Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 18:01:30 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [PEN-L:464] Joel Kovel on the Frankfurt School Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. 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 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. All this needs a context, evidence, or a fuller explanation. I doubt very much that Adorno (or Marcuse) were ever defenders of US imperialism. Adorno a supporter of the Vietnam war?! ricardo Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
