Critical Theory (Frankfurt School)

Category: Theoretical approaches

German sociologist Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) received his doctorate and habilitation from the Goethe University Frankfurt, and in 1930 he became director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt (the Institute itself was founded in 1924). Later, this Institute and the philosophical and ideological orientation he nurtured, were named the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. The institute advocated a critical and interdisciplinary approach. The institute published the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (Journal of Social Research), which was launched in 1932. The following year, due to the Nazis coming to power, Horkheimer moved the Institute and the magazine to the United States, where he connected the Institute with Columbia University. After the end of the Second World War, Horkheimer returned to Frankfurt, where he re-founded the Institute in 1950. In addition to Horkheimer notable early members and followers of the critical theory approach are Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Walter Benjamin, Leo Löwenthal, Karl Korsch, Friedrich Pollock, Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, and others. The theoretical approach of the Frankfurt school of critical theory had a major influence on later authors like Jürgen Habermas, Nathan Glazer, Axel Honneth, Siegfried Kracauer, Kurt Mandelbaum, Alfred Schmidt, and Douglas Kellner.

Critical theory is rooted in different intellectual traditions: the philosophy of Kant and Hegel, Marx’s critique of capitalism and its exploitation and alienation of workers, Weber’s notions of rationality, and Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. As an interdisciplinary approach, critical theory uses sociology, political science, economy, psychology, and cultural studies, to study subjects like art, popular culture, capitalism, state, mass media, music, fashion, etc.

From the epistemological standpoint, critical theory rejects the positivist view of science, and it doesn’t attempt to be “objective”. Critical theory adopts “immanent critique” as a method of description and evaluation of social institutions by those institutions’ own internal (immanent) values and ideological claims, and combines it with the notion of totality. The idea of totality refers to the view of society as an outcome of the interaction of many parts and levels, less or more harmonious; but also with inherent contradictions and tensions. The critical theory examines social and historical conditions of knowledge, and how categories and ideas emerge from and serve to support the social order. Like Marxism, it aims to overcome the division between theory and practice.

Critical theory is also an ideological project, as it presents itself as an emancipatory theory, that embraces values of freedom, equality, and fraternity, promised by the Enlightenment thinkers, and rejects capitalism, technological logic, consumerism, mass culture, alienation, domination, reification, commodification, and dehumanization in modern societies. Through analysis of societies of late capitalism, critical theory found that increasing concentration of economic power by large corporations and governments created the need for a state with large administrative powers to support a crisis-ridden economy. The state had to intervene directly in the economy to assure the conditions for the preservation of capitalism. The state also started to intervene in the socialization process through schools, social welfare programs, and mass media, which developed elaborate modes of manipulation and persuasion to create more compliant and obedient citizens. Economy and state were fusing into a single system, a centrally-planned ‘state capitalism’; while culture stopped being the point of resistance to social control and a source of autonomous individuals and society. The decline of the paternalistic bourgeois family led to a rise of conformist individuals vulnerable to falling under influence of authoritarianism.

Max Horkheimer in Traditional and Critical Theory (1937), deals with the problem of science. He critically studies the methodological, theoretical, and practical aspects of science. Horkheimer rejects both positivist and pragmatic views on science because they do not pay enough attention to the social crisis and the problems of human existence. Science is neither capable nor ready, in a period in which there are social problems and economic crises, to deal with the elimination of social misery. Scientific truth cannot be separated from moral questions, so bourgeois science itself acts as an ideology. Scientific perception is always mediated by social categories, and those categories lead to the "reification" of society. Critical theory, in contrast, is conceived as an autonomous practice that should transform culture and society. Autonomous practice is guided by emancipatory principles, that is, that strives to achieve universal and authentic emancipation of all people, regardless of class and group interests. Only in such a rational world, free from reification is it possible for science to be guided by the principles of positivist science.

In his first book, Authority and the Family (published in German in 1936), Horkheimer deals with the way society reproduces itself. He explores how the relationship between authority and cultural values leads to subordinate strata of society accepting their subordinate position. The main role in reproducing these values and maintaining the status quo is not physical force, but social institutions such as the family, church, and school. These institutions, which work together, strengthening each other, are accepted by the people, and then they shape the character traits of the people, the most important of which is submission to authority. Authority is the one that plays a key role in the process in which people passively accept their destiny as a given. Horkheimer believes that the family is the basic unit of society, not the class. The authority that family and marriage have continues to enable a man to dominate a woman and demand her obedience. In culture, too, there are relations of authority. In the field of politics, the relations of authority and domination are much more influential than the ideas of freedom and equality. The Machiavellian approach has become dominant in European politics. Calvinism shifted the idea of utopia to "the other world" while propagating discipline and control in this world.

In the book Dialectics of Enlightenment (1972, in German 1947b), which Horkheimer co-wrote with Theodore Adorno, the authors explore the history of bourgeois society and culture, primarily in the context of the Enlightenment ideas of science and humanism. The Enlightenment is the product of a dialectical relationship between the ideas of freedom, justice, and personal autonomy, on the one hand, and the values of positive science focused on measurements and exactness, as well as pragmatism and utilitarianism, to control nature, on the other. The Enlightenment was a period in which the preconditions of "totalitarianism" emerged because the principles of positive science were applied to exert control over society. These principles led to the spread of ideas and practices of order, control, and domination, while at the same time eliminating mythical thinking and subjectivity. In the modern society of advanced capitalism, proletarian revolutions have not taken place.

The authors see the main reason for this in the mass culture that spreads conformism and controls social consciousness. They called this form of control over the masses "culture industry." The culture industry dominates all forms of mass culture; the mass media sell artistic values as commodities; democracy is characterized by parties that control the masses through their programs and propaganda; consumer products are standardized and eliminate the need for individual consumer tastes. In Western culture, as a consequence of the Enlightenment, the instrumental form of formal rationality dominates, and the goal of that rationality is to achieve control over human action and society, through dehumanized science and technology. Capitalist societies, through the culture industry and dehumanized science and technology, destroy any real opposition by either assimilating or neutralizing it. In these societies, all models of social communication become monolithic and lead to cultural indoctrination. Modern society is becoming an iron cage of total administration, consumerism, and resignation.

In 1949, Theodor Adorno led a team of scientists who conducted extensive empirical research among American citizens, which had an authoritarian personality as its subject. This research, published in the book Authoritarian Personality (1950), became the inevitable theoretical and methodological basis for many subsequent studies of the authoritarian structure of personality around the world. During the research, over two thousand respondents were interviewed, through surveys and in-depth interviews. The questions referred to the political and economic attitudes towards other ethnic groups, as well as the personal attitudes of the respondents.

The theoretical part of the research used Freud's theory of personality development, to connect the way of raising children, which includes physical punishment and instability of parental attention and love, with the development of an authoritarian personality structure. This type of upbringing produces children's aggression towards their parents, but this aggression is sublimated in adulthood and is directed at social groups that are perceived as weak or inferior, while at the same time, the person submits to authoritarian leaders, who unconsciously represent the parent figure. The consequence of this personality development is a weak ego, conformism concerning conventional social values, intolerance of ambivalence, cynicism, and a tendency towards superstition. To empirically measure the expression of this personality structure in individuals, the authors developed the so-called F scale (F is abbreviated from fascism because the premise was that this type of personality is prone to accept fascist values). Research has found that this type of personality is prevalent in all social groups and classes.

Herbert Marcuse, in his 1930s articles, writes about critical theory, totalitarianism, psychoanalysis, and economic reductionism. Marcuse's critique of economic reductionism in Marx's theory is particularly important. Marcuse pointed out that work in production, although very important, suppresses other activities, materializes and alienates man, and prevents him from fully developing his abilities. The game is the complete opposite of work because it enables the development of freedom and happiness. Marcuse also researched what he called the "affirmative character of culture" in civil society. Bourgeois liberal idealism ascribes to the individual the ability and right to seek happiness and promotes abstract ideals of freedom and equality. On the other hand, these abstract ideals do not turn into something concrete, because in society huge part of the population lives in poverty and misery. This is exactly the affirmative character of culture. Liberal humanization does not strive to create a humane society but moves humanization into the domain of the soul of the individual, which should achieve happiness for itself. Because there is misery and injustice in society, poor people flee in resignation, which only increases the misery. Marcuse believes that by leaving a bad social organization and creating a new society, both social and individual happiness can be achieved.

In his book Reason and Revolution (1941), Marcuse explores the dialectical method of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Marx. He believes that Marxism stems from the legacy of German idealism, in which a critical conception of the world emerged. The world is full of banalities and lies, so philosophy must, with its critical power, take off that mask and reveal the true image of the world, which is characterized by human suffering and injustice, and false beauty. Negation is the most important feature of dialectics because it reveals facts about reality that call into question the existing order. In this book, Marcuse criticizes positivist science, because it identifies with facticity, scientism, and conservatism. Marcuse also distances himself from Marx by abandoning the idea that it is the working class that has the historical task of transforming society. Marx hoped that industrialization would accelerate the social and economic processes that would lead to workers' revolutions. However, such a prediction did not come true, because in the West there was a strengthening of social democracy, which led the working class to give up revolutionary aspirations, while, on the other hand, in the Soviet Union, industrialization contributed to increased repression and exploitation.

Marcuse explores the situation in the Soviet Union in detail in his book Soviet Marxism (1958). In the USSR dialectics has turned into an ideology that hides the real state of affairs and provides illusions of historical progress. This ideology is pseudo-dialectical, because it treats the working class as immature, and it has turned dialectics into the worst means of ideological propaganda. The party directed the entire transformation of society - industrialization, collectivization of agriculture, reform of culture, reform of the education system - towards the creation of public Puritan morality of ordinary people, to maintain its power and the existing repressive order. This order is only seemingly anti-capitalist because it sets itself the same goals - increasing production, creating a conformist consent to the existing situation, and suppressing human needs for sexuality and openness. That is why he considers both the Soviet and capitalist systems to be convergent.

Marcuse seeks to defend and adapt Freud's theory in his book Eros and Civilization (1955). He rejects Fromm's elaboration of Freud's theory because he considers it "revisionist." Freud believes that there is a synthesis of the instinct for life (Eros) and the instinct for death (Thanatos) in life, while Fromm diminishes the importance of the instinct for death or destruction. Marcuse believes that both instincts are important and that there is no need to diminish the importance of the instinct for death because the energy of destruction can destroy itself since it is limited by the limits of civilization. There must be destruction in the world in order to build, and vice versa, which makes both instincts paradoxical. The energy of destruction has helped build civilization, but it will gradually calm down, which will lead to changes in people's instincts and the transformation of culture. People will become capable of limiting destructive impulses and directing them in a positive direction, so bans will disappear.

Revisionists try to cultivate man, within the existing culture, by spreading the value of freedom. But they are wrong because innate instincts in people cannot be removed in that way, so the sublimation of negative instincts cannot remove repression. Marcuse believes that civilization is not necessarily repressive, because on an unconscious level, it increases the intellectual drive for freedom and happiness, which is visible in works of human creativity and art. Although "basic repression" is necessary for every society, modern society imposes "surplus repression" because it limits sexuality and creates economic exploitation. His vision of a better society is based on an economy in which exploitation and alienation have been abolished, and sexuality is manifested freely.

In the book One-Dimensional Man (1964), Marcuse explores forms of reification in a developed industrial society. Reification is reflected in the growth of the race for profit, bureaucratic impersonality, militarism, mass conformism, and value-empty culture. Technology and consumerism have prevented social criticism and conflict by assimilating and pacifying criticism and opposition from the working class by constantly creating "false needs." The end result is the emergence of a " one-dimension man " who is unable to think critically about the society in which he lives. That is why true critical thought must come from marginal social strata, which are not integrated into the system. Marcuse studies the limits of tolerance in his book A Critique of Pure Tolerance (1965). He believes that the liberal idea of tolerance helps to reduce criticism of the existing society because such tolerance requires the acceptance of oppressive discourse, and therefore, such oppressive and discriminatory speech should be limited in public discourse.

Authors: Adorno, Theodor; Marcuse, Herbert; Fromm, Erich; Habermas, Jürgen; Horkheimer, Max; Kellner, Douglas. Benjamin, Walter; Glazer, Nathan; Honneth, Axel; Kirchheimer, Otto; Korsch, Karl; Kracauer, Siegfried; Löwenthal, Leo; Mandelbaum, Kurt; Meyer, Gerhardt; Neumann, Franz; Pollock, Friedrich; Schmidt, Alfred.

Books:

Adorno. Eclipse of Reason (1947);

Adorno, and Horkheimer. Traditional and Critical Theory (1937);

- Dialectics of Enlightenment (1972, in German 1947).

- Critique of Instrumental Reason (1967);

- Critical Theory: Selected Essays (1972);

Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse. Studien über Autorität und Familie. Forschungsberichte aus dem Institut für Sozialforschung (1936);

Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations (1968, in German 1961);

Fromm. Escape from Freedom (1941);

- Man for Himself (1947);

- Psychoanalysis and Religion (1950);

- The Sane Society (1955);