Lou wrote:
Marcuse consulted on Soviet studies with the OSS, the forerunner of the
CIA.
So did Paul Sweezy. A lot of members of the CPUSA also fought in WW 2 for
the US army, the precursor to the defender of the American Century...and
so on and so on....
Steve
Stephen Philion
Lecturer/PhD Candidate
Department of Sociology
2424 Maile Way
Social Sciences Bldg. # 247
Honolulu, HI 96822
On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Louis Proyect wrote:
> >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
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
>
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