On Wed, 28 Oct 1998 11:14:48 -0500 "Charles Brown"
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes:
>Is it in "A Critique of Pure Tolerance" that
>you recall Marcuse's position ?
That sounds about right. The kind of "First Ammendment" absolutism that the ACLU for instance defends seems to me largely an artifact of the way that American jurisprudence works. It can be argued that it in the US it has been historically difficult to defend the civil liberties of leftists or other dissidents using any standard short of a "First Ammendment absolutism." Anything short of a "First Ammendment absolutism" seems to leave too many loopholes that the state can use to repress the speech of leftists. Thus we get the spectacle of progressives who would normally argues against a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution taking an almost fundamentalist view of the Bill or Rights (excluding the Second Ammendment).
Philosophically I think that a free speech absolutism is difficult to sustain but given the realituis of American jurisprudence and such factors as the historical weakness of the left then a First Ammendment absolutism may in fact be pragmatically the best course for leftists to take. (An example in support of this thesis would be the Smith Act. When it was passed during WW II the CPUSA supported it and they were supportive of prosecutions during the war against Nazi sympathisers as well as against Trotskyist opponents of the war. After WW II as we know the Smith Act was then employed against the CPUSA). In other more progressive countries a more nuanced approach to free speech may be the best course to take.
> I guess I
>trace my intellectual lineage for these
>arguments to Marcuse, as I developed
>my thinking on this while working with
>his student, Angela Davis (another
>professional philosopher), in the
>National Alliance Against Racist
>and Political Repression.
>
>Charles Brown
>
>Detroit
>
Jim Farmelant
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