UNDER the conditions prevailing in this country, tolerance does not, and cannot, fulfill the civilizing function attributed to it by the liberal protagonists of democracy, namely, protection of dissent. The progressive historical force of tolerance lies in its extension to those modes and forms of dissent which are not committed to the status quo of society, and not confined to the institutional framework of the established society. Consequently, the idea of tolerance implies the necessity, for the dissenting group or individuals, to become illegitimate if and when the established legitimacy prevents and counteracts the development of dissent. This would be the case not only in a totalitarian society, under a dictatorship, in one-party states, but also in a democracy (representative, parliamentary, or ‘direct’) where the majority does not result from the development of independent thought and opinion but rather from the monopolistic or oligopolistic administration of public opinion, without terror and (normally) without censorship. In such cases, the majority is self-perpetuating while perpetuating the vested interests which made it a majority. In its very structure this majority is ‘closed’, petrified; it repels a priori any change other than changes within the system. But this means that the majority is no longer justified in claiming the democratic title of the best guardian of the common interest. And such a majority is all but the opposite of Rousseau’s ‘general will’: it is composed, not of individuals who, in their political functions, have made effective ‘abstraction’ from their private interests, but, on the contrary, of individuals who have effectively identified their private. interests with their political functions. And the representatives of this majority, in ascertaining and executing its will, ascertain and execute the will of the vested interests, which have formed the majority. The ideology of democracy hides its lack of substance.
A quote from Herbert Marcuse in Economist article, Please don’t bring back Herbert Marcuse.
IMO the quote is spot on, but read the entire article, quote included, and let me know what you think.
(via herbrainsdailychurn)
Analysis? Which analysis?! Such a thing would include nuance, critique and perhaps dissent but certainly not discourse of lower quality than that usually found on regular Tumblrs. Which is the gist of this Economist “post”. I am even shocked that The Economist would publish this nonsense at all. Again, I insist, better quotes and subsequent analysis can be found on Tumblrs of regular folks. Because here’s the totality of the Economist post at hand: Please don’t bring back Herbert Marcuse.
And why would such plead be? Because the same financial establishment that The Economist so proudly belongs to might be afraid of Marcuse’s anti capitalist framework? Because Marcuse provided vast analysis of the inherent dehumanization of our contemporary modes of production and economic relationships? I suppose for The Economist it would be better if the people behind the Wall Street protest continued seeing themselves in isolation from the historical continuum (something I sort of pointed out yesterday already), instead of seeing themselves inserted in a) a historical process where they can both draw parallels and learn from past mistakes and b) started to add a theoretical framework to their actions (any effective political action requires equal amounts of action and rhetoric; the people in Wall Street, I suppose, might be attempting to build on those? usually they go hand in hand). But of course, for The Economist, Herbert Marcuse is a bad omen. After all, almost all his work is based on Marxist theory.
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