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 But the theory becomes vacous and irresponsible if this promise is withdrawn, as it is by Adorno and Horkheimer.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 --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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