[Note:
This posting is subject to further editing.]
An advocate of critical theory begins his/her presentation …
It is seldom the case that one can mark in time
when a school of thought, say political school of thought, began. It probably comes closest to that ability
when it comes to critical theory. In
1923 in the city of Frankfurt, Germany a collection of
political/social/psychological thinkers got together and founded the Frankfurt
Institute for Social Research. Later,
its name was changed to simply the Frankfurt Institute.[1]
There
are an ample number of prominent names involved with this founding. They include Max Horkheimer (who became its
leader), Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin (a literary theorist), philosopher
Herbert Marcuse, and psychologist Erich Fromm among others. This diverse grouping is telling in that
critical theory turned out to be a product of a diverse disciplinary base.
While this group shared varying advocacy for
Marxist thought, they individually and as a group held deep seated concerns
with a good deal of its arguments. What
follows gets into this variance, but first this short historical description points
out that the Institute, due to the political environment in Germany (the rise
of Hitler) during the late 1920s-early 1930s, moved to Geneva in 1933 and then
onward to New York City in 1935.
While much has evolved in critical theory
thought since those early days, the role of this blog will be to get at the
essential arguments the Institute promoted initially. The blog also wishes to point out that many other
writers with varying arguments have added to the mix and it will refer to some
of them. This, of course, makes nailing
down what exactly critical theory is an elusive project. So, for example, contributors emanated from traditions
such as poststructuralism and postmodernism.
Along this line, from this view’s very
beginnings, part of a general trend with Marxism in the West, starting in the
1930s, was that they, Marxist leaning academics, sought conceptual connections
with non-Marxist thought. And their
writings where not, as pure Marxist writings were, geared at proletarian
audiences, but to fellow academics.
The trend was more specifically aimed at
cultural and ideological issues and away from political economy. Just to remind readers, pure Marxist thought
proposed a dialectical materialist view of history.[2] In addition, Marx, in his strict accounting
of what that history reveals, are described forces that simply are/were in place
and do not materialize due to normative considerations.
People, according to this purer form of
Marxism, fulfill their roles in this history not because they good or evil, or
right or wrong, but because they are human beings acting in accordance with
their nature. Critical theorists reject
this reasoning as they turn away from objectified research that opts for
scientific protocols (more on this later).
Another factor of importance to this
development was contextual and time specific to the 1930s. At that time, intellectual upheaval was being
experienced. There was a hostile
environment made of liberal capitalism (or what some have called the late robber
baron era), Stalinism, and fascism.
Not swayed by arguments distinguishing these
ideological traditions, early critical theorists were taken with these isms’ similar
organizational, technological, cultural, and personality structural elements
and, in turn, gave them, the critical theorists, theoretical focus, at least as
compared with what pure Marxist writers were able to enjoy.
From the start, the aim among these writers was
to change society. In such a mode, their
attention to these other isms and how their advocates sought to rule not only
the politics of their polities, but in how people lived their lives. One needed to understand that the more recent
ideological developments – thought of today as mostly anti-democratic
ideologies like fascism – were merely outgrowths of the older, liberal
democratic tradition.
For example, fascism could not be studied or
understood in terms of its own attributes but needed to be considered as a
development spurred on by the subjugating character of the “parental” liberal
democratic regimes. As Horkheimer is
quoted, “He who does not wish to speak of capitalism should also be silent
about fascism.”[3] This seemingly contradictory judgment needs clarifying,
but it reveals the central contention critical theory makes regarding social
realities.
In this mode of transcending traditional
boundaries among the various academic disciplines, critical theory pushed to
crossover from discipline to discipline.
Early on, its advocates began analyzing subjugation from sociological
and political concerns. This led to socio-cultural
analysis with a dash of history in which antisemitism, for example, is
perceived as an outgrowth of dominance initiated by the Enlightenment.
Or stated otherwise, fascism can be categorized
as rebellion of suppressed antagonism initiated by de-legitimizing long held
prejudices among the population against minority groups – especially if those
minorities were perceived as enjoying material largesse. Perhaps Hitler could have adopted a “MAKE
GERMANY GREAT AGAIN” slogan to capture this deep-seated antagonism that before
Hitler might have been sustained at subconscious levels.
With that, this posting hints at where critical
thought is aiming. More needs to be
described and explained. Just to further
remind readers, this blog warned them that with critical theory, one has a more
involved set of ideas than the relatively simple rationales of either parochial
federalism or natural rights views. But
to report as to what this other view, critical theory, has to offer, this blog
will go about doing so in short installments.
[1] This blogger wishes to express a word of gratitude to
a source of information that has served to organize how this blogger presents
its account of critical theory. It also
is a source of information. See William
Outhwaite, “Critical Theory,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political
Thought, edited by David Miller, Janet Coleman, William Connolly, and Alan
Ryan (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell
Publishers, Ltd), 106-109.
[2] Readers who would benefit from a refresher review of
Marxist thought, are invited to look up Posting #68. To gain access, readers can go online and
look up this blog’s posting, “Posting 68:
Some Influential Sources of Critical Political Thought,” Gravitas: The Blog Book, I (April 29, 2011),
accessed March 15, 2023, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zh3nrZVGAhQDu1hB_q5Uvp8J_7rdN57-FQ6ki2zALpE/edit, 240.
[3] Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the
Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950 (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1973), 156.
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