The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 19
Repressive Tolerance Series, Part 3 of 4
In this third part of James Lindsay’s lecture series on Herbert Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance,” we see how the essay takes a particularly dark turn. Having set up the framing of the essay in the first part and explaining the condition of the “administered society” in the second, Marcuse now turns to answering the question of what a Repressive Tolerance should look like, including what it must suppress and what it must tolerate, including the sorts of violence and extralegal behaviors it must tolerate. The statement, which we arrive at near the end of this part, is simple, in Marcuse’s own words: “Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.” In this part of the lecture series, Lindsay walks the listener through the darker part of Marcuse’s argument to show how he arrives at this blatantly biased and ridiculous conclusion that has set the stage for the totalitarianism we see today in Wokeness and from Big Tech.
For those who haven’t yet heard it, listen to Part 1 here and Part 2 here so you can understand the context for this part of the series.
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4 comments
Marcuse was a young man in Germany when the Freikorps slaughtered the German socialists who had risen in revolution to overthrow the monarchy in 1919, and he was there when the Nazis came to power in 1933, and destroyed the liberal Weimar Republic, after they had been tolerated under that democratic regime. He was a refugee from the Nazis. He witnessed how the tolerance of the Nazis led to the destruction of a tolerant society and the repression of all civil liberties under Hitler, I think we should read his essay eith this personal history in mind. Ask yourself this question: should Hitler have been allowed to speak and to organize demonstrations when he made it very clear that he intended to impose a one-party dictatorship if he ever came to power, after he had already tried to seize power in a putsch in 1823? And if not, should we tolerate such political movements today? This is a serious question, in my opinion, and one that deserves a thoughtful answer. Thank you.
That assumes you always know “who is going to be Hitler” vs. “just another blowhard nobody”. Clearly WE know Hitler would be Hitler, because we have the luxury of living in the future and having 20/20 hindsight…
It isn’t always that obvious. Also, the response to bellicose or dislikable political figures is to stand up to them… not silence them. There were very real reasons Germans looked to a strongman to lead them after the disasters of WWI and 1920s inflation followed by 1930s depression… to just way “the Weimar Republic was liberal” is to minimize how awful things were for the average German citizen.
Note that the left uses this idea as an excuse to “get rid of Trump by any means possible”… painting him as Hitler, despite zero evidence he has any of the nefarious plans of a Hitler. This theory allows people to smear and jail pretty much any political group they don’t like!
Any comunity that does not police itself of predators will soon find itself inundated with predators. I belive the Marcusian Masterstroke only works in parliamentary societies where power is more concentrated and moves quickly. It has failed in the US and now its a matter of clean up. To many weirdos where not policed, the system was not fast enough to take the people hostage, the normies got spoooked and are now galvanizing against the tolerance of intolerance. The pendulum is in full swing
Spotted in the wild! https://medium.com/@acvalens/free-speech-open-letter-harpers-393cd143f1e7