A Time of “Repressive Tolerance” and a Broad Depravity

Marx on the beach: the forgotten story of Yugoslavia’s rebel communist summer school — The ... — Philosopher Herbert Marcuse makes a speech at the Praxis Summer School, 1968

“Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.” —- Herbert Marcuse in “Repressive Tolerance”, 1965 (see below)

Let’s face it, the above quote from Herbert Marcuse (an acolyte of Antonio Gramsci) is emblematic of the rise of the Left’s totalitarian thought control that plagues our times. You know, you’ve seen its fruits in the neo-Marxist critical theory littered in your child’s school curriculum, our teachers’ training, and the campus anarchy spawned by “restorative justice” disciplinary policies. Even casual attention to the news during the 2020 summer of mayhem would expose you to the wholesale defacing of monuments and memorials and urban centers being set ablaze. The gray lady, The New York Times, jumped into the fray with a neo-Marxist rewrite of our history in “The 1619 Project”, which is inserted in bits and pieces in the instruction in many of our classrooms. And let’s not forget the campus mob beatdowns of contrarian voices to the zeitgeist in higher ed from Middlebury to Stanford. Speaking of repressive tolerance (?).

Herbert Marcuse in a heated exchange with a student, from the 1960’s. Practicing a little “repressive tolerance”?

Taking apart the above witticism from Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance” essay, it’s a call for intolerance by hiding it in oxymorons. Repressive tolerance? Liberation by repression? But it is convincing to minds heavily marinated in the intellectual mush.

These young minds are immersed in “woke” thought, and “woke” thought is critical theory, and critical theory is obeisance to the claim of systemic oppression. You see, the whole civilization, its society and culture, according to critical theory are oriented to oppress the “other”, or so-called outgroups as defined by characteristics such as race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, etc. Everything about the civilization, its law, principles, institutions, are cynically appraised for their supposed malevolent impact on the “other”. The basic rights of free speech, association, conscience, religion must be reinterpreted as part of the system of oppression. The effort is a very longwinded way of saying that we, the self-appointed spokesmen of the oppressed, have the power to silence you. Welcome to the college campus of today.

Something is afoot, and it ain’t pleasant. Our culture and nearly all our institutions are being hijacked by this neo-Marxist junk-thought. And as happens with a radicalization of the Left, there is a commensurate radicalization of the Right, which oddly takes the form of a cult of personality and performance art politics. Trump and dramatic displays of bellicosity replace strategic and reasoned confrontation to the nonsense. Fringe extremes they may be, but we still are in a hell of a mess.

Neo-Marxism is now the prevailing doctrine of the Democratic Party. It comes in the form of “diversity, equity, inclusion” (DEI — or DIE if you will) and furtherance of ESG (environment, social, governance) in the c-suite. It’s a combination of a neo-Jim Crow (race/gender/sexuality-based favoritism) and a dismantlement of western civilization in private sector venues. As for the Right, they have the utterances of Fox News primetime and some talk radio hosts. These venues are deathly afraid of the personality cult in their audiences.

Hugh Hewitt on his radio show regularly declares himself to be in Switzerland (neutral) in the coming Republican presidential primary fight. All contestants will be treated as moral equivalents, probably in a bid to avoid angering the large Trumper listener base for talk radio. The fear is certainly evident at Fox News. The Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News unearthed a treasure trove of duplicity and alarm on the part of Fox News’s celebrity pundits and execs. In released emails and tweets, the channel’s stars spitefully attack the news division over its coverage of the 2020 election and aftermath. The vitriol is lathered in ample dollops of hubris – “we have the power”.

The anxiety in Fox News headquarters in the wake of the 2020 election was palpable. Execs and producers noticed the absence of evidence to support the election-was-stolen angle. Tommy Firth, Laura Ingraham’s producer, is exasperated with the storyline of Dominion rigging the vote for Biden: “This Dominion shit is going to give me an aneurysm – as many times as I’ve told Laura [sic] it’s bs, she sees shit posters and trump [sic] tweeting about it.”

Laura Ingraham: Trump voters didn't riot, they rallied [Video]

The call of Arizona for Biden was particularly galling to Fox’s commentariat. Laura Ingraham blames exec Irena Briganti for the call: “She is coordinating this.” To which Tucker Carlson responds, “Without question. She hates us.” Sean Hannity chimes in, “Why would anyone defend that call [the Arizona call] [sic].” Later, Laura noticed a ratings fall after the announcement and concludes, “Friday numbers aren’t that surprising with Trump impending loss – but how much of the bleed is due to anger at the news channel [division]”. She levels her distaste for the news division: “My anger at the news channel [division] is pronounced”.

"Every Institution Is Run By People Who Will Use Any Means to Disclude Them" - Tucker Carlson on ...

Tucker’s response is telling because he predicts ratings damage by angering the channel’s Trump-laced audience:

“It should be [sic] We devote our lives to building an audience and they [the execs] let Chris Wallace and Leland fucking Vittert [host, reporter] wreck it. Too much.”

After asking, “What can we do?”, Laura answers her own question in a series of tweets: “I think the three of us have enormous power” – “We have more power than we know or exercise” – “Together”. Hubris follows from immense power, the power to craft the story to appease an audience? I can’t say at this point, but the communications are suggestive.

Hannity Sows Doubt in Election Results, Suggests PA Do-Over

Sean Hannity cuts to the chase in a tweet exchange with Steve Doocy: “You don’t piss off the base”.

So, the Left’s cancel culture joins the Right’s reluctance to aggravate its base to produce either indoctrination through censorship or information that conforms to only blatant confirmation bias. Either way, dangerous fairy tales take root to mangle the public discussion.

Both sides are pandered by only information and stories congenial to their sensibilities. The effect on the young is shocking. They are the ones who are immersed in a Marcusian cognitive hellscape. Herbert Marcuse and his colleagues at the Marxist Frankfurt School – aka Institute for Social Research at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany – scattered like rats on a sinking ship when the Nazis seized Germany. Many came to the U.S. and joined faculties at prestigious American universities such as Harvard, Columbia, UC Berkeley, etc. Therein spread the mental straitjacket of neo-Marxism for our young.

Marcuse’s “repressive tolerance” intolerance became deeply embedded in campus culture. Most recently, on March 9, it was on full display at Stanford when the school’s Federalist Society invited Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kyle Duncan to speak. The essence of Marcuse’s logic to stifle speech from the Right came out of the mouth of the school’s Dean of DEI, Tirien Steinbach, when she took to the lectern after students prevented Duncan from speaking and lectured him on how “hurtful” his opinions and rulings were to the “community”. She and the bullying students claimed the total power to determine what was “hurtful” and prevent any further discussion. It’s classic Marcuse; repressive tolerance in operation.

See video below. Watch Stanford’s DEI dean takeover the lectern from Judge Duncan.

Marcuse ended his academic career at UC, San Diego. For academics braying against capitalism and western civilization, they clearly flock to western civ’s most comfortable, well-paid sinecures in the most pleasant spots on earth.

Herbert Marcuse enjoying the good life at UC San Diego, the 1960’s.

Check this out: they even had a “summer school”, the Korčula (Praxis) Summer School, or camp, on Croatia’s soothing Adriatic coast from 1963 to 1974 when the Marxist Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito shut it down. Some participants referred to it as “Marx on the beach”; others called it a gathering for “dionysaic socialism” (see below). Tenure, hobnobbing with similarly privileged fellow Marxists, adequate incomes, and academic freedom work to insulate them from having to live in the consequences of their detached ruminations. It makes for a very special caste of Brahmins, one that will produce a living hell for everyone not so privileged to be among the revolution’s vanguard elite.

Come to think of it, this is a time of “repressive tolerance” intolerance and a broad depravity on both the Left and a slice of the Right. The Left tries to set themselves up as commissars of daily life, allowing only what conforms to their sensibilities. Some on the Right want to be cradled only in the pronouncements of the chief priest of the Trump cult. The reality is that we need to seize back control of K-grad school from this brewing totalitarianism, and Trump-the-drama-queen should hang up the MAGA hat and enjoy retirement.

tma_sierrahills: Ramirez Cartoon: "Tolerance" Protester v Freedom of Speech

RogerG

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