Nicely done. According to this, the Magna Carta of Political Correctness is the 1965 essay by Herbert Marcuse, Repressive Tolerance. I guess I have to read it, however distasteful that may be.
The story, among others, is told in greater detail in the excellent book The Idea of Decline in Western History
So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a thousand battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.
Sun Tzu, of course.
There’s an excellent chapter on Marcuse and his influence on law and education in Kors and Silverglate’s The Shadow University.
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 8/17/2009, at The Unreligious Right
Wow, Lex, you nailed it. I went back and read the Marcuse essay and found the Ur-text of the gibberish we have been hearing these many years. The internal contradictions are not a bug but a feature. From his postscript:
In other words, there is no such thing as legitimate disagreement with the leftist program. Illegitimate disagreement, which includes everything short of hosannas, should be subject to repression in the name of freedom. The second part of the quote gives away why this repression is necessary: because it is impossible to demonstrate how the leftist program is effectual, necessary, inevitable (pace Marx), beneficial, or even justifiable.
I agree with Marcuse on his last point: there is no way to argue with a committed leftist. They have already embraced “repressive tolerance” as something clever (Orwell called this mental process “doublethink”) rather than a contradiction in terms. Slavery is freedom, if that’s what the Party says. It is certain because it is impossible.
It is also the clearest possible demonstration that leftism is religion in different vestments. It is by necessity and by admission an appeal to faith in what cannot be proven, yet fervently held because it is believed to be the highest good. No wonder they find common cause with Islamic fascism.
Mitch, we are both now one step closer to “knowing the opponent”.
One thing I don’t understand in this video – why Marcuse (and Frankfurt School) characterized as non-Marxist? I also don’t see originality in Marcuse theory (which, unfortunately, became practice in our times) – it was not only theorized, but brought to it’s logical conclusion in the first decade of existence of Soviet Union, with notorious “Red Terror”, explained as necessary counter-act to centuries of repression and exploitation by the “power classes”.
Just look at the laws concerning lishentsy – they were established by the same principles. Peasants are illiterate? then they deserve preferential right for admission into universities over “exploiting classes”, regardless of merit. Members of ethnicities other than Russian used to be underrepresented in government jobs – then they will be actively recruited, over other deserving applicants (Stalin’s nationalism and anti-Semitism came later). Children of “kulaks” are cut off any career – but someone who can prove their proletarian roots is given a green light. Those are very mild examples of discrimination, although most widely executed, by law; there were much more gruesome outrageous cases, like infamous Pavlik Morozov, who snitched on his father who supposedly behaved like “kulak”, i.e. accused him of “hoarding grain”.
Tatyana, I the video says that the Frankfurt school were Marxist. The point though was that the industrial proletariat was not acting as a revolutionary class, contrary to earlier Marxist theory, so they looked for other groups to fill that role.
Also, whether or not Marcuse was original, he was the person who actually had the influence, whether someone had the same ideas earlier or not. The point is, as you put it, his theory became practice in our times.
May be of interest, I read elsewhere:
“A friend e-mails to say that Texas A & M has an annual contest for the best definition of a contemporary expression. This year it was “political correctness.” And here’s the winner:
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
tom
Tomw, that is funny … BUT. This thing is a pernicious non-joke that is killing us slowly, slowly but surely, surely nonetheless.
I chuckle, yes, quietly, dryly, sardonically … .
But mostly I say … écrasez l’infâme!