# Sixties pop-philosopher Marcuse..how could anyone READ such nonsense? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 25, 2009, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sixties-pop-philosopher-marcuse-how-could-anyone-read-such-nonsense/490729 "2009-03-25T13:29:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sixties-pop-philosopher-marcuse-how-could-anyone-read-such-nonsense/490729/1 "2009-03-25T13:29:39Z")
In the 1960’s Herbert Marcuse was one of the most popular left-wing philosophers. His writings were “hip” in much the same way that books like " No Logo" were hip in the late nineties. A whole generation of college students courted each other with Marcuse essays, over coffee in student cafe’s or over a glass of sangria at parties. My FIL, who is always finely in tune with whatever is hip in his time, regardless of the (non) sense of it, was a big Marcuse fan. To see what the fuss was about, I looked up one of his most famous essays on the Internet. Here it is. [“Repressive Tolerance”](http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm), My GOD, what a load of crap. How utterly unreadable. What profound NONSENSE. Eighteen pages of obscurantist rambling, that basically boils down to: _“Even if I don’t like what you say, I will defend your right to say it. Even, or especially, if you defend Marxism.”_ Jeebus. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sixties-pop-philosopher-marcuse-how-could-anyone-read-such-nonsense/490729/2 "2009-03-25T16:15:57Z")
It boils down to something even stupider and more dangerous than you think. Marcuse knew that, as a tenured academic in a democratic society, he could say or write anything he wanted without risking imprisonment or unemployment. Was he GRATEFUL to the U.S. for the freedom that gave him? Not in the least! “Repressive tolerance” was his way of saying, “It’s not enough that the U.S. tolerates Marxists. It must IMPLEMENT Marxism! To tolerate us communists, but not enact our policies, is an injustice!” Get it? You’re OPPRESSING Leftists if you ignore them! ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sixties-pop-philosopher-marcuse-how-could-anyone-read-such-nonsense/490729/3 "2009-03-25T16:16:44Z")
Have you read “One Dimensional Man”? It’s really good. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sixties-pop-philosopher-marcuse-how-could-anyone-read-such-nonsense/490729/4 "2009-03-25T16:31:49Z")
So, did Marcuse ever accomplish anything worthwhile? ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sixties-pop-philosopher-marcuse-how-could-anyone-read-such-nonsense/490729/5 "2009-03-25T16:40:17Z")
> [@ratatoskK](#): > > Have you read “One Dimensional Man”? It’s really good. That’s what I was going to say. I read a clump of his work in college and found him to be really inconsistent. Like he was fleshing out genuinely interesting ideas in one essay, then writing as if he’d decided to smoke the Communist Manifesto in his hash pipe in the next and something was a little off in the burning ink. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2009, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sixties-pop-philosopher-marcuse-how-could-anyone-read-such-nonsense/490729/6 "2009-03-26T02:29:59Z")
like most of these types of things, not many people read Marcuse directly, they just relied on 2nd & 3rd hand accounts of what they thought Marcuse said.