Herbert Marcuse's 'Repressive Tolerance' and His Critics‪.‬

Tolerance is invoked when there are riots but, along with an associated policy--multiculturalism--it is being challenged as having gone too far; it is espoused in Australia but as a concept it is largely uncontested. Yet when Herbert Marcuse's lengthy article entitled 'Repressive Tolerance' was first published forty years ago it created a storm. His detractors perceived in Marcuse's article illiberal themes, revolution and violent implications, a new elite, a simplistic Manichean assessment of politics and they argued that Marcuse undermined the academic shibboleth of neutrality. The aim of this paper is to revisit 'Repressive Tolerance' with the intention of allowing Marcuse to be heard. Evidence is presented which uses Marcuse's words to anticipate how he might have responded to the criticisms levelled against him. When this is undertaken it seems that, inter alia, some critics treated 'Repressive Tolerance' in a rather cavalier and superficial fashion, and as a tract rather than a serious critique of political culture in the West. It is acknowledged that the ambiguity in Marcuse's position on several key points may have led his critics to draw out what they regarded as Marcuse's strident authoritarian implications. Yet after a probing reading and a consideration of Marcuse's own reactions to his detractors, it is possible to interpret Marcuse's argument as a serious indictment on political culture which merits close attention for a number of reasons, including its contemporary relevance and the implications of a Marcusean approach to the policy and practice of tolerance. Introduction