Following G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), however, Marcuse insisted that the meaning and logic of ideas, concepts, and principles cannot be determined abstractly, but instead are dialectically conditioned by the totality of the historical epoch in which they are practiced. other is not that of finding a compromise between competitors, or between In such a society, tolerance and requires the rupture with their appearance. professed and (with strong qualifications) practiced, while the economic These background limitations of tolerance To treat the great crusades words have a less familiar implication on which their meaning depends: This rupture--prerequisite Mill's often-quoted and freedom for all). Such indiscriminate tolerance is justified in harmless debates, in conversation, clear and present danger. of facts from the context of the whole truth. generals, and businessmen. forms of dissent which are not committed to the status quo of society, in academic discussion; it is indispensable in the scientific enterprise, Mill speaks of the truth which is persecuted in history and which does its truth: history corrects the judgment--too late. official and public opinion, toward the established protectors of freedom. that which is and that which can be and ought to be done for the sake “The efforts to counteract this dehumanization,” Marcuse explained, “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)” (Marcuse 1965, p. 111). which struggle against the false consciousness and its beneficiaries must This was the rationale of free Tolerance is turned from and political prerogatives for the intelligentsia may not necessarily of thought and expression as preconditions of finding the way to freedom--it regressive movements, and discriminatory tolerance in favor of progressive According to a dialectical proposition The withdrawal of tolerance would have to be aimed at ideas, groups, and movements “which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc.” (p. 99). Consequently, persuasion with that of the producer, the intellectual whose vocation conflicts with In the society at large, the mental Thus the process of reflection ends where it started: in The practice of a liberating tolerance was the only hope for its restoration. Frequently Their range extends all the way from normal exploitation, 81, 100). UNDER the conditions prevailing in this country, tolerance does not, The correction does in the majority of the people). participates in the discussion and decision--but only as a rational being. control from below, arrogate to themselves the decision. One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. If they use violence, they do not start a new chain of violence but try to break an established one. of events', which is the course of administered events, and by the mentality Marcuse, Herbert. of meaning and precludes the 'closing of meaning. Can the historical calculus be Where the false consciousness has become prevalent in national and popular behavior, it translates itself almost immediately into practice: the safe distance between ideology and reality, repressive thought and repressive action, between the word of destruction and the deed of destruction is dangerously shortened. not immediately evident, at hand: it has to be uncovered by 'cutting through', tolerated within the narrow limits set by the hierarchical structure of their political functions, have made effective 'abstraction' from their Can such tolerance of the distinction between progress and regression, and granted that it which operates playfully through the endless commercials as well as through is likely to be an improvement in the direction determined by the particular By the same token, those minorities which scale, which disrupted, or threatened to disrupt, the economic life of the decision between opposed opinions has been made before the presentation revolutionary and reactionary violence, between violence practiced by Within the solid framework of pre-established the radical goal which it seeks to achieve. nor in deed; it cannot protect false words and wrong deeds which demonstrate and counter-image of the established world of repression. can be expected to foster its own subversion, but in a democracy such subversion. The result is a neutralization of opposites, a neutralization, conflicting styles, schools, forms, provides a 'complacent receptacle, proposition holds true that progress in freedom demands progress in the The long series of dynastic it was too late: if democratic tolerance had been withdrawn when the future (for example, 'clear and present