>I am interested in something viewed from your - if I am not mistaken-
>leninist/trotskyst point of view, prevailing among subscribers.
>What is your opinion, and arguments, on ( and I suppose against) critical
>theory of Frankfurt School and the "Institute"......
>Thanks!
> Andrej
The Frankfurt School's unsteady evolution highlights the sometimes
problematic relationship these left-wing intellectuals had to the mass
movement. It would be safe to say that none of them ever resolved the
theory/praxis dichotomy successfully. Moreover, none of them ever seemed
that concerned about the problem.
The Institute for Social Research was founded in Frankfurt by an
industrialist in the late 20s who wanted to foster Marxist thought that was
adequate for the age. The political conditions which shaped the particular
Marxism of the school was:
1) Failure of the Russian revolution to spread to the rest of the world.
2) Degeneration of the revolution and the rise of fascism.
3) Working class retreat.
After Hitler came to power, the Frankfurt intellectuals came to the United
States. Ironically, Adorno, the hater of popular culture, settled in Los
Angeles. Marcuse ended up in NYC, where the work of the Frankfurt School
was continued on a formal basis at Columbia University. During the war
Marcuse consulted on Soviet studies with the OSS, the forerunner of the
CIA. After the war, Adorno and Horkheimer returned to Germany where they
also collaborated with American imperialism, on an even more insidious
basis than Marcuse. More about that presently.
Lukacs was the main intellectual influence on the Frankfurt School. His
emphasis on the Hegelian dialectic underpinning of Marx's thought was key
to Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse. The dialectic, especially the critical
or "negative" phase, was used to point out contradictions in bourgeois
society. As social critics, the Frankfurt thinkers were peerless,
especially in the cultural arena.
Adorno was a master of high culture and wrote knowledgeably about classical
music. Trained as a composer, he worked with Alban Berg and others in the
highly challenging and often unlistenable 12-tone school. During his stint
in Los Angeles, Adorno spent long hours in discussion with Thomas Mann, the
exiled German novelist. One long discussion between the two on the meaning
of Beethoven's 32nd piano sonata finds its way almost verbatim into a
chapter of Mann's "Doktor Faustus."
Adorno and Horkheimer collaborated on "The Dialectics of Enlightenment,"
while Marcuse wrote "Eros and Civilization." These two works were very
influential on 60s radicals, even though they were written in the 40s and
50s respectively. They seemed to address the particular character of
"postscarcity" capitalist society like no other Marxist literature could.
Marcuse's book predicted a rebellion in advanced capitalist societies based
on needs and desires. This view, while a departure from conventional
Marxist thought, did seem to correctly describe the primary impetus of the
60s movements.
After WWII, Adorno and Horkheimer returned to Germany under the aegis of
John McCloy, one of the US's most powerful cold warriors. Their hatred of
Stalinism found itself amenable to a pro-imperialist outlook in the
conditions of American postwar hegemony. As I pointed out the other day on
Doug Henwood's LBO-Talk list, there is no particular internal logic between
one or another expression of Marxist thought and adaptation to the US State
Department. Frankfurt thinkers, "third camper" Max Schachtman, Trotskyist
Felix Morrow, and Stalinist screenwriters alike ended up as flag-wavers
during the 1950s. The explanation is not flawed ideology, but the pressures
of a victorious and sometimes terrorizing bourgeoisie, with deep pockets
for intellectual bribery as well.
Adorno and Horkheimer sometimes acted like scoundrels. They refused to
publish Franz Neumann's "Behemoth," a classic study of the rise of Nazism
since there was presumably too much damning evidence of German corporate
complicity. They also bowdlerized Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction," deleting various references to Marx in it. During
the Vietnam war, Adorno defended US policy and German students raised hell
in his classrooms to his great dismay. He died of a heart attack in 1969, a
bitter and isolated man.
While the tendency always existed in Adorno to place theory on a pedestal,
during his years in postwar Germany they became even more pronounced. His
retreat into theory for theory's sake was justified on the basis of the
Holocaust. Such a terrible event made practical action an impossibility.
The best thing that intellectuals could do was meditate on esthetic
problems. While the working-class was never a central actor in the earlier
work of Adorno, in the 1950s it became a subject of Adorno's "negative"
criticism. He questioned Marxism's preoccupation with production and
declared that one of the missions of "critical theory" was to call for the
abolition of labor. The workplace was not seen as an arena of struggle, but
as a symbol of degradation.
Marcuse took an entirely different trajectory than Adorno. Rather than
becoming an apologist for US capitalism, he remained a bitter foe of
injustice. He was a rebellious spirit and cooperated with student activists
throughout the 1960s and 70s, including Angela Davis. Whenever there was a
sit-in, the aristocratic "high professor" Marcuse was always there.
During his teaching days in San Diego, Marcuse's outspoken leftism drew the
attention of the rather powerful right-wing in the city, including the
American Legion, Ku Klux Klan and freelance fascists. He received
death-threats all the time. At one point, students posted sentries in front
of his classroom during lectures because there was a real fear of violent
attack. At one point, the threats became so serious that he went into
hiding for 2 months.
For all of his commitment to social justice, Marcuse suffered from problems
similar to Adorno. His rebelliousness was not theoretically linked up to
mass movements. Although he was personally committed to antiwar politics,
antiracism, etc., there was virtually no explanation in his writings of how
a "critical" dialectic could be used to advance political action. His
emphasis on the negative critique of American society excluded a positive
approach to a working-class which was seen as rapidly becoming assimilated
into the bourgeoisie.
Marcuse was subject to moods of great pessimism and optimism about radical
change in the USA. Without a grounding in political economy and without an
orientation to the working-class, Marcuse was prone to subjectivity. Since
the overwhelming preoccupation of the Frankfurt school was the Subject in
bourgeois society rather than classes, it is easy to see how he would be
affected in this way. The Frankfurt distance from the working-class was not
just theoretical. One of Marcuse's students at Columbia once told a leftist
friend of mine that he never saw Marcuse dine except on linen tablecloths
and being served by kitchen help.
With this kind of existential/political situation, the Frankfurt school
would understandably display an inability to ground social transformation
in the working class. The "postscarcity" framework of the Frankfurt school
now seems dated as the economic crisis of the past 20 years has gnawed away
at the living conditions of European and American workers.
Louis Proyect
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