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Herbert Marcuse on the New Left:

Dialectic and Rhetoric

Christopher Swift

Herbert Marcuse’s relationship to the student-activists of the 1960s not only required a differentform of discourse from that of his colleague, Theodor W. Adorno, but also indicated the range ofconditions that govern political discourse in the academy. Whereas Adorno restricted his politicalactivity almost exclusively to the pursuit of dialectical theory, Marcuse’s insistence upon speakingto audiences of activists occasioned a contemporary manifestation of ancient debates over thediscursive forms of rhetoric and dialectic. This essay analyzes two different kinds of discourses: (1)a dialectical conversation between Marcuse and Adorno, and (2) a rhetorical address that Marcusepresented to activists. Taken together, these texts reveal the dependence of the academy on morethan one form of discourse and suggest that even under our contemporary circumstances, theancient categories of rhetoric and dialectic continue to operate as counterparts.

Within days of each other in the summer of 1967, two ideas of the academic were

materialized in West Berlin. On July 7, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno lectured—against the wishes of many of the student activists in his audience—‘‘On the classi-

cism of Goethe’s Iphigeneia.’’ Upon his refusal to engage in an explicitly political

discussion with the attendees, some two hundred of the thousand present made a

display of leaving the auditorium. When Adorno met privately with a small group

of activists two days later, he insisted ‘‘that theoretical freedom and consistency

may not be steered [gesteuert] by any practical purpose [Zweck]’’ (in Kraushaar

2: 271).1 Beginning on the tenth of the month, in the same hall, Herbert Marcuse

lectured and participated in discussions, over the course of four evenings, on

overtly political themes before thousands of auditors at a time. Although a number

of the students called for more practical advice than Marcuse offered them,

according to reports he ‘‘was showered with flowers and ovations’’ (‘‘American

Idol’’ 14) for his efforts to describe what he called ‘‘an opposition that is free from

1In the interests of a consistent vocabulary, all translations are mine. References to usable English transla-

tions, which I have sometimes consulted, appear in the bibliography.

Christopher Swift is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University, TAMU

4234, College Station, TX 77843, USA. Email: c-swift@tamu.edu

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 146–171

ISSN 0277-3945 (print)/ISSN 1930-322X (online) # 2010 The Rhetoric Society of America

DOI: 10.1080/02773941003614472

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all illusions but also free from all defeatism, that already through its mere existence

betrays [verrat] the possibilities of freedom to the establishment’’ (in Kurnitzky

and Kuhn 20).2 While Adorno lived in Germany and Marcuse in the United States,

and while the two professors remained collegial associates of one another, on this

trip they did not meet. The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that

Marcuse’s plane arrived at Tegel airport as Adorno’s departed from Tempelhof

(‘‘Macht des Negativen’’ 98).

This historical coincidence reflects, in part, opposing directions taken by these

two collaborators in what has come to be called the ‘‘Frankfurt school.’’ By the

following year, the New York Times Magazine reported that ‘‘in terms of day-to-

day effect, Herbert Marcuse may be the most important philosopher alive’’

(‘‘Marcuse Defines’’ 29). His involvement in teach-ins, rallies, debates, and discus-

sions with activists as well as other intellectuals had, as one observer put it, ‘‘rejuve-

nated’’ him (Kellner 300). Adorno, on the other hand, died in the summer of

1969—only weeks after testifying against one of his doctoral students for trespassing

on the premises of his academic home: the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt

am Main. Adorno’s already strained relationship with the student activists had

developed into an open conflict and, in response to their disruptions, he had aban-

doned what would turn out to be his final lecture course (Kraushaar 1: 439).

The divergent receptions with which they met, however, also reflect a distance

within the academy that continues to define our inquiries into the politics of its

discourse. Marcuse and Adorno shared the problem of negotiating this distance,

but they represent opposing responses to it. The ancient counterparts of rhetoric

and dialectic continue, even in contemporary forms, to distinguish these responses.

This study seeks to characterize these forms as they developed in two episodes from

the late 1960s: a conversation between Marcuse and Adorno—carried out in letters

over the course of several months in 1969—about the place of the intellectual in

relation to the student movements, and a speech on the New Left that Marcuse

addressed to political activists in December of 1968. Marcuse, in his efforts to

defend the general inaccessibility of Adorno’s writings while maintaining his own

commitment to a more popular form of influence, rejected the necessity of estab-

lishing either dialectic or rhetoric as the only genuine form of academic discourse.3

Dialectic and Rhetoric

Aristotle called rhetoric a counterpart (antistrophos) of dialectic (On Rhetoric

1.1.1). He described the latter as a kind of philosophical conversation (Topics

1.2), whereas he associated the former with speeches for those who could not

2For detailed reports of both events, see Kraushaar 1: 264–267.3For related studies of Marcuse’s discourse, see Aune; both essays by Breines; both essays by Cox; Farrell

and Aune; Jameson; Katz; Nicholsen; and Wiggershaus.

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follow more rational examinations (On Rhetoric 1.1.12; 1.2.12). This distinction

corresponded, in broad terms, to that drawn in Plato’s Gorgias by Socrates, who

presented this dialogue as a contest not only over different forms of discourse,

but more generally over different forms of life: that of the philosopher and that

of the political orator (500c). In order to speak well, Socrates suggested that

one would have to be able to give consistent answers under questioning and

not only to produce monologues that impressed an ignorant crowd. Neither

Socrates nor Plato gained his reputation from any immediate political effect,

but rather from a far more profound influence that continues to guide all of

our thinking about politics today.

The ancients did not, however, dissociate dialectic from contemporary politics

as such. According to tradition, Plato attempted unsuccessfully—and apparently

at some personal risk—to counsel the rulers of Syracuse in philosophical conver-

sation before he withdrew from direct engagement in politics altogether and

devoted himself to the Academy (Laertius 3.18–23). In the seventh letter attributed

to Plato, the author contrasted the situation in which a philosopher would seek to

influence politics from that in which philosophy itself remained the only just pur-

suit. Rejecting the idea that a philosopher would ever coerce others—even his own

parents or children—to examine themselves (330c–31d), he justified his action in

Syracuse, despite his reservations about the outcome, on the basis of indications

that its ruler really wanted to pursue philosophy. In this case, the author confessed

that he did not think philosophy should remain confined to discussions about

politics, but that a philosopher should at least make an effort to engage in politics

as well (328c).

In the absence of a willing philosopher with whom to engage in dialectic, a

speaker interested in improving a political regime would have to rely on another

form of discourse. Plato’s dialogues raised a number of questions about rhetoric:

not only about the prospects of a philosopher surviving without it in a corrupted

government but also about the very possibility of using it to educate those who do

not themselves seek education. In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates nevertheless gave

speeches or recounted myths when examination was inappropriate or had proven

ineffective. Aristotle may have shared the ideal reservations about rhetorical dis-

course revealed in his teacher’s writings, but as a practical matter—in order that

the truth prevail against real ignorance—he recommended both its study and its

utility to the philosopher (On Rhetoric 1.1.12–14).

In the centuries that separated Plato from Marcuse, although the political cate-

gories of the orator and the philosopher remained largely intact, the prevailing

academic concepts of both rhetoric and dialectic changed. Adorno did not dismiss

the ancient philosophical critique of rhetoric, nor did he naıvely seek to oppose his

dialectic to rhetoric altogether. In Negative Dialectics, he described rhetoric as an

unavoidable moment of language as such, associating it with the ‘‘expression’’ as

opposed to the ‘‘object’’ [Sache] of discourse and accordingly with ‘‘the persuasive

[uberredende] goal, without which again the relation of thinking to practice would

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disappear from the act of thought’’ (Gesammelte Schriften 6: 65). Adorno thus

described rhetoric not only as of practical utility for philosophers, but as a neces-

sary element of all discourse. For him, however, it did not characterize language in

its entirety. He described dialectic as ‘‘the attempt [Versuch] to save, critically, the

rhetorical moment: to bring together object and expression to the point of

indifference’’ (6: 66). Adorno did not maintain that dialectical discourse could

represent the object without the mediation of expression that the philosophical

tradition had denounced in its opposition to rhetoric. When he characterized

‘‘the utopia of knowledge’’ as ‘‘to open the inconceivable with concepts, without

making them equivalents [das Begriffslose mit Begriffen aufzutun, ohne es ihnen

gleichzumachen]’’ (6: 21), he suggested that a philosopher could neither avoid

expression altogether nor remain entirely satisfied with it alone. Retaining both

the ideal of objectivity and the recognition of its incompatibility with expression,

he included both the acceptance and the critique of rhetoric in its most general

sense as necessary moments of his discourse.

Adorno did not entirely dissociate his concept of philosophy from the question

of the best way to live, but he suggested that the relationship between these ideas

had also changed. In the dedication to Minima Moralia, he proposed that the

question of academic politics had come to exceed any simple calculation about

the prospects of influencing either a ruler or a crowd. Observing that ‘‘the teaching

of the correct life [die Lehre vom richtigen Leben],’’ which once comprised the

domain of philosophy itself, had fallen into ‘‘intellectual disrespect [Nichtach-

tung]’’ and ‘‘oblivion’’ [Vergessenheit] (Gesammelte Schriften 4: 13; [Minima

Moralia 15]),4 Adorno concluded that this teaching had depended upon the

viability of ‘‘what was once called the philosophical life.’’ He suggested not only

that the citizens of his political regime refused to pursue philosophy, but also that

it had become impossible for anyone to pursue it as the ancients had. As the pro-

ducts and consumers of an ‘‘administered society,’’ his contemporaries could have

pursued such philosophy only by treating the individual ‘‘as if it could still act

[handeln] as a subject [Subjekte] at all, and as if anything depended on its acting

[Handeln]’’ (4: 13; [15]). Without any rulers of the kind that Plato described, the

academic life—which had once designated both the examination and the pursuit

of the best life—no longer retained any immediate practical relevance.

The practical question of whether to engage in dialectical or rhetorical discourse

had thus become, for Adorno, a question about the conditions of the academic life

as such. He considered the exclusion of rhetoric to be no more dialectical than its

unconditional affirmation, but he did not deny the practical difference between a

discursive focus on the object and a discursive focus on expression. The ancient art

of rhetoric lent its name to a condition of language because it corresponded to a

4Citations in brackets refer to English translations. The first citation of a translation includes a reference

to the bibliographic entry, while those that follow give only page numbers.

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focus on expressivity for others. Adorno’s dialectic, on the other hand,

corresponded to a focus on objectivity that never ignored the necessarily unobjec-

tive character of expression. Beyond such conditions of language and thought,

however, these ancient names continued to designate two different forms of aca-

demic discourse. Adorno and Marcuse regularly critiqued the stubborn insistence

upon any particular name for a concept that could never be identical with itself,

and these forms did not disappear when the scope of their concepts was extended.

The recognition that all discourse had a rhetorical moment did not entail that one

had to speak in the form of discourse that the ancients called rhetoric any more

than the commitment to dialectical thinking entailed that one had to speak in

the form of dialectic.

Adorno preferred—dialectically—to examine an object as rigorously as possible

and to compose discourse that reflected such an examination instead of expressing

it in a way suited to the political audiences of his time. He focused his discourses

on the objective moment precisely because he never pretended to objectivity.

Marcuse admitted degrees of examination and did not hesitate—rhetorically—

to adapt his academic concepts for activists. His discourse did not focus on the

expressive moment exclusively; both colleagues opposed rhetoric in the sense

denounced in Gorgias. Marcuse was nevertheless willing to separate the expressive

moment from the ceaseless examination of its own inadequacy to the object. He

affirmed, at least to some extent, communication with others even at the risk of

abandoning dialectical objectivity and the immanent recognition of unobjectivity

that accompanied it. Adorno may have considered the rhetorical form of dis-

course, in this sense, to be inferior to the dialectical, but Marcuse, at least in prac-

tice, did not. Both their letters and their public addresses realized this theoretical

difference and the divergent discursive preferences that corresponded to it.

A Dialogue in Correspondence

As a form of discourse, dialectic requires an audience with the competence to

follow it. Adorno reportedly described his work as a ‘‘message in a bottle’’

[Flaschenpost], an idea that he formulated with Max Horkheimer in Dialectic of

Enlightenment: ‘‘if this talk [die Rede] can be directed toward someone today, it

is neither the so-called masses nor the individual [Einzelne], who is powerless,

but rather instead an imaginary witness [eingebildeter Zeuge] to whom we leave

[hinterlassen] it so that it does not perish [untergeht] entirely with us’’ (in Adorno,

Gesammelte Schriften 3: 294; [Horkheimer and Adorno 213]). Horkheimer and

Adorno refused to address themselves to those who demanded a utopian escape

from reality, contending that neither the masses nor the individual retained the

power to improve the real situation. Instead, they addressed an unreal audience

that would require only an uncompromising analysis of the futility of action in

the absence of a subject who could act. The phrase ‘‘imaginary witness’’ expressed

the difference between their auditor and that of the Platonic dialectic. Without the

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possibility of a philosophical life, the measure of the real human being no longer

restricted their examinations. Any existing audience other than themselves effec-

tively dropped out altogether in favor of a practice of discourse intended to record

the movement of dialectical thought as such—including the inadequacy of any

effort to record it.

This is the tradition of discourse within which Adorno and Marcuse’s corre-

spondence participated. Their exchange was occasioned by a series of student

actions in Frankfurt, the facts about which have received enough attention else-

where to warrant only the most schematic of reminders here.5 On December 3,

1968, students at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University began to strike. The fol-

lowing week, Adorno attended an assembly of the sociology students during which

a prominent speaker proposed that the students send into exile any faculty mem-

bers who disagreed with them (Kraushaar 1: 378–379). Having left that meeting in

silent protest, Adorno and several colleagues announced their support for the

students’ concerns, but dismissed their proposals as ‘‘exclusively propagandistic’’

(1: 379). Hans-Jurgen Krahl,6 in turn, described another faculty member’s accusa-

tions of ‘‘left fascism’’ among the students as ‘‘demagogical infamy’’ (1: 380).7

Adorno and colleagues eventually issued a statement agreeing to several of the stu-

dents’ demands, but demanded in turn that the students cease their ‘‘politically

unjustified’’ occupation of the sociology facilities (in Kraushaar 2: 519). On

December 18, the police arrived to clear the building but found it already evacu-

ated (1: 381–382). Following a month of escalating actions, the students discussed

the re-occupation of the sociology department. When a group arrived there for a

meeting on January 31, 1969, they found the doors locked and police officers

inside, at which point they decided to move their meeting to the premises of

the Institute. When they arrived and sought to occupy a seminar room without

going through the standard scheduling procedures, Ludwig von Friedeburg8

demanded that the students explain their presence. According to Friedeburg, Krahl

impolitely told the professors to mind their own business and pushed him out of

the way. Adorno and Friedeburg then called the police, who arrived and arrested

seventy-six students for trespassing, all of whom—with the exception of Krahl—were released during the course of the evening (1: 397–99).

During this period, Adorno and Marcuse corresponded about the possibility of

a visit by the latter to Frankfurt. As late as February 20, Marcuse continued to

5Kraushaar provides a detailed account both chronologically and in a collection of contemporary

documents. For a summary in English, see Wiggershaus, Frankfurt School, 587–695.6The gifted doctoral student of Adorno’s against whom he would later testify shortly before his death,

Krahl had become a leader of the student movement in Germany. See Kraushaar.7Jurgen Habermas employed the phrase ‘‘left fascism’’ in response to a speech of Rudi Dutschke’s on June

9, 1967 (in Kraushaar 2: 254).8A sociologist and former student of Adorno’s, Friedeburg had taken a faculty position at the Institute in

1966.

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request that the visit remain ‘‘as private as possible’’ (in Kraushaar 2: 577). After

learning more about the students’ perspective on the arrests, however, Marcuse

wrote on April 5 that he did not want to identify himself with the position attrib-

uted to the faculty of the Institute (2: 601; [Adorno and Marcuse 125]). This

account of their subsequent discussion focuses on their disagreement over three

central elements of the relationship between theoretical examination and practical

action: (1) the situation facing both the students and their professors; (2) the cor-

responding role of the professor in relation to the students; and (3) the discursive

form best suited to this role. While Adorno insisted upon the autonomy of theory,

Marcuse maintained the value of expressing his thoughts in a way better suited to

the understanding of the students.

The Dialectical Situation

In his letter of June 19, 1969, Adorno described the ‘‘central point’’ of the contro-

versy between Marcuse and himself as a difference in their respective analyses of

the revolutionary potential of the students. He wrote: ‘‘you contend that praxis

today, in an emphatic sense, is not blocked [versperrt]; I think otherwise about

that. I would have to deny everything that I have thought and know about the

objective tendencies if I wanted to believe that the protest movement of the stu-

dents in Germany has even the slightest prospect of effecting a societal inter-

vention [gesellschaftlich eingreifend zu wirken]’’ (Kraushaar 2: 652; [131]).

Without any real basis for transforming an administered society, Adorno con-

tended that the efforts of the students would at best prove futile and could poten-

tially strengthen the resistance of the establishment (cf. Marcuse, ‘‘Reflexionen’’

49). In the absence of a revolutionary subject, he maintained that even their most

committed actions remained utopian.

Marcuse agreed that the historical situation was neither ‘‘revolutionary’’ nor

‘‘pre-revolutionary’’ (2: 602; [125]) and admitted that he found many of the

student actions in Frankfurt to be ‘‘just as reprehensible [verwerflich]’’ as did

Adorno (2: 654; [125]). He nevertheless sympathized with their refusal of the

establishment and suggested that their desire for a better society corresponded

with his own. On the basis of this refusal, he described the expression ‘‘left

fascism’’ as a ‘‘contradictio in adjecto’’ (2: 602; [125]), suggesting that even if the

students’ actions were not grounded in philosophical examination, they would

certainly help to develop an environment more conducive to both the philosophi-

cal life and meaningful political action.

Adorno responded to Marcuse’s lack of concern about the fascist tendencies of

the student movement by remarking: ‘‘but you are, after all, a dialectician. As if

such contradictiones do not exist—as if a movement, due to its immanent anti-

nomic [Antinomik], could not suddenly turn into its opposite [in ihr Gegenteil

umschlagen]’’ (2: 625; [128]). Instead of dismissing the dogmatism and

anti-intellectualism of the activists, Adorno confessed that he took their potential

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for the development of an environment that was no better than the contemporary

establishment ‘‘much more seriously’’ than did his colleague (2: 652; [132]). He

refused to exempt the students from the same theoretical examination to which

he subjected both the American and the Soviet governments (2: 634–635; [127]).

In his final letter to Marcuse, composed hours before his death, Adorno wrote:

‘‘I am the last to underestimate the merits of the student movement: it has inter-

rupted the smooth transition [Ubergang] to a totally administered world. But there

is a bit [Quentchen] of delusion [Wahn] mixed in, which the totalitarian inhabits

teleologically [dem das Totalitare teleologisch innewohnt], not only first—although

that too—as repercussion’’ (Kraushaar 2: 671; [136]). Despite its merits, the quan-

tity of delusion and totalitarian elements of the movement continued to suffice for

Adorno to distance himself from it, and this distance remained consistent with his

own practice of dialectical examination.

Whether or not the students actually accomplished more than Adorno

expected, his formulations retained a certain theoretical incontestability. He

proscribed the possibility of effective action because his idea of a better life

remained far too distant from the practices of the students. In an interview pub-

lished in Der Spiegel on May 5, 1969, when pressed on the question of how to

judge the value of a political action, he responded that after the regimes of

Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin, he could ‘‘only imagine a meaningfully altered

[sinnvolle verandernde] Praxis as nonviolent [gewaltlose] Praxis.’’ Adorno thus

opposed the students insofar as they perpetuated what he called the ‘‘eternal cir-

cle of applying violence [Gewalt] against violence’’ (‘‘Keine Angst’’ 206; [Adorno

‘‘Who’s Afraid?’’ 17]).9 Anything less than a fundamental renunciation of

violence in this sense would have failed, according to Adorno, to meaningfully

depart from the practices of the establishment and the students would thus never

have effectively escaped from its domain.

Marcuse’s tolerance of the students’ imperfections nevertheless retained a

certain incontestability as well. He did not so much oppose Adorno’s efforts

to avoid self-deception and ideological inconsistency as insist that the finite mea-

sure of the students’ lives remained a legitimate basis for refusal as well. For

Marcuse, not every political practice had to be subjected to the relative indiffer-

ence of historical examination. He understood the desire to contribute to a

better society as a positive force in itself and did not hesitate to endorse the

expansion of individual freedoms even if they fell short of the radical transform-

ation into nonviolent practice for which Adorno held out. Marcuse contended

that praxis was not blocked in the administered society because he admitted a

more modest idea of praxis.

9Kraushaar reproduces chronologically most of the shorter German texts cited here in their original

editions.

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Academic Advice

In the interview with Der Spiegel of May 5, Adorno distanced himself from directly

advising the students on political matters. He admitted that even the best theoreti-

cal analysis would not resolve the practical difficulties that they faced. ‘‘To the ques-

tion ‘what should we do,’ ’’ he remarked, ‘‘I can really for the most part only answer

‘I don’t know.’ I can only attempt to analyze mercilessly [rucksichtslos] what is’’

(‘‘Keine Angst’’ 206; [16]). Adorno did not pretend that his examinations would

eliminate his ignorance about the question of the best way to live in an adminis-

tered society. His examinations were, instead, a response to the inevitability of such

ignorance. In reply to the objection that by critiquing the establishment, ‘‘you are

also obligated to say how one should do it better,’’ he maintained that ‘‘it has hap-

pened countless times in history that precisely works that pursue purely theoretical

intentions have changed consciousness and therewith societal reality as well’’ (206;

[16]). Adorno pursued a political goal primarily in this sense: to transform con-

sciousness and thereby, in the event, to contribute to the transformation of society.

In order to realize such a transformation of consciousness, Adorno maintained

that the demands of theoretical examination prevented him from engaging any more

directly in contemporary politics. He observed: ‘‘my interest increasingly turns

toward philosophical theory. If I would give practical advice [Ratschlage], as to a cer-

tain extent Herbert Marcuse has done, that would take away from my productivity’’

(208; [18]). Adorno did not oppose all practical advice as such, but rather opposed

the productivity of a theorist to that of an activist. Beyond the immediate political

desires of the students, he insisted that he could best contribute to the improvement

of society by refraining from their activities. His analysis of the situation furthermore

implied that his theoretical work would have better prospects of effecting change

than would the relatively unthoughtful initiatives of the activists.

Marcuse did not entirely disagree with Adorno. Both opposed the rhetorical

invocation of a revolution that remained impossible, and Marcuse defended the

theoretical pursuits of his colleague against the mockeries of students. He not only

described the student movement, at least in Germany, as ‘‘unimaginable’’ without

Adorno’s work (‘‘Reflexionen’’ 49), but also openly acknowledged the magnitude

of his debt to his colleague (cf. Schriften 193; [Aesthetic Dimension vii]). Moreover:

if, as one biographer puts it, ‘‘it is a disagreeable but demonstrable fact that

Marcuse’s theoretical work suffered in the period of his most active political

engagement’’ (Katz 177), his own history would support Adorno’s position on

the division of labor. In any case, Marcuse’s efforts to extend the work of his col-

league beyond the academy remain unimaginable without Adorno’s unyielding

pursuit of a transformation of consciousness and his deferral of practical action

in the absence of an answer to the question of the correct way to live.

Marcuse nevertheless defended another position on the academic life as well,

challenging both Adorno’s reservations about his ignorance and exclusive concen-

tration on his own work. In Marcuse’s letter of June 4, 1969, he wrote: ‘‘our (old)

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theory had an inner political content [Gehalt], an inner political dynamic that

today more than before presses for a concrete political position.’’ He not only

refused to dissociate theory from practical answers entirely, but suggested that,

at least in a general way, he knew something worthwhile about the best practice

of life implied in theory.10 Marcuse did not pretend that he could tell others what

to do—he continued: ‘‘that does not mean: giving ‘practical advice’, as you ascribe

to me in your Spiegel interview. I have never done that. Like you I find it irrespon-

sible to advise to actions, from the desk, those who are ready with full conscious-

ness to let their heads be smashed in for the cause’’ (Kraushaar 2: 649; [129]). Yet,

while Adorno confined his practice to theoretical activity,11 Marcuse associated his

own form of action not only with research, but also with pedagogy.12 In a previous

letter, he reported: ‘‘I converse with the students and berate [beschimpfe] them,

when they are, in my view, stupid’’ (2: 602; [125]), insisting that precisely in such

situations, as he later put it, ‘‘it is our task [Aufgabe] to help the movement’’ (2:

654; [133]). For Marcuse, the real distance between theory and practice did not

entail an absolute divorce between theory and non-theoretical activity (cf.

Counterrevolution and Revolt 34). Instead of insisting on a radical transformation

of consciousness as the only legitimate form of improvement, he pursued the more

incremental education of those who could not yet engage in Adorno’s practice of

dialectic on their own.

Marcuse thus proposed not only to address other academics and imaginary

witnesses, but to expand—however slightly—the ranks of the politically educated.

The difference between Adorno and himself did not, however, simply correspond

to the distinction between academic teaching and research. Marcuse included

within his concept of theory the necessity of expressing it to his contemporaries.

Adorno understood the correct way of life for himself as theoretical examination.

Marcuse described his place in the division of labor differently: to encourage the

students—and not only a small circle of initiates or future observers—to think

about the philosophical question of the best way of life for themselves. He did

not consider this to be practical advice because he admitted a broader idea of theory.

The Form of Presentation

An article on Marcuse that appeared in Der Spiegel on June 30, 1969, reported that

Horkheimer ‘‘attributed Marcuse’s fame [Ruhm] merely to ‘thoughts that are

10In a conversation in Starnberg in 1977, to Habermas’s question: ‘‘who determines what the better life

is?,’’ Marcuse responded: ‘‘if someone does not yet know what a better life is, he is hopeless’’ (Marcuse et al.,

Gesprache 31; [‘‘Theory and Politics’’ 150]). Cf. 34 [137].11In the aforementioned interview with Der Spiegel, Adorno described theory itself as a kind of activity

(‘‘Keine Angst’’ 209; [17]).12In an interview published in Le Monde a year previously, Marcuse described his writings and lectures as

‘‘the normal form of action for an intellectual in the United States’’ (Viansson-Ponte 3).

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cruder [grober] and simpler than Adorno’s or mine’’’ (‘‘Obszone Welt’’ 109).

Marcuse accepted this description ‘‘gladly’’ [gerne]—as he put it—writing to

Adorno: ‘‘I believe that this coarsening [Vergroberung] and simplification have

made the barely still recognizable radical substance of these thoughts visible again’’

(Kraushaar 2: 654; [134]). Insofar as Marcuse concerned himself with communi-

cating to the audiences before him, he deserved his relative popularity among

them. Horkheimer nevertheless suggested that Marcuse thereby compromised

his theoretical examinations in order to appeal to those incapable of following

dialectic in its genuine form.

In response to Marcuse’s defense of simplification, Adorno did not hesitate to

express his disagreement, alluding (2: 671; [136]) to a radio lecture broadcast

on March 28, 1962, in which he had criticized Bertolt Brecht for affecting the

language of the proletariat in order to disguise the intellectual sophistication of

his thought (Gesammelte Schriften 11: 421–422; [Notes 2: 86–87]). With respect

to the explicitly political intentions of Brecht’s drama, Adorno commented:

‘‘the heaviest consideration against engagement is that even the correct intention

is off-putting [verstimmt] when one notices it, and even more when it therefore

masks itself’’ (Gesammelte Schriften 11: 422; [2: 87]). In part, this statement

reflected a philosophical point of style already noted by Aristotle: that speakers

who appear to compose their words deliberately arouse the distrust of their

audience (On Rhetoric 3.2.4–5). Adorno’s analysis, however, also implied another

criticism. He contended that Brecht’s engagement ‘‘burdened him with a duty

[Verpflichtung] to the theoretical correctness of what he unambiguously intended

[des eindeutig Intendierten]’’ (Gesammelte Schriften 11: 416; [2: 82]). In order to

present the kind of political ‘‘lesson [Lehre]’’ that Brecht envisioned, Adorno sug-

gested that he must have known the theoretically correct teaching. Deliberately

concealing one’s art—even under the title of inventio—would require, as its

condition, the assumption of one’s artistry.

Whatever its applicability to Brecht’s work, this critique correctly described the

task of Adorno’s own theoretical investigations. Instead of pretending to have

answers for which he would then only need to find the adequate form of presen-

tation, Adorno did not separate ceaseless examination from the sophistication of

his prose (cf. Gesammelte Schriften 6: 44). For him, the gap between objectivity and

its expression required the language of the intellectual to ceaselessly expose it and

thus to pursue and to deny objectivity in the same gesture. Concealing neither his

own intellectual art nor the limits of such art, the dialectical formulation of

thought remained his central discursive preoccupation. In this sense, he did not

even write for an imaginary witness, but rather, as he and Horkheimer indeed

put it, left his work for those who could one day take it up again.

Marcuse did not object to Adorno’s position as such; in a radio interview

broadcast shortly after his colleague’s death, he remarked of his late friend that

‘‘the substance of his work is simply inseparable from the form in which it is

presented. His language is driven by the anxiety [Angst] not to fall [verfallen] into

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reification [Verdinglichung], [. . .] not to become too quickly and too easily

familiar and comfortable [vertraut und vertraulich] and thereby to be understood

falsely’’ (‘‘Reflexionen’’ 50–51; cf. Magee 72–73). Marcuse himself had expressed

the same anxiety in his analyses of Anglo-American philosophy and social-

scientific discourse. Having described ‘‘syntax, grammar, and vocabulary’’ as

themselves ‘‘moral and political acts’’ (One-Dimensional Man 196), he accepted

at least the idea of Adorno’s form of discursive action.

In a letter to Horkheimer dated November 11, 1941, Marcuse had nevertheless

already indicated his own preference for the concerns of the moment over those to

come. He wrote: ‘‘I am not for ‘the message in a bottle’ [Flaschenpost]. What we

have to say is not only destined [bestimmt] for a mythic future’’ (in Horkheimer

17: 213).13 Instead of confining his discursive activity to dialectic, Marcuse implied

that he considered it his task to address the philosophically ignorant. While

Adorno considered the form of presentation only as a moment of dialectical

discourse that negated any pretence to perfect objectivity, and he thus distanced

himself from the aspiration of communicating through the reified concepts of

the establishment, Marcuse maintained that a simplified form of presentation

was necessary precisely in order to communicate with his contemporaries. He con-

cerned himself as much with encouraging others to think as with the formulation

of his own thinking—with expression for others as much as objectivity.

Adorno’s position implied that in conceiving the expression of something

separately from its examination, Marcuse risked the same possibility of deception

as Brecht. Marcuse, for his part, accepted this risk.14 The kinds of assumptions that

his position implied, moreover, may constitute indispensible conditions of any

effort to communicate: namely, the assumptions that one knows something and

can give an answer; that one has the power to influence others and that they have

the power to influence reality; that one may adapt his or her thoughts to the

experiences of others. This position did not, however, require Marcuse to dismiss

the validity of dialectical discourse or to question its priority in certain contexts. It

differed from Adorno’s primarily insofar as it acknowledged an academic counter-

part to dialectic.

Two Academic Discourses

Adorno adopted the position with which antiquity identified the later Plato: he

pursued his work within the confines of the Academy. He did not ever pretend

13Cf. Marcuse’s letter to Horkheimer from October 18, 1951 (in Horkheimer 18: 221–222) and his

response to the ‘‘imaginary witness’’ passage from Dialectic of Enlightenment in the Starnberg interview

(Marcuse et al. 56; [150]).14See Habermas’s comparison of Marcuse’s discourse with those of Adorno and Horkheimer (‘‘Zum

Geleit’’ 12).

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to have arrived at an answer to the question of the best way to live that would

warrant direct and consistent engagement in the politics of his regime.15 This

did not prevent him from contributing to the pursuit of philosophy, but it did

deter him from moving beyond the examination of his society, the complexity

and totalitarianism of which, at least to his mind, continuously underscored the

impossibility of any systematic understanding adequate to justify an unmediated

return to the questions of the individual life. For Adorno, the only just effort

remained the pursuit of what philosophy had become.

Marcuse, on the other hand, adopted a position closer to the stories about Plato

in Sicily. He maintained that modest contributions to improving the activity of the

students could help to bring about a transformation of the regimes under which

they lived. Marcuse may have vacillated between dialectical and rhetorical tenden-

cies in his discourses (cf. One-Dimensional Man xlvii), but this ambivalence

correctly represented his idea of the academic life. He attempted to reconcile

the theory of his colleagues with the activism of the student movements. For

him, the promise of a better society lay neither in the theory itself nor in the kind

of posterity that belongs to Plato, but in the human beings with whom he

struggled and who—however ignorant, damaged, and powerless—maintained an

inevitably imprecise idea of freedom in the face of a reality that negated it.

This position required Marcuse to speak with the student activists in a language

that departed from that of Adorno. If Marcuse’s most academic works fell short of

the sophistication found in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics or Aesthetic Theory, how-

ever, no one could accuse even his most popular texts of appealing to an entirely

non-academic reader (cf. Jameson 108; Habermas, ‘‘Psychic Thermidor’’ 5). As

Marcuse’s speech on the New Left itself illustrates, even his explicitly political dis-

courses did not altogether depart from the idea of the academy that these colleagues

shared. Marcuse turned to rhetorical discourse and to a corresponding practice of

theory in a situation in which—according to his analysis—a more democratic body

of uncertain politicians had inherited the remains of power that belonged, in

antiquity, to assemblies of citizens and kings. By seeking to mediate Adorno’s

theory and the actions of the students Marcuse sought to maintain both dialectic

and rhetoric as discursive counterparts within the repertoire of the academy.

Theory for Activists

Rhetorical discourses require a different form of reading. Marcuse not only sought

to formulate the movement of dialectical thought in his speech ‘‘On the New

Left,’’ he also spoke for real witnesses—people who made up the New Left

15Adorno did not refrain from political action entirely. See, for instance, ‘‘Keine Angst’’ 206 [17];

Gesammelte Schriften 20.1: 396–397; and Kraushaar.

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movement in the United States—and this audience was accordingly a part of his

speech as well as being in attendance for it.

The students had already begun to strike in Frankfurt when Marcuse delivered

this speech as part of the anniversary program of the Guardian weekly, which its

acting general manager described as an aspiring ‘‘forum for the New Left’’ (quoted

in Schumach 26). The event, advertised as ‘‘Radical Perspectives: 1969,’’ sought to

bring such a forum to the Fillmore East Theater in New York City on December 5,

1968.16 An assessment that appeared in the December 14 issue of the Guardian

reported that ‘‘it was the largest non-rally political gathering of the Left in years.’’

The editors could nevertheless only lament that the event ended prematurely when

H. Rap Brown walked off stage during his talk and another speaker, Bernardine

Dohrn, departed in solidarity (Furst 10). A Guardian editorial remarked of the

gathering that ‘‘it was not unexpected that it contained within it the same tensions

and contradictions which are contained within the movement itself,’’ and con-

cluded, in response to the chaos that it produced, that ‘‘our movement clearly does

not have a viable perspective for next year or for the future’’ (‘‘Radical Perspec-

tives’’ 12). This statement found spectacular confirmation in the collapse of the

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at its 1969 convention in Chicago and

the increasingly desperate actions that followed (see Sale 557–599).

Several of the comments shouted by audience members at Brown—including:

‘‘you don’t have a corner on revolution’’ and ‘‘I’m not a sheep’’—illustrated the

difficulties facing any speaker who attempted to address an audience as frag-

mented and skeptical of authority as the New Left (Oglesby, Marcuse, and Brown).

In commenting upon the performances of the speakers at the event, the Guardian

nevertheless identified Marcuse, who had spoken earlier, as an exception to such

difficulties, describing him as ‘‘apparently the only speaker who had an acute sense

of what he was about to impart’’ (‘‘Radical Perspectives’’ 12). Several factors

undoubtedly contributed to Marcuse’s relative facility in addressing this audience,

including his age, experience, fame, and his presence on stage.17 Beyond these

considerations, however, his speech also represented a different kind of political

discourse than that typical of the movement.18

The New Left itself remained notoriously difficult to define. Marcuse had

described it in Berlin as ‘‘not orthodox Marxist or socialist’’ and as not ‘‘defined

by class [klassenmaßig] at all.’’ Consisting, he suggested, ‘‘of intellectuals, of groups

of the civil-rights movement and of the youth, especially the radical elements of

16Kraushaar repeats a widespread error of dating the speech to December 4, but every reference in the

Guardian lists the fifth as the date of the event, as does the coverage in the New York Times. Cf. Kraushaar

2: 496–499.17See the description of Marcuse as a lecturer in Davis 133–134.18In addition to the literature cited above, see Griffen for a rhetorically oriented analysis of the more

activist elements of the movement in the United States.

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the youth, which at first glance do not appear political at all, namely the hippies,’’

he observed that ‘‘this movement has actually no politicians, but rather more poets

or writers as spokespersons [zu Sprechern]’’ (in Kurnitzky and Kuhn 47). His audi-

ence at the Fillmore East represented the diverse elements to which the meeting

aspired to provide some definition (see Furst), and Marcuse addressed it because

he too had become one of its unlikely spokespersons. Whatever his personal

motives for accepting this role may have been, he engaged the troubled movement

by refusing to participate in the sort of traditionally political conflicts that would

ultimately lead to its demise.

The opening lines of his speech already addressed such a conflict. Dohrn, an

influential contender in the leadership struggles among the student activists,19

had introduced him as: ‘‘philosopher, writer, professor [. . .] a man, ah, who the

New York Times calls the ideological leader of the New Left’’ (Oglesby, Marcuse,

and Brown).20 Marcuse began by contesting her description, asserting: ‘‘I never

claimed to be the ideological leader of the left and I don’t think the left needs

an ideological leader.’’21 Accused of leadership, he not only denied claim to it him-

self, but denied Dohrn’s and anyone else’s claim to it as well. This account focuses

on three central aspects of the speech that correspond, roughly, to the previously

discussed elements of his correspondence with Adorno: (1) his analysis of the situ-

ation confronting the activists; (2) the political role for the New Left best suited to

this situation; and (3) the form of discourse best suited to this role. Although

Marcuse advanced a position very similar to that of Adorno, he departed from

his colleague by encouraging his auditors to take part in the development of a

change of consciousness in their own ways.

The Rhetorical Situation

Marcuse may have sought to help his audience in this speech, but he cultivated his

authority only as a theorist. Defending dialectical examination against what

Adorno called the ‘‘blind primacy of action,’’ Marcuse announced: ‘‘I want to give

you today a, eh, as realistic a picture of the situation of the left as I can think of.

19Dohrn played an active role in the downfall of SDS and became a leader of the Weathermen and

Weather Underground factions. Sale called Dohrn ‘‘the symbol of SDS’s final turn toward revolution’’

(Sale 405).20Searches of both the electronic database of the New York Times and paper indexes have not discovered

any articles that use this exact phrase. In 1968 alone, however, the Times published more than a dozen arti-

cles on Marcuse that made some claim about his central role in the thinking of the New Left.21Due to errors in the published transcription and in the interests of preserving the original, spoken

texture of the speech, I’ve transcribed all passages from the audio recording: Oglesby, Marcuse, and Rap

Brown. All citations refer to this recording. Italicized words received some notable emphasis. The published

transcript appeared most recently in Marcuse, The New Left 122–127. Marcuse himself worked parts of it

into a number of subsequent writings, among which Counterrevolution and Revolt perhaps most clearly

develops its themes in an academic context.

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This will require some theoretical reflection for which I do not really apologize,

because if the left gets allergic against theoretical consideration, there’s something

wrong with the left.’’ Instead of directly engaging in the political struggle repre-

sented by Dohrn, Marcuse intervened against this struggle on the side of what

his colleague called ‘‘theoretical freedom and consistency.’’

Marcuse’s analysis of the situation confronting the New Left corresponded in

broad terms to that which he would describe in his letters a few months later.

Beginning his analysis by acknowledging the audience’s unthinking refusal of

the establishment, Marcuse nevertheless declined—unlike the speaker who

immediately preceded him—to suggest on this basis that the movement could

not be wrong or that revolution was imminent. As ‘‘the first great problem for

our strategy,’’ he remarked: ‘‘I think we have to admit that a large part if not

the majority of this population does not really feel, is not aware, is not politically

conscious of this need for change.’’ Marcuse may have assumed, alongside his

audience, that their refusal was justifiable, but he nevertheless acknowledged that

their marginality spoke against them. He thereby exposed a problem for the strat-

egy of the movement that he confronted in his own work and that he encouraged

his auditors to address more directly in their thinking as well. Instead of ignoring

the opposition of the majority and the lack of shared perceptions between them,

he described this gap as the movement’s primary difficulty.

The vocal objections of the audience to Marcuse’s analysis of the situation

reflected its resistance to the dialectical examination of society to which he—no

less than Adorno—was committed. Although Marcuse reassured his auditors that

‘‘nothing is forever in history,’’ the activism that he recommended differed little

from his own intellectual activity. He observed that ‘‘in a period of temporary sta-

bilization, the task of the left is a task of enlightenment, a task of education, the task

of developing a political consciousness.’’ Marcuse did not suggest that his auditors

should all devote themselves solely to the rigorous theoretical work that occupied

Adorno, but he did present the task of even the ‘‘militant leading minorities’’ to

which they belonged as a task of ‘‘political guidance and direction’’ for the ‘‘mass

movements which in large part are lacking political consciousness.’’ He not only

presented the work of his auditors as theoretical insofar as it required them to

think for themselves, but also insofar as it required them to help transform the

consciousness of others. The position of leadership that Marcuse offered them cor-

responded to that which he himself occupied: a teacher speaking to a much larger

group of ignorants.

Marcuse’s theoretical analysis did not deny the possibility of meaningful action

to the movement. On the contrary, he confessed his belief ‘‘that the New Left

today is the only hope we have.’’ While he agreed with the demands of many stu-

dents to join theory and practice, however, even his description of this alliance

resembled Adorno’s position. Marcuse described the movement’s ‘‘task’’ as ‘‘to

prepare itself and the others, not to wait but to prepare today, yesterday and

tomorrow, in thought and in action, morally and politically, for the time when

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the aggravating conflicts of corporate capitalism dissolve its repressive cohesion

and open the space where the real work for libertarian socialism can begin.’’

Marcuse included within this task the necessity of actively contributing to the

aggravation of such conflicts, and his analysis thus differed from that of his col-

league. He nevertheless refused to acknowledge any meaningful action within

the contemporary historical context that would go beyond preparation for what

he called the ‘‘real work’’ of politics that remained, for the moment, obstructed.

He directed his auditors toward the kind of action that Adorno also pursued:

the development of a change in consciousness. While acknowledging the

legitimacy of their impulsive refusal, he pointed it in the direction of thought.

Academic Practice

Marcuse neither suggested that his auditors would have to confine their activities

to theory, nor did he confine his own discussion to what he called the ‘‘pure’’

theory of Adorno. He instead described the pursuit of more practical alternatives

to the establishment as another kind of experiment, observing of what he called

‘‘the second great problem for our strategy,’’ that ‘‘our goals, our values, our

own and new morality, our own morality, must be visible already in our actions.

The new human beings who we want to help to create—we must already strive to

be these human beings right here and now. [. . .] We must be able to show, even in

a very small way, the models of what may one day be a human being.’’ Marcuse

did not call into question the possibility of becoming a new kind of human being

here or hesitate to show others how they should do things better; on the contrary,

he suggested that without such beings the transformation of consciousness would

remain as utopian as it appeared in Adorno’s description of the administered

society. According to his formulation, the effort to live a better life had become

as necessary as the effort to think correctly. Marcuse did not suggest that his audi-

ence could immediately become the kinds of beings that they wanted to help create

any more than Adorno unconditionally affirmed that he could still do philosophy.

Marcuse nevertheless proposed an alternative to the pure negativity of theory inso-

far as he implied that no one could live from refusal alone. Adorno maintained the

necessity of pursuing the already enormous task of thinking in an administered

society prior to engaging in actions intended to disrupt it, and Marcuse directed

his auditors to pursue a corresponding task of their own: to demonstrate the pre-

ferability of their lives and of the idea of society that they embodied. He thus called

them to become philosophers as well, and if this required them to become the sub-

jects whose contemporary reality Adorno doubted, Marcuse insisted that at least a

‘‘very small’’ kind of subjectivity remained both possible and necessary.

Marcuse’s own positive contribution to the movement in this speech neverthe-

less remained ideal. He had no real alternative toward which to point when he

remarked: ‘‘I still believe the alternative is socialism. But socialism neither of

the Stalinist brand nor of the post-Stalinist brand, but that libertarian socialism

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which has always been the integral concept of socialism, but only too easily

repressed and suppressed.’’ He likewise provided largely negative guidance—if

one could call it that—for the organization of the movement. Affirming the

‘‘obsolescence of traditional forms of organization,’’ he professed: ‘‘no party what-

soever I can envisage today which would not within a very short time fall victim to

the general and totalitarian political corruption which characterizes the political

universe.’’ This position not only required him to reject the state-socialist model

of the Old Left, but also any nostalgia for it among the New. Like Adorno, he sug-

gested that any traditionally political party would participate in the structure of

the establishment and accordingly fail to realize the idea that he pursued.

Marcuse’s rejection of the traditional form of political organization corre-

sponded to his opening remarks on the question of the need for leadership. He

maintained a conspicuous distance between his idea of the New Left and the polit-

ical reality that continued to guide many of its actions and aspirations, observing:

‘‘I want to add one thing here that may almost appear as heretic: no premature

unification of strategy! The left is split! The Left has always been split! Only the

right, which has no ideas to fight for, is united!’’ The audience’s laughter

responded not only to Marcuse’s joke about the absence of ideas on the right—

which, given his understanding of it as defending the establishment against any

negative critique, he proposed entirely seriously—it also responded to his refusal

of the political imperative to unify within the movement itself. While, according to

Marcuse, the right lacked ideas, his only alternative to the desire for centralized

leadership within the movement resided in the enigmatic but equally serious

formulation with which he attempted to express his idea of it: ‘‘organized sponta-

neity.’’ Whether utopian or not, this description sought to avoid the subjugation

that it critiqued—challenging the autonomy of its auditors only insofar as they

tended toward the totalitarianism that concerned Adorno. Marcuse acknowledged

a leadership position for his auditors with respect to the majority of society, but he

again directed them toward self-examination and the development of a more

philosophical life as a model for others.

Forms of Action

If Marcuse inevitably presented his own activity as a model for his audience, he did

not restrict them to the language of the intellectual. He insisted only that his

auditors would have to develop languages and practices for themselves that also

differed from those of the establishment. In his discussion of movement strategy,

he observed: ‘‘political activity and political education must go beyond teaching

and listening, must go beyond discussion and writing. The Left must find the

adequate means of breaking the conformist and corrupted universe of political lan-

guage and political behavior.’’ Marcuse did not advocate a break with reality so

much as the kind of theoretical break that Horkheimer and Adorno also proposed.

The language of these intellectuals may itself have gone beyond traditional

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liberalistic forms, but Marcuse suggested that the situation called for other efforts

to disrupt the conformity of the establishment as well. While his colleagues

departed from conventional political activity in the formulation of their thoughts,

Marcuse gestured toward a philosophical activity that would not confine itself to

the most advanced practices of the academy. Instead, he encouraged his auditors

to realize their ideas in discourse with others. Without insisting on its particular

suitability for them, he could only provide his own small example of such a

discourse in this speech.

Marcuse invoked the heroes of the ‘‘Old Left’’ only in the course of a dialectical

‘‘re-examination’’ of their ‘‘most cherished concepts’’ (cf. Counterrevolution and

Revolt 37–38). In the passages analyzed earlier, for example, his discussion of

the ‘‘new human being’’ recalled only in name the use made of it in the Chinese

cultural revolution,22 and his re-adoption of the term ‘‘temporary stabilization’’

opposed not only the establishment vocabulary of stabilization (see Trotsky

[286]), but the movement’s dreams of revolution as well. Even such phrases as

‘‘in peace or in so-called peace’’ and his reference to the ‘‘soviets, if one can still

use the term and does not think of what actually happened to the soviets,’’ indi-

cated his effort to avoid the reification of both establishment and Marxist termin-

ology. As an intellectual addressing an audience of activists, his language reflected

the examination of both the academic and political traditions of thinking that

they shared.

If Marcuse thereby provided a model for the even less traditionally academic

languages toward which he directed his auditors, however, he did not suggest that

they could necessarily accomplish this task any more easily than Adorno could

accomplish his. On the question of strategy, he remarked:

the Left must try to arouse the consciousness and conscience of the other, andbreaking out of the language and behavior pattern of the corrupt politicaluniverse, a pattern which is imposed on all political activity, is an almostsuper-human task and requires an almost super-human imagination, namelythe effort to find a language, the effort to organize actions which are not partand parcel of the familiar political behavior, and which can [. . .] perhaps com-municate that what is here at work are human beings with different needs anddifferent goals which are not yet and I hope never will be, eh, co-opted.

Marcuse’s description of this task as ‘‘almost super-human’’ corresponded to the

necessity of a ‘‘new human being’’ and would have required his auditors to join

what he called, in his more academic writings, a problem of aesthetics with what

he referred to in this speech as a problem of communication. Whether or not this

formulation simplified Adorno’s thinking on aesthetics, it certainly departed from

22For a later, brief exchange on this phrase in comparison to the Chinese, see Marcuse et al. 26–27

[133–134].

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the position of his colleague.23 Marcuse’s very effort to communicate instead of

calling into question the possibility of communication and to ignore the ideologi-

cal character of his own discourse—as in his critique of the right—departed from

Adorno’s dialectical break with politics. Marcuse admitted that none of his audi-

tors could avoid the language of the establishment (cf. One-Dimensional Man

193). He nevertheless suggested that they could exercise—even if again only in a

very small way—the same subjectivity required for the development of new

human beings in their inseparably related efforts to develop a new language and

new actions. Marcuse did not originate the idea that the activists would have to

become works of art themselves (cf. Gitlin 105–106), but in challenging his audi-

tors to create forms of education that would rival in their originality the great art-

works of the European tradition, he once again distanced himself from Adorno

only to point others back in his colleague’s direction.

The Message in the Movement

Marcuse neither refused to speak with his audience about politics nor did he

exploit the delusional tendencies of the movement to improve his own political

position within it. Even in his efforts to describe the historical situation realisti-

cally and to acknowledge the inadequacies of the New Left, he encouraged those

of its elements that were affirmed by his theory. He concluded of the movement:

‘‘you all know that their ranks are permeated with agents, with fools, with irre-

sponsibles. But they also contain the human beings, men and women, black and

white, who are sufficiently free from the aggressive and repressive inhuman needs

and aspirations of the exploitative society, sufficiently free from them, in order

to be free for the work of preparing a society without exploitation. I would like

to continue working together with them as long as I can.’’ Marcuse concentrated

into this brief moment of the speech’s final line his position on the power available

to the individual relative to the establishment. Like all of the movement’s scattered

elements, he suggested that he too remained impotent in the absence of a com-

munity with which to pursue his work (cf. Counterrevolution and Revolt 50).

23Marcuse’s concerns differed here from Adorno’s in at least two notable ways. (1) Adorno called the

music of such ‘‘modern’’ composers as Alban Berg and Arnold Schonberg ‘‘the true message in a bottle’’

(Gesammelte Schriften 12: 126; [Philosophy of New Music 102]). Marcuse, in contrast, identified the promise

of art ‘‘at opposite poles of society,’’ discussing not only works of the avant-garde, but also what he called

‘‘the folk tradition (black language, argot, slang)’’ (Counterrevolution and Revolt 80). (2) Adorno dissociated

both his own work and those of the artists that he recommended from any effort to communicate—to make

common or translate into established and reified concepts. Marcuse, for his part, associated the aesthetic

with the effort to communicate—even in this sense—and identified it with active engagement in politics

(cf. Counterrevolution and Revolt 79–80). Moreover, Marcuse suggested that the ideal refusal that art

expresses may become real in the hands of activists: ‘‘the indictment and the promise preserved in art lose

their unreal and utopian character to the degree to which they inform the strategy of oppositional move-

ments (as they did in the sixties)’’ (Schriften 9: 214; [28]).

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He nevertheless insisted that they all maintained the same degree of freedom that

Adorno attributed to himself: at least enough to prepare a transformation of con-

sciousness. This may not have been the same transformation pursued by Adorno,

but such diversity was not inconsistent with Marcuse’s idea of the New Left. He

did not promise his audience anything more than the possibility of change (cf.

One-Dimensional Man 257), but faced with the question of his own subjectivity,

he identified himself with the movement as an alternative to the message in a bot-

tle. In its present, collective freedom from administration—however modest—he

imagined the chance for a louder cry.

The Counterparts

Neither Adorno’s discourse nor Marcuse’s was impervious to the critique of the

other. Adorno acknowledged the partiality of his language and Marcuse acknowl-

edged the partiality of his audience in ways that the other did not. Marcuse’s

efforts to address the ignorant raised an ancient philosophical question again:

whether or not it was possible to teach others to think for themselves.24 Even if

Marcuse directed his auditors toward self-examination, the departures of his

language from dialectic may have impeded his efforts to help them insofar as he

pretended to objectivity and thereby imposed his necessarily unobjective discourse

upon them. In a more democratic age, however, the prospects of dialectic appear

no more promising on their own. A message in a bottle risks being lost entirely,

and although Marcuse defended his colleague, he questioned the acceptability of

a discourse that almost no one could understand (Magee 72–73). Without an

audience, even the most objective truth could never be realized.

Adorno’s position on rhetoric was not, however, simply anachronistic.

Philosophical scholars of rhetoric continue both to teach and to examine their

subject critically, in accordance with a German tradition that has neither entirely

dismissed nor altogether embraced their subject.25 Friedrich Nietzsche’s insistence

that all discourse depends, at least unconsciously, upon rhetorical arts (see Werke

2: 4: 425–426; [Gilman, Blair, and Parent 21–23])—now renowned despite its con-

finement to his early, unpublished notes and lectures26—did not entail, for him,

24For a range of differing student reactions to Marcuse among the leading activists, see ‘‘Macht des

Negativen’’ 98; Marcuse et al., Gesprache mit Herbert Marcuse, 138; and Salvatore 148.25In the introduction to his Reden uber Rhetorik [Speeches on rhetoric] (1995), Wolfram Groddeck wrote:

‘‘The reproach of ‘dissimulation’ [Verstellung], of insincerity, accompanies the history of rhetoric from the

beginning. The label ‘rhetorical’ typically means only the linguistically all too intentional and artificial. Rhet-

oric is suspected of being—as Kant said—a ‘backhanded art,’ as a bending [Zurechtbiegung] of the facts

through the seducing arts of language toward the end of deception. Rightly [Zu Recht], by the way, as I still

hope to be able to show; however: The standpoint from which it can be so criticized is itself thoroughly

questionable [fragwurdig]’’ (8–9).26For one effort to describe Nietzsche’s influence on contemporary rhetorical studies in the United States,

see the editors’ introduction in Gilman, Blair, and Parent.

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that he identify his discourses with the conscious art of language that the ancients

called rhetoric.27 Both Nietzsche and Adorno continued to distinguish a philo-

sophical from an oratorical form of discourse,28 and both writers, as the counter-

part of the recognition that they could never avoid rhetoric entirely, identified

themselves with the philosophical form.

According to another contemporary tradition, we could simply call Adorno’s

discourse rhetorical and refuse to distinguish it, in this sense, from Marcuse’s.29

There are certainly benefits to this way of speaking: it emphasizes rhetorical ele-

ments that are still too often ignored and dismissed. Any single description, how-

ever, has its limits, and insisting on the generality of rhetoric obviates meaningful

differences between forms of discourse. A presumptive reaction against those who

pretend to avoid rhetoric entirely only encourages the unjustified dismissal of

alternate vocabularies. As Marcuse himself indicated, rote adherence to any parti-

cular name reifies its concept and obstructs thought. Whether or not one agrees

with Adorno, his confrontation with Marcuse presents us with a challenge to

examine our own thoughts and measure them against those of both our predeces-

sors and our own colleagues. Even if one assumes the rhetorical character of all

language, nothing prevents us from seeking to distinguish those discourses that

aspire to be as objective as possible from those that do not. Following the German

tradition, the necessity of drawing such distinctions for ourselves is precisely the

consequence of rejecting the old distinctions.

Marcuse’s speech on the New Left represented a different kind of academic dis-

course from that practiced by Adorno. Marcuse concentrated on the otherness of

the audience and encouraged it to act meaningfully as much in his direct affirma-

tions as in the theory that they presupposed. He spoke neither in the style of

Adorno nor in that of his own university lectures, neither entirely in the language

of the establishment nor in that of the activists whom he addressed. The task

toward which he directed his auditors may have remained philosophical, but his

discourse departed from the narrow focus on objectivity that his colleague pur-

sued. Marcuse began with the refusal that his auditors perceived within themselves

and confronted them as real beings with the negativity that he, as another such

being, faced in his own examinations (see Nicholsen 158). He did not describe

27 Cf. Lacoue-Labarthe 31–74 [14–36], de Man 103–131, and Olson.28For one example of this—contemporaneous with Nietzsche’s lecture course on ancient rhetoric—see

Nietzsche, Samtliche Werke 1: 346–347; [Complete Works 2: 180–181].29For one influential statement of this position, see Burke 43. Distinctions between dialectical and

rhetorical discourse are not, of course, entirely foreign to this tradition. See, for instance, Wenzel, Aune

(esp. 76–82), and the collection of essays edited by van Eemeren and Houtlosser. In his contribution there,

Michael Leff concluded of dialectic and rhetoric that ‘‘the two cannot be collapsed into one another, and if

they both occupy the space of argumentation, they are most comfortably positioned at opposite ends of that

space. The boundary, however, is not impermeable, and the voice of each art can carry over to influence the

other and correct its characteristic vices, the rhetorical evocation turning dialectic away from regressive

abstraction, and the disciplined voice of dialectic turning rhetoric away from vicious relativism’’ (62).

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their refusal as futile nor did he describe it as powerful enough to transform

society on its own. He presented them with an opportunity—however limited

and difficult—to pursue this refusal in forms of action suited to them.

Aristotle called such discourse rhetorical and certain historical considerations

recommend this term—so long as one acknowledges it to be only one manner

of speaking. The present study invokes the ancient concepts of dialectic and rhet-

oric only by way of helping us to think about the politics of these academic dis-

courses and about the politics of our own discourse. It could not resolve the

questions raised here any more than it could decide once and for all between

the value of the lives of Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno—regardless of the extent to which the reputation of the latter has now deservedly

eclipsed that of the former. They spoke to different audiences, and individuals

may have their preferences between them. This essay only reflects an effort to

describe what its author refers to by the names of dialectic and rhetoric as cate-

gories that continue to define all of the central problems of academic discourse

raised by its protagonists. The exchanges of words between them suggest that—

by whatever names—the distinction between these discursive forms remains as

important to us as the contributions of both those researchers to the academy

of their time. They confront us with the possibility that the academy itself depends

upon such divergent practices of discourse. Together, Marcuse and his colleague

indicated a vision of the academy according to which it—for as long as the world

of examination differs from that of politics—will continue to encourage the pur-

suit of more than one discursive practice, more than one practice of discursive

examination, and more than one answer to the question of the best way to live.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks James Arnt Aune, Jennifer R. Mercieca, the Editor and

reviewers of RSQ for thier help in the preparation of this essay and Karlyn Kohrs

Campbell, Joshua Gunn, Edward Schiappa, and Robert L. Scott for thier help with

a much earlier incarnation of the project.

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