The Critical Theory of Society Root Causes

chapter one

The critical theory of subject, society, culture and history of the Frank- furt School originated in the experience of the horror of World War I and the immediate post-war period with its rise of nationalism (Horkheimer 1987b; 1987k; 1988a; 1990j; 1995o; Gumnior/Ringguth 1973: chaps. 1-6; Rosen 1995; 1997: 89-116; Plumpe 2002: 31-44; Noerr 1996: 81-101; Du- biel 1992; App. A, B, C, D). Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Friedrich Pollock, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Leo Löwen-thal, and others tried to make sense out of the senseless war experience and to resist the nationalistic and fascist wave in Frankfurt a.M., Berlin, Stuttgart, and elsewhere in Germany, by exploring the writings of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich W. J. Schelling, Georg W. F. He- gel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud (Adorno 2002d: vii-xi, xiii-xv, 1-82; Gumnior/Ringguth 1973; Scheible 1989; Witte 1985; Schnädelbach 2006: 15-17; Gestrich 2006: 17- 20; Camman 2004: 72; Ullmann 2004: 4-8; Seitz 2004: 53-59; Dubiel 1993: 5-11; Noerr 1995: 69-78; 1995: 66-81; 1996, 81-1001; 2000: 7-40; Friede- burg 1998: 5-24; Siebert 2007).

Root Causes

The critical theorists–from Max Horkheimer and Theodor W Adorno to Ludwig von Friedeburg and Jürgen Habermas to Axel Honneth and Hel- mut Dubiel, etc.–hoped with the help of those thinkers to discover the social-psychological, economic, political and cultural root causes of World War I, as well as of the different forms of nationalism and fascism, and of World War II, and of the following restoration and cold war period and the neo-conservative and neo-liberal counter-revolution (Horkheimer 1985g; 1985l; 1987b; 1987e; 1987k; 1988a; 1988c: chap. 14; 1988n; 1990j; 1991f; 1995o; 1995p; 1996q; 1996r; Friedeburg 1995: 53-68; 1995: 24-43; Dubiel/Friedeburg 1996: 5-12; Schumann 2001: 17-34; Offe 2001: 35-40; Kocyba 2001: 43-54; Honneth 1996: 13-32; 2001: 54-63; Gumnior/Ring- guth 1973; Rosen 1995; Demirovic 1990; 1999: 5-14; Dubiel 1994: 5-13; 2 chapter one

1996: 33-40; 1998: 25-35; Demirovic/Paul 1995: 44-65; Campani 1994: 78-109; Schumm 1996: 41-58; Plumpe 2002: 31-44; Rush 2006; Kesting 2006: 59-62). The critical theorists thought that if they would be able to understand theoretically the causes of those events, they could then may- be help to prevent practically something similar from happening again in the future (Horkheimer 1985g: chap. 40; Rosen 1995: part II; Gumnior/ Ringguth 1973: 98-132). In this hope Horkheimer began the formal and systematic development of the critical theory in the Institute for Social Research at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Universität in Frankfurt a.M. from 1930 to 1933, the year in which Adolf Hitler came into power and drove the critical theorists, the “negativists”, out of the “Cafe Marx” in Frankfurt a.M., at least for the time being (Adorno 2002d vii-xi, xiii-xv, 1-82, 373-390; Hitler 1943; Taylor 1961; Rosenbaum 1999; Kershaw 2000; Paassen/Wise 1934; Horkheimer 1974c: 49, 200-202; 1981c: 7-64; 1985l; 1987b; 1987k; 1987j; 1988c; 1990j; 1995o; Gumnior/Ringguth 1973: 7-62; Wiggershaus 1987: chaps. 1 & 2; Frei 2006; Lersch 2006: 72-74). The critical theorists had indeed been dissidents under the Weimar democracy, to which they were loyal at the same time. Now under the rising Hitler dicta- torship they were dissidents without any loyalty to the fascist regime and refused any adaptation (Priester 2006: 27-30; Lucke 2006: 31-35; Kesting 2006: 59-62). They opposed the counter-revolutionary fascism in the spir- it of the critically perceived and received bourgeois, Marxian and Freud- ian enlightenment, understood as an attempt to free people from their fear and to make them masters of their fate (Osten 2006: 62-66).

Revolution and Counter-Revolution

Between the World Wars I and II, Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Sohn- Rethel, Marcuse, Fromm and other critical theorists hoped in vain that the workers in Germany and Europe would rise against their fascist lead- ers and would continue their socialist post-war revolution and thereby conquer the nationalist, völkische, national-socialist counter-revolution, which disguised itself as a revolution not only in Europe but also in the United States (Adorno 2002a: vii-xi, xiii-xv, 1-82, 373-390; Speer 1970: Part I; Taylor 1983; Matheson 1981; Reimer 1989; Krieg 2004; Erickson 1985; Brinkley 1982; Coughlin 1932; Fromm 1973: chap. 13; 1980; Mosse 1975; 1999; Witte 1985; Siebert 2006: 61-114). However, the critical theorists were disappointed, and their disappointment had a great impact on the development of the critical theory of society. Instead of moving to- ward alternative Future III–the realm of freedom on the basis of the realm