Abstract

The sympathy and good will with which these critics treat Marcuse render any critical response seemingly malicious and bad-tempered, but it is this very atmosphere of warmth and geniality which, while distinguishing these critics from others, is in question. For good cheer can cheerlessly devastate in its search for a good time; it relentlessly pursues itself, reaching for a known and tested category that soothes so as to fend off a thought that frightens. It is, translated into thought, the friendliness and openness that American tourists are famous for, that aimiably discovers that all the world is the same — which it is in so far as it is brutally made so; it gleefully discovers the American drugstore in Paris or Saigon which it put there.