The question I have long asked myself about Herbert Marcuse is this: how was he able to perceive with such clarity the "kinder, gentler" form of fascism characteristic of the American way of life (and death)? After all, he was not born or raised in the U.S.--how could he possibly understand what it is like to be an American?
This question, like many others, contains its own answer. It is precisely because Marcuse was not born, raised, and therefore socialized in the United States that he was able to see it with fresh eyes. Moreover, he saw it with the eyes of one who arrived in the U.S. having fled Nazi Germany where he had witnessed hard-core, in-your-face fascism first-hand. And, then, of course, he worked for several years for U.S. intelligence agencies (the OSS in particular, precursor to the CIA); the latter experience gave him an insider perspective on the role of the U.S. government in the active manipulation of information and the production of propaganda and its dissemination.
The better question to ask about Marcuse is a purely rhetorical one: given his background and experiences, how would it have been possible for him to think in any other way?
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