Tolerating poetic truth in a separate realm protects the status quo

Evidence

This hostility is most sweeping where it takes the form of toleration—that is, where a certain truth value is granted to the transcendent concepts in a separate dimension of meaning and significance (poetic truth, metaphysical truth). For precisely the setting aside of a special reservation in which thought and language are permitted to be legitimately inexact, vague, and even contradictory is the most effective way of protecting the normal universe of discourse from being seriously disturbed by unfitting ideas. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 676

Categorization

• XREF: This ‘double truth’ critique directly maps onto the attention economy — content that is permitted to be vague or artistic precisely so it never disturbs the dominant discourse. — connects to: Labeling language poetic protects an underlying political metaphysics — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 456; The truth of ideas is independent of their social origins — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 210; Relation resists proof and admits only endless poetic description — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 879
• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanism: liberal tolerance of transcendent truth is the most effective censorship, because segregating it guarantees non-interference — a genuinely counterintuitive inversion of tolerance.

Broader Connections

• Labeling language poetic protects an underlying political metaphysics #expands (0.92) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 456
• The truth of ideas is independent of their social origins #contradicts (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 210