Talk:Herbert Marcuse

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Herbert (my grandfather) was not really a "soldier" in World War I. A physical impairment (flat feet, I think) kept him out of combat. He once quipped that he "wiped horses' asses" in Berlin (he was assigned to a cavalry unit). Also, his participation in the 1918 revolution was limited. He did join one of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils in Berlin, but he never claimed to have played an active role. Just as a historical sidenote, "the forces of the Weimar Republic" did not crush that revolution. The Weimar constitution was completed in August 1919, well after the revolution had been crushed (in January 1919 revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered; the last revolutionary gov't was put down in Munich in March). It is true that those who put down the revolutionary movement worked with the later leaders of the Weimar government, but they were and remained outsiders until the early 1930s, when the Nazis were gaining followers.

Finally, Habermas did not really "care for him" during his final illness. Habermas did live nearby in Starnberg and was present at that time, but Herbert was in a hospital with his wife and son at his side around the clock. Rudi Dutschke's recently published diary contains some interesting entries about Rudi's conversations with Habermas during Herbert's final days.

I am, by the way, the actual author of most of the text on the wikipedia site. It was taken verbatim from the site I created and maintain about Herbert: http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/#biography. From what I glean from the wiki "page history," my text was taken in September 2001 by "Stephen Lea, a psychology professor and www-enthusiast from Exeter in south-west England." Since then, four sentences were added by others (two of which I correct here).

Harold Marcuse

Contents 1 Took out seemingly irrelevant reference 2 Criticism 3 Article Organization 4 Free Love 5 response by Harold Marcuse 6 Second last paragraph 7 Post modernism, etc. 8 Editing the introduction 9 Not a relative...

[edit] Took out seemingly irrelevant reference

An anonymous person added the following text today: "Nothing has been said about his relation to Emmy Marcuse, the first woman to graduate from UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall with a JD degree in 1906." Since it doesn't seem to me that the relationship or comparison is relevant, I took it out, but left it here because of my understanding of the Wikipedia principle of not summarily reverting without explanation. Since I wondered at various times about his possible relaitonship with Ludwig Marcuse, i.e. another German scholar of his era, the non-relation statement seems relevant. I don't think the comparison with an American Marcuse of an earlier generation is an important part of any short biography of Herbert Marcuse. Jeremy J. Shapiro 20:26, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

Shouldn't there be a section detailing Marcuse's use of Orwellian Newspeak? His idea of tolerance was the acceptance of ideas from the Left, while refusing ideas from the Right. He also felt if his ideas were illogical, the problem wasn't with his ideas, but with logic itself. GreatGatsby 20:10, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually there isn't yet much at all about most of his main ideas or summaries of his most important works -- not only the Critique of Tolerance but of Eros and Civilization and One-Dimensional Man -- compared, for example, to the article about Adorno. So it would be nice to get clear and NPOV contributions about most of his main ideas. The article is good as it is, but could benefit from more on his works. Jeremy J. Shapiro 03:28, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article Organization

"Early History and Education" includes information up to subjects death at age 81 or so. I will remove the heading unless other have different suggestions. I also would appreciate elaboration of Marcuse's important ideas. user:Edivorce

[edit] Free Love

Why is there no mention of his early theories of free love? In his later years he never mentioned them but they were still his theories at one point or another.

[edit] response by Harold Marcuse

Herbert's theories from the 1950s do not explicitly advocate "free love" (nor, by the way, did he coin the phrase 'make love, not war', contrary to the claims on many conservative websites). However, his ideas do point in that direction, and he certainly endorsed that motto of the 1960s antiwar movement. In his 1955 book Eros and Civilization, a melding of the ideas of Freud and Marx, Herbert argues that advanced capitalism is based in part on the sublimation and repression of sexual drives. You can find lots more about this on the wiki Eros and Civilization page. (Click on the link under "major works" on the main Herbert Marcuse page.)

[edit] Second last paragraph

I deleted the last sentence ("What this usually amounts to is intolerance of any criticism of critical theory or groups protected under critical theory as well as "any ideas coming from the right.") in the second last paragraph. That sentence is not of the sort I would expect to find in a tertiary reference, it is quite clearly an opinion and a strongly POV one at that. If you disagree with me please discuss it here and we can together work out how to express it in a manner that is not biased. BTW - I'll state my perspective and say that I'm a member of the socialist left of the Australian ALP, however I'm not a Marxist (even though I've read more Marx than almost all Trots). Alans1977 18:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Post modernism, etc.

Does anyone feel like this article could be improved by a section on how his ideas (along with Derrida and others) led to ideas about liberation from tradition. Alans1977 18:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing the introduction

Another user (Mtevfrog) "undid" my adjustment to the introduction i.e., rather than introducing Marcuse as a German philosopher, it would make more sense to refer to his ideas i.e., a Marxist philosopher otherwise, if its about cultural heritage it would be better to call him both German and Jewish to be more accurate and to share the credit. If no arguments against this, I will "undo" the change sometime at a later date. Gmotamedi (talk) 03:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not a relative...

'Marcuse was unrelated to the émigré literary scholar Ludwig Marcuse,' Does this really need to be in the article? Should it also mention every other person with the surname 'Marcuse' to whom Herbert Marcuse was not related? Skoojal (talk) 09:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I am going to remove the passage about Ludwig Marcuse soon for the reason given above (irrelevance) unless somebody objects. Skoojal (talk) 06:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)