Freedom for me but not for thee: From the European Frankfurt School to Black Lives Matter and Critical Theory, an exploration

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Herbert Marcuse with his student Angela Davis

We are in the midst of a battle of ideas against an adversary that is skilled and has been hard at work over decades in our academic and cultural institutions. Marxism predicted the inevitable transition from capitalism to communism through class struggle and the internal contradictions of the capitalist system. When this failed to happen, and instead the working class, and society in general grew richer within a capitalist framework, the Frankfurt School came into existence in Frankfurt, Germany in 1923, and following the rise of the Nazis it moved to Columbia University in the United States in 1933.

They developed a critique of the capitalist system and the culture that makes it possible to exist and thrive. Critical theory seeks to change the culture to bring about the Marxist revolution that material and economic forces alone could not achieve.

One of the leaders of this movement Herbert Marcuse is of particular relevance to events today. In particular Marcuse's text Repressive Tolerance (1965) that was expanded upon in 1969 under the title A Critique of Pure Tolerance. It explains why "tolerance" is only for the Left, and violence is to be tolerated when committed by progressive forces to destroy the existing order and conservatives condemned when defending it. Here is a key passage from the text:

"However, granted the empirical rationality of the distinction between progress and regression, and granted that it may be applicable to tolerance, and may justify strongly discriminatory tolerance on political grounds (cancellation of the liberal creed of free and equal discussion), another impossible consequence would follow. I said that, by virtue of its inner logic, withdrawal of tolerance from regressive movements, and discriminatory tolerance in favor of progressive tendencies would be tantamount to the 'official' promotion of subversion. The historical calculus of progress (which is actually the calculus of the prospective reduction of cruelty, misery, suppression) seems to involve the calculated choice between two forms of political violence: that on the part of the legally constituted powers (by their legitimate action, or by their tacit consent, or by their inability to prevent violence), and that on the part of potentially subversive movements. Moreover, with respect to the latter, a policy of unequal treatment would protect radicalism on the Left against that on the Right. Can the historical calculus be reasonably extended to the justification of one form of violence as against another? Or better (since 'justification' carries a moral connotation), is there historical evidence to the effect that the social origin and impetus of violence (from among the ruled or the ruling classes, the have or the have-nots, the Left or the Right) is in a demonstrable relation to progress (as defined above)?

An example of this approach, reported on by Richard L. Cravatts in The Times of Israel is now applied by the American Studies Association (ASA) that passed a December 15, 2013 "resolution to institute an academic boycott against Israeli universities. Admitting that the organization consciously made the decision to ignore the academic transgressions of universities in any number of other totalitarian, oppressive countries which stifle dissent and imprison errant professors, and which might actually deserve to be censured, ASA president Curtis Marez, a University of California at San Diego associate professor of ethnic studies, said 'that many nations, including many of Israel’s neighbors, are generally judged to have human-rights records that are worse than Israel’s, or comparable.'  Nevertheless, he contended, his tendentious organization would focus solely on Israeli institutions, since, as he stated quite tellingly and disingenuously, 'One has to start somewhere.'”  

A summary of Marcuse's conclusion in Repressive Tolerance is summed up in the title "Academic freedom for me, but not for thee." Accuracy in Academia reported on June 15, 2016 that "about 18 percent of social scientists in the United States self-identify as Marxists, compared to only about 5 percent who identify as conservatives, Dunn and Shields reported" at "an AEI panel discussion last Wednesday, titled “The Close-Minded Campus? The Stifling of Ideas in American Universities.” We are now witnessing this approach break out into the wider society and expanded to the notion of "free speech for me, but not for thee" with political correctness and identity politics running amuck. In 2020 a CATO national survey found that "62% of Americans say they have political views they are afraid to share."  Continuing a look at the historical basis provided by Marcuse for his justification of this practice is provided below. 

     "With all the qualifications of a hypothesis based on an 'open' historical record, it seems that the violence emanating from the rebellion of the oppressed classes broke the historical continuum of injustice, cruelty, and silence for a brief moment, brief but explosive enough to achieve an increase in the scope of freedom and justice, and a better and more equitable distribution of misery and oppression in a new social system--in one word: progress in civilization. The English civil wars, the French Revolution, the Chinese and the Cuban Revolutions may illustrate the hypothesis. In contrast, the one historical change from one social system to another, marking the beginning of a new period in civilization, which was not sparked and driven by an effective movement 'from below', namely, the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, brought about a long period of regression for long centuries, until a new, higher period of civilization was painfully born in the violence of the heretic revolts of the thirteenth century and in the peasant and laborer revolts of the fourteenth century.[4]

Let us examine for a moment the examples what the author's of Repressive Tolerance describe as "progress in civilization."

The English Civil Wars ended with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, in what amounted to a successful conservative counter-revolution from Republican rule that preserved the British monarchy to the present day. Unlike the others celebrated by Marcuse, the British have a conservative tradition. 

The French Revolution born of enlightenment liberalism, and a rejection of the Ancien Régime and the Catholic Church, gave Europe its first modern genocide of peasants in which men, women, and children of the Vendee were systematically exterminated in a revolutionary terror that killed tens of thousands, and the end result was the rise of the dictator Napoleon Bonaparte and a world war that took three million lives. They would have been better served if they had reflected more deeply on Edmund Burke's critique of this process.

The Chinese Communist Party in power since October 1, 1949 has a bloody history, and a negative track record for the world. The founder, Mao Zedong, committed the biggest mass killings in human history. Responsible for the deaths of as many as 70 million Chinese on his watch alone. Mao died in 1976, but the Chinese Communist Party continues its killing spree, but with more sophistication. There is nothing to celebrate.

 In Cuba the pattern was repeated. While Fidel Castro talked democracy in 1959 the firing squads were filmed and broadcast and the terror began to consolidate control. Those who had fought by his side in good faith believing the Revolution was a struggle to restore democracy became uneasy with the course of the new regime. Some, like Huber Matos, Julio Ruiz Pitaluga, and Mario Chanes de Armas who spoke out spent decades in prison. Many returned to the hills of the Escambray to carry on the struggle for the democratic restoration. This resistance was crushed in 1966 after five years of assistance from 400 Soviet counterinsurgency advisors.  Extrajudicial killings would continue for the next sixty years, and like their German counterparts would include Cubans massacred for trying to leave the Left wing dictatorship. Conservative estimates of killings under Castro place regime killings at over 73,000.

Civilizations rise, flourish and fall. This has been the rule throughout human history with the greatest and most well known examples being the Roman and British empires, but there have been many others across the world in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The legacy of the Roman Empire and the living standards it achieved in the ancient world were not duplicated again until Europe in the 18th century. Marcuse also fails to mention the bubonic plague that wiped out half of the human population and put an end to a Roman reconquest of Western Europe. Business Insider described it as follows:

"The Plague of Justinian (541 - 750 AD) brought trade to a standstill and weakened the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, Empire, led by Justinian I. Historians estimate that it killed about half the world's population while setting back Justinian's military efforts. As he was attempting to reunite the Western and Eastern halves of the Roman Empire at the time, this pandemic was another player in its centuries-long decline and fall."

However, despite this devastating blow the legacy of the Roman Republic lives on in the West, and inspired the American founders. 

Marcuse's Marxist interpretation of history is flawed, and his prescription of tolerance for the Radical Left and intolerance for the Right is a recipe for disaster. Herbert Marcuse died in 1979, but his influence is still felt today thanks to one of his disciples.

Angela Davis attended the 8th World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki, Finland in 1962 at age eighteen. The first festival was held in 1947 and the the nineteenth was held in 2017 in Russia and they are gatherings of the youth wing of the international communist movements and part of the communist totalitarian networks. Ms Davis is a serious communist intellectual who studied under Herbert Marcuse. She met him at a rally during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963 at age nineteen. In 2007 she described Marcuse's impact upon her thinking at the time: "Herbert Marcuse taught me that it was possible to be an academic, an activist, a scholar, and a revolutionary." She had decided to study in Europe and began her studies there in 1965.

Inspired by the revolutionary ferment Angela Davis in 1967 decides to discontinue her studies in Europe and return to the United States in order to become involved in the Black  revolutionary movement. She went to San Diego where her mentor Herbert Marcuse was teaching at the time. She was also inspired by the emergence of the Black Panther Party. In 1968 she formally and publicly joined the Communist Party and in the Fall of 1969 she was hired to teach in the Philosophy Department at UCLA.

After having demonstrated her credentials as an academic, an activist, and a scholar in 1970 she showed her revolutionary commitment. Angela Davis purchases the firearms, including a shotgun, that would be used two days later by a 17-year-old African-American high-school student, Jonathan Jackson, on August 7, 1970 to take over a courtroom in Marin County, California. He armed the black defendants and together they took Judge Harold Haley, the prosecutor and three female jurors hostage. They fled the courtroom and ended up in a shoot out with police. The judge was shot in the head with a blast from the shotgun purchased by Professor Davis and it was demonstrated that she had been communicating with one of the inmates. She was charged with conspiracy to murder and kidnap, fled the jurisdiction but was captured two months later across the country in New York City. 

 The campaign both legal and in the mass media was a textbook case of totalitarian networks mobilizing, along with their agents of influence, to shape public opinion and to push for the circumvention of justice.

These networks have been around since 1921 when the Soviet Union organized clandestine operations of propaganda aimed at the West. They created networks of supporters that used all propaganda resources from high culture to the most basic: film, radio, theater, books, magazines, and newspapers. They were able to connect to and use all types of formers of opinion respected by the public: writers, artists, actors, priests, ministers, teachers, businessmen, scientists, and psychologists. 

In the 1970s with Angela Davis this meant songs by Virgilio Savona "Angela" "Angela" "Angela"(1971), The Rolling Stones "Sweet Black Angel (1972), Bob Dylan "George Jackson" (1971), John Lennon "Angela" (1972), Todd Cochran "Free Angela" (1972), and there were others. On the revolutionary front on January 28, 1972,  Jose Marti's birthday, Garrett Brock Trapnell hijacked TWA Flight 2 and one of his demands was the release of Angela Davis.

At Angela Davis's trial, Herbert Marcuse and Bettina Aptheker, with Sallye Davis (Davis's mother)

 Although her first attorney was John Abt, general counsel of the Communist Party USA, Ms Davis was soon represented by the far more competent Leo Branton, a civil rights and entertainment lawyer, who pioneered techniques in jury selection in her defense that were later adopted by other attorneys.
Branton hired psychologists to help the defense determine who in the jury pool would favor their arguments, he also hired experts to discredit the reliability of eyewitness accounts and gave a powerful closing. She was acquitted by an all white jury.

Angela Davis visited communist regimes, and remained silent about the Berlin Wall, and visited with Fidel Castro and back both dictatorships. And following her professor's ideas on "repressive tolerance" refused to speak out for political prisoners in communist regimes.

Mike Gonzalez, of the Heritage Foundation, wrote on September 7, 2020 in the essay "The Revolution is Upon Us" on the relationship between Marcuse, his student Angela Davis and the Black Lives Matter movement.

"Without the indoctrination that revolutionary vanguard groups like Voto Latino carry out, the participation of the working class in the political process would not only be insufficient, but even be counterproductive. “Where these [working] classes have become a prop of the established way of life, their ascent to control would prolong this way in a different setting,” wrote Marcuse.

Or, as Angela Davis, a student of Marcuse at Brandeis in the 1960s (and today, tellingly, an important mentor to Alicia Garza), told a packed auditorium at UVA in 2018, “Diversity without changing the structure, without calling for structural formation, simply brings those who were previously excluded into a process that continues to be as racist, as misogynist as it was before.”

That is why individuals cannot be allowed to attempt to solve what problems they have, but must be herded into an aggrieved collective that then has an incentive to overthrow the system. The individual is the centerpiece of the Lockian Enlightenment; the aggrieved collective category takes center stage under Critical Theory."

Opal Tometi, one of Black Lives Matter’s founders, was photographed with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. She did this despite Venezuela being the country with the highest per capita killings by the police of civilians in the world — several orders of magnitude higher than the United States. 

Hansel E. Hernández shot in the back by police in Cuba on June 24, 2020

Marcuse's work on Repressive Tolerance explains the silence of Black Lives Matter before the murder of young black men by the Castro regime's and Maduro regime's revolutionary police. Since they are communists doing the killing and they are on the right side of history, in the eyes of Marcuse, Davis, and Black Lives Matter, then the revolutionary violence visited on young black men in Cuba and Venezuela must be tolerated while at the same time the violence visited on young black men in the United States condemned. 

Although, even in the United States an exception is made, when young black men are killed by communist or anarchist revolutionaries as was the case in CHAZ/CHOP in 2020. At least two young black men killed during CHAZ/CHOP protests in June 2020: Horace Lorenzo Anderson (age 19) on June 20 and Antonio Mays Jr (age 16) on June 29th. Where is the outrage?

This is why Critical Theory in all its manifestations along with violence must be rejected, and true universal tolerance embraced. Black lives matter everywhere, not just in capitalist societies when killed by white police men. Nor should it be tolerated when black men and women are killed by communist revolutionary police or by communist paramilitaries.