Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
, Political Violence
and Existential Politics
We think of the culture war in the United States as largely a product of the
Sixties, which in American political-cultural terms extended to 1972 (the
McGovern-Nixon election) or 1973 (the formal end of direct US participation in
the Vietnam War).
But there was also a conventional liberal front in the culture war which found
them partially on the same side as conservatives. On the one hand, the liberals
sided with the civil rights movement against the segregationists, and there was a
considerable overlap between liberals and the civil rights movement. But liberals
were also supportive of the general direction of Cold War policies and, to varying
degrees, many were supportive of the Vietnam War, though that support waned
with time and military failure there. One of the things that distinguished George
McGoverns position on foreign policy from what McGoverns adherents in 1972
were known to deride as Cold War liberalism was his straightforward
opposition to the Vietnam War and his broader criticism of Cold War assumptions
about the special virtue of American power and the external threat of
Communism.
As I was reading a 1968 article by historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Existential
Politics and the Cult of Violence1, largely devoted to criticizing Frankfurt School
philosopher Herbert Marcuse and the New Left movement with which he was
identified, it occurred to me that Schlesingers argument had an awful lot in
common with the more bewildered reactions to the Occupy movement.
Engaging with Schlesingers piece led me to compose the current essay, which
covers several themes of particular concern for me: political violence; the
complex relationship of political ideology/philosophy and political practice; the
liberal variant of Cold War political ideology in the US; the thought of the
Frankfurt School, framed by Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse as critical
theory; and, in particular, the enduring insights contained in Marcuses essay
Repressive Tolerance which Schlesinger attempted to skewer in 1968.
Bewildered liberals in The Sixties
Schlesinger was writing in the wake of his own experience with an earlier
occupy movement: the occupation of Columbia University, where he was then a
professor, by student activists in 1968. He wrote:
The causes of student insurgency vary from college to college, and
from country to country. It would seem likely that the primary
1
The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Septembre 1968), pp. 9-15 The text is based on an
address Schlesinger gave on June 5, 1968, the day after Robert Kennedys assassination.
incitement in our own nation has been the war in Vietnam- a war
which has tempted our government into its course of appalling and
insensate destruction, a war which, through the draft, has
demanded that young Americans kill and die where they can see
no rational relationship between personal sacrifice and national
interest. But the cause is also more than the Vietnam war. For that
war has come for many to prefigure a larger incomprehensibility, a
larger absurdity, even a larger wickedness, in our official society.
For some it has come to seem, not an aberration, but the inevitable
result of the irremediable corruption of the American system.
I cannot share the belief that there was something foreordained and
ineluctable about the war in Vietnam- that the nature of American
society would have compelled any set of men in Washington to
pursue the same course of folly. This really seems determinist
nonsense. One can still understand, though, why the contradictions
of our society weigh so heavily on the young - the contradictions
between the righteousness of a Secretary of State and the
ruthlessness of a B-52; between the notion that violence is fine
against simple folk ten thousand miles away and shocking against
injustice in our own land; between the equality demanded by our
constitutional structure and the equality denied by our social
structure; even between the accepted habits of one generation and
the emerging habits of the next, as when a parent tipsy on his
fourth martini begins a tirade against marijuana.
I give Schlesinger a lot of credit for paying serious attention to social and political
violence and disruption and looking carefully for its wider causes. In both the US
and Britain, during the 1970s a strictly punitive view toward crime took hold institutionalized in the unending War on Drugs - in which crime and violence
were regarded by public officials as exclusively matters of individual
delinquency. This fit well with the culture-war stand of movement
conservatives in the US who wanted to demonizing African-Americans and, to a
lesser but serious extent, Latinos as violent classes within the larger community.
By the early 1970s, Democrats were already shying away from any mention of
anything like sociological factors in promoting violence. Such observations were
eagerly stigmatized by conservatives as soft on crime.
That is still a dominant attitude in the US. The now-perpetual Global War on
Terrorism has worked to strengthen that attitude. The extent to which that is so
was dramatically illustrated by the paramilitary response that was so prominent in
urban police response to the Occupy movement in 2011-12. Sadly, that was
particularly so in cities with Democratic mayors like Chicago, Oakland and
Portland, and in New York with an Independent mayor that endorsed President
Obama for re-election in 2012.
For its part, the Soviet Union had its own interests and
apprehensions. The Cold War soon became an intricate,
interlocking reciprocal process, involving authentic differences in
principle, real and supposed clashes of interest and a wide range of
misunderstanding, misperception and demagoguery. Each camp
persevered in corroborating the fears of the other. Together they
marched in fatal lockstep to the brink of the abyss.
Still, he couldnt quite back away from his own version of Cold War determinism,
concluding there, The real surprise would have been if there had been no Cold
War.
His 1968 criticism of Herbert Marcuse, and of the New Left of the time for which
he used Marcuse as a broader symbol, reflects the constrictions of the larger Cold
War framework to which Schlesinger held.
Schlesingers evidence for the indictment of Marcuse: the essay Repressive
Tolerance
Schlesinger targets Marcuses essay Repressive Tolerance in his critique. That
essay appeared as the third of three in a 1965 book, A Critique of Pure
Tolerance.5 The first was by an analytic philosopher, Robert Paul Wolff, Beyond
Tolerance, the second by sociologist Barrington Moore, Jr., Tolerance and the
Scientific Outlook. The collection was intended to look at various aspects of
tolerance as a philosophical and historical phenomenon as it manifests itself in the
present day.
More specifically, they examine tolerance as a problem in the contemporary
context. For Wolff, tolerance had developed into a problematic pluralism that
obstructs a necessary consideration of common interests. As he wrote:
Pluralism is humane, benevolent, accommodating and far more
responsive to the evils of social injustice than either the egoistic
liberalism or the traditionalistic conservatism from which it grew.
But pluralism is fatally blind to the evils which afflict the entire
body politic, and as a theory of society it obstructs consideration of
precisely the sorts of thoroughgoing social revisions which may be
needed to remedy those evils.
Moore focused on the central importance of the secular and scientific outlook
and how it both requires tolerance and is essential to recognize the limits of
tolerance:
5
Schlesinger may or may not have approved of using the word project to describe what the
authors of A Critique of Pure Tolerance were doing. It was Martin Heidegger who established the
use of project to describe a philosophical undertaking. And, as we shall see below, Schlesinger
seems to have been deeply suspicious of anything touching Heideggers existentialism.
7
I venture to think American English has reached a point where it may be necessary to explain
that man in 1965 was still used as a generic reference to humanity.
major and highly visible role. Toleration between Catholics and Protestants,
between Lutherans and Calvinists, between Christians and Jews were major issues
in the long transition from feudalism to democracy and capitalism in the Europe
world, including in their American colonies.
The telos of tolerance is truth, Marcuse wrote.
It is clear from the historical record that the authentic spokesmen
of tolerance had more and other truth in mind than that of
propositional logic and academic theory. John Stuart Mill speaks
of the truth which is persecuted in history and which does not
triumph over persecution by virtue of its inherent power, which
in fact has no inherent power against the dungeon and the stake.
And he enumerates the truths which were cruelly and
successfully liquidated in the dungeons and at the stake: that of
Arnold of Brescia, of Fra Dolcino, of Savonarola, of the
Albigensians, Waldensians, Lollards, and Hussites. Tolerance is
first and foremost for the sake of the heretics the historical road
toward humanitas appears as heresy: target of persecution by the
powers that be. Heresy by itself, however, is no token of truth.
The criterion of progress in freedom according to which Mill
judges these movements is the Reformation. The evaluation is ex
post, and his list includes opposites (Savonarola too would have
burned Fra Dolcino). Even the ex post evaluation is contestable as
to its truth: history corrects the judgment too late.
Marcuse posed the problem of whether tolerance can achieve its historic value
and function of providing a free chance for the constructive, liberating ideas that
improve society and the conditions of individual life in the conditions of advanced
capitalist democracies.
First drafting this essay just after the 2012 US Presidential election and the
Superstorm/Frankenstorm Katrina which struck the East Coast, much of the
problem he raised in 1965 were all too painfully apparent. Far more so than in
1965, American political campaigns are dependent on funds from wealthy donors.
One dramatic manifestation of that in the 2012 election was the absence of
climate change as a major topic of discussion. (Absence as a manifestation of
something is not unlike a formulation Marcuse and other Frankfurt School figures
might have used for that situation.) Many wealthy donors, especially in the energy
industry but also more generally, dont want climate change discussed or even
recognized for what it is, because such discussion can easily lead to inconvenient
regulations on pollution or changes in tax and spending policies that currently
favor extractive industries and carbon polluters.
Tolerance also appears in various forms. In the legal form, it means essentially
that nobody gets put in jail just for expressing a controversial idea, however
mistaken, wrong-headed, obnoxious or just plain dumb it may be.
But tolerance is also manifested in the selection of guests and topics on TV
shows, in which talk radio programs are put in prime slots, which speakers are
invited to forums at colleges, what articles are selected for trend-setting
magazines, journals and websites. On a personal and private level, tolerance is
applied or withheld according to what topics and what manner of expression are
deemed acceptable in private conversations or semi-private forums like Facebook.
A person may feel perfectly comfortable arguing taxation policy with friends,
family members or acquaintances, but unwilling to hear their favorite religious
doctrines criticized in any way.
Marcuse formulated the problem like this:
Within the affluent democracy, the affluent discussion prevails,
and within the established framework, it is tolerant to a large
extent. All points of view can be heard: the Communist and the
Fascist, the Left and the Right, the white and the Negro, the
crusaders for armament and for disarmament. Moreover, in
endlessly dragging debates over the media, the stupid opinion is
treated with the same respect as the intelligent one, the
misinformed may talk as long as the informed, and propaganda
rides along with education, truth with falsehood.8
A key element of the democratic assumption about the value of tolerance,
including its formal, legal aspects with freedom of speech and freedom of
religion, is that people could make informed decisions in choosing among
alternatives. But in societies where mass manipulation is both technically possible
and widely practiced, and in which the wealthy have access to such capabilities
far disproportionate to either their numbers or any objective value of their ideas,
that basic assumption about well-informed citizens and electors becomes
problematic.
Marcuse at one point does argue explicitly, It should be evident by now that the
exercise of civil rights by those who dont have them presupposes the withdrawal
of civil rights from those who prevent their exercise.
But it is also clear that Marcuse is defining the problem of tolerance as a dilemma
in the context of existing affluent democracies like the US and of the historical
value of tolerance as enabling dissenters, heretics, to push forward developments
that enhance human life and human society. As we saw above, he even puts in a
plug for animal rights there.
8
The situation he describes here could be said to be several orders of magnitude more evident in
2013 in the United States.
Yet for the advocates of those liberating ideas to overcome the situation he
describes, if the exercise of civil rights by those who dont have them
presupposes the withdrawal of civil rights from those who prevent their exercise,
what is he defining is an unresolved and even unresolvable problem. The
dissenters have to make their voices not only heard but effective. But since
dissenters not accepted by or part of the Establishment (a term Marcuse uses
here), they scarcely have the power to formally withdraw civil rights from those
who defend the current system of domination by capital, as Marcuse understands
it.
What he is really defining in Repressive Tolerance is the real-time blockage of
fundamental criticism in affluent democracies, and the lack of any clear political
path to resolving that dilemma. In 1965, the reality of the discontent and massive
dissent by African-Americans against segregation and racial discrimination was
not only obvious but a dramatic feature of the American political scene. It would
be an interesting point of inquiry to look at the ways in which the civil rights
movement at that time had already shown the way toward potential solutions of
the problem Marcuse thematizes in Repressive Tolerance. Or, to use Hegelian
terms, toward the ablation (Aufheben) of the problem which raises it to the next
level of development.
Marcuses Repressive Tolerance remains a challenging and fascinating piece
because he manages to address a wide range of important themes that were
characteristic concerns of the Frankfurt School. Including the problem of political
violence and revolution. Which brings us to the approach Schlesinger took to
criticizing Marcuses perspective.
Schlesinger vs. existential politics and the supposed cult of violence
Rather than engaging the actual problem of tolerance as either Marcuse or the
other two authors of A Critique of Pure Tolerance raised it, Schlesinger in a
number of ways tried to shoehorn Marcuses arguments into familiar truisms of
conventional mainstream political assumptions.
Schlesinger frames his argument against Marcuse and the New Left he takes him
to represent by claiming the new creed has two basic parts, one a rejection of
good American ideas of tolerance, the other a lack of a specific program. The first
gives him a launching pad for the following characterizations of the argument of
Repressive Tolerance:
The first part is an attempt to clear away what its theorists regard as the
noxious rubbish of the Bill of Rights.
The new creed thus perceives the First Amendment as the keystone, not
of liberty, but of a wicked apparatus of tolerance employed by an
oppressive social order to resist basic change.
10
I will state in the words of its leading advocate- that is Herbert Marcusethe belief that it is necessary and right, as a matter of principle, to suppress
views with which one disagrees and to howl down those who utter such
views.
Marcuse argues that contemporary society has absorbed and abolished
the historic means of social revolution.
Marcuse argues that society does so through a system of indoctrination
and manipulation made possible by an ingenious and despicable
combination of welfarism and tolerance.
Capitalism, in short, buys off potential opponents by offering a measure
of apparent economic security and personal freedom. Marcuse regards this
as a terrible state of affairs.
As he sees it, any improvement in the condition of the powerless and the
oppressed only plays into the hands of the rulers - and is therefore to be
regretted.
Tolerance is evil because it dissipates the force of protest.
It is also evil because it permits the promulgation of evil ideas.
Marcuse calls for for the forcible suppression of false ideas.
And, in case the reader isnt following his drift, Schlesinger adds,
Marcuse's call for the forcible suppression of false ideas is, I have
suggested, only the first part of the new creed. Nor is such an assault on
the Bill of Rights new, even for radicals. The Stalinists of the Thirties, for
example, had no compunction in arguing in much the same way that civil
freedom should be denied those who resist the Stalinist truth.
The reader will search the pages of Repressive Tolerance in vain trying to find
where Marcuse condemns the American Bill of Rights as noxious rubbish, or
the First Amendment as a wicked apparatus, to generally suppress views with
which one disagrees and to howl down those who utter them. At best, the other
points just cited are exceptionally unsympathetic readings to the point that they
scarcely correspond to Marcuses actual arguments.
Tolerance is evil in Marcuses view? If Schlesinger was going to make that
argument, he should have at least grappled with what he thinks Marcuse meant in
writing the lines quoted above that began, Tolerance is an end in itself. The
elimination of violence, and the reduction of suppression to the extent required for
protecting man and animals from cruelty and aggression are preconditions for the
creation of a humane society.
Apparently without realizing it, in painting Marcuse there as a stereotypical
Commie straw-man, Schlesinger himself provides an illustration of the process
Marcuse describes this passage from Repressive Tolerance:
The toleration of free discussion and the equal right of opposites
was to define and clarify the different forms of dissent: their
direction, content, prospect. But with the concentration of
11
terms that withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and
movements (Marcuse) which support it or seek to revive it is necessary and
consistent with democracy.
The present writer does not favor such legal restrictions as, for instance, Austria
imposes under its treaty obligations. But in US Constitutional law, treaties are on
a level with the Constitution itself as the law of the land. So even though the US
itself isnt under a reciprocal obligation to legally ban Nazi and Nazi-like activity,
it would not be an exaggeration to observe that the basic law of the US recognizes
at some level the legitimacy of the implied historical judgment of the definitely
proven falsity of Nazism.
And the more general, formal, legal right to dissenting speech in the US certainly
does not extend in such a general form to political activity. Most European
democracies have explicit legal mechanisms for banning parties that are officially
determined to be in rejection the countrys constitutional order. The German
Communist Party was banned in the 1950s, and similar bans have been imposed
on some far right political groups. The US doesnt have the same type of
provisions but gets there through other routes. You cant legally run terrorist
groups by labeling them political parties. There are various requirements for
ballot access, about which aspiring third party perennially complain. There are
reporting requirements on political donations to political parties, and laws
explicitly governing the parties conduct. Political campaigning by non-profit
agencies is legally circumscribed.9
Such formal limitations on political tolerance and political speech and advocacy
are well established, as Schlesinger surely knew very well in 1968. So its hard to
avoid the conclusion that to a significant extent, he was being disingenuous in
pigeonholing Marcuses argument in Repressive Tolerance to some comic-book
version of dogmatic Stalinism.
And its useful to look at Schlesingers criticism of Marcuses stance, keeping in
mind that the formal, legal aspect was only part of what Marcuse was examining.
Schlesinger:
He is candid about his repudiation of the Bill of Rights.
The traditional criterion of clear and present danger
seems no longer adequate to a stage where the
whole society is in the situation of the theater
audience when somebody cries: "fire." ... The whole
post-fascist period is one of clear and present
danger. Consequently, true pacification requires the
9
In 2013, the IRS was the special target of conservative criticism for its approach to determining
whether organization engaged in political advocacy were entitled to be tax-exempt status under the
vague and complex requirements in federal law at the time.
13
14
15
11
Ich habe ein theoretisches Denkmodell aufgestellt. Wie konnte ich wissen, dass Leute es mit
Molotow-Chocktails realisieren wollten. Quoted by Walter Regg in Die 68er Jahre und die
Franfurter Schule (Vortrag, gehalten im Rahmen der Margot-und-Friedrich-Becke-Stiftung am
31.Mai 2008 in Heidelberg) (Univerittsverlag Winter; Heidelberg; 2008) p. 14. Regg cites both
in connection with a lecture he gave on June 17, 1968 in which he claimed the Frankfurt School
had provided the ideological and tactical basisfor the militant actions promoted by the German
SDS (Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund) group at the time. Apparently Adornos comment
was a direct response to Reggs comment. The Molotov cocktails reference in Adornos quoted
comment isnt clear. It should also be noted that Reggs lecture takes a notably hostile tone
toward both Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the head of the Instut fr Sozialforschung that was the
institutional base of the Frankfurt School, a tone not explained by the superficial and even
sneering criticisms he makes of them.
12
La chispa y las realidades Pgina/12 (23.12.2012)
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-210464-2012-12-23.html
16
13
Prior to a shocking mass murder of elementary school children in late 2012, the often unhinged
rhetoric of gun proliferation adovcates like the NRA had not been prominently challenged for
years by most Democrats and certainly not by President Barack Obama. After the defeat in
Congress of a very basic requirement for background checks for weapons purchases that enjoyed
overwhelming public support, it appears that most Democrats and President Obama are content to
resume ducking the issue. Not incidentally, the rejection of a hugely popular background check
legislation was widely discussed in progressive media and blogs as a dramatic frustration of the
popular will by well-heeled business interests; the NRA functions as the primary lobbying arm of
the domestic firearms industry in the US. I did not notice any reports that described it as an
example of repressive tolerance. But it could have been.
17
14
Marvin E. Gettleman et al, Vietnam and America: A Documented History (Grove Press, Inc.;
New York; 1985) pp. 336-7
18
See Resolution on the Black Panther Party of the American SDS (Students for a Democratic
Society) adopted by the SDS National Council 03/ 30/1969 New Left Review July/Aug 1969. It
quotes Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, The correct and uncompromising leadership which the
Black Panther party has brought to the black liberation movement has brought down the most
vicious repression from the racist pig power structure. (emphasis added) The resolution commits
SDS commitment to defend the Black Panther party and the black colony against the vicious
attacks of the racist pig power structure. (emphasis added)
19
Democrats, the failure of the German Communists and Hitlers coming to power.
Whatever the merits of his argument, he wasnt recommending some kind of
violent actionism.
He further argues:
Under a system of constitutionally guaranteed and (generally and
without too many and too glaring exceptions) practiced civil rights
and liberties, opposition and dissent are tolerated unless they issue
in violence and/or in exhortation to and organization of violent
subversion. The underlying assumption is that the established
society is free, and that any improvement, even a change in the
social structure and social values, would come about in the normal
course of events, prepared, defined, and tested in free and equal
discussion, on the open marketplace of ideas and goods.
Marcuse was no babe in the woods. He knew very well that no established order
is likely to willingly tolerate its own subversion. But he goes on here to make a
point referencing the political theory of John Stuart Mill about the underlying
assumption of the function of tolerance in a democratic society and makes an
argument that the assumptions of classical liberalism like Mills do not fully apply
in modern advanced societies.
His more specific discussion of political violence comes in this form:
To discuss tolerance in such a society means to reexamine the
issue of violence and the traditional distinction between violent
and non-violent action. The discussion should not, from the
beginning, be clouded by ideologies which serve the perpetuation
of violence. Even in the advanced centers of civilization, violence
actually prevails: it is practiced by the police, in the prisons and
mental institutions, in the fight against racial minorities; it is
carried, by the defenders of metropolitan freedom, into the
backward countries. This violence indeed breeds violence. But to
refrain from violence in the face of vastly superior violence is one
thing, to renounce a priori violence against violence, on ethical or
psychological grounds (because it may antagonize sympathizers) is
another. Non-violence is normally not only preached to but
exacted from the weak--it is a necessity rather than a virtue, and
normally it does not seriously harm the case of the strong. (Is the
case of India an exception? There, passive resistance was carried
through on a massive scale, which disrupted, or threatened to
disrupt, the economic life of the country. Quantity turns into
quality: on such a scale, passive resistance is no longer passive - it
ceases to be non-violent. The same holds true for the General
Strike.) Robespierre's distinction between the terror of liberty and
21
22
16
There was a rational core in this fear of the segregationist and McCarthyist right. But it is also
part of the background of today's Democratic Party operating with a perpetual inferiority complex
- even when they win on Democratic issues.
23
Mireille Fanon-Mends France, "The Contribution of Frantz Fanon to the Process of the
Liberation of the People"; translated by Donato Fhunsu; The Black Scholar 42/3-4 (2012) pp. 8-12
18
John F. Kennedy, Algeria; The Strategy of Peace (Harper; New York; 1960) pp. 65-81. An
account of the speech is provided by Ted Widmer, The challenge of imperialism, Boston
Sunday Globe 07/15/2007:
http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/pages/Widmer-Globe-2007-July15.pdf
24
the war. But it was clear that he recognized there was justice in the demands of
the independence movement, which fought an urban guerrilla war against the
French. A war in which, he observed specifically, Communists and terrorists
were actively participating:
The next objection most frequently raised is the aid and comfort which
any reasonable settlement would give to the extremists, terrorists, and
saboteurs that permeate the Nationalist movement, to the Communist,
Egyptian, and other outside anti-Western provocateurs that have
clearly achieved some success in penetrating the movement.
Terrorism must be combated, not condoned, it is said; it is not
right to negotiate with murderers. Yet once again this is a
problem which neither postponement nor attempted conquest can
solve. The fever chart of every successful revolution including, of
course, the French - reveals a rising temperature of terrorism and
counterterrorism; but this does not of itself invalidate the legitimate
goals that fi red the original revolution. Most political revolutions including our own - have been buoyed by outside aid in men,
weapons, and ideas. Instead of abandoning African nationalism to the
anti-Western agitators and Soviet agents who hope to capture its
leadership, the United States, a product of political revolution, must
redouble its efforts to earn the respect and friendship of nationalist
leaders. (emphasis added in bold)
Allan Nevins in a note on Kennedys speech explains:
Algeria, with a million French and nearly nine million Moslems [then
a common English spelling], had seen a fierce Nationalist outbreak in
1954 grown into a great and desolating war. The National Liberation
Front, with aid from Morocco and Egypt, had thrown into the field
forces which steadily increasing French armies could not control.
The French colons in Algeria and the French military leaders fighting
there tended to take an intransigent line which separated them from the
more moderate position of most citizens of metropolitan France; the
loyal Moslems and the Moslems in revolt were bitterly opposed to
each other. In the confused situation the conflict became deplorably
cruel, marked by atrocities, massacres, and tortures on both sides.
(emphasis added in bold) 19
In that speech, Kennedy even derided sterile moralizing that ducked the essential
political issues that were not erased by the sins of either side in combat or in the
French prisons where torture was practiced. Calling in politicians words for a
full and frank discussion of the Algerian issue in the US, Kennedy continued:
19
Kennedy/Nevins, op cit p. 67
25
This is not to say that there is any value in the kind of discussion
which has characterized earlier United States consideration of this and
similar problems tepid encouragement and moralizations to both
sides, cautious neutrality on all real issues We have deceived
ourselves into believing that we have thus pleased both sides and
displeased no one with this head-in-the-sands policy when, in truth,
we have earned the suspicion of all.
The problem, he said, is no longer to save a myth of French empire. The problem
is to save the French nation, as well as free Africa. Sounding more like an
historian than a conventional politician, he also said:
Nationalism in Africa cannot be evaluated purely in terms of the
historical and legal niceties argued by the French, and thus far
accepted by the State Department. National self-identification
frequently takes place by quick combustion which the rain of
repression simple cannot extinguish, especially in an area where there
is a common Islamic heritage and where most people including
Algerias closest neighbors in Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya have all
gain political independence. New nationhood is recorded in quick
succession Ghana yesterday, Nigeria perhaps tomorrow, and
colonies in Central Africa moving into dominion status. Whatever the
history and lawbooks may say, we cannot evade the evidence of our
own time, especially we in the Americas whose own experiences
furnish a model from which many of these new nations draw
inspiration.
Kennedys Algeria speech, in other words, looked at both immediate and
historical conditions, recognizing that violence is a real part of history, that
violence can and does come from the side of unjust existing orders and from those
resisting it, and that such violence often results in horrors and atrocities that are
neither legal nor ethical and that cannot be excused or condoned. But political
violence has to be dealt with as a fact of history and politics.
Existential Politics
Placing Kennedys Algeria speech into dialogue with Herbert Marcuses
Repressive Tolerance and Schlesingers Existential Politics and the Cult of
Violence illustrates how close the three pieces actually are in their treatment of
political violence.
Which raises the obvious question, why then did Schlesinger then try to portray
Marcuse and his Repressive Tolerance essay in particular as a reckless
dereliction of intellectual responsibility and as a meaningful contributor to a cult
of the deed?
26
One likely factor is that Schlesinger just misunderstood the perspective of Herbert
Marcuse and the Frankfurt School more generally. One symptom of this, of which
Schlesinger was likely not fully aware, is that Marcuse and other notables of the
Frankfurt School Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Jrgen Habermas
actually voiced similar criticisms to Schlesingers of some student activists,
especially around their lack of political coherency and an actionism that
sometimes expected militant actions in themselves to transform society in the
absence of more traditional political parties and organizations. Schlesingers
concern that the kind of popular political violence he was experiencing real-time
in 1968 would only benefit those on the right was reflected in Habermas
perhaps ill-considered remark that some of the German student and youth
activism he was seeing at that same period looked uncomfortably like left
fascism.
A key problem is that Schlesinger regarded Marcuse as advocating and finding
resonance for a politics of nihilism:
In its positive side, the new creed becomes, so to speak, a kind of
existentialism in politics - a primitive kind, no doubt, but still rooted in
some manner in the existential perception that man dwells in an
absurd universe and defines himself through his choices.
How one can make a creed of nihilism is not entirely clear. But Schlesinger
then links this notion to a Nietzsche quote critiquing rationalism, French social
philosopher Georges Sorels syndicalist ideas, and something like late adoslescent
hormone surges (we must feel and act before we think). Out of this confused
mixture of dubious influences he perceives, Schlesinger derives this about the
militant activists that so troubled his mind in 1968:
In its vulgar form, however, with which we are dealing here,
existential politics becomes the notion that we must feel and act before
we think; it is the illusion that the experience of feeling and action will
produce the insight and the policy.
Existential politics in this form springs much more from Sorel than
from Kierkegaard. Sorel, you will recall, drew a distinction between
myths, which, he said, were "not descriptions of things, but
expressions of a determination to act,'' and utopias, which were
intellectual products, the work of theorists who "seek to establish a
model to which they can compare existing society." Sorel regarded
utopias - that is, rational programs - as contemptible. The myth must
be the basis of action; the myth would produce the revolution, which
would then produce its own program; and "the myth,'' Sorel
emphasized, "must be judged as a means of acting on the present; any
attempt to discuss how far it can be taken literally as future history is
devoid of sense." So, in the footsteps of Sorel, the New Leftists believe
27
in the omnipotence of the deed and the irrelevance of the goal. The
political process is no longer seen as the deliberate choice of means to
move toward a desired end. Where libertarian democracy [i.e., liberal
democracy] had ideally demanded means consistent with the end, and
where the Stalinist left of the Thirties contended that the end justified
the means, the New Left propounds a different doctrine: that the means
create the end. (emphasis added)
In Schlesingers approach, he may have thought he was being charitable in
distinguishing the targets of his criticism from the Stalinist left. (Or he may
have been playing the dont-think-of-an-elephant trick, as in, now Im not saying
my target of criticism is a Stalinist or anything )
Since Marcuse and others associated with the Frankfurt School were known for
their valuing of utopian thinking, how Schlesinger managed to merge that with
the stage of Sorels thought that he references as rejecting utopia is, to put it
mildly, not clear.
But Schlesingers use of the concept of existential politics to contain all this
political theorizing and activist-ing that he found so dubious gives us a plausible
clue to the nature of his misunderstanding. Put briefly, he was drawing lessons
from the German experience of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich that
proceeded from an assumption that cultural and intellectual nihilism produced
Hitlers takeover in Germany, a nihilism that was possibly deeply fundamental to
German culture.
After the Second World War, the question of how the Third Reich could happen
became a major topic, not least in the United States. After decades, the question is
still being discussed and will continue to be. But one of the most common
assumptions in the immediate postwar period came from a national character
assumption about Germany. Not only was the concept of national character then
more common than it is now. If the main question being asked about German
history is what important elements in German history led to the Third Reich, that
can easily elide over into assuming that everything important that happened in
German history somehow led to the Third Reich. Including intellectual history.
This is known to historians as the from Luther to Hitler view of German
history. And something like that was a widespread assumption in the postwar US.
One of the most popular histories of the Third Reich on the American market was
William Shirers The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960). Although he was
considered left-leaning, Shirers book found the roots of Hitlers National
Socialism having been prepared by the thought of Martin Luther and Hegel,
among others. Nietzsche was a more obvious culprit given his writing about the
blond beast and his often harsh-sounding writing about Jews.20
20
The fact that Nietzsche said even harsher things about Christians and Christianity than about
Jews and considered anti-Semites of his day despicable was often not so clearly remembered.
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From Luther to Hitler: The History of Fascist-Nazi Political Philosophy21 was the
title of a 1941 book by William Montgomery McGovern. Herbert Marcuse
himself had reviewed the book in 1942.22 McGovern didnt just find direct
precursors to National Socialism in German thought, but in Thomas Hobbes and
Edmund Burke, as well. Marcuse was not impressed:
although the author notes that German idealism is neglected and
even repudiated by Nationalsocialism [sic], he presents Kant and
above all Hegel as among the most decisive forerunners of Hitler. The
author does not elaborate the fundamental links which connect
German idealism with Western rationalism and individualism, nor
does he show that the social and political order which the idealists
glorified, is, in its fundamental aspects, hostile to the Nationalsocialist
system. His discussion of Hegel's philosophy is inadequate and
frequently incorrect - small wonder since Hegel's Logic is to him
nothing but an abstruse and incomprehensible document.
McGovern's evaluation of pre-Fascist political philosophy arises from
two errors of approach. (1) He bases his analysis on the assumed
fundamental opposition between individualism on the one hand, and
tatisme and authoritarianism on the other. In reality, however,
individualism has itself developed a quite conspicuous form of
tatisme and authoritarianism (as in Hobbes and Kant). It is
antagonistic to the Fascist form, not by virtue of its individualistic
foundation, but because of its different social content and function.
(2) The author assumes that "the political philosophy which dominates
the general public of a given country is the major factor which
determines whether or not a would-be dictator is able to secure
power". This has never been less true than under Fascism and
Nationalsocialism. These cannot be adequately interpreted in terms of
political philosophy, for what appears to be their political
philosophy is nothing but an utterly flexible and opportunistic
ideology that is ex post facto adapted to the social and economic needs
of imperialistic expansion. (emphasis added in bold)
Husserls phenomenology and Martin Heideggers existentialism were major
philosophical trends of the 20th century. Marcuse in his early academic career had
engaged heavily with phenomenology and actually studied under Heidegger at
Heidelberg. Marcuse, like numerous others among Heideggers students and
admirers, was surprised and dismayed when Heidegger emerged in 1933 as a
prominent academic supporter of National Socialism, becoming a Nazi Party
member and remaining one until the end of the war.
21
22
29
Karl Lowith, Heidegger: Problem and Background of Existentialism" Social Research 15/3
(September 1948) pp. 345-369
30
Lowith calls Sartre Heidegger's most original and creative pupil. But Lowith a
Jewish philosopher and former student of Heidegger who was also appalled by
Heideggers support of the Nazi dictatorship - also notes how poorly Heideggers
actual philosophy of existentialism was understood in the West:
In view of the earnestness and radicality of Heidegger's enterprise,
it was a strange mistake when in the twenties those who disliked
existentialism thought that they could dismiss it as a "philosophy
of inflation." But even twenty years after the publication of Sein
und Zeit [Being and Time] one could still read in an article in the
New York Times (July 6, 1947) the following definition of
existentialism: "It was invented by a Nazi, Heidegger; it is a
philosophy of nihilism like Nazism, appropriate to the vacuity
of German life." Unfortunately, for this definition, existentialism
was invented during the Weimar Republic (which offered
Heidegger a chair at Berlin University) when the vacuity of
German intellectual life was still pretty well filled by a host of
other philosophies of "life," "culture," and "values."
Existentialism has outlived not only the Weimar Republic but
also the Third Reich. It has even gained ascendancy and has its
strongest support now in France, the classical country of
Cartesian rationalism. The German postwar climate after the first
world war did perhaps stimulate, but it could not cause, the rise of
existentialism, the germ of which was planted long ago. (emphasis
added in bold)
Conclusion: Schlesinger vs. Marcuse
Much of Schlesingers criticism of Marcuse and his Repressive Tolerance
borders on the tendentious, apparently due to an attempt to pigeonhole Marcuses
thought as a familiar Marxism that could be ritually refuted, a Marxism that was
defined as part of that which is not of the Establishment in the publicized and
administered language of the day, to use Marcuses words from Repressive
Tolerance.
Schlesingers actual discussion of Marcuses Repressive Tolerance essay of
1965 doesnt even qualify as a bad caricature either of Marcuses thought or
specifically of the essay on which he focuses. Schlesinger basically rolled out
some of his favorite Cold War, anti-Communist clichs, found passages in
Repressive Tolerance on which to hang them, and threw in an evil here and a
Stalinist there.
It certainly doesnt rise to the level of Schlesingers professional historical
work.
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And perhaps ironically, Schlesinger shares with Marcuse and the Sen. Jack
Kennedy of the Algeria speech of 1957 a straightforward recognition that
political violence in the real world has and continues to play a real and
significant role, even recognizing that (in Schlesingers own words) limited
amount of violence may stimulate the process of democratic change.
Despite his eagerness to brand Marcuse as an instigator of violence, he
provides no real solution to the real-life dilemma that, even though,
Violence [and] the irresponsible promotion of insurrections are bad
practices in democracy, (Mario Wainfeld) nevertheless a limited amount
of violence may stimulate the process of democratic change (Schlesinger).
In his caricature of Marcuses political thought, he makes use of a dubious
concept of existentialist politics which doesnt seem to be founded on a
real understanding of either Herbert Marcuses thinking or of the philosophy
of existentialism. In the process, Schlesinger provides a good illustration of
what narrow constraints that framework of Cold War liberalism could
impose on clear thought.
Bruce Miller
June 30, 2013
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