Imposing liberation from above is unjustifiable yet no riskier than current liberal rule.

Evidence

But with all its truth, the argument cannot answer the time-honored question: who educates the educators, and where is the proof that they are in possession of “the good?” The question is not invalidated by arguing that it is equally applicable to certain democratic forms of government where the fateful decisions on what is good for the nation are made by elected representatives (or rather endorsed by elected representatives)—elected under conditions of effective and freely accepted indoctrination. Still, the only possible excuse (it is weak enough!) for “educational dictatorship” is that the terrible risk which it involves may not be more terrible than the risk which the great liberal as well as the authoritarian societies are taking now, nor may the costs be much higher. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 211

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School volume’s treatment of Marcuse’s ‘educational dictatorship’ response to the 1968 student movement’s demand-reproduction problem.
• QUESTION: Marcuse concedes the ‘who educates the educators’ infinity problem but still asserts equivalence of risk — worth chasing how this gets resolved in his later writings or whether it remains a known aporia.