Talk:Herbert Marcuse

Note from grandson

Herbert (my grandfather) was not really a "soldier" in World War I. A physical impairment (flat feet, I think) kept him out of combat. He once quipped that he "wiped horses' asses" in Berlin (he was assigned to a cavalry unit). Also, his participation in the 1918 revolution was limited. He did join one of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils in Berlin, but he never claimed to have played an active role. Just as a historical sidenote, "the forces of the Weimar Republic" did not crush that revolution. The Weimar constitution was completed in August 1919, well after the revolution had been crushed (in January 1919 revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered; the last revolutionary gov't was put down in Munich in March). It is true that those who put down the revolutionary movement worked with the later leaders of the Weimar government, but they were and remained outsiders until the early 1930s, when the Nazis were gaining followers.

Finally, Habermas did not really "care for him" during his final illness. Habermas did live nearby in Starnberg and was present at that time, but Herbert was in a hospital with his wife and son at his side around the clock. Rudi Dutschke's recently published diary contains some interesting entries about Rudi's conversations with Habermas during Herbert's final days.

I am, by the way, the actual author of most of the text on the wikipedia site. It was taken verbatim from the site I created and maintain about Herbert: http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/#biography. From what I glean from the wiki "page history," my text was taken in September 2001 by "Stephen Lea, a psychology professor and www-enthusiast from Exeter in south-west England." Since then, four sentences were added by others (two of which I correct here).

Harold Marcuse

Article Organization

"Early History and Education" includes information up to subjects death at age 81 or so. I will remove the heading unless other have different suggestions. I also would appreciate elaboration of Marcuse's important ideas. user:Edivorce

Free Love

Why is there no mention of his early theories of free love? In his later years he never mentioned them but they were still his theories at one point or another.

Response by Harold Marcuse

Herbert's theories from the 1950s do not explicitly advocate "free love" (nor, by the way, did he coin the phrase 'make love, not war', contrary to the claims on many conservative websites). However, his ideas do point in that direction, and he certainly endorsed that motto of the 1960s antiwar movement. In his 1955 book Eros and Civilization, a melding of the ideas of Freud and Marx, Herbert argues that advanced capitalism is based in part on the sublimation and repression of sexual drives. You can find lots more about this on the wiki Eros and Civilization page. (Click on the link under "major works" on the main Herbert Marcuse page.)

Let Us Not Cover Up his Acknowledged Role as Father of the New Left

The source is also mentioned in the New Left Wikipedia article too. Another source is also needed to prove Marcuse disliked and disavowed the term "Father of the New Left."JoetheMoe25 (talk) 15:54, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oh please--a cover-up? You simply have very poor sources, as User:FreeKnowledgeCreator indicated earlier. Drmies (talk) 16:33, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Nope, you are a poor liar. I wonder how you are also able to see my IP address too. Maybe I should call the police.JoetheMoe25 (talk) 16:36, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

• It's in the edit history, idiot. Drmies (talk) 17:25, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
• JoetheMoe25, you are reverted again because you can't seem to find a decent source, decently published, rather than something pulled of a website of questionable reliability. This is an encyclopedia: we cite reliable sources. As for that IP stuff, you have edited without properly logging in on many occasions. That is foolish for many reasons, one of which is privacy, and another is, well, you may well be accused of not logging in in order to prolong an edit war and avoid scrutiny. If that IP address is yours, of course, which a CU can confirm quite easily. You can avoid all that, of course, by a. not edit warring and b. logging in properly. Drmies (talk) 17:35, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

In that case I think I'll call the police unless you compromise. I suggest you also maintain good faith and not use the word idiot as well. I reverted because the source is decent and even used in the New Left page. Quit covering up facts2601:447:4101:41F9:C086:2ACA:D876:5C8D (talk) 17:43, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

• Dude. What are you going to call the police for? You just pasted your IP address all over this page. Berean Hunter, do you think a block for edit warring will suffice, or do you think it's necessary to check? Drmies (talk) 17:52, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Excuse me, but this is my username. Who is Berean Hunter?JoetheMoe25 (talk) 18:03, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

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Marcuse Wanted to Integrate both Eros and Logos

This needs to be known2601:447:4101:41F9:7827:E592:4B47:AAD1 (talk) 16:30, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

FreeKnowledgeCreator, please stop erasing Marcuse's own words.2601:447:4101:41F9:595D:1EFC:BE67:64B5 (talk) 19:40, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid there no excuse for covering up what Marcuse wrote and what he believed.68.47.65.239 (talk) 01:14, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Stop making additions such as "Eros had to integrate with Logos in order to strive". They are worthless and do nothing to help explain Marcuse's ideas. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:14, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is what he believed. If you don't like it, too bad. I even sourced his own book Eros and Civilization.68.47.65.239 (talk) 01:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It exists to convey meaningful, factual information to readers. Including a statement such as "Eros had to integrate with Logos in order to strive" is completely useless to readers because no one knows what it means. Even if Marcuse did believe that, Wikipedia is under no obligation to include it. It is not necessary, appropriate, or even possible for an article about a philosopher to list every single thing he may have believed; we summarize the most important points only. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:49, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, Wikipedia is an encylopedia. And as an encyclopedia, it needs to mention what Marcuse believed and what he wrote. The most important points are that he thought Eros and Logos needed to integrate to build society and that his philosophy was built around this assumption. You are quite right that they need be summarized, so quit contradicting your own words and let them be summarized.2601:447:4101:41F9:1C38:F501:2E85:F7A7 (talk) 11:07, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

The article needs to mention some of what Marcuse believed and what he wrote. Per WP:PROPORTION: "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." Do you have a reliable source stating that the "most important points are that he thought Eros and Logos needed to integrate to build society and that his philosophy was built around this assumption"? I accept that you are trying to improve the article, but you are frankly doing a poor job of it. Not only have you not provided evidence that the ideas you want to mention are among the most important, you have not even tried to respond to the point that a statement such as "To Marcuse, Eros had to integrate with Logos in order to strive" will be completely meaningless to most readers. Perhaps you could suggest a rewritten version that would actually convey some meaningful and useful information? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:51, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Aspects were not minor and were the core of his philosophy. Therefore, you can't use the WP:PROPORTION against me. My edits also contain very reliable academic sources, such as Stanford University. I even included his own book Eros and Civilization as one of my sources.2601:447:4101:41F9:1C38:F501:2E85:F7A7 (talk) 23:38, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a collaborative project, and your assertions about what aspects of Marcuse's ideas are most important do not carry any weight here. Discussion here is not a one-sided process whereby you make claims, other people have to accept them, and that's the end of it. You need to back up your claims about the importance of the material you added with reliable sources; if you cannot, they are irrelevant. You have persistently ignored the point that your additions will be largely or entirely meaningless to most readers. Again, I suggest that you confront the issue or propose a suitably reworded version. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:05, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Not an assertion at all. Even Stanford backed. You need to quit living in fantasy land and join the real world.2601:447:4101:41F9:3C4D:17D2:E221:7A4A (talk) 00:08, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Your comment above, "Aspects were not minor and were the core of his philosophy", was an assertion and was backed by no evidence. Your mention of "Stanford" is presumably a reference to this article. It does not mention that Marcuse believed that "Eros had to integrate with Logos in order to strive", explain what that ungrammatical statement means, or suggest any importance to it whatever. Endlessly repeating that "Eros had to integrate with Logos in order to strive" is a properly written statement will never make that true. Whatever it is intended to mean, it is of no use whatever to readers. "He viewed the integration of Eros and Logos to be the liberation of society" is almost equally as unclear. The expression "the liberation of society" is neither clear in meaning nor neutral. The last of your additions reads, "Marcuse also believed that Logos was superior to Eros and would eventually absorb it"; that, too, is quite unclear in the absence of any explanation of what it means. You have cited it to Eros and Civilization, but it is not clear how the citation supports the statement so it appears to an original research use of the source, presenting your views rather than Marcuse's. One source you provided, Javier Sethness Castro's book Eros and Revolution: The Critical Philosophy of Herbert Marcuse, does support the statement that the categories of Marcuse's political philosophy principally involve the concepts of Logos and Eros; it would be appropriate to add some statement to that effect to the article. You need to stop making childish comments such as, "You need to quit living in fantasy land and join the real world", because they violate WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. If you keep making them they will get you blocked. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:50, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

3O Response: Wikipedia summarizes notable information about the subject, as reported in reliable secondary sources. Marcuse's own book is suitable to cite a quotation, but it is a primary source and doesn't itself establish notability. There should be a reliable secondary source to show that this is notable and important enough to be included. It would be helpful to use the |quote= parameter (and/or |page= for a page number) in the citation template to make this explicit (particularly when the source is long). Without this, it does look like original research. Additionally, if it is decided to summarize this information, I feel it could be phrased in a way that would be more understandable to the reader. – Reidgreg (talk) 14:16, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I accept that the IP editor is trying in good faith to improve the article, and some of the sources the IP has produced do seem helpful and could be used to improve the article. However, there are major problems both with the IP's approach to editing and with the material the IP has added. That includes problems with the comprehensibility of the material, which is of either little use or no use in its current form, and problems with original research. An example is the statement, "Marcuse also believed that Logos was superior to Eros and would eventually absorb it". It would be reasonable to summarize Marcuse's ideas that way if Marcuse had actually written something such as, "Logos is superior to Eros and will eventually absorb it." Anyone can see by looking at the citation provided for that assertion that Marcuse did not actually write that "Logos is superior to Eros and will eventually absorb it"; that solely represents the IP editor's interpretation of Marcuse. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:08, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

He described perfectly well in Eros and Civilization, which I sourced.2601:447:4101:41F9:529:DCBA:F533:B7FA (talk) 02:01, 2 September 2018 (UTC) Even on page 126 He notes how Logos will absorb Eros in his eyes.[1].2601:447:4101:41F9:529:DCBA:F533:B7FA (talk) 02:04, 2 September 2018 (UTC)