Marcuse For Slow Reform, Not Rebellion

Herbert Marcuse, professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University, said last night that while "the establishment" believes that "truth is a subversive concept and enlightenment a dangerous idea," he does not favor a violent revolution to overthrow it.

"I am speaking not out of any renl hope for immediate change, but only in the knowledge that historical changes always start with very small dissatisfactions," Marcuse noted. "If I did not say what I felt about the establishment--an establishment to which I am a slave--I would suffocate."

Speaking to more than 200 people crowded into the Kirkland House Junior Common Room, Marcuse said that the intellectual should criticize the establishment to teach "mass society" how to live under it, or possibly to abolish it.

The intellectual, Marcuse said, faces a society which has a "new relation between the rulers and the ruled." Applying Marxist concepts to today's situation, Marcuse said he believes that "the masters of the machines have alienated the worker."

Marcuse favors the "grease-spot" theory of history. According to the theory, each bit of teaching by the intellectuals to the workers explaining "their true condition" represents a grease-spot on the book of history. When the book is covered with grease, the theory continues, the workers will understand their condition and will no longer be alienated.

Marcuse said that contemporary public opinion makes it difficult to get at the facts concerning the establishment.