File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9709, message 173


Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 23:44:44 -0400
Subject: M-TH: Karl Popper on Adorno & Horkheimer (Part 2)
From: farmelantj-AT-juno.com (James Farmelant)


For I have found in Horkheimer some propositions with which I can
agree.  I can even agree with Horkheimer's formulation of his ultimate
aims.  In the second volume of his book *Kritische Theorie* he says
after rejecting Utopianism;  'Nevertheless, the idea of a future society
as
a community of free men...has a content to which we ought to remain
loyal through all [historical] change. (4) I certainly agree with this
idea,
the idea of a society of free men (and also with the idea of loyalty to
it).
It is an idea that inspired the American and French revolutions.  
Unfortunately, Horkheimer has nothing of the slightest interest to say
about problem of how to get nearer to this ideal aim.

In fact, Horkheimer rejects, without argument and in defiance of
historical
facts, the possibility of reforming our so-called 'social system'.  This
amounts to saying:  Let hte present generation suffer and perish - for
all we can do is to expose the ugliness of the world we live in, and to
heap
insults on our oppressors, the 'bougeoisie'.  This is the total content
of
the so-called Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School.

Marx's own condemnation of our society makes sense.  For MArx's theory
contains the promise of a better future.  But the theory becomes vacous
and irresponsible if this promise is withdrawn, as it is by Adorno and 
Horkheimer.  This is why Adorno found life is not worth living.  For life
is
really worth living only if if we can work for a better world now, and
for the
immediate future.

It is a crime to exaggerate the ugliness and the baseness of the world:
it
is ugly, but it is also very beautiful; inhuman, and also very human. 
And
it is threatened by great dangers.  The greatest is world war.  Almost as
great is the population explosion.  But there is much that is good in
this
world.  For there is much good will.  And there are millions of people
alive
today who would gladly risk their lives if they thought that they could
bring
about a better world.

We can do much now to relieve suffering and, most important, to increase
individual human freedom.  We must not wait for a goddess of history or
for
a goddess of revolution to introduce better conditions into human
affairs.
History, and also a revolution, may easily fail us.  It did fail the
Frankfurt
School, and it caused Adorno to despair.  We must produce and critically
try out ideas about what can and should be done now - and do it now.

To sum up with a phrase of Raymond Aron, I regard the writings of the
Frankfurt School as 'opium of the intellectuals'. (5)

		NOTES

(1) Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, *Dialectic of Enlightenment*,
      Herder & Herder, New York, 1972.

(2) Karl Marx, *Capital*, volume II, 1872, 'Nachwort'.

(3) Max Horkheimer, *Kritische Theorie*, edited by A. Schmidt, S.
Fischer,
      Frankfurt, 1968, volume II, pp. 304f.

(4) Horkheimer, *Kritische Theorie*, p. 166.

(5) Raymond Aron, *L'Opium des Intellectuels*, Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1955


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