Repressive Tolerance

“Marcuse believed that we live in imminent danger of Fascism unless his socialist liberation movement could save the world. As such, Critical Theory was created, in part, to forward the Cultural Marxist new way of ordering the world. Thus, their solution to this problem of too much freedom and too little justice (which they believed existed in dialectical tension) was to restrict freedom, but not in the way they consider fascistic. Rather, freedom should be restricted in a lopsided and self-serving way that favors neo-Marxists and other Leftists advances while suppressing, censoring, and bringing violence to everything Cultural Marxism perceives as ‘to its right.’ This sound extreme but is literally the thesis of Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance.”

James Lindsay

Race Marxism — p. 116-117

” People who believe in moral absolutes from the Bible should be politically destroyed, utterly rendered helpless to the cause of pluralism and democracy … the world is not theirs. They have no right to impose their bulls**t on others. They can either change, or shut the hell up, or practice their special brand of crazy in their homes…or go away.”

Tim Wise
Keynote address
Harvard’s Decade of Dialogue ‘diversity conference’
Invoking the Marcse’s principle of “Repressive Tolerance”

Now, this reality of Repressive Tolerance advocated by the Cultural Marxists and Critical Theorists among us explains why its perfectly fine for Julius Malema in South Africa to leads tens of thousands of blacks in a rousing rendition of “Kill the Boer,” as was demonstrated by the New York Times as the “Paper of Record” editorialized that Malema and the Marxist blacks were  “not really serious,” while at the same time Jason Aldean’s Country Western song “Try That In A Small Town” must be shut down and canceled because of its “racist overtones.” That contrast between South African Malema leading tens of thousands of Black Marxists in singing “Kill the Boer,” as being perfectly acceptable, while Aldean merely croons about a small town not putting up with violence being seen as incendiary and outrageous is a perfect example of Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance.”

Another example of Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance” that was on display a year or so ago was when the State of Wisconsin went after Kyle Rittenhouse for Homicide as well as other equally serious charges. Contrast that with all the mayhem from the Black Lives Matter riots and the miniscule prosecution of those reprobates.

Another example of Repressive Tolerance is when Statewide and local news media slanders and libels a Pastor seeking to shut him down and get him fired while defending in print other Pastors who are advocating the most perverted behavior.

Richard M. Weaver, in his Southern Essays, gets at this “Repressive Tolerance” in his description of what he referred to as a Faustian man;

“… a man who is unhappy unless he feels he is making the world over. He may talk much of tolerance, but for him tolerance is an exponent of power … For different opinions and ways of life he has not respect, but hostility or contemptuous indifference, until the day when they can be brought around to conform with his own.”

Marcuse’s repressive tolerance is pursued to the end of creating new social imaginaries by forbidding previous old social imaginaries. Repressive tolerance is invoked in order to suck the oxygen out of the room so that the previous plausibility structures by which a people lived by dies. Repressive tolerance is an attempt to clear away previous widely held worldview commitments and narratives in favor of a new cultural Marxist worldview and narrative.

Repressive tolerance is warfare and we Christians are now on the beaches of Dunkirk.

Now having said all that, I quite agree with Marcuse about “Repressive Tolerance.” Understand that Marcuse was seeking to advance a new religion and he understood that in order for his new religion to take root the old religion which was contrary to his religion must be rooted out, leaf, twig, and branch.  So, in order to achieve this Marcuse created the doctrine of Repressive Tolerance. At this point Marcuse is merely saying that his religion should have the hegemony and no other religions should be allowed to challenge it and so should be repressed.

I quite agree, and because I agree I too believe that “Repressive Tolerance” should be practiced by Christians. Christians should have no tolerance for wickedness such as what Marcuse advocates in his religion. Just as Marcuse is seeking to wipe out Christianity (a faith Marcuse and the Left sees as wicked) via his Repressive Tolerance so sane Christians should likewise champion their own Biblically guided version of Repressive Tolerance. Christians should not tolerate religions which seek to overthrow Christianity.

I am saying that if we want to rebuild Christian civilization that all of this principled pluralism that we currently have in our social order with its corresponding tolerance that has now morphed into Repressive Tolerance of Marcuse and the Left has to go. We have to return to a Christ honoring social order that does not allow for a confessional pluralism which yields to a tolerance that seeks to buy time so it can replace Christ as King with other false gods in the name of Cultural Marxist “repressive tolerance” which is naught but anti-tolerance tolerance.

In the words of the great R. J. Rushdoony;

“There can be no tolerance in a law-system for another religion. Toleration is a device used to introduce a new law system as a prelude to a new intolerance… Every law-system must maintain its existence by hostility to every other law system and to alien religious foundations or else it commits suicide.”

Cultural Marxism is another religion and Christians must not tolerate it. If you are a minister of Christ you should be saying what is found in this article from your pulpit. If you’re not saying these kinds of things you are a unfaithful shepherd.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

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