Hiram Caton on Eliseo Vivas’ Contra Marcuse

Contra Marcuse By Eliseo Vivas Arlington, 236 pp., $8.95 I first encountered Herbert Marcuse at a lecture he gave in the days before his reputation reached much beyond the circle of philosophers. It was apparent at once that the occasion was special. All the senior professors had turned out, and a quarter of the audience was obliged to stand. The man was impressive. The proud bearing, the controlled voice with its knife-edge of contempt, and the condescending eye conspired to cloak him with the aura of invincibility that is the privilege of men conscious of their superior merit. I was quite prepared to believe that only the most precious wisdom could reside in a vessel that bore these outward marks of greatness. It was therefore a painful disappointment that the small rump of the lecture which was intelligible seemed preposterous. I concluded that its profundity had eluded my superficial understanding.

Professor Vivas’ book will rescue those afflicted by a similar modesty, for he has shown that when one penetrates Marcuse’s wayward Teutonic prose, he finds that the thought is preposterous in fact as well as appearance. This state of affairs presents a formidable rhetorical problem to the critic. How can he maintain respect for Marcuse’s opinions without investing them with an unmerited dignity? What will reasoned argument avail against opinions whose cogency derives from vague longings? How can one remain dispassionate in the teeth of Marcuse’s “defamations,” without implying that they do not deserve scorn? Vivas has solved these problems in a brilliant manner, thanks no doubt to years of experience at stabilizing some modicum of fact and argument in minds sincerely committed to nonsense. He presents his case by alternating between surprise, irony, reproof, moral fervor, satire and confessions of ignorance that prove that the critic is free of the vices which objectivity obliges him to attribute to Marcuse.

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Hiram Caton

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Contra Marcuse By Eliseo Vivas Arlington, 236 pp., $8.95 I first encountered Herbert Marcuse at a lecture he gave in the days before his reputation reached much beyond the circle of philosophers. It was apparent at once that the occasion was special. All the senior professors had turned out, and a quarter of the audience was obliged to stand. The man was impressive. The proud bearing, the controlled voice with its knife-edge of contempt, and the condescending eye conspired to cloak him with the aura of invincibility that is the privilege of men conscious of their superior merit. I was quite prepared to believe that only the most precious wisdom could reside in a vessel that bore these outward marks of greatness. It was therefore a painful disappointment that the small rump of the lecture which was intelligible seemed preposterous. I concluded that its profundity had eluded my superficial understanding.

Professor Vivas’ book will rescue those afflicted by a similar modesty, for he has shown that when one penetrates Marcuse’s wayward Teutonic prose, he finds that the thought is preposterous in fact as well as appearance. This state of affairs presents a formidable rhetorical problem to the critic. How can he maintain respect for Marcuse’s opinions without investing them with an unmerited dignity? What will reasoned argument avail against opinions whose cogency derives from vague longings? How can one remain dispassionate in the teeth of Marcuse’s “defamations,” without implying that they do not deserve scorn? Vivas has solved these problems in a brilliant manner, thanks no doubt to years of experience at stabilizing some modicum of fact and argument in minds sincerely committed to nonsense. He presents his case by alternating between surprise, irony, reproof, moral fervor, satire and confessions of ignorance that prove that the critic is free of the vices which objectivity obliges him to attribute to Marcuse.