6 ms·

I'm a little confused about your remark, "even in the excerpt posted here". Do you expect Taibbi to prove that Marcuse was a pseudo-intellectual, and also that

I'm a little confused about your remark, "even in the excerpt posted here". Do you expect Taibbi to prove that Marcuse was a pseudo-intellectual, and also that his works were as "influential as [Taibbi] claims" -- all in the excerpt? Isn't that akin to demanding a movie trailer divulge the entire plot of a film? In any case, I did read the entire article, and I submit that Taibbi provides good enough proof on the pseudo-intellectuality claim. Here's a passage he quotes from Marcuse, on the "tyranny of affluence" > The systematic moronization of children and adults alike by publicity and propaganda, the release of destructiveness in aggressive driving, the recruitment for and training of special forces, the impotent and benevolent tolerance toward outright deception in merchandizing, waste, and planned obsolescence… When aggressive driving is offered as the terrible outcome of the tyranny of affluence, requiring suspension of basic civil liberties and freedom of speech, then for me at least there's sufficient proof that Marcuse has both feet firmly planted in BS territory. As for your second claim, that the excerpt doesn't prove Marcuse's influence, I think your case is stronger here. Thankfully, you provided a link from "someone with expertise in philosophy", and I will quote literally the second paragraph: > The Frankfurt School has had an enormous impact on philosophy as well as social and political theory in the United States and around the world. In the 1960s Marcuse ascended to prominence and became one of the best known philosophers and social theorists in the world. He was often referred to as the Guru of the New Left (a title which he rejected). During the late 1970s through the 1990s, Marcuse’s popularity began to wane as he was eclipsed by second and third generation critical theorists, postmodernism, Rawlsian liberalism, and his former colleagues Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. In recent years there has been a new surge of interest in Marcuse. "enormous impact on philosophy as well as social and political theory" "Guru of the New Left" "new surge of interest" As an aside, I note with amusement that an article, questioning the intellectual foundations of a social movement seeking to restrict free speech (and has already achieved much "success" in this area), has been flagged so as to reduce discussion. Bravo, very appropriate!

claudiawerner 6y ago
>Do you expect Taibbi to prove that Marcuse was a pseudo-intellectual, and also that his works were as "influential as [Taibbi] claims" -- all in the excerpt? I would have appreciated a hint of how he will prove it in the article rather than just name-calling and requiring a subscription to see what his actual point is. I've noticed that the tactic of writing about someone (especially social theorists and other thinkers of more marginal theories) extremely uncharitably is a hallmark of accusations that rely on the reader not being acquainted with the thinker, the thinker's context, or the subject matter more broadly. Look at what the NYT did to Scott Alexander for instance. This excerpt is far worse and far more uncharitable to Marcuse as a person and his intellectual legacy. You don't find attacks like these in good-faith discussion. >requiring suspension of basic civil liberties and freedom of speech, then for me at least there's sufficient proof that Marcuse has both feet firmly planted in BS territory. This is not a sign of being a pseudo-intellectual; the fact that he has a political position you disagree with, or reasons from a premise you do not think holds does not make him a pseudo-intellectual. Marcuse's actual essay makes a more convincing case concerning democracy and J.S. Mill's justification for speech on functional grounds, and where it may falter. The partial case against freedom of speech has nothing to do with aggressive driving. Further, what can we say about someone's legacy and status as an intellectual on the basis of one essay? Surely it matters what he wrote both before and after the essay too. For sure it's unpopular, but there is room for reasoned disagreement. A bad argument does not a pseudo-intellectual make. A more convincing (but still lackluster) argument would be to say his use of psychoanalytical theory made him a pseudo-intellectual, but unlike some of his peers, he did not use obscurantist language, nor did he bury his ideas beneath several unnecessary layers of abstraction. Marcuse stands up extremely well against others given the label of pseudo-intellectual such as Lacan or even Zizek. >"enormous impact on philosophy as well as social and political theory" "Guru of the New Left" "new surge of interest" None of these specifically relate to Marcuse's essay on tolerance, which is the issue under discussion. I don't deny that Marcuse was popular for the main body of his other work, but my point was that there are theories against freedom of speech today which are not only generally more convincing than Marcuse's, but real drivers behind the movement to curtail speech. Few people use Marcuse's argument for censorship any more, though few use the general idea of democracy and its functions to both support and knock down justifications for free speech. My contention is only this: as far as I can tell, an uncharitable reading of a popular philosopher does not do enough work to designate him as a pseudo-intellectual (and we have some weak evidence to counter, anyway - his work has attracted serious scholarly attention both agreeing and disagreeing with him, and the only other explanation is that all those people are pseudo-intellectuals too, or too stupid to realise it, which is a very strong claim; further, he studied and wrote extensively on aesthetics and philosophy using a wide array of classical and modern theory; was Heidegger too stupid to see he was a pseudo-intellectual too?). Further, that the importance of his essay on free speech is overstated as the driver behind the movement today and in the past to criticise free speech.
- seertaak 6y ago
  First, you're clearly far more knowledgeable about Marcuse and other social theorists than I am. If Taibbi were quoting out of context (or otherwise unfairly), I probably wouldn't notice. So, thanks for drawing my attention to that possibility and weakening my prior. With regard to MacKinnon, Langton, and Hornsby, what would you suggest I read (within reasonable time; say, of same order time as reading On Liberty) to inform myself on their arguments against free speech? Second, in various places you suggest Taibbi's piece is unfair because it renders judgement on the basis of a single essay. But his piece isn't just about one essay. In fact, the very gloss on the article, which isn't behind a paywall and can be found on twitter, says "reviewing Repressive Tolerance and other works by Herbert Marcuse" (emphasis mine). Incidentally, if you want to read the (whole) piece, it's been pasted on reddit, so no need to pay. (I guess he wouldn't get your business anyways, so no harm done.) Third, I'm not saying - or to put it more precisely, Taibbi isn't saying - that Marcuse is pseudo-intellectual because of a disagreement in political views, nor that Taibbi disagrees with his premises. Instead, it's because the passage I quoted (from Marcuse) is little more than a concept bouillabaisse, a rattling off of bad things, bearing absolutely no relationship to one another save that they all suck. Or can you explain what business "planned obsolescence" has in the same sentence as indoctrination and special forces? How is the former even remotely as important as the latter? Taibbi probably puts it more colourfully: > People who do intellectual work should feel a responsibility to make sure the words they use at least roughly correspond to their ostensible meaning, but like a lot of German intellectuals, Marcuse had been mired in dialectical comparisons for so long that his sense of proportion was fucked beyond recognition. The man cited aggressive driving in arguing an emergency so dire that a suspension of all civil liberties was warranted. Final remark: you say that this is worse than what the NYT did to Scott Alexander, but I think being called a pseudo-intellectual is not nearly as bad as being doxxed and smeared as a white supremacist. The target of the NYT piece, Scott Alexander, has already experienced real-world career consequences as a direct result of NYT's doxxing and publication. The same can't be said for Taibbi's piece.
  - claudiawerner 6y ago
    >With regard to MacKinnon, Langton, and Hornsby, what would you suggest I read (within reasonable time; say, of same order time as reading On Liberty) to inform myself on their arguments against free speech? You're in luck, because we're mostly talking about papers here, rather than books. What books there are usually are just compendia of papers, in the modern academic philosophy way of making books these days. Here's a comment I wrote a while ago with what I think are important papers in the area: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23136757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23136757 It's worth noting that there are responses and counter-responses etc. I'm at the point where the discussions don't matter so much; I'm not convinced that the state is legitimate anyway, and certainly not the modern bourgeois state... with its dangerous driving. >Or can you explain what business "planned obsolescence" has in the same sentence as indoctrination and special forces? Marcuse's aim in a sentence like that is to make the reader think about connections, to link these things as part of the social and economic machinery. It's not that they're related in themselves, they are related as products of capitalism as supported by the political state and the economic market. For example, the list makes me think of the extreme economy of time. >Marcuse had been mired in dialectical comparisons for so long that his sense of proportion was fucked beyond recognition I don't think it's fair to say that Marcuse had lost any sense of scale between wrongs; rather, I think that to list things big and small actually gives the reader a sense of scale of the system. With some books, I think, it's appropriate to immerse the reader and make them relate their own experience when reading. Too many do not make good enough use of rhetoric, and sometimes the rhetoric is used as a battering ram (as I think Taibbi's essay has). I think there are two possible schools of thought here; that perhaps Marcuse's argument is entirely compromised by the presentation of concepts (and perhaps even his point is compromised), or the arguments or general point stand even when the rhetoric and 'feel' conveyed is peeled back. Now of course it may be the case that even if his point is not compromised, it is logically flawed. That's fine too, but it needs more than what I see as a namecally hit piece. >its reporters are (very stridently, openly, and indeed, melodramatically) agitating internally and externally in a bid to silence certain nonconforming voices I have sympathy for this view of what they're doing, but I think it would also pay to examine why Taibbi is writing the article he is writing too. Is it to shut down people who would bring out Marcuse in an argument? Is it to convince philosophers that Marcuse isn't all he's made out to be? I really can't tell, but the way it's written is making me think there's more to it than a simple essay on Marcuse. It doesn't serve as an argument against his point or really any of his positions. Look at the way philosophers and economists have treated Marx. While there are plenty of angry people on the internet writing against him, generally, the response is measured. Scott's article on Marx is at least somewhat charitable. Even the great Paul Samuelson took his arguments to task. But the focus generally wasn't on Marx's use of rhetoric. I don't think it's a far stretch to say Taibbi has effectively written an article to cancel Marcuse long after he's dead and his influence waned, where the only people making use of his work is a small subreddit and a small community of philosophers who specialise in the Frankfurt School.

claudiawerner 6y ago

>Do you expect Taibbi to prove that Marcuse was a pseudo-intellectual, and also that his works were as "influential as [Taibbi] claims" -- all in the excerpt? I would have appreciated a hint of how he will prove it in the article rather than just name-calling and requiring a subscription to see what his actual point is. I've noticed that the tactic of writing about someone (especially social theorists and other thinkers of more marginal theories) extremely uncharitably is a hallmark of accusations that rely on the reader not being acquainted with the thinker, the thinker's context, or the subject matter more broadly. Look at what the NYT did to Scott Alexander for instance. This excerpt is far worse and far more uncharitable to Marcuse as a person and his intellectual legacy. You don't find attacks like these in good-faith discussion. >requiring suspension of basic civil liberties and freedom of speech, then for me at least there's sufficient proof that Marcuse has both feet firmly planted in BS territory. This is not a sign of being a pseudo-intellectual; the fact that he has a political position you disagree with, or reasons from a premise you do not think holds does not make him a pseudo-intellectual. Marcuse's actual essay makes a more convincing case concerning democracy and J.S. Mill's justification for speech on functional grounds, and where it may falter. The partial case against freedom of speech has nothing to do with aggressive driving. Further, what can we say about someone's legacy and status as an intellectual on the basis of one essay? Surely it matters what he wrote both before and after the essay too. For sure it's unpopular, but there is room for reasoned disagreement. A bad argument does not a pseudo-intellectual make. A more convincing (but still lackluster) argument would be to say his use of psychoanalytical theory made him a pseudo-intellectual, but unlike some of his peers, he did not use obscurantist language, nor did he bury his ideas beneath several unnecessary layers of abstraction. Marcuse stands up extremely well against others given the label of pseudo-intellectual such as Lacan or even Zizek. >"enormous impact on philosophy as well as social and political theory" "Guru of the New Left" "new surge of interest" None of these specifically relate to Marcuse's essay on tolerance, which is the issue under discussion. I don't deny that Marcuse was popular for the main body of his other work, but my point was that there are theories against freedom of speech today which are not only generally more convincing than Marcuse's, but real drivers behind the movement to curtail speech. Few people use Marcuse's argument for censorship any more, though few use the general idea of democracy and its functions to both support and knock down justifications for free speech. My contention is only this: as far as I can tell, an uncharitable reading of a popular philosopher does not do enough work to designate him as a pseudo-intellectual (and we have some weak evidence to counter, anyway - his work has attracted serious scholarly attention both agreeing and disagreeing with him, and the only other explanation is that all those people are pseudo-intellectuals too, or too stupid to realise it, which is a very strong claim; further, he studied and wrote extensively on aesthetics and philosophy using a wide array of classical and modern theory; was Heidegger too stupid to see he was a pseudo-intellectual too?). Further, that the importance of his essay on free speech is overstated as the driver behind the movement today and in the past to criticise free speech.

seertaak 6y ago
First, you're clearly far more knowledgeable about Marcuse and other social theorists than I am. If Taibbi were quoting out of context (or otherwise unfairly), I probably wouldn't notice. So, thanks for drawing my attention to that possibility and weakening my prior. With regard to MacKinnon, Langton, and Hornsby, what would you suggest I read (within reasonable time; say, of same order time as reading On Liberty) to inform myself on their arguments against free speech? Second, in various places you suggest Taibbi's piece is unfair because it renders judgement on the basis of a single essay. But his piece isn't just about one essay. In fact, the very gloss on the article, which isn't behind a paywall and can be found on twitter, says "reviewing Repressive Tolerance and other works by Herbert Marcuse" (emphasis mine). Incidentally, if you want to read the (whole) piece, it's been pasted on reddit, so no need to pay. (I guess he wouldn't get your business anyways, so no harm done.) Third, I'm not saying - or to put it more precisely, Taibbi isn't saying - that Marcuse is pseudo-intellectual because of a disagreement in political views, nor that Taibbi disagrees with his premises. Instead, it's because the passage I quoted (from Marcuse) is little more than a concept bouillabaisse, a rattling off of bad things, bearing absolutely no relationship to one another save that they all suck. Or can you explain what business "planned obsolescence" has in the same sentence as indoctrination and special forces? How is the former even remotely as important as the latter? Taibbi probably puts it more colourfully: > People who do intellectual work should feel a responsibility to make sure the words they use at least roughly correspond to their ostensible meaning, but like a lot of German intellectuals, Marcuse had been mired in dialectical comparisons for so long that his sense of proportion was fucked beyond recognition. The man cited aggressive driving in arguing an emergency so dire that a suspension of all civil liberties was warranted. Final remark: you say that this is worse than what the NYT did to Scott Alexander, but I think being called a pseudo-intellectual is not nearly as bad as being doxxed and smeared as a white supremacist. The target of the NYT piece, Scott Alexander, has already experienced real-world career consequences as a direct result of NYT's doxxing and publication. The same can't be said for Taibbi's piece.
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  >With regard to MacKinnon, Langton, and Hornsby, what would you suggest I read (within reasonable time; say, of same order time as reading On Liberty) to inform myself on their arguments against free speech? You're in luck, because we're mostly talking about papers here, rather than books. What books there are usually are just compendia of papers, in the modern academic philosophy way of making books these days. Here's a comment I wrote a while ago with what I think are important papers in the area: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23136757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23136757 It's worth noting that there are responses and counter-responses etc. I'm at the point where the discussions don't matter so much; I'm not convinced that the state is legitimate anyway, and certainly not the modern bourgeois state... with its dangerous driving. >Or can you explain what business "planned obsolescence" has in the same sentence as indoctrination and special forces? Marcuse's aim in a sentence like that is to make the reader think about connections, to link these things as part of the social and economic machinery. It's not that they're related in themselves, they are related as products of capitalism as supported by the political state and the economic market. For example, the list makes me think of the extreme economy of time. >Marcuse had been mired in dialectical comparisons for so long that his sense of proportion was fucked beyond recognition I don't think it's fair to say that Marcuse had lost any sense of scale between wrongs; rather, I think that to list things big and small actually gives the reader a sense of scale of the system. With some books, I think, it's appropriate to immerse the reader and make them relate their own experience when reading. Too many do not make good enough use of rhetoric, and sometimes the rhetoric is used as a battering ram (as I think Taibbi's essay has). I think there are two possible schools of thought here; that perhaps Marcuse's argument is entirely compromised by the presentation of concepts (and perhaps even his point is compromised), or the arguments or general point stand even when the rhetoric and 'feel' conveyed is peeled back. Now of course it may be the case that even if his point is not compromised, it is logically flawed. That's fine too, but it needs more than what I see as a namecally hit piece. >its reporters are (very stridently, openly, and indeed, melodramatically) agitating internally and externally in a bid to silence certain nonconforming voices I have sympathy for this view of what they're doing, but I think it would also pay to examine why Taibbi is writing the article he is writing too. Is it to shut down people who would bring out Marcuse in an argument? Is it to convince philosophers that Marcuse isn't all he's made out to be? I really can't tell, but the way it's written is making me think there's more to it than a simple essay on Marcuse. It doesn't serve as an argument against his point or really any of his positions. Look at the way philosophers and economists have treated Marx. While there are plenty of angry people on the internet writing against him, generally, the response is measured. Scott's article on Marx is at least somewhat charitable. Even the great Paul Samuelson took his arguments to task. But the focus generally wasn't on Marx's use of rhetoric. I don't think it's a far stretch to say Taibbi has effectively written an article to cancel Marcuse long after he's dead and his influence waned, where the only people making use of his work is a small subreddit and a small community of philosophers who specialise in the Frankfurt School.