Forgiveness In The Sunflower By Herbert Marcuse

Forgiveness is a major theme that is developed throughout The Sunflower, Herbert Marcuse being a philosopher told what he would do if asked to forgive. Born 19 July 1898, in Berlin, Germany, he became an American political philosopher. Marcuse went to the University of Freiburg and got a doctoral degree in German literature when he was 24. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1940 and served as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services for three years. He taught at Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis and the University of California from 1951 to 1976. Marcuse was a professor of philosophy until he died in 1979. His most influential work is the One-dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Wolin). “Marcus argued that the modern ‘affluent’ society represses even those who are successful within it, while maintaining their complacency through the ersatz satisfactions of consumer culture” (Wolin). This was a very influential book
“I think I would have acted the way you did, that is to say, refused the request of the dying SS man” (Marcuse 107). Marcuse straight out says that he wouldn’t forgive the SS officer and he gave some reasons of why. The executioner wouldn’t ask the victim to forgive before he kills them, this was one of his examples. He says it is inhuman and a travesty of justice to do this. One shouldn’t go around happily killing people and then expected to be forgiven on the spot. This is a point strongly portrayed by Marcuse in this section of the book. It is hard to forgive someone for killing family members but having to forgive someone for killing strangers that are unknown to the person, by Marcuse’s opinion, it is not the person’s place to forgive. (Marcuse 108). “I believe that the easy forgiving of such crimes perpetrates the very evil it wants to alleviate” (Marcuse