The Marcusean Influence on LGBT Activism

Marcuse. In fact, one student radical claimed later in life that he probably read too much Marcuse back then. While many student radicals identified as Marxists, it was instead Marcuse's version of social change that they embraced.

The late 1960s and 1970s also provided fertile ground for Marcusean ideas to be applied. Firstly, there were multiple movements surrounding the rights of disadvantaged minorities, including the civil rights movement, second wave feminism, and so on. This fit in well with Marcuse's aforementioned idea of harvesting various groups' wishes for social change to build a new movement for radical change, in lieu of the original Marxist plan of a revolution started solely by workers. In fact, Marcuse embraced the second wave radical feminist movement late in his life, and this was controversially received by feminists, because some of them saw that he was only using the cause of women's rights as a catalyst for his program of social change.

The Marcusean Influence on LGBT Activism

One of the emerging social movements during the 1960s and 70s was the gay rights movement. The contemporary gay rights movement is often considered to have begun with the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Naturally, Marcusean-style radicals established a foothold in the emerging movement early on. The fact that most mainstream politicians refused to even consider the idea of decriminalizing homosexuality back then

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provided fertile ground for Marcusean-style radicals to position themselves as the true allies of the gay community. Hence, ever since the 1970s, LGBT activism has been divided into a 'radical' faction that is strongly influenced by Marcusean ideas and critical theory in general, and a 'moderate' faction that is driven by obtaining equal legal rights, integration into mainstream society, and winning over public support using persuasion in mainstream forums. Over time, the relative influence of the two factions have waxed and waned over time. For example, during the late 1990s to the early 2010s, with gay marriage being the major LGBT cause, the moderate faction was dominant. In more recent years, the moderate faction's influence appears to be decreasing, and the radical faction appears to be on the rise. This is why ideas derived from critical theory have inserted themselves more and more into the discourse of LGBT politics, displacing the previously dominant rhetoric around shared values, integration and cooperation. Of course, what we need to remember is that both factions are in fact a permanent fixture of the LGBT community, there are a substantial number of people on both sides of the divide at any time, and many LGBT individuals continue to support a vision of integration and cooperation with the mainstream.

While the 'moderate' faction of LGBT activism focuses on things like law reform and building bridges with mainstream society, the 'radical' faction is effectively about putting critical theory into practice, and they certainly don't mind upsetting mainstream society while they are doing that. Building bridges is certainly not a priority of the radicals.

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