Marcuse's 'critique of pure tolerance' (the title of the book in which his essay *Repressive Tolerance* was published along with ones by Robert Paul Wolff & Barrington Moore) is similar to US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' 'clear & present danger' doctrine holding that civil liberties can be suspended under certain conditions. ..HM thought, for example, that racist speech represented a 'clear and present danger' that should not be tolerated...of course, in the US the 'intolerance thesis' has been most often used to suppress the left...
Marcuse argues in his essay that 'pure' or abstract tolerance (ie., free speech for left and right) is repressive because 'neutrality' serves the status quo...dominant social institutions 'immunize' people against oppositional ideas...of course, a few 'break through' and read Against the Current, Left Business Observer, Monthly Review, etc. (today, I guess that would include participating on e-lists like this one) but that only proves that 'tolerance' exists...in this sense, toleration is elitist (and smarmy) because of the unequal circumstances... Michael Hoover