Tilbage i starten af 10’erne, da jeg brugte mange timer på AFA og omegn, opdagede jeg også forbindelsen mellem Frankfurterskolen og nutidens venstreradikale. Det kan være svært at sætte ord på, men herunder en fremragende pædagogisk indføring i forholdet mellem Herbert Marcuse og Antifa. Kommunisten Jens Philip Yazdani citerer Marcuse, men woke-venstre har taget en overdosis. Fra Foundation of Economic Education – Herbert Marcuse: The Philosopher Behind the Ideology of Antifa.

“In our last article on fascism, we promised we would explore the philosophical roots of Antifa in order to better understand how they justify the use of fascist tactics in the name of fighting it. Antifa’s fascist tendencies are apparent by a simple surface diagnosis, but a deeper analysis reveals the bankrupt ideology that fuels the movement. …

Defining fascism is no simple task. In 2016, Merriam-Webster noted it was the most-searched term in its online dictionary. There’s a reason for this: nobody really knows what fascism is.

Even among academics, there is little consensus… On one point, however, scholars are united. A key component of fascism, one found in virtually every definition, is the idea that it involves suppression of political opposition and the use of ‘redemptive violence’ against ideological rivals to expand influence and power. Since Antifa routinely use violence and intimidation to prevent political opponents from assembling and publicly defend these tactics as a means to their ends, their fascist tendencies are self-evident.

To most, this connection is clear. To Antifa and some leftist scholars, it is not. The intellectual basis for those who reject Antifa’s fascist connection can be found in the writings of Herbert Marcuse, whose work is considered to be the root of neo-Marxist philosophy. …

Herbert Marcuse was a German-American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist. … While at the Institute of Social Research—better known today as the Frankfurt School—Marcuse would publish several works on Marx that would abandon the Marxist focus on labor and class struggle and develop the controversial philosophy of critical theory.

Critical theory is defined as ‘a philosophical approach to culture, and especially to literature, that seeks to confront the social, historical, and ideological forces and structures that produce and constrain it.’

This might sound benign, but in practice, critical theory is the shallow analysis of politics, history, art, and society through the lens of power dynamics. It places the world into a box of oppressor vs. oppressed and insists that those who are oppressed are ‘good’ and those who are oppressors are ‘evil.’ …

Marcuse applies this theory in his 1965 essay ‘Repressive Tolerance’—a true example of doublespeak—wherein he argues that free speech and tolerance are only beneficial when they exist in conditions of absolute equality. When there are power differentials at play, which there most certainly always will be, then free speech and tolerance are only beneficial to the already powerful.

He calls tolerance in conditions of inequality ‘repressive’ and argues that it inhibits the political agenda and suppresses the less powerful. To account for this, Marcuse calls for a ‘liberating tolerance’ that represses the strong and empowers the weak. He explained that a liberating tolerance ‘would mean intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left.’

… Marcuse openly admits that his liberating tolerance might seem ‘apparently undemocratic’ but justifies using ‘repression and indoctrination’ to advance the agenda of a ’subversive majority.’

… It becomes apparent that if one is an adherent of Marcuesean philosophy, then one could easily justify using fascist tactics in the name of fighting fascism. … if Antifa are truly representatives of the downtrodden and they use force to gain back their power, don’t they become the same type of evil they once fought? …

This is the root of the modern anti-fascist ideology, and understanding the philosophical foundations illuminates why Antifa and others think they have license to behave like fascists in the name of fighting them.”