The Frankfurt School

Shore’s own judgments and connections

Dialectics survives without its destination: the contradictions inside things still push history forward, but nothing promises that history ends or resolves.

Put simply Horkheimer keeps Hegel's "dialectics," the idea that tensions inside things drive history forward, but drops the promised destination: nothing guarantees that history ends or resolves.

Watching fascism rise in Germany and Stalinism emerge in the Soviet Union, Benjamin sets the two against each other: fascism makes politics aesthetic; communism replies by making art political.

Put simply Benjamin, watching fascism rise in Germany and Stalinism emerge in the Soviet Union, contrasts the two: fascism treats politics as a kind of art; communism replies by turning art into politics.

Once nature is an object, people become objects too: mastery over nature slides into mastery over other humans, then over oneself, producing the herd a fascist leader commands.

Put simply Adorno: once nature is treated as a mere object, people are treated that way too. Mastering nature slides into mastering other people, then ourselves, producing the herd a fascist leader commands.

Keeping an "I" intact is a strain felt at every stage, and "the temptation to lose it has always been there" alongside the stubborn will to maintain it.

Put simply Adorno: holding on to a self, an "I", has always been a strain. Alongside the stubborn will to keep it, there has always been the temptation to let it go.

Adorno's famous verdict, "to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," did not hold: the poetry of Paul Celan eventually made him recant.

History turns on small accidents, Shore holds: had Vienna's art academy admitted Hitler, Nazism might never have taken power, much as the Bolshevik Revolution hinged on Lenin reaching Petrograd.

Hegel cannot be abandoned: without him, existence shows itself as nothingness and death, a "medley of arbitrariness," and that is too high a price to pay.

Put simply Horkheimer: we cannot drop Hegel. Without him, life shows itself as nothingness and death, a meaningless "medley of arbitrariness", and that is too high a price to pay.

Dialectics survives without its destination: the contradictions inside things still push history forward, but nothing promises that history ends or resolves.

Put simply Horkheimer keeps Hegel's "dialectics," the idea that tensions inside things drive history forward, but drops the promised destination: nothing guarantees that history ends or resolves.

Heidegger's notion of care applies to social inquiry: we are already inside the world and it matters to us, so no neutral, detached, scientific stance toward it exists.

Put simply Horkheimer borrows Heidegger's idea of "care": we are already inside the world and it matters to us. So nobody can study society from a neutral, detached, scientific distance.

In the text In his 1931 inaugural lecture at the Institute for Social Research, Horkheimer describes Being and Time as a work that "radically rejects any aspiration to being a social philosophy."

Watching fascism rise in Germany and Stalinism emerge in the Soviet Union, Benjamin sets the two against each other: fascism makes politics aesthetic; communism replies by making art political.

Put simply Benjamin, watching fascism rise in Germany and Stalinism emerge in the Soviet Union, contrasts the two: fascism treats politics as a kind of art; communism replies by turning art into politics.

The Bolsheviks' failing, in Reich's view, is that they have paid too little attention to sexual questions.

For Reich, sexual liberation cannot be achieved inside a capitalist order; the two are incompatible.

Every neurosis has its root in sexual repression: Freud's claim pushed to the extreme, with libido treated as a literal physical energy, orgone, that can be stored in a box.

Put simply Reich takes Freud to the extreme: every neurosis comes from sexual repression. He even treats sexual energy as a real physical substance, "orgone", that can be stored in a box.

Marxism only makes sense when it keeps hold of its Hegelian roots.

Put simply Marcuse: Marxism only makes sense if it stays tied to Hegel, the philosopher whose ideas it grew from.

Critical Theory, as Shore sketches the school, opposes theories promising reconciliation of subject and object, closed systems, and claims to absolute truth.

Put simply Shore's sketch of Critical Theory, the Frankfurt School's approach: it rejects theories promising that mind and world will finally fit together, closed systems that explain everything, and claims to absolute truth.

Thinking is not enough; a theory has to be acted out. Praxis means doing something that a philosophy inspires and that realizes it in the world.

Put simply Horkheimer: thinking is not enough; a theory has to be acted on. "Praxis" means doing something that a philosophy inspires and that carries it out in the world.

Critical Theory, in Shore's account of the Frankfurt School's common project, is normative: describing the world is not enough, it also says what the world ought to be.

Put simply Shore's account of the Frankfurt School's shared project: Critical Theory does not only describe how the world is; it also says how the world ought to be.

Where Freud saw repression as the unavoidable cost of living together, Marcuse sees an exit: the repression that matters is capitalism's, and its hold on the body might be undermined.

Put simply Marcuse: Freud thought repression was the unavoidable price of living together. Marcuse sees a way out: the repression that matters comes from capitalism, and its grip on our bodies might be loosened.

Eros and Thanatos compete for the same space, and the death drive can only occupy ground eros has vacated; so work rearranged to re-eroticize the body shrinks aggression.

Put simply Marcuse: the erotic drive ("Eros") and the death drive ("Thanatos") compete for the same ground, and aggression only fills space eroticism has left. So reorganizing work to re-eroticize the body would reduce aggression.

With Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in mind, Marcuse warns that unless capitalist sexual repression is reversed, annihilation will be our ultimate fate: the death drive will finish off the species.

Put simply Marcuse, writing in 1955 with Auschwitz and Hiroshima in mind: unless capitalism's sexual repression is reversed, annihilation is our fate, because the death drive, our urge to destroy, will finish off the species.

Enlightenment reason, understood as utilitarian calculation, has shut modern people inside an iron cage: the reading of Weber that Horkheimer and Adorno pick up.

Put simply Horkheimer and Adorno take up a reading of Weber: Enlightenment reason, shrunk to calculating what is useful, has locked modern people inside an "iron cage".

Enlightenment set out to free people from fear and make them sovereign; by its own dialectic it ends in catastrophe, an earth that "radiates disaster triumphant."

Put simply Adorno: the Enlightenment set out to free people from fear and put them in charge. Yet through its own inner logic it ends in catastrophe: a fully enlightened earth "radiates disaster triumphant."

Enlightenment reason knows nature only as something to manipulate, and the price of the power it gains is alienation from the very nature it dominates.

Put simply Adorno: Enlightenment reason sees nature only as something to control and use. The price of that power is that we become estranged from the very nature we dominate.

Once nature is an object, people become objects too: mastery over nature slides into mastery over other humans, then over oneself, producing the herd a fascist leader commands.

Put simply Adorno: once nature is treated as a mere object, people are treated that way too. Mastering nature slides into mastering other people, then ourselves, producing the herd a fascist leader commands.

Enlightenment's totalitarian streak is built in, not a detour: a project designed to emancipate individuals arrives at a manipulated collective whose unity is each individual's negation.

Put simply Adorno: the Enlightenment's totalitarian streak is built in, not a wrong turn. A project meant to free individuals ends in a manipulated mass whose unity depends on canceling out each individual.

Keeping an "I" intact is a strain felt at every stage, and "the temptation to lose it has always been there" alongside the stubborn will to maintain it.

Put simply Adorno: holding on to a self, an "I", has always been a strain. Alongside the stubborn will to keep it, there has always been the temptation to let it go.

Adorno's famous verdict, "to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," did not hold: the poetry of Paul Celan eventually made him recant.

Though a Jewish survivor who lost both parents to the Holocaust and had several languages to choose from, Celan writes his poetry in German, and does unprecedented things with it.

Versailles redraws Europe into nation-states after four empires fall.

Weimar Republic founded, replacing the defeated German Empire.

Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt School) founded at the University of Frankfurt.

Walter Benjamin spends the winter in Moscow pursuing Asja Lacis and writing his Moscow Diary, after Lenin's death but before Stalin consolidates power.

Moscow Diary

The State of Contemporary Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research

Politicizing the Sexual Problems of Youth

Frankfurt School thinkers forced to flee Nazi Germany.

Hitler is appointed chancellor (January 30, 1933) after the Nazis become the largest party in the 1932 elections.

Paris falls to Nazi Germany, cutting off Benjamin's route out of Europe.

Walter Benjamin dies by suicide at the Spanish border town after the Spanish-French border closes, ending his escape route to Lisbon and the US.

Adorno and Horkheimer, in exile in California, compose Dialectic of Enlightenment as a running, transcript-like conversation after learning of Auschwitz.

Dialectic of Enlightenment Dialektik der Aufklärung

Deathfugue Todesfuge

Cultural Criticism and Society

Eros and Civilization

Paul Celan visits Heidegger's hut at Todtnauberg in the Black Forest, three years before Celan's suicide.

Paul Celan drowns himself in the Seine.