A CRITIQUE OF

PURE TOLERANCE/
f

ROBERT PAUL WOLFF

II

BARRINGTON MOORE, JR.

HERBERT MARCUSE

BEACON PRESS

BOSTON

CONTENTS
"Beyond Tolerance" copyright 1965
by Robert Paul Wolff
"Tolerance and the Scientific Outlook"
copyright 1965
by Barrington Moore, Jr.
"Repressive Tolerance" copyright 1965
by Herbert Marcuse
"Postscript 1968" copyright 1969
by Herbert Marcuse
Library of Congress catalogue card number 65-20788
A II rights reserved
Beacon Press books are published under the auspices
of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Printed in the United States of America
First published by Beacon Press in 1965
First published as a Beacon Paperback in 1969
Robert Paul Wolff gratefully acknowledges permission
to reprint a passage from The Loyal and the Disloyal by
Monon Grodzins, copyright 1956 by the University
of Chicago.
International Standard Book Number: 0-8070-1559-8
Fifth printing, December 1970

Foreword

Beyond Tolerance
BY ROBERT PAUL WOLFF

Tolerance and the Scientific Outlook

BY BARRINGTON MOORE, JR.

53

Repressive Tolerance
BY HERBERT MARCUSE

81

FOREWORD

THE authors apologize for the title which

they have lightly yet respectfully plagiarized.
Their small book may contain some ideas that
are not alien to Kant. More than modesty makes
us refer to a footnote in the Critique of Pure
Reason: "the 'I think' expresses the act of determining my existence." We like to apply this sentence not as Kant did here to the transcendental
subject only, but also to the empirical one.
The first essay is by a philosopher steeped in
the analytical tradition, an authority on Kant,
and, if interested in social theory and history, allergic to any emanations from the spirit of Hegel.
The last essay is also by a philosopher, an authority on Hegel, who considers the contemporary
analytical tradition dangerous, where it is not
nonsense. The author of the middle essay is a
sociologist trained in a tradition that regarded all
philosophy as absurd and dangerous. That we
have managed to produce a book together is in
itself some small tribute to the spirit of toleration.
Inhabitants of the larger Cambridge academic
community, we often met and as friends passionately argued some of the issues discussed in the
following pages. Some time ago we agreed to set
down our thoughts about tolerance and its place

vi

Foreword

in the prevailing political climate. Though we

have read and pondered one another's writings,
and m~dified our own views according to our
respective degrees of stubbornness, we have not
so~ght in any .way to merge them. The reader
will have no dtfficulty in finding where we disagree.
. On ~he other hand, from very different stanmg pomts and by very different routes, we arrived at just about the same destination. For each
of us the prevailing theory and practice of tolerance turned out on examination to be in varying
de~r~es hyp?~ritical masks to cover appalling
pohttcal reahttes. The tone of indignation rises
sharply from essay to essay. Perhaps vainly, we
hope ~hat readers will follow the steps in the
reasonmg that produced this result. There is,
after all, a sense of outrage that arises in the head
as well as the heart.
R.P. W.
B. M.
H.M.

BEYOND TOLERANCE
BY ROBERT PAUL WOLFF

THE virtue of a thing, Plato tells us in the

Republic, is that state or condition which en-

ables it to perform its proper function well. The

virtue of a knife is 'its sharpness, the virtue of a
racehorse its fleetness of foot. So too the cardinal
. virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and
justice are excellences of the soul which enable
a man to do well what he is meant to do, viz., to
live.
As each artifact or living creature has its characteristic virtue, so too we may say that each
form of political society has an ideal condition, in
which its guiding principle is fully realized. For
Plato, the good society is an aristocracy of merit
in which the wise and good rule those who are
inferior in talents and accomplishment. The proper distribution of functions and authority is called
by Pla~o "justice," and so the virtue of the Platonic utopia is justice.
Extending this notion, we might say, for example, that the virtue of a monarchy is loyalty,
for the state is gathered into the person of the
king, and the society is bqupd:together by each
subject's personal duty t;Q Ilim. The virtue of a

REPRESSIVE TOLERANCE
BY HERBERT MARCUSE

THis essay examines the idea of tolerance

in our advanced industrial society. The conclusion reached is that the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance
toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions,
and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed. In other words, today tolerance appears
again as what it was in its origins, at the beginning of the modern period-a partisan goal, a subversive liberating notion and practice. Conversely, what is proclaimed and practiced as tolerance
today, is in many of its most effective manifestations serving the cause of oppression.
The author is fully aware that, at present,. no
power, no authority, no government exists which
would translate liberating tolerance into practice, but he believes that it is the task and duty of
the intellectual to recall and preserve historical
possibilities which seem to have become utopian
possibilities-that it is his task to break the concreteness of oppression in order to open the menThis essay is dedicated to my students at; Brandeis
University.

82

Repressive Tolerance

tal space in which this society can be recognized

as what it is and does.
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. Such
a society does not yet exist; progress toward it is
perhaps more than before arrested by violence
and suppression on a global scale. As deterrents
against nuclear war, as police action against subversion, as technical aid in the fight against imperialism and communism, as methods of pacification in neo-colonial massacres, violence and
suppression are promulgated, practiced; :md defended by democratic and authoritarian governments alike, and the people subjected to these
governments are educated td sustain such practices as necessary for the preservation of the
status quo. Tolerance is extended to policies,
conditions, and modes of behavior which should
not be tolerated because they are impeding, if
not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery.
- This sort of tolerance strengthens the tyranny
of the majority against which authentic liberals
protested. The political locus of tolerance has
changed: while it is more or less quietly and constitutionally withdrawn from the opposition, it
is made compulsory behavior with respect to
established policies. Tolerance is turned from an
active into a passive state, from practice to nonpractice: laissez-faire the constituted authorities.

Herbert Marcuse

83

It is the people who tolerate the government,

which in turn tolerates opposition within the
framework determined ?Y the constituted
authorities.
Tolerance toward that which is radically evil
now appears as good because it serves the cohesion of the whole on the road to affluence or
more affluence. The toleration of the systematic
moronization of children and adults alike by
publicity and propaganda, the release of d~struc
tiveness in aggressive driving, the recruitment
for and training of special forces, the impotent
and benevolent tolerance toward outright deception in merchandising, waste, and planned obsolescence are not distortions and aberrations,
they are the essence of a system which fosters
tolerance as a means for perpetuating the struggle for existence and suppressing the alternatives.
The authorities in education, morals, and psychology are vociferous against the incr~ase in
juvenile delinquency; they are less vociferous
~gainst the proud presentation, in word an~ d.eed
and pictures, of ever more powerful missiles,
rockets, bombs--the mature delinquency of a
whole civilization.
According to a dialectical propositton it is
the whole which determines the truth-not in
the sense that the whole is prior or superior
to its parts, but in the sense that i~s structure
and function determine every particular condition and relation. Thus, within a repressive
society, even progressive movements threaten
to turn into their opposite to the degree to
which they accept the rules of the game. To take

84

Repressive Tolerance

a most controversial case: the exercise of political rights (such as voting, letter-writing to the
press, to Senators, etc., protest-demonstrations
with a priori renunciation of counterviolence)
in a society of total administration serves to
strengthen this administration by testifying to
the existence of democratic liberties which, in
reality, have changed their content and lost
their effectiveness. In such a case, freedom (of
opinion, of assembly, of speech) becomes an instrument for absolving servitude. And yet (and
only here the dialectical proposition shows its
full intent) the existence and practice of these
liberties remain a precondition for the restoration
of their original opposit.ional function, provided
that the effort to transcend their (often self-imposed) limitations is intensified. Generally, the
function and value of tolerance depend on the
equality prevalent in the society in which tolerance is practiced. Tolerance itself stands subject
to overriding criteria: its range and its limits cannot be defined in terms of the respective society.
In other words, tolerance is an end in itself only
when it is truly universal, practiced by the rulers
as well as by the ruled, by the lords as well as by
the peasants, by the sheriffs as well as by their
victims. And such universal tolerance is possible
only when no real or alleged enemy requires in
the national interest the education and training
of people in military violence and destruction. As
long as these conditions do not prevail, the conditions of tolerance are "loaded": they are determined and defined by the institutionalized inequality (which is certainly compatible with

Herbert Marcuse

85

constitutional equality), i.e., by the class structure of society. In such a society, tolerance is
de facto limited on the dual ground of legalized
violence or suppression (police, armed forces,
guards of all sorts) and of the privileged position
held by the predominant interests and their "connections."
These background limitations of tolerance are
normally prior to the explicit and judicial limitations as defined by the courts, custom, governments, etc. (for example, "clear and present
danger," threat to national security, heresy).
Within the framework of such a social structure,
tolerance can be safely practiced and proclaimed.
It is of two kinds: ( 1) the passive toleration of
.entrenched and established attitudes and ideas
even if their damaging effect on man and nature
is evident; and ( 2) the active, official tolerance
granted to the Right as well as to the Left, to
movements of aggression as well as to movements
of peace, to the party of hate as well as to that of
humanity. I call this non-partisan tolerance "abstract" or "pure" inasmuch as it refrains from
taking sides-but in doing so it actually protects
the already established machinery of discrimination.
The tolerance which enlarged the range and
content of freedom was always partisan-intolerant toward the protagonists of the repressive
status quo. The issue was only the degree and
extent of intolerance. In the firmly established
liberal society of England and the United States,
freedom of speech and assembly was granted
even to the radical enemies of society, provided

86

Repressive Tolerance

th~y did not make the transition from word to

deed, from speech to action.
Relying on the effective background limitations imposed by its class structure, the society
seemed to practice general tolerance. But liberalist theory had already placed an important condition on tolerance: it was "to apply only to
human beings in the maturity of their fadilties."
John Stuart Mill does not only speak of children
and minors; he elaborates: "Liberty, as a principle, has no application t-o any state of things
anterior to the time when mankind have become
capable of being improved by free and equal
discussion." Anterior to that time, men may
still be barbarians, and "despotism is a legitimate
mode of government in dealing with barbarians,
provided the end be their improvement, and the
means justified by actually effecting that end."
Mill's often-quoted words have a less familiar
implication on which their meaning depends:
the internal connection between liberty arlH
truth. There is a sense in which truth is the end
of liberty, and liberty must be defined and confined by truth. Now in what sense can liberty
be for the sake of truth? Liberty is self-determination, autonomy-this is almost a tautology,
but a tautology which results from a whole series
of synthetic judgments. It stipulates the ability
to determine one's own life: to be able to determine what to do and what not to do, what to
suffer and what not. But the subject of this autonomy is never the contingent, private individual as that which he actually is or happens to be;

Herbert Marcuse

87

it is rather the individual as a human being who is

capable of being free with the others. And the
problem of making possible such a harmony between every individual liberty and the other is
not that of finding a compromise between competitors, or between freedom and law, between
general and individual interest, common and private welfare in an established society, but of
creating the society in which man is no lemger
enslaved by institutions which vitiate self-determination from the beginning. In other words,
freedom is still to be created even for the freest
of the existing societies. And the direction in
which it must he sought, and the institutional
and cultural changes which may help to attain
the goal are, at least in developed civilization,
comprehensible, that is to say, they can be identified and projected, on the basis of experience,
by human reason.
In the interplay of theory and practice, true
and false solutions become distinguishablenever with the evidence of necessity, never as
the positive, only with the certainty of a reasoned and reasonable chance, and with the persuasive force of the negative. For the true positive is the society of the future and therefore
beyond definition and determination, while the
existing positive is that which must be surmounted. But the experience and understanding of the
existent society may well be capable of identifying what is not conducive to a free and rational
society, what impedes and distorts the possibilities of its creation. Freedom is liberation, a spe-

88

Herbert Marcuse

Repressive Tolera12ce

cific historical process .in theory and practice,

and as such it has its right and wrong, its truth
and falsehood.
The uncertainty of chance in this distinction
does not cancel the historical objectivity, but it ...
necessitates freedom of thought and expression
as preconditions of finding the way to freedomit necessitates tolerance. However, th:-,tolerance
cannot be indiscriminate and equal ~th respect
to the contents of expression, neither in word
nor in deed; it cannot prt>tect false words and
wrong deeds which demonstrate that they contradict and counteract the possibilities of liberation. Such indiscriminate tolerance is justified in
harmless debates, in conversation, in academic
discussion; it is indispensable in the scientific enterprise, in private religion. But society cannot
be indiscriminate where the pacification of existence, where freedom and happiness themselves
are at stake: here, certain things cannot be said,
certain ideas cannot be expressed, certain policies
cannot be proposed, certain behavior cannot be
permitted without making tolerance an instrument for the continuation of servitude.
The danger of "destructive tolerance" (Baudelaire), of "benevolent neutrality" toward art
has been recognized: the market, which absorbs
equally well (although with often quite sudden
fluctuations) art, anti-art, and non-art, all possible conflicting styles, schools, forms, provides a
"complacent receptacle, a friendly abyss" (Edgar Wind, Art and Anarchy (New York:
Knopf, 1964), p. 101) in which the radical impact of art, the protest of art against the estab-

I
\

(
'f

89

lished reality is swallowed up. However, censorship of art and literature is regressive under all
circumstances. The authentic oeuvre is not and
cannot be a prop of oppression, and pseudo-art
(which can be such a prop) is not art. Art stands
against history, withstands history which has
been the history of oppression, for art subjects
reality to laws other than the established ones: to
the laws of the Form which creates a different
reality-negation of the established one even
where art depicts the established reality. But in
its struggle with history, art subjects itself to
history: history enters the definition of art and
ent~rs into the distinction between art and
pseudo-art. Thus it happens that what was once
art becomes pseudo-art. Previous forms, styles,
and qualities, previous modes of protest and refusal cannot be recaptured in or against a different society. There are cases where an authentic
oeuvre carries a regressive political messageDostoevski is a case in point. But then, the message is canceled by the oeuvre itself: the regressive political content is absorbed, aufgehoben in
the artistic form: in the work as literature.
Tolerance of free speech is the way of improvement, of progr.ess in liberation, not because
there is no objective truth, and improvement
must necessarily be a compromise between a
variety of opinions, -~~~re~lLQ~.:_ <;;~-
j!!~-~!Ll!!~IL~hi!L.-CEJ:!l be .discovered, ascertained only in learning a;;:~r<:;;;Tipreh~i'iding that
which is and that which can be and ought to be
done for the sake of improving the lot of mankind. This common,and historical "ought" is not

Repressive

90

r"-

Tole.~'lnce

immediately evident, at hand: it has to be uncovered by "cutting through," "splitting,"

"breaking asunder" ( dis-cutio) t'he giveh material-separating right and wrong, good and bad,
correct and incorrect. The subject whose "improvement" depends on a progressive historical
practice is each man as man, and this universality
is reflected in that of the discussion, which a
priori does not exclude any group or individual.
But even the all-inclusive character of liberalist
tolerance was, at least in theory, based on the
proposition that men were (potential) individuals who could learn to hear and see and feel by
themselves, to develop their own thoughts, to
grasp their trite interests and rights and capabilities, also agains,_esta~lished auth()~i!L~ni.QQ:. This was the rationale of free. speech and assembly. !Jniver~Lt:~_leration bec?Il1es q~estion
able when its rationale.. longer p~ey~ils,~fien
foleranceis.a<llliiiii'srerea to~~dandJn-

no

42!1i~ited 125!Iii4~alswho parrot~ a_~i.~~~n,

th~.2Pil}~()l!.<>tlh~I~:~!l~.t~~"f,Tor whom heteronomy has become autonomy.
The telos of tolerance is truth. It is clear from
the historical record that the ~~thentic spokesmen of tolerance had more and other truth in
j!jL~fiilan th;; o{ p;~P;;(i~~;;t-iogi~";~rl;~~demic 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 dun-

Herbert Marcuse

91

geons 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 ~e
heretics-the historical road toward humanttas
;qlpeais~ 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 includ'es 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. The correction
does not help the victims and does not absolve
their executioners. However, the lesson is clear:
i,m:olerance has delayed progress and has ~a
longed the..slaughter and torture of innocents for \
h~nd~~~-gf_years. Does this clinch the case for)
indiscriminate, "E!!rt;" tolera!!ce? Are there historical conditions in which ~h toleration
-.}:!edes liberatiQ.Q. and multiplies the victims who \
are sacrificed to the status quo? .,Can the indis- (
.cr~ranty of political rights and li~r
..ties be r~ressive? Can such tolerance serve to
contain quaiTtatlve social change?
I shall discuss this question only with refer- ~
ence to political movements, attitudes, schools. of
thought, philosophies which are "p.Qliti~~l" in
the widest sense-affecting the societJasa-whole,
demonstrably transc~ndin_g_tb,e_.sphere of priva, cy. Moreover, I propose a shift in the focus of
the discussion: it will be concerned not only, and
y--~-~'~""'"~--'"''""'~~-~~~-=--~---~~>---Y-'-'-">-~--~--~...._-~.,_-~. ~

i,w.:-\

1r6

I
92

Repressive Tolerance

not primarily, with tolerance toward radical extremes, minorities, subversives, etc., but rather
with tolerance toward rna orities, toward official
~:ul<:Lp!!.!?lk__Q~~-~~I<!..!h_~-~l!tlu.s~ ecCpro_!_~.t.<:>E~_<:>f_f!"~~p?m. In this case, the discussion
can have. as a frame of reference only a democratic society, in which the people, as individuals
and as members of political and other organizations, participate in the making, sustaining, and
changing policies. In an authoritarian system, the
people do not tolerate-they suffer established
policies.
Under a system of constitutionally guaranteed
and (generally and without too many and too
glaring exceptions) practiced civil rights and
liberties, o~sition and dissent are tol~n
tess they_ issue in vio~nce and/or in exhortation
t~l!~.T~ization of violent subversion. The
underlying assumption is that the establisfied 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.* Now in recalling John Stuart
* I wish to reiterate for the following discussion that,
de facto, tolerance is not indiscriminate and "pure" even
in the most democratic society. The "background limitations" stated on page 85 restrict tolerance before it begins to operate. The antagonistic structure of society
rigs the rules of the game. Those who stand against the
established system are a priori at a disadvantage, which
is not removed by the toleration of their ideas, speeches,
and newspapers.

Il
l

Herbert Marcuse

93

Mill's passage, I drew attention to the premise

hidden in this assumption: free and e~al discus--\
s\mtcan fulfill the functionattnbmed to""1i"only (
iLitJs nifiqn_ai~~~i5,!21!~~~~-~~~~~!()~erit of
free from
ma!!!E~!-~!i<:>!l-'--~~E~ne~us
notion ~-
of Fil!!;t_li~lJ1and counte!VaiTliig)owers isnosubstitute for this requirement. One might in theory
construct a state in which a multitude of different pressures, interests, and authorities balance
each other out and result in a truly general and
rational interest. However, such a construct badly fits a society in which powers are and remain
unequal and even increase their unequal weight
when they run their own course. It fits even
worse when the variety of pressures unifies and
coagulates into an overwhelming whole, integrating the particular countervailing powers by
virtue of an increasing standard of living and an
increasing concentration of power. Then, the
laborer, whose real interest conflicts with that
of management, .the common consumer whose
real interest conflicts with that of the producer,
the intellectual whose vocation conflicts with
that of his employer find themselves submitting
to a system against which they are powerless and
appear unreasonable. The ideas of the available
alternatives evaporates into an utterly utopian
dimension in which it is at home, for a free society is indeed unrealistically and undefinably
different from the existing ones. Under these
circumstances, whatever improvement may occur "in the normal course of events" and with-

il.l_<!~p~Q~:}_~gLthi~~

indoctri~Iion, ?

?u-thorliy:--rlie.

Repressi'l./e Tolerance

94

out subversion is likely to be improvement in

. ;~;:~-direction dete!:mined by the ~icular in~~r
-."";;::::c>ests which control the whole.
-By -the same token,-those. ~inoriti~s which
strive for a change of the whole Itself will, under
optimal conditions which rarely prevail, be left
free to deliberate and discuss, to speak and to
assemble-and will be left harmless and helpless
in the face of the overwhelming majority, which
militates against qualitative social change. This
/majority is firmly grounded in t~e increasing
satisfaction of needs, and technological and mental coordination, which testify to the general
helplessness of radical groups in a well-functioning social system.
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 ~ommunist a?d
the Fascist, the Left and the Rtght, the whtte
and the Negro, the crusaders for armament and
for disarmament. Moreover, in endlessly dragging debates over the media, the stup~d op~nion
is treated with the same respect as the mtelhgent
one, the misinformed may talk as long as the informed, and propaganda rides along with education, truth with falsehood. Tilis.J~!!~ra
.tiQ..Il..Of sense !!ruL!!onsense is justi~ed by ~e
democratic argument that nobody, neither group
~ocindividual, is in ~o~ssig_n of the truth and
~ore--ofahnm what is ri ht ~nd ~r~,
~oo2_~nd_bad: There~?re, all con~estm~ opn~tons
must be submitted to the people for Its dehber-.
ation and choice. But
I have already suggested
.e::
c;:

Herbert Marcuse

95

that the democratic argument implies a necessary

condition, namely, that the people must be capable of deli.berating and choosing on the basis of
knowledge, that th~_ m~~~.J2ave acce~s to _~m
thentic information; and that, on this basis, their
~~~luatiorimust: oeme-:result--or a:monomous
ti}Q~ght: . .

Iri the contemporary period, the democratic

argument for abstract tolerance tends to be invalidated by the invalidation of the democratic
process itself. The liberating force of democracy
was the chance it gave to effective dissent, on the
individual as well as social scale, its openness to
qualitatively different forms of government, of
culture, education, work-of the human existence in general. 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. 13_ut with_!.ll~-f~
centrati.Q!L~i.~~?.E_9~ic and political power and
-~-i.!l.~~g'E_~!ion of opposites in a societ~lch
uses technology as an mstrume~nati(Yn,
effective dissentlsbl0c~11Cfe it coUIOfreely
~mer~ in._!;he formation of opinior;. it;!_~~a
tiQ.uand. commun_JS~.._m_sp~i.!;handassemDfy.
Under the rule of monopolistic media-themselves the mere instruments of economic and political power-a mentality is created for which
right and wrong, true and false are predefined
wherever they affect the vital interests of the society. This is, prior to all expression and communication, a matter of semantics: the blocking
of effective dissent, of the recognition of that
~his;;__b_j~_!!Q.~--~f the Establlslll:nem-whlclioegms
- - - - - - -.._--~......_,._,_,.. _________ ,___.~<-~-__...._. __~-----

96

Repressive Tolerance

2_~--~~-:_}~_~g~~g~--~!!~!- is publicized ~~~-:l_~!!li~~s

tere~~ The meaning of wOrdsisrigidly stabilized.
Rational persuasion, persuasion to the opposite is
all but precluded. The avenues of entrance are
dosed to the meaning of words and ideas other
than the established one-established by the publicity of the powers that be, a.nd verified in their
practices. Other words can be spoken and heard,
other ideas can be expressed, but, at the massive
scale of the conservative majority (outside such
enclaves as the intelligentsia), they are immediately "evaluated" (i.e. automatically understood)
in terms of the public language-a language
which determines "a priori" the direction in
which the thought process moves. Thus the
process of reflection ends where it started: in
the given conditions and relations. Self-validating, the argument of the discussion repels the
contradiction because the antithesis is redefined
in terms of the thesis. For example, thesis: we
work for peace; antithesis: we prepare for war
(or even: we wage war) ; unification of oppti>sites: preparing for war is working for peace.
Peace is redefined as necessarily, in the prevailing situation, including preparation for war (or
even war) and in this Orwellian form, the meaning of the word "peace" is stabilized. Thus, the
basic vocabulary of the Orwellian language operates as a priori categories of understanding:
preforming all content. ~e conditions invalida~__t_!le.-}Qgic of tolerance ;}Ucfi involves the
rational development of me~n~~_gg_pr~_c;ludes
the_J9ii_f.i:g_()_(meaninf--Consequently, persuasion through discussion and the equal presenta-

Herbert Marcuse

97

tion of dpposites (even where it is really equal)

easily lose their liberating force as factors of understanding and learning; they are far more
likely to strengthen the established thesis and to
repel the alternatives.
Impartiality to the utmost, equal treatment of
competing and conflicting issues is indeed a basic
requirement for decision-making in the democratic process-it is an equally basic requirement
for defining the limits of tolerance. But in a de~~cracy with totalitarian organization, ()!>}<!~
tivity m::ty_fulfill a very different function, name1y, t()Joster a mental attitude which tends to obliter.~t~~th~ ------~-~~--ditre:renceoaween-irueani:rialse '
-~-------

inJormatiorr~nd inQ.()_tr1n~Ion;nglitandwnmg.
In fact,. the -~e~ision betweenoppose<roplllions

has been made before the presentation and discussion get under way-made, not by a conspiracy or a sponsor or a publisher, not by any dictatorship, ~-_!ather by the '~110!!!la!_course of
~events," which is the course of admiru5tered
.
events, ~~-~-~~l. the mentality shaped in..........
this
.
.__our~e. H ere, too, It Is the whole wnich determines the truth. Then the decision asserts itself
without any open violation of objectivity, in'
such things as the make-up of a newspaper (with
the breaking up of vital information into bits
interspersed between extraneous material, irrelevant items, rele ating. of some radically negative
.n~:w..~tQ. .~l1()___~~~~J~-~-~~e , in t e JUX~TtiOn of
gorg_@us _!!.!is :with _1!!!fllit_~~~fl__ horrors~--~ii-The
----~--

---~-~~-----------c------

lt~trq9!!.<:~an<l intermR!i.9JL<:>.fi!i~~hro~dcast

.iitg of t~~ !>Y..9-~~~h~!!'i!![.~~:_~C1a1s:Tiie

result Is a "!!!!:!!!!.!!.~JJ:..On of opposites, aneutrali-----..
...... .
--~"""-~------~-'--'"

-~

98

Repressive Tolerance

zation, however, which takes place on the firm

grounds of the structural limitation of tolerance
and 'Y~E:~~~ P..E~(<;>!!!!~~-m~n.tality. When a magazine prints side by side a negative and a positive
report on the FBI, it fulfills honestly the requirements of objectivity: hQl\"ev~~!~-~~~!:1.<::.~~- a~e
th~!E~~-P2~!tiv~--~in~_~ec_a~-~:_!E.~-~~f the
if1sEit~~i?E}~-~::p}y__t:~_g:raved in the mind of the
people. Or, if a newscaster reports tneeorture
. and murder of civil rights workers in the same
'; unem_otional tone he uses t. o describe the stock( market or the weather, or with the same great
emotion with which he says his commercials,
then silch objectivity is spurious-more, it of~ \ . . f~ins!__hm!!~tl!U':..~!:J.d tru_ili_Qy__~-~~fm
I'J{:l
where one should be enraged, by refraining from
"'!
----------------------------------------~---------------\ ac:~~~~~~~ ~~:E~-~<:SE.~~ti~f1..!~. in_!~:.fa<;_t~.!~~m>",..""
selves. '(!le tolerance expressed in such i~ar7
d~Iiti~:i.~~~?--~-;:}!~~~~-~f~-~-e~-absolve prevaili_gg intolerance and s~pp_t:t;!s_si2.!i~-Hobjecti':i
ty has anything to do with t~h, ~f truth is
more than a matter of logic and science, then this
kind of objectivity is false, and this kind of tolerance inhuman. And if it is necessary to break the
established universe of meaning (and the practice enclosed in this universe) in order to enable
man to find out what is true and false, this de----~-----~-...-...
~tive impartiality woul~ye !2.Q~~~~~oned.
The people exposed to this impartiality are no
tabulae rasae, they are indoctrinated bythe conditions under which they live and think and
which they do not transcend. To enable them to
become autonomous, to find by themselves what
is true and what is false for ~an in the existing

Herbert Marcuse

99

society, ~~uld have to be freed from t~e

erevailing indoctrinatiop. ( ~h.-~~---~-t1.?-.}(.)~g:r
recQggi_~_<:!_ as-~?~t.~!Ila._~on). But thts means
that the trend would have to be reversed: they
would have to get information slanted in the opposite direction. For the facts are never given
immediately and never accessible immediately;
they are.established, "mediated" by those who
made them; the truth, "the whole truth" surpasses these facts and requires the rupture with
their appearance. This rupture-prerequisite and
token of all freedom of thought and of speechcannot .be accomplished within the established
framework of abstract tolerance and spurious objectivity.... b. ecause these are precisely t.h. e. fac t.ors

~hish_precondition the mind against t~e~pt\1~~:__/

The factual barriers which totalitarian democracy erects against the efficacy of qualitative
dissent are weak and pleasant enough compared
with the practices of a dictatorship which claims
to educate the people in the truth. ~ith....alLits
limitations and distortions, democratic tolerance

~;;d~;ii~i;~ilmstai:i"ces--morehumaiiethan an
-i~;ti~t~n;lizetfllitoleraiice--wliich sacrifices the
E&11rsat1<f11bertiesofili~:_lly!~[[e~~rati(}~s for
Jh~~~a~e ()ffuture- generations. '{he question is
~~ onl~ve. I shall pres-

efltfy try to siiggesttlleairection in which an

answer may be sought. In any case, the contrast
is not between democracy in the abstract and
dictatorship in the abstract.
Democracy is a form of government which fits
very different types of society( this holds true

Repressive Tolerance

100

even for a democracy with universal suffrage

and equality before the law), and the human
costs of a democracy are always and everywhere
those exacted by the society whose government
it is. Their range extends all the way from normal exploitation, poverty, and insecurity to the
victims of wars, police actions, military aid, etc.,
in which the society is engaged-and not only to
the victims within its own frontiers. These considerations can never justify the exacting of different sacrifices and different victims on behalf
of a future better society, but they do allow
weighing the costs involved in the perpetuation
of an existing society against the risk of promoting alternatives which offer a reasonable chance
of pacification and liberation. Surely, no government can be expected to foster its own subversion, but in a democracy such a right is vested
in the people (i.e. in the majority of the people).
This means that the ways should not be blocked
on__~hi~l!...~,!!bv-;-rsive majority-col.II~f'd~;:~iop,
and if they are blocked by organized represSion
and indoc~rination 1_their reoE_~nlQg__!!!~Y~~j_re
~-~El~arently_\Lndemocratic mean_s. They would in- elude the withdrawal of toleration of speech and
assembly from groups and movements which
promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and
religion, or which oppo.se the extension of public
services, social security, medical care, etc. Moreover, t~tion of teedOIILDiJ:hmlg:ht.may

!!

~-~gid--restr~_QgJ;~.ach

ings.._and

practi~

the educational institutions

"YE~-~Y~~ v:_l):'._!!!~hod~_anfi_Q!1~..epts~~-

Herbert Marcuse

101

to enclose the_mind-w.ithirr-the-esta-b.lished uni- y,;;,"'""

~F1
y;-~ gf~fO"QfSe and behavior-thereby.pre~!l1_?ing a priori a rational evaluation_gft_h_(! al. ~~E~~1iy~::Ana rot:neaeg:reero~whi~h freedom
of thought involves the struggle against inhumanity, restoration of such freedom would also
imp~y: ,intolerance toward scienti~h in
the mt~a~ts," of abnonnal
----------~~~--
-~-::---..
human endurance unacrinhuman conditions,
etc. I shall presently discuss the question as to
~j~-~c!_e on the dist}!!~Y2.!l.~~~~~~-lib
e~~- and repressive, ~~--~!!-~_jnhuman
!.~:~~~g~~nd practices; I have already suggested
th~t-~!!i.~~tirictis ~~!_~Iri~f~~~~?!~~~!l1.~Tref~r~n~~-hill.9L!1l!!gn.alcriteria.
While the reversal of the trend in the educational enterprise at least could conceivably be
enforced by the students and teachers themselves, and thus be self-imposed, the systematic
withdrawal of tolerance toward regressive and
repressive opinions and movements could only
be envisaged as results of large-scale pressure
which would amount to an upheaval. In other
words, it would er~~J?E.<?J>.~__!h_at"-Yhkb.i~_giJLto
. be .l!~Q!!!~li~h.~_;_t~ersal of the trend. However, resistance at particlliaf'occasions, boycott,
non-participation at the local and small-group
level may perhaps prepare the ground. The subversive character of the restoration of freedom
appears most clearly in that dimension of society
where false tolerance and free enterprise do perhaps the most serious and lasting damage, namely, in business and publicity. Against the emphatic-msisfence-orrlhepart of spokesmen for

---

102

Repressive Tolerance

labor, I maintain that practices such as planned

obsolescence, collusion between union leaders}lip
and management, slanted publicity are not simply imposed from above on a powerless rank and
file, but are tolerated by them-and by the consumer at large. However, it would be ridiculous
to speak of a possible withdrawal of tolerance
with respect to these practices and to the ideologies promoted by them. For they pertain to
the basis on which the repressive affluent society
rests and reproduces itself and its vital defenses
-their removal would be that total revolution
which this society so effectively repels.
To discuss tolerance in such a society means
to re-examine the issue of violence and the traditional distinction between violent and nonviolent 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 atagonize 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 d(jes not seriously harm the case
of the strong. (Is the case of India an exception?

Herbert Marcuse

103

There,_ passive resistance was carried through on

a ma_ssiVe scale,. which disrupted, or threatened
to dis~upt, the. economic life of the country.
<?uantlt_Y turns _mto quality: o.n.~ ~ scale, pas- .??
.IV~~~~~tan~~~ ~SSIVe-It C~ t0_3 ~ "
_be.n~~~vi?JCnt. The same holds true for the General Strike.) Robespierre's distinction between
the te:ror of liberty and the.terror of despotism,
and his moral glorification of the former belongs
t? the most convincingly condemned aberratiOn~, even if the white terror was more bloody
~han the red terror. The comparative evaluation
m .terms of the number of victims is the quantifymg approach which reveals the man-made horror throughout history that made violence a
necessity. In terms of historical function there is
a diff~rence between revolutionary and ;eactionary vwlence, between violence practiced by the
oppressed and by the oppressors. In terms of
ethics, both forms of violence are inhuman and
evil-but' since when is history made in accordance with ethical standards? To start applying
the~ at the point where the oppressed rebel
agams~ the o.Ppressors, the have-nots against the
haves Is. servmg the cause of actual violence by
weakenmg the protest against it.
Comprenez enfin ceci: si la violence a com~enc~ ce ~oir, .si !'exploitation ni !'oppression
n_ont pmais_ ex~ste sur ter~e, peut-etre la nonviOlence affiichee peut apaiser la querelle. Mais
si. le regime tout entier et jusqu'a vos nonvwlent~s pen~e~s s?nt condi~ionnees par une
oppresswn mlllenaire, votre passivite ne sert

104

Repressive Tolerance
Herbert Marcuse

qu'a vous ranger du cote des oppresseurs.

(Sartre, Preface to Frantz Fanon, Les Damnes
de la Terre, Paris: Maspero, 1961, p. 22).
The very notion of false tolerance, and the distinction between right and wrong limitations on
tolerance, between progressive and regressive
indoctrination, revolutionary and reactionary
violence demand the statement of criteria for its
validity. These standards must be prior to whatever constitutional and legal criteria are set up
and applied in an existing society (such as "clear
and present danger," and other established definitions of civil rights and liberties), for such definitions themselves presuppose standards of freedom and repression as applicable or not applicable in the .I"espective society: they are specifications of triore general concepts. By whom, and
according to what standards, can the political
distinction between true and false, progressive
and regressive (for in this sphere, these pairs are
equivalent) be made and its validity be justified?
At the outset, I propose that the question cannot
be answered in terms of the alternative between
democracy and dictatorship, according to which,
in the latter, one individual or group, without
any effective control from below, arrogate to
themselves the decision. Historically, even in the
most democratic democracies, the vital and final
decisions affecting the society as a whole have
been made, constitutionally or in fact, by one or
several groups without effective control by the
people themselves. The ironical question: who
educates the educators (i.e. the political leaders)

105

also ap~lies to democracy. The only authentic

alternative and negation of dictatorship (with
resfect to this question) would be a society in
whtch "the people" have become autonomous individuals, freed from the repressive requirements
?f a. struggle for existence in the interest of dommatton, and as such human beings choosing their
go~ernment and determining their life. Such a
s?ctety does not yet exist anywhere. In the meantime, the question must be treated in abstractoabstraction, not from the historical possibilities,
but from the realities of the prevailing societies.
I suggested that the distinction between true
a.nd false tolerance, between progress and regresSion can be made rationally on empirical
grounds. The real possibilities of human freedom
are relative to the attained stage of civilization.
They depend on the material and intellectual resources a~ailable at the respective stage, and they
are quantifiable and calculable to a high degree.
So are, at the stage of advanced industrial society, the most .ra~ion~l ways of using these re.,
so~r~es and dtstnbutmg the social product with
pnonty on the satisfaction of vital needs and
with a ~i~mum. of toil and injustice. In other
words, It 1s posstble to define the direction in
which prevailing institutions, policies, opinions
would have to be changed in order to improve
the chance of a peace which is not identical with
cold war and a little hot war, and a satisfaction
of n~eds whi<:h d~es ~ot feed on poverty, oppressiO~, and e~plmtat10n. Consequently, it is also posstbl~ to tdentify policies, opinions, movements whtch would promote this chance, and

106

Repressive Tolerance

those which would do the opposite. Suppression

of the regressive ones is a prerequisite for the
strengthening of the progressive ones.
The question, who is qualified to make all
these distinctions, definitions, identifications for
the society as a whole, has now one logical answer, namely, everyone "in the maturity of his
faculties" as a human being, everyone who 4as
learned to think rationally and autonomously.
The answer to Plato's educational dictatorship
is the democratic educational dictatorship of free
men. John Stuart Mill's conception of the res
publica is not the opposite of Plato's: the liberal
too demands the authority of Reason not only
as an intellectual but also as a political power. In
Plato, rationality is confined to the small number of philosopher-kings; in Mill, every rational
human being participates in the discussion and
decision-but only as a rational being. Where society has ente.r:ed the phase of total administration and indoctrination, this would be a small
number indeed, and not necessarily that of the
elected representatives of the people. The problemis not that of an educational dictatorship, but
that of breaking the tyranny of public opinion
and its makers in the closed society.
However, granted the empirical rationality of
the distinction between progress and regression,
and granted that it may be applicable to tolerance, and may justify strongly discriminatory
tolerance on political grounds (cancellation of
the .liberal creed of free and equal discussion),
another impossible consequence would follow. I
said that, by virtue of its inner logic, withdrawal

Herbert Marcuse

107

of. to.Ierance from regressive movements, and discnmma~ory tolerance in favor of progressive
tendencies would be tantamount to the "official"
promotion of subversion. The historical calculus
of progress (which is actually the calculus of the
pros~ective reduct~on of cruelty, misery, suppression) seems to mvolve the calculated choice
between two forms of political violence: that on
the. part. ~f the legally constituted powers (by
their legitimate action, or by their tacit consent,
or by their inability to prevent violence), and
that on the part of potentially subversive moveme?ts. Moreover, with respect to the latter, a
po~Icy of unequal treatment would protect radicalism on theLeft against that on the Right. Can
the ~isto.rical.calculus be reasonably extended to
the JUStificatiOn of one form of violence as
agai?st another? Or better (since "justification"
carnes a moral connotation), is there historical
evidence to the effect that the social origin and
impetus of violence (from among the ruled or
the ruling classes, the have or the have-nots, the
Left or the Right) isin a demonstrable relation
to progress (as defined above)?
With all the qualifications of a hypothesis
based on an "open" historical record it seems
that the violence emanating from the r~bellion of
the oppressed classes broke the historical conti~uum of injustice, cruelty, and silence for a
bn~f mom~nt, brief but explosive enough to
~ch~eve an Increase in the scope of freedom and
JUSt.Ice, and .a better and more equitable distributiOn o~ misery and oppression in a new social
system-m one word: progress in civilization.

108

Repressive Tolerance

The English civil wars, the French Revolution,

the Chinese and the Cuban Revolutions may
illustrate the hypothesis. In contrast, the one historical change from one social system to another,
marking the beginning of a new period in civilization, which was not sparked and driven by an
effective .movement "from below," namely, the
collapse of the Roman Empire in the West,
brought about a long period of regression for
long centuries, until a new, higher period of .
civilization was painfully born in the violence of
the heretic revolts of the thirteenth century and
in the peasant and laborer revolts of the fourteenth century .1
With respect to historical violence emanating
from among ruling classes, no such relation to
progress seems to obtain. The long series of dynastic and imperialist wars, the liquidation of
Spartacus in Germany in 1919, Fascism and Nazism did not break but rather tightened and
streamlined the continuum of suppression. I said
emanating "from among ruling classes": to be
sure, there is hardly any organized violence from
above that does not mobilize and activate mass
support from below; the decisive question is, on
behalf of and in the interest of which groups and
institutions is such violence released? And the
answer is not necessarily ex post: in the historical
examples just mentioned, it could be and was
anticipated whether the movement would serve
' In modern times, fascism has been a consequence of
the transition to industrial society without a revolution.
See Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship
and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).

Herbert Marcuse

109

the revamping of the old order or the emergence

of the new.
Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right,
and toleration of movements from the Left. As
to the scope of this tolerance and intolerance:
... it would extend to the stage of action as well
as of discussion and propaganda, of deed as well
as of word. 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." It is a situation in which the total catastrophy could be triggered off any moment, not only by a technical error, but also by a rational
miscalculation of risks, or by a rash speech of
one of the leaders. In past and different circumstances, the speeches of the Fascist and Nazi
leaders were the immediate prologue to the massacre. The distance between the propaganda and
the action, between the organization and its release on the pe.ople had become too short. But
the spreading of the word could have been
stopped before it was too late: if democratic
tolerance had been withdrawn when the future
leaders started their campaign, . m~nkind would
h~y~ h~d.. aJ::b.ance ofavoiding. Auschwitz and' a
)Yorl<J War.

The whole post-fascist period is one of clear
and present danger. Consequently,.!!!!~ pacifica.!lQ!!J.:~q.Yires. the. withdrawal oftolerance before
.!!Ie l:le~<:J, at the ~tage of communication in word,
J?!i.~.!L3;11Q. picture~ Such extreme suspension of
the right of free speech and free assembly is in-

110

Repressive Tolerance

?eed justified only if the whole of society is

~n. extreme danger. I maintain that our society
IS m such an emergency situation, and that it has
become the normal state of affairs. Different
opinions and "philosophies" can no longer compe~e peacefully for adherence and persuasion on
ratiOnal grounds: the "marketplace of ideas" is
organized and delimited by those who determine
the national and the individual interest. In this
society, for which the ideologists have proclaimed the "end of ideology," the false consciousness has become the general consciousness
-from the government down to its last objects.
The s~all and powerless minorities which struggle agamst the false consciousness and its beneficiaries must be helped: their continued existence is more important than the preservation of
a~used rights and liberties which grant constitut~onal powers to those who oppress these minori-...
ues. It should be evident by now that the exercise
of civil rights by those who don't have them presupposes the withdrawal of civil rights from
those who prevent their exercise, and that liberation of the Damned of the Earth presupposes
suppression not only of their old but also of their
new masters.
Withdraw~l of tolerance from regressive
movements before they can become active; intolerance even toward thought, opinion, and
wor~, and fin.ally, intolerance in the opposite direction, that IS, toward the self-styled conservatives, to the political Right-these anti-democratic notions respond to the actual development of
the democratic society which has destroyed the

Herbert Marcuse

>

111

basis for universal tolerance. The conditions un?er which tolerance can again become a liberatmg and humanizing force have still to be created.
When tolerance mainly serves the protection
and preservation of a repressive society, when it
serves to neutralize opposition and to render
men immune against other and better forms of
life, then tolerance has been perverted. And
when this perversion starts in the mind of the
individual, in his consciousness, his needs, when
heteronomous interests occupy him before he
can experience his servitude, then the efforts to
counteract his dehumanization must begin at the
place of entrance, there where the false consciousness takes form( or rather: is systematically
formed)-it must begin with stopping the words
and images which feed this consciousness. To
be sure, this is censorship, even precensorship,
--: but- openly directed against the more or less hid.den censorship. that permeate:) the free media.
Wher~ the ~alse consciousness has become prevalent m national and popular behavior, it trans:.
lates itself almost immediately into practice:
the saf~ distance between ideology and reality,
repressive thought and repressive action, be{ween the word of destruction and the deed of
destruction is dangerously shortened. Thus, the
b~eak throug~ the false consciousness may provid~ the Arch1medean point for a larger emancipation-at an infinitesimally small spot, to be
sure, but it is on the enlargement of such small
spots that the chance of change depends,
The forces of emancipation cannot be identified with any social class which, by virtue of its

112

Herbert Marcuse

Repressive Tolerance

material condition, is free from false consciousness. Today, they are hopelessly dispersed
t?rough~ut the society, and the fighting minorities a~d Isolated; groups are often in opposition .
to their own leadership. In the society at large,'
the mental space for denial and reflection must
first be recreated. Repulsed by the concreteness
of the administered society, the effort of emancipation becomes "abstract"; it is reduced to
facilitating the recognition of what is going on
to .freeing language from the tyranny of the Or~
wellian syntax and logic, to developing the concepts that comprehend reality. More than ever,
the proposition holds true that progress in freedom demands progress in the consciousness of
freedom. Where the mind has been made into a
subject-object of politics and policies, intellectual autonomy, the realm of "pure" thought has
become a matter of political education (or rather: counter-education).
This means that previously neutral, value-free,
formal aspect~ of learning and teaching now become, on thetr own grounds and in their own
right, political: learning to know the facts, the
whole truth, and to comprehena it is radical c.dticism throughout, intellectual subversion. In a
world in which the human faculties and needs
are arrested or perverted, autonomous thinking
leads into a "perverted world": contradiction
and counter-image of the established world of
repression. And this contradiction is not simply
stipulated, is not simply the product of confused
thinking or phantasy, but is the logical development of the given, the existing world. To the

I
1\

113

?egree to which this development is actually

Impeded by the sheer weight of a repressive society and the necessity of making a living in it,
repressi~n invades the academic enterprise itself,
even prior to all restrictions on academic freedom. The pre-empting of the mind vitiates impartiality and objectivity: unless the student
learns to think in the opposite direction, he will
be inclined to place the facts into the predominans_.framework of values. Scholarship, i.e. the
acquisition and communication of knowledge,
prohibits the purification and isolation of facts
from the context of the whole truth. An essential
pa~t of the latter is recognition of the frightening
exteNt to which history was made and recorded
by and for the victors, that is, the extent to
which history was the development of oppression .. And this oppfession is in the facts themselves which it establishes; thus they themselves
carry a negative value as part and aspect of their
facticity. To treat the great crusades against humanity (like that against the Albigensians) with
the same impartiality as the desperate struggles
for humanity means neutralizing their opposite
historical function, reconciling the executioners
with their victims, distorting the record. Such
spurious neutrality serves to reproduce acceptance of the dominion of the victors in the consciousness of man. Here, too, in the education of
those who are not yet maturely integrated, in the
mind of the young, the ground for liberating
' tolerance is still to be created.
E~ucation offers still another example of
spunous, abstdct tolerance in the guis~ of con-

//,';~;

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114 A cl:::y f, Gl

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/~

Repressive Tolerance

creteness a.nd truth: it is epitomized in the concept of self-actualization. From the permissiveness of all sorts of license to the child, to the constant psychological concern with the personal
problems of the student, a large-scale movement
is under way against the evils of repression and
the need for being oneself. Frequently brushed
aside is the question as to what has to be repressed before one can be a self, oneself. The individual potential is first a negative one, a portion
of the potential of his society: of aggression,
guilt feeling, ignorance, resentme~t, c-:uelty
which vitiate his life instincts. If the tdenttty of
the self is to be more than the immediate realization of this potential (undesirable for the individual as human being), then it requires repression and sublimation, conscious transformation.
This process involves at each stage (to use the
ridiculed terms which here reveal their succinct
concreteness) the negation of the negation,
mediation of the immediate, and identity is no
more and no less than this process. "Alienation"
is the constant and essential element of identity,
the objective side of the ~ubject-and not, as it
is made to appear today, a disease, a psychological condition. Freud well knew the difference
between progressive and regressive, liberating
and destructive repression. The publicity of selfactualization promotes the removal of the one
and the other, it promotes existence in that immediacy which, in a repressive society, is (to use
another Hegelian term) bad immediacy
( schlechte Unmittelbarkeit). It isolates the individual from the one dimension where he could

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Herbert Marcuse

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"find himself": from hts pol1t1cal existence,
which is at the core of hjs entire existence. Instead, it encourages non-conformity a~d lettinggo in ways which l~ave the. real ~ngmes of :epression in the society entirely mtact, which
even strengthen these engipes by substituting the
satisfactions of private and personal rebellion for
~ more than private and personal, and th.eref?re
more authentic, opposition., The .des_ubh~~tton
involved in this sort of self-actualization IS Itself
repressive inasmuch as it weakens the necessity
and the power of the intellect, the catalytiC
force of that unhappy consciousness which does
not revel in the archetypal personal release of
frustration~hopeless resurgence of the I~ which
will sooner or later succumb to the ommpresent
rationality of the adtilinistered world-:-but which
_r:e.coghizes the horror of the ~hole. m th~ mo~
priv/clte frqstration a11d actuahzes Itself m this
recognition.
.
I have tried to show how the changes m advanced democratic societies, which. have undermined the basis of economic and political liberalism have also altered the liberal function of tolera~ce. The tolerance which was the great
achievement of the liberal era is still professed
and (with strong qualifications) prac~iced,.while
the economic and political. process. I~ sub~ect~d
to an ubiquitous and effectt~e ad~Imstration m
accordance with the predommant mterests. The
result is an objective contradiction between .the
economic and political structure on the one side,
and the theory and practice of toleration on the
other. The altered social structure tends to weak-

116

"
Herbert Marcuse

Repressive Tolerance

en the effectiveness of tolerance toward dissenting and oppositional movements and to

strengthen conservative and reactionary forces.
Equality of tolerance becomes abstract, spurious.
With the actual decline of dissenting forces in
the society, the opposition is insulated in small
and frequently antagonistic groups who, even
where tolerated within the narrow limits set by I
the hierarchical structure of society, are powerless while they keep within these limits. But the
tolerance shown to them is deceptive and promotes coordination. And on the firm foundations
of a coordinated society all but closed against
qualitative change, tolerance itself serves to contain such change rather than to promote it.
These same conditions render the critique
of such tolerance abstract and academic, and the
proposition that the balance between tolerance
toward the Right and toward the Left would
have to be radically redressed in order to restore
the liberating function of tolerance becomes
only an unrealistic speculation. Indeed, such a redressing seems to be tantamount to the establishment of a "right of resistance" to the point of
subversion. There is not, there cannot be any
such right for any group or individual against a
constitutional government sustained by a majority of the population. But I believe that there is a
"natural right" of resistance for oppressed and
overpowered minorities to use extralegal means
i(Jhe legal ones have proved to be inadequate.
Law and order are always and everywhere the
law and order which protect the established
hierarchy; it is nonsensical to invoke the abso-

117

lute authority of this law and this order against

those who suffer from it and struggle against it
-not for personal advantages and revenge, but
for their share of humanity. There is no other
judge over them than the constituted authorities,
the. police, and their own conscience. ttth~~):: use
violence, they do not start a new chaiJ;l of violence but try to break an established one. Since
they will be punished, they know the risk, and
when they are willing to take it, no third person,
and least of all the educator and intellectual, has
the right to preach them abstention.

POSTSCRIPT 1968

'

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

118

Postscript 1968

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 majo~ity 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) wi~ut
censorship. In such cases, the majority is selfperpetuating 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 func,U.QJIS. 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.
In the United States, this tendency goes hand
in hand with the monopolistic or oligopolistic
concentration of capital in the formation of public opinion, i.e., of the majority. The chance of
influencing, in any effective way, this majority
is at a price, in dollars, totally out of reach of the

Herbert Marcuse

119

radical opposition. Here too, free competition

and exchange of ideas have become a farce. The
Left has no equal voice, no equal access to the
mass media and their public facilities-not because a conspiracy excludes it, but because, in
good old capitalist fashion, it does not have the
required purchasing power. And the Left does
not have the purchasing power because it is the
L~ft. !~ese conditions ~mpose upon the radical
nunonttes a strategy which is in essence a refusal
to allow the continuous functioning of allegedly
indiscriminate but in fact discriminate toleranc~
for example, a strategy of protesting against th~
alternate matching of a spokesman for the Right
(or Center) with one for the Left. Not "equal"
but more repr~sentatiOtr of the Left would be
equalization of the ptevailing inequality.
. Within the solid framework of preestablished
mequality and power, tolerance is practiced indeed. Even outl'ageous opinions are expressed,
outrageous incidents are televised; and the critics
of established policies are interrupted by the
same number of commercials as the conservative
advocates. Are these interludes supposed to
counteract the sheer weight, magnitude, and
continuity of system-publicity, indoctrination
which operates playfully through the endless
commercials as well as through the entertainment?
. Given this situation, I suggested in "Repressive Tolerance" the practice of discriminating
tolerance in an inverse direction, as a means of
shifting the balance between Right and Left by
restraining the liberty of the Right, thus co,unter-

120

Postscript 1968

acting the pervasive inequality of freedom ( unequal opportunity of access to the m~ans of
democratic persuasion) and strengthenmg the
oppressed against the oppressors. Tolerance
would be restricted with respect to movements
of a demonstrably aggressive or destructive
character (destructive of the prospects for peace,
justice, and freedom for all). Such discriminat~on
would also be applied to movements opposmg
the extension of social legislation to the poor,
weak, disabled. As against the virulent den.unciations that such a policy would do away wtth the
sacred liberalistic principle of equality for "the
other side," I maintain that there are issues where
either there is no "other side" in any more than
a formalistic sense, or where "the other side" is
demonstrably "regressive" and i~~edes possible
improvement of the human ~nd~t~on. To tolerate propaganda for inhumamty vttlates the g~als
not only of liberalism but of every progressive
political philosophy.
I presupposed the existence ~f dem<}llstra?le
criteria for aggressive, regresstve, destructive
forces. If the final democratic criterion of the
declared opinion of the majority no longer (or
rather not yet) prevails, if vital ideas, values,
and ends of human progress no longer (or rather
not yet) enter, as competing equals, the formation of public opinion, if the people are no longer
(or rather not yet) sovereign but "made" by :he
real sovereign powers-is there any alternative
other than the dictatorship of an "elite" over the
people? For the opinion of people ( usuall{ designated as The People) who are unfree m the

Herbert Marcuse

121

very faculties in which liberalism saw the roots

of freedom: independent thought and independent speech, can carry no overriding validity and
authority-even if The People constitute the
overwhelming majority.
If the choice were between genuine democracy and dictatorship, democracy would certainly be preferable. But democracy does n_?t
prevail. The radical critics of the existing pohtical process are thus readily denounced as advocating ad "elitism," a dictatorship of intellectuals
as an alternative. What we have in fact is government, representative government by a non-intellectual minority of politicians, generals, and
businessmen.
record. ?f this" "elite~' is not
very promising, and pohttcal prerogatives for
the intelligentsia may p.ot necessarily be worse
for the society as a whole,
any case, John$tuart Mill, not exactly an
enemy of liberal and representative government,
was not so allergic to the political leadership of
the intelligentsia as the contemporary guardians
of semi-democracy are. Mill believed that "individual mental superiority" justifies "reckoning
one person's opinion as equivalent to more than
one":

lPe

In

Until there shall have been..-devised, and until

opinion is willing to accept, some mode. of
plural voting which may assign to educatton
as such the degree of superior influence due to
it, and sufficient as a counterpoise to the
numerical weight of the least educated class,
for so long the benefits of completely universal suffrage cannot be obtained withoutbring-

122

Postscript 1968

ing with them, as it appears to me, more than

equivalent evils. 1
"Distinction in favor of education, right in itself," was also supposed to preserve "the educated from the class legislation of the uneducated," without enabling the f9rmer to practice
a class legislation of their own. 2
Today, these words have understandably an
antidemocratic, "elitist" sound-understandably
because of their dangerously radical implications. For if "education" is more and other than
training, learning, preparing. for the rxisting
society, it means not only enabling man to know
and understand the facts which make up reality
but also to know and understand the factors that
establish the facts so that he can change their
inhuman reality. And such humanistic education
would involve the "hard" sciences ("hard" as in
the "hardware" bought by the Pentagon?),
would free them from their destructive direction. In other words, such education would indeed badly serve the Establishment, and to give
political prerogatives to the men and women
thus educated would indeed be anti-democratic
in the terms of the Establishment. But these are
not the only terms.
However, the alternative to the established
semi-democratic process is not a dictatorship or
elite, no matter how intellectual and intelligent,
but the struggle for a real democracy. Part of
1 Considerations on Representative Government (Chicago: Gateway Edition, 1962), p. 183.
2/bid., p. 181.

123

Herbert Marcuse

this struggle is the fight ~gainst an ideolog~ of

tolerance which, in reality, ;favors an? fortt~es
the conservation of the status quo of mequahty
and discrimination. For this struggle, I proposed
the practice of discriminating tolerance. To. be
sure, this practice already ~resupposes t~e radtc~l
goal which it seeks to achteve. I commttted th~s
petitio principii in order to c?mbat the. pe~m
cious ideology that tolerance ts already msn~u
tionalized in this society. The tolerance w~tch
is the lifif element, the token of a free soctet~,
will never be the gift of the powers that be; It
can, under the prevailing conditions of tyra~ny
by the majority, ~y. ~e~o~ .in the sustame~
eff.ort of t,adical mmortt1es, wtlhng to break thts
tyranny and to work f~r the ~me~~enc.e of a free
and sovereign majortty-~mor~ttes mtolerant,
militantly intolerant and dtsobedten~ to the rules
of behavior which tolerate destruction and suppression.

'