use has subsequently been extended as a rhetorical formula to disqualify the ideas of the ideological opponent, regardless of their orientation, suggesting that the person thus labeled is "closed in spirit", as opposed to the "openness" of whoever applies the qualifier. This has led to the fact that from the right it has sometimes been used against the left. Nicolas Sarkozy has frequently used it in this sense. He did so, for example, in his speech after his electoral victory in the French presidential elections in May 2007:

The unique thought, which is the thought of those who know everything, of those who believe not only intellectually but also morally above others, that unique thought had denied politics the ability to express a will.

Nicolas Sarkozy, Bercy Speech, April 29, 2007.

Also in an interview in the newspaper Libération:

I speak of this unique thought that has led several people to exasperation. But the debate is not that. You, may delight in alliances with the Communist Party, with the extreme left, turn to all the extremists of creation. That's good, since this is the only thought! We cannot say anything in our country without one being immediately accused of second nauseaunda intentions. This is the unique intolerable thought.

Interview with Sarkozy in Liberation

French historian Pierre Rigoulot, one of the authors of The Black Book of Communism, calls the anti-American consensus that, in his opinion, cuts across the mainstream a «unique thought» > French. Outside the French-speaking sphere, both the European-based American Bruce Bawer and the Swede Johan Norberg see the ruling-class social democratic consensus as a characteristic feature of Western European society, calling it the "state of la idea única” (one-idea state), an expression that they use as the equivalent of pensée unique^{[citation required]}:

The unique state of mind [...], the risk that the power of the Social Democrats over our minds, authorities, universities and the media puts in place a process of adaptation from all sides, including that of the opposition, so that it is cornered and individualists and innovators are excluded.

Johan Norberg

An example of the use of the expression in the Spanish-speaking world is the one made by Esperanza Aguirre regarding the French elections won by Nicolas Sarkozy, when she stated that «France has rebelled against the single thought, which is that of the left ».

For his part, the Popular Party MEP, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, used it applied to Catalan nationalism as a "unique nationalist thought".^{[citation required]}