I love how she ends the interview ascribing a certain opinion to her audience - that of disagreeing with Marcuse, seeking to modulate it to the constraints of a hegemonic position, in place of solely presenting the content and allowing them to draw their own conclusions, thereby clearly exemplifying the criticism put forth by Marcuse and the Frankfurt School in respect to the cultural industry.

Marcuse as an unclear writer? Reason and Revolution explained Hegel so clearly to me, that it catipulted my interest in not only studying him and Kant, but motivating me to learn German.

Marcuse passed away 3 months after this interview.

A very insightful interview, before the rise of internet.

The interviewer is Helen Hawkins, not HawkinXgXs: "Helen S. Hawkins, Ph.D., was a producer & host of KPBS humanities programs, an historian, co-founder and first president of San Diego National Organization for Women, and publications director for the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. ... In the late 1970s Dr. Hawkins joined KPBS television as Executive Producer of Humanities programming. During her 6 years there she produced more than 100 television programs, many of which focus on women's rights and issues of the time. Her work received an Emmy and a silver gavel from the American Bar Association." I wonder why previous commenters Peter Pam and Keith Yohai get so upset and angry and frustrated listening to someone who sees deficits in society and tries to correct them. Their comments seem so out of proportion to me, why so defensive??

Delusional utopianism. This is how men go mad when God is ׳dead’

I love his interviewer!

She is a very good interviewer

"Repressive tolerance" = p. c. Censorship

"someone who takes a free and democratic society seriously". if that's a marxist i guess that's me.

April 25th, 1979, 3 months before he nonrepressively desublimated. 5:50 This is a key contradiction of Marxism: Marxism states that revolution is inevitable, however followers prompt revolution. Marcuse states that he just give facts, and the students realize from those facts they must revolt. His book should be called Irrational Man: an Autobiography .

Marcuse, another brilliant German thinker, who was wrong about just about everything.

Utopia means ‘no place’

Still very relevant, maybe even more so. 🌈🦉

Funny, I strongly disagree with Marcuse on which of his books is better. He thinks Eros and Civilisation is better than One-Dimensional Man. Noooo way. One-Dimensional Man is his best one by far and one of the most important books in the 20th century, even though I have strong philosophical disagreements with him.

I love how advocates of societal projects are able to put the imposition of their ideas on everyone and the word "freedom" in the same sentence. A good society needs to be good for everyone, and what is good is relative to each individual and encompasses an infinity of factors. Every model of society is the imposition of one person's model on all others, and by definition, always carries the seed of totalitarianism. Not even Jesus had a recipe for society, just render to Caesar what is Caesar's. He just came to prepare souls for transcendence. Nothing more delusional than love and passion for a future society created in your own head from which you judge the present real world.

Would have liked to hear more of his treatment of the idea of "surplus repression" as it relates to current discussions around big tech: selective deplatforming, cancel culure, etc. Pressures from the government put on big tech as a form of surplus repression in the public square. Coaxing the currrent progeny of the "New Left" of Marcuse's time into being cheerleaders for this "surplus repression." Marcuse does indeed admit here that there has always been violence, and that counter-violence is the only acceptable form of violence. Are not these repressive, stifling actions of big tech the same repressive, violent acts in a different form? And although the form of repression is different, the function is certainly the same: to silence the opposition with one hand and to use the other to write shallow justifications of their hypocrisy without admitting to the hypocrisy. And without publicly owning their own violence (repression). I have always been interested in Marcuse since I read "The Making of a Counterculture" before going to the university. But aligning him directly with the hypocrisy of a power discourse which serves itself to conceal its own violence within accusations of systemic racism, a demand for "equity" over "equality," pushing the narrative of "rampant" police brutality, etc. is deceptive.

The greeks ideal of a utopian society! Was governed by a philosoper king. Marcus Aurelius was a perfect type.

It’s not that we have a position that can prevent large scale inhumanity, as discussed here on the topic of tolerance that led to Nazism and WW2. It’s that the default stance that permits such inhumanity to expand, to begin with, is what’s at fault. Certainly we had a chance to circumvent the Nazi expansion - most prominently in 1936 with the coup by Franco, supported by Hitler and Mussolini. The British and French non-interventionist insistence, even after the aerial bombing of Guernica, is one strong evidence. It’s actually one of the reasons why Guernica is so prominent in modern European history.

If you have no tolerance for intolerence, then you have to count yourself among the targets of your intolerence. Hypocrisy, therefore, necessarily governs the ideas of Marcusé, and he thus makes the worst of all possible soul sicknesses into an institution.

You can expose a liar and a hypocrite when they say they want freedom through violence.

he seems such a sweetheart here

what a BIG CUDDLY BEAR i love when i find out the people i read are actually lovely

I believe she foresaw the "snake egg".

I so agree with him - dissent is tolerated only to the degree where it is not disruptive to any society. And conformity is oppressive, without a doubt.

Fast Forward to Chris Hedges & Cornel West 2023... 😉

Roger Scruton criticized leftist philosophers well

I wish I could get with a group of openminded people who actually want to problem solve and revolutionize. like, what strategies, ideas, images, words can we create that will entice the public to act in counter-violence against the system and the death drive. how can we bring attention to to this so that people can weigh their minds and actually come to a critical conclusion that revolt is the only key to freedom?

Peaceful revolution is Bitcoin

He says Nazis should have been suppressed is oart of trying to distance his communism from that left-wing movement, which are in face basically the same thing. That's a lie that has been around far too long.

Sit back, kick off your shoes, roll up a banana skin, click newest first, and enjoy the 13-year-old commentators who don’t even watch the video.

I don’t like her tone; I feel that it doesn’t stimulate the debate, despite of her intelligence. Marcuse deserves a more open and empathetic approach, as he has more to offer.

The Russian revolution of 1917 was not violent. The Eisenstein movie of the storming of the winter palace was not based on fact.

‘The rejection of capitalism may never have huge realworld consequences. “We should ditch capitalism, and try a socialist alternative” may well be the political equivalent of “One day, I will learn a foreign language, run a marathon, and write a novel”. It may be an idea that is popular as an abstract aspiration, but less so as a concrete action plan’ (p.17). Unfortunately, this is fair comment. However, there will be some significance that, amongst younger people today, capitalism has become a ‘bad word’: ‘Young people associate “socialism” predominantly with positive terms, such as “workers”, “public”, “equal” and “fair”. (...) Capitalism, meanwhile, is predominantly associated with terms such as “exploitative”, “unfair”, “the rich” and “corporations”’ (p.7) That can’t be a bad thing. ADAM BUICK

He was a gov asset

Purpose of philosophy? To develop a theory of knowledge. This theory can then be applied to true scientific thinking in all its domains, such as psychology in the study and critique of society and the individual; economics; history; biology; physics; astronomy, forensics, rules of evidence, etc. Without such a theory, all attempts to explain phenomena are mere baseless claims or wishful thinking with no theoretical validity.

Marcuse - the pavemaker for identity socialism. Thumbs down!

This is why I can't get into Marcuse. He really is the godfather of today's left. Like i can read Horkheimer and Adorno and agree with a lot even where I disagree I can say wow that's a good point. I like that. I find it a lot harder with Marcuse. He just oozes what today we call hipsterism even when talking about his own work "oh Eros is much better"... classic "dirt bag" leftist bullshit. The stuff I do agree with comes from Horkheimer or Hegel or Freud or Marx and Engles themselves. If u got rid of the accent and added a silver pony tail the dude would be identical to any random west coast liberal arts professor. Whine whine whine, but no damn solution. When u actively try to find some in his work or even his interviews u get vague references to violent revolution. So that's all I'm left with... or vague references about Marxian democratic revolution. Yeah, I'm still waiting on Bernie Sanders. Let me tell yall something AOC isn't gonna be the one to do it. The whole demsoc movement was bought by the bourgeoisie wholesale. It ain't happening. Any concessions u get under these fucking people, these goddamn coastal intellectuals and their cronies is going to be social democracy repackaged. U think the libertarians are bought and paid off but at least they realize u need strong and free individuals to form the basis of community. Which we just don't have. Not this generation, this generation weighted down with their rugrats nostalgia and purple fucking hair.

communist claptrap; capitalism has won, get over it.

This man was a subversive and destructive monster.

One of the most evil people in history

I can't help it - but, when one opens a discussion on the nature of philosophy, with: For me.......I turn it off. I have never been able to accept any subjective interpretation of the purpose and/or nature of philosophy. This is particularly repulsive to me, especially, when said "interpreter" holds a "philosophical" position that espouses any doctrine of radicalism or is tainted by revolutionary tendencies.

Marcuse a Man of inconsistent ideas conducting young people to the Abism...