Frankfurt School: Blanca Muñoz

First Generation Carlos III University of Madrid

technical sheet

The Frankfurt School emerged as a logical consequence in response to the

events that began in Europe in the 1920s, already
As early as 1923, the need to develop a
global reflection on the processes that consolidate bourgeois-capitalist society
and the meaning of the theory in light of such consolidation. In this way, the Institute of
Social Research will restore to Philosophy and Social Science their character
of critical analysis not only in relation to theory but also to praxis and to
historical conjunction of both.

Chronologically, and in a conventional manner, one can make a

description of the 'external' evolution of the Institute (Institute for Social Research).
According to the conventional narrative, the Institute was established between 1923 and
1924, linked to the University of Frankfurt and financed by the merchant
Hermann Weil. Felix Weil, son of the former, Friedrich Pollock, Kurt Albert Gerlach and
the young Max Horkheimer, among other initiators, proposes the study of
Marxism, but not from a perspective of political affiliation, rather from the
updating the concepts and issues of Marx's own work, and that already in
In 1922, a week of study organized on this had been resumed.
problematic. However, it will be Kurt Albert Gerlach who manages to get the Ministry
from German Education authorizes the Institute of Social Research. This authorization,
more the financing from Hermann Weil allows an autonomy without which there would be none
It was possible to create an "Institute of Marxism," as it was intended to be called.
at first.

The address of Carl Grünberg, who came from the University of Vienna, focuses on the
Institute for a study of the History of Socialism and the movement
worker (Grünberg Archive", with XV volumes). As a political scientist, this concern is
together with the interest in the works of Georg Lukács and Karl Korsch who
they introduced a positive assessment and rethinking of the Marxian theme of the
ideological superstructures; that is to say, they claimed the increasingly important significance
of factors related to the symbolic and cultural. However, this stage of Grünberg
As director, it must be regarded as the 'prehistory' of the School of
Frankfurt. The Frankfurt School, as we consider it today, has its
authentic genesis under the direction of Max Horkheimer when he succeeds Grünberg
at the direction of the Institute. Since 1931, and already in 1932 with the publication of the
"Social Research Journal" ("Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung") can be spoken
from the Frankfurt School formed by those who will be its authors
fundamentals: Theodor W. Adorno, the same Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm,
Walter Benjamin, Leo Lowenthal, and soon after Herbert Marcuse. Likewise, Franz
Borkenau, Siegfried Kracauer, Otto Kirchheimer, Franz Neumann, Olga Lang or
for a brief time Paul Lazarsfeld, among other relevant names,
They will work and collaborate on the projects of the School. But, the 'hard core'
Frankfurtian will be formed by Horkheimer/Adorno, Benjamin, Fromm, and
Marcuse. It is precisely the themes and the approach given by them that provide the
characteristic bias towards the School and despite what is being presented lately
as dispersed lines of research, as suggested by Axel Honneth
highlighting the works of Neumann and Kirchheimer in contrast to those of Adorno and Marcuse.
Then we will expose the usual topics that circulate about Critical Theory in the
most recent publications.

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 The term Critical Theory was coined by Horkheimer.
which will later extend as the most specific definition of the meaning of the
School. Both Horkheimer and Adorno -who will not associate until 1938
fully to the group - they will objectively establish the basic meaning of what
what should be understood under the concept of 'Critical Theory'; that is, the analysis
critical-dialectical, historical and negative of what exists in terms of 'is' and in relation to
what 'should be', and from the perspective of historical-universal Reason. For
Thus, the Hegel-Marx conjunction becomes evident. But at the same time, the 'is' of the
existing in terms of 'status quo' entails a central investigation of the School:
the principles of collective domination. Here, Freud will be the necessary reference and
precise. The irrational, the rationalized or converted into a principle of domination,
it becomes the great problem and subject of research of Critical Theory.
Ultimately, to understand the direction and dynamics of bourgeois society that
it is economically organized through capitalism, it becomes indispensable the
syntheses of the three major critical conceptions prior to the School: Hegel-
Dialectically applied Marx-Freud in the examination of the directions of the relationship
between rationality-irrationality and their social and historical effects.

Unfortunately, what was positioned as the axis of theoretical research and

methodological -the domination- and that was already mentioned in the first publication of the
Journal, the Studies on Authority and Family, 1936, will condition and
unleash the trajectory of the School. Hitler's rise to power entails the
closure in 1933 of the Institute, the exile, the imprisonment of some of its
members and the premature death of such a decisive personality as that of
Walter Benjamin whose work continues to be revalued.

The emigration of the School until settling in the United States at the University
from Columbia, in 1934, it first went through Geneva and Paris. In New York, however,
it will be where the name of Critical Theory is already consolidated
definitely to the investigations carried out by the members and
collaborators of the School. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno undertake a
new direction to their work. The Marx-Freud synthesis is enriched
methodologically and as a result, there will be the five volumes of the Studies in
Prejudice (1949-1950). The Authoritarian Personality, a work in which Adorno will have a
relevant paper, it is a continuation of the interest in developing a 'Scale of
fascism (F)" empirical and with an objective reliability. The analysis of the topic of
social prejudice had a precedent in the book Dialectic of Enlightenment
(also translated into Spanish as Dialectic of Enlightenment) together
written by Horkheimer and Adorno in 1941. This book marks the turning point
fundamental to the evolution of Critical Theory. It consolidates the interest in the
theme of the cultural industry and mass culture, situated within these structures
a continuity between the totalitarian society of National Socialism and the capacity
of persuasion and manipulation that the two new transmission processes possess
ideological. In this way, both in The Authoritarian Personality and in the
The Dialectic of Enlightenment expresses the persistence in Mass Society of
some principles of domination in which a strong worldview is disseminated
irrational and primitive component.

Starting in 1948, the political circumstances in Germany allow for the return of
the critical theorists. Horkheimer, in 1950, returns to Frankfurt and with him, they return
Adorno and Pollock. Marcuse, Neumann, Kirchheimer, and Löwenthal will remain in
the United States. To a large extent, the return to school has been understood as
one way to settle the German bad conscience after Nazism; moreover, the
the survival of the Critical Theory allowed Germany once the war was over
could highlight the existence of a resistance and an exile that implied a
"cleansing of the face" of the entire country. Thus, the "refoundation" of the Institute became
an essential event not only in the University but also in society

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German. Horkheimer, for example, would become dean and rector of the University
from Frankfurt until the year 1959 in which he retired.

Well, if we had to make a synthesis of the chronological trajectory of the

The Frankfurt School could underscore four determining stages:
The first one understood between the years 1923-1924, the date of its foundation, and
in which the Social Research Institute is linked to the University of
Frankfurt. The publication of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung in 1932 establishes of
a general way the line of research of a critical-dialectical nature.
However, it can be considered that it is from 1932 that one can
to properly talk about the genesis of the Frankfurt School under the direction of Max
Horkheimer. This second stage coincides with the rise of Nazism. Exile and the
the death of some of its fundamental members imparts a bias that will be
decisive in the theoretical analysis of the School. However, contact with the
American society introduces and consolidates the study of post-society
industrial and its sociopolitical and cultural structures. Max's return
Horkheimer a Germany in the year l950 closes this stage.
From 1950 until Adorno's death in 1969 and Horkheimer's in 1973, there
the theoretical and methodological contributions of Critical Theory are carried out. Here, the
the conjunction of empirical techniques with theoretical reflection breaks the topic of
excessive abstraction with which the Frankfurt authors have been labeled. The
Frankfurt Contributions to Sociology are a good proof of that. It is at this stage
in which the fundamental works are written not only by those who returned to
Germany, but also of those who remain in the United States as it will be
Marcuse's case. The influence of Critical Theory on events of the
The sixties are undeniable and would deserve a specific study to clarify
how characteristics concepts and proposals of the School were taken.
The fourth stage, conventionally typified, can be placed in the
the end of classical Critical Theory (Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse) and the emergence of
the 'second generation' (Jürgen Habermas, Claus Offe, Oscar Negt, Alfred Schmidt)
and Albrecht Wellmer, preferably). Habermas had already begun his collaboration
with the school in the fifties. It will be starting in the sixties
when with the publication of Student and Politics, written by Habermas and Ludwig
from Friedburg, begin the transition from the 'first generation' to the 'second'. The
The seventies introduce a new shift in critical themes by introducing paradigms.
new to Critical Theory. The Weberian work will enrich social research
neofrankfurtiana. And, likewise, empirical methods coming from the tradition
positivist and functional-systemic enter to be part of the oriented studies,
above all, to the analysis of post-industrial society and its structures.

The evolution of the Frankfurt School, in short, follows the same evolution.
historical context of the society of the 20th century. Thus, the critical sense becomes inseparable from the
School of events that have been developing since the 1920s.
internationally. The review of fundamental themes will be the verification
about this.

Critical Theory: Authors and Themes

Critical Theory understood as rational clarification was born from two approaches:
the conjunction of Marxian theory with that of Freud and, on the other hand, the
Reframing the problems of theory and practice in its application to the
new Mass Society. Precisely, the emergence of this new formation
economic and sociopolitical organized on a demand economy and of
consumption called into question numerous forecasts made by classical Marxism.
And, above all, in this new stage of capitalism the introduction of psychoanalysis

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and Freudian metapsychology became necessary since, for the first time, it
he made a political use of collective psychology. Hence, from the very
founding of the School, the synthesis between economics and psychology is essential
as the first works of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung show and almost
the founding act as a group that was the Studies on Authority and family.
The search for a type of theoretical construction in which the break with the 'theory
"traditional" would open the possibility to encompass the complex interactions of
advanced capitalism appears as the genesis of the first Frankfurt School thinkers.
Break with traditional theory in that it starts from a flat reality and
static and, thus, it presents itself as interconnected statements that
they derive logically from one another, using the mathematical model as a model
of models of scientific knowledge. Positivism, the varied and diverse
empiricism, Rationalism and, in general, the ideal of Nomological Sciences
they would be in this perspective. As Horkheimer points out in his everlasting work
Critique of Instrumental Reason
Lectures and recordings since the end of the war), summarized version in Eclipse of
Reason, Critical Theory arises from the non-acceptance of a historical state in which -
and as Adorno states - those who "are" should not "be". In this way, empiricism
and positivisms stem from an identification with that which is conventionalized, with a
"status quo" considered as a universal and unchangeable order. In this sense, the
critical project, with its Marx-Freud synthesis, will not start so much from the 'spectacle of
world" how much of the "suffering of the world". Suffering avoidable through action.
historical, rational, and enlightened.

As has already been observed, Critical Theory will not seek to inscribe itself in any way.
in the paradigm of Nomological Sciences. On the contrary, to a large extent the
The Frankfurt School is chronologically still situated in the "controversy of the sciences"
in which had intervened from Rickert and Windelband to Max Weber. The same
controversy that, in the 1960s, Adorno will have with Popper (The dispute of
positivism in German sociology) aligns in a underlying way in the
the "controversy of the sciences" of the early 20th century meant in the
German university. Now, what is fundamental is that in the face of the
positivisms, the Frankfurt authors were always very aware of the great
problem of every theory: its passage and transformation into ideology. Against Popper,
Adorno held an epistemological position that distrusted the paradigm.
nomological in a sociopolitical system in which Science and technology had
uncritically led to the scientific management of death. The 'after
"Auschwitz" that explores the entire meaning of Adorno's Negative Dialectics, is
a step forward from the theory that resists complicity with the principles
of social domination. Hence, Critical Theory is formulated from four notes.
essential: historical because the theory is clarification about human existence and
from a Hegelian ideal of humanization through a measurable progress in
history for the groups that are dominated and humiliated (such a relevant aspect
later in Michel Foucault's analysis of the 'others' and 'spaces of
power"); secondly, the theory must be dialectical since its advancement
it is through contradictions that can be captured from a rational point of view, being the
Reason is the third and essential characteristic of any theory that does not want to be and act.
as ideology. Reason, in short, is the foundation of Critical Theory. A
rationality that has its inheritance in Kant-Hegel and in Greek universality
classic. Thus, Reason is defined as a process of causal analysis, but from the
understanding the contradictions in a historical dialectic that seeks,
preferably, the causes of domination. In this sense, it will be distinguished,
following Weber, between rationality and rationalization. Rationality always, and
by force it will have to be critical, while rationalization is nothing more than the
use of the means-ends scheme in objectives whose ultimate results are not more
that those of consolidating the 'constituted'. This would be the foundation of reason
instrumental. For this reason, precisely, the theory that does not become ideology has

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that is to be historical, dialectical, rational, and negative. In contrast to the positivisms of what
empirically, the negativity of the comparison with a 'should be' that acts
as the great engine of History since its origins. From utopias to the
wishes for a better and improved humanity, negativity has explored paths
new ones in which "the exploitation of man by man" dissipates like
a pre-human memory in History. Both for Adorno and for Horkheimer and
Marcuse, the 'end of utopia' has arrived. Humanity already possesses so many resources.
scientists, materials as intellectuals to transform society. From
here, that the theorists of Frankfurt cannot be labeled as idealists since the
criticism is not based on unrealizable abstractions but on an examination
economic, political and cultural that "does not descend from heaven to earth." On the contrary, it tries
rise from the earth to a historical stage without unconscious and irrational domination. From
new, the Hegel-Marx-Freud synthesis explains the entirety of the project and of the
final objectives of Critical Theory. This project is the result of the sum of works,
concepts, problems and research of the members of the School. The review of
the main contributions of the most representative authors of the Institute
it shows the extent to which there were common core interests and an attitude
general in the assessment of the contradictions of capitalist society
Dough.

Max Horkheimer (1895-1973), besides being the co-founder of the Institute of

Social Research and its director from 1931 until his death, will be the driving force.
of the most characteristic philosophical and sociological approaches. In their works
Main: Studies on Authority and Family (1936), Traditional Theory and Theory
Critique (1937), Dialectic of Enlightenment (1948) co-written with
Adorno, Critical Theory (1968), apart from a set of studies like The Critique of
Kant's judgment as a link between theoretical and practical philosophy (1925),
Beginnings of bourgeois philosophy of history (1931) or the one signed under the
Pseudonym of 'Heinrich Fegius' Sunset. Likewise, works as characteristic as
Sociological (with Adorno),

Critical theory or In search of meaning

The fundamental contributions of Horkheimer are summarized in:

The epistemological and methodological concern turns out to be decisive.
Horkheimer will establish the basic distinction of the School between critical reason and
instrumental reason, essential differentiation when constituting the cores of
research and method introducing, at this point, a revaluation of the
qualitative versus quantitative. From this re-evaluation, the confrontation
with positivism it is interpreted not so much as a logical process but as a result and
socio-political consequence. The self-presentation of positivism as methodology
experimental emphasizes the instrumental nature of reason. Consequently, that
instrumental rationality ultimately becomes the instrument of collective domination.
Destruction of Nature under the principles of profit and exploitation of the being
human, clad in the rhetoric of effectiveness and utility, are a product of
instrumentalism converted in process scientific y technological.
From criticism to positivism, Horkheimer moves to the socio-political consequences.
that the instrumental reason entails. The experience of Nazism, as a compendium of
the action of a managed and planned rationality in function of a
efficient domination, is the turning point that leads Hokheimer to his
continued studies -using psychoanalysis- on the structure of
authority, and its transition to authoritarianism, as well as its transmission in the family. The
Nazism and fascism constitute sociopolitical phenomena in which power and the
awareness works in unison. The system of prejudices articulates certain types of

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characters that are the deep substrate for the triumph of authoritarianism and
most fearsome mass movements. However, with the disappearance of the
Hitler's Nazism does not eliminate the processes of latent authoritarianism. On the contrary,
mass culture and the capitalist consumer society represent the rebirth of
the instrumental reason that turns subjects into objects and objects into
situates as the purposes of human life. The mass consumer society,
therefore, it is the one that alters the means-end schema, making the means seem
the ends and, conversely, the ends and objectives of a fulfilled existence (friendship,
knowledge, realization) turn them into means for the consumption of products
serialized and homogenized in which the individual 'must' find their 'being'.
However, Horkheimer does not settle for merely denouncing the dialectic of the
alienation. Following his epistemological review of the role of Philosophy and
Social Science in a project that is not one of domination will be the one that establishes
what should be understood as the social function of theory. Critical Theory,
Then, it calls for a return to speculative reason that positivism tried.
eliminate under the label of "metaphysics". For Horkheimer, the necessity of a
critical anthropology that reinstates the human being in its historical place, goes through the
emancipation from the almost autistic subjectivism into which consumption has confined
individual and for the reinstatement of those intellectual positions - including the
metaphysics, art, or theology - that have driven humanity towards its
liberation. The search for meaning, as Horkheimer stated, is to prevent that
the principle of domination does not prevail in History and hence the responsibility of the
Philosophy in the face of the world's suffering.

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) is considered as the coauthor with

Horkheimer on the epistemological, methodological, and thematic creation of Theory
Criticism. Nevertheless, Adorno is significant within the group of members of the
School for its interest not only in social and cultural issues but also,
for their inquiries into aesthetics, especially of a musical nature. But, about
In the works of Adorno, one finds the generality of the themes that have
given its meaning to Frankfurtian philosophical sociology. The authoritarian personality, the
new pseudocult cultural model, the functioning of the masses in Nazism and
in the subsequent post-industrial society, and, at the same time, the aesthetic problems that
they affect artistic and musical creation, they are the own theoretical foundations that
define the central concerns of Adorno and the School. There is, therefore, a
identity between the work of Adorno and what has later been considered as the
contributions of Critical Theory to the areas of Philosophy and Sociology. The
A journey through Adornian intellectual production is good evidence of this:
Kierkegaard. Construction of the aesthetic (1933), Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947),
The Authoritarian Personality (1950), Minima Moralia (1951), On the Metacritical of
theory of knowledge (1956), Three Studies on Hegel (1957), Ideology as
language (1964), The dispute of positivism in German sociology (1969),
Negative Dialectics (1966), Aesthetic Theory (1970), apart from other writings on
music and mass culture such as: Philosophy of new music (1949), Dissonances
(1956) O Prismas. Critique of Culture and Society (1955). The immense production
Adorno reflects the theoretical and vital evolution of the School. It can be stated, in
sum, which can be considered the development of the author's intellectual interests
from Frankfurt as the most perfect synthesis of the critical project.

The works of Adorno and Horkheimer intertwine in many of their

proposals, however Adorno contributed an original thematic that was not only due to his
contents but also by their subsequent influences. In this sense, a
possible synthesis of his contributions, given the complexity of the author's thought
critical would be the next:
At first, it would be necessary to talk about the epistemological review of a
a series of philosophies in which subjectivism becomes irrationalism or, as
Adorno emphasizes, 'ideology as language'. The religious existentialism of

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Kierkegaard, the phenomenology of Husserl, and above all, the philosophy of Heidegger to
accentuate the abstract existence of the subject and dilute the historical-objective aspects
they lead to an ontology of being in which the absurd ultimately becomes the meaning and
end of human life. Philosophies of Life, therefore, that appeal to what
instinctive as liberation in a "being for death" that will be the breeding ground of
military expansion policies. Subjectivism and positivism, as analyzed
Horkheimer, ultimately represent the two sides of the same coin: the
will to dominate, whether over the 'others' or over Nature. Hence,
for Adorno, both positions end in a mythologization of the
thought that remains stopped and confined within itself, without the ability to
perceive and understand the 'others,' considered enemies.

Starting from the rethinking of mythologizing ontologies, Adorno

will undertake a review of the mythologization processes in which it
they are immersed in specific forms of thought and action. The Dialectic of the
Illustration, thus, is paradigmatic. A thought that situated the ideals of
progress, education, and equality as historical axes ends with the
consolidation of industrial capitalism, justifying scientific management of
death becomes an instrumental reason in which progress is confused with the
technique, education as mere training of the new workforce and equality
uniformly identify what possibility the consumption. The illustrated historical reason,
by becoming an instrumental reason, it leads to its own negation through the
conversion of a planning ratio in which the domain will appear sometimes
with his 'kind face' and, at other times, hardened by his own contradictions. The
"after Auschwitz" is the theoretical thread of Adorno's reflection because before the
afterwards, there have been some causes that directly led to the
Nazism.
Nazism becomes the turning point for understanding globally.
the mythologization, in terms of paralysis of reason and thought, sociopolitical and
cultural. But Nazism is not considered a historical exception. On the contrary,
this is just a historic moment of irrationality turned into politics of
power. Irrationality is characterized by having many faces and processes. In
ultimately, the ability to nullify critical awareness, destroy the ability
cause of thought and extinguish in the masses the yearning for solidarity of a society
it should still be considered a historical sequel to Nazism. That is why
that is why Critical Theory is so essentially interested in the genesis of the
Mass Society and, basically, its justifying ideology: the culture generated
for the artificially constructed messages of the systems and channels of the
Mass communication. Pseudoculture (See) turns out to be the primary strategy and
essential to dissolve collective critical consciousness and consolidate an order
mythological of understanding from the reality.
The Mass Society, then, is understood as the continuation of the
mythologizing and mythologizing policy. Therefore, the introduction of is so necessary
the work of Freud -and specifically his Metapsychology presented preferably by the
creator of Psychoanalysis in his Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.
Together with Marx, Freud provides a global explanatory system and
epistemological that questions the "appearances" to reach the "being", following the
classic liberating project inherited from Greece. Metapsychology is the key that
opens the dark and confusing domains of the relationship between leaders and multitudes.

For Adorno, the culture and communication industry allows for the study
the objective of the material bases of ideology. Ideology transforms into
industry, but an industry of consciousness since it is social psychologies that
that enter as products in the leisure and consumption market. In this industry
ideological, however, it becomes essential to exclude the aesthetic elements and
intellectuals who express a critical sense towards the status quo. The
Pseudoculture, in terms of the distortion and weakening of educational processes

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and cultural, it is a consequence of that technologization, with methods of
persuasion and manipulation, of the social psychologies. The final result will be the
formation of a collective worldview in which the authoritarian personality -
characterized by submission to the powerful and humiliation and cruelty towards
the weak - appears as characteristic of the 'normal citizen'. The irrationalization
collective of the Mass Society entails strong components of authoritarianism
in which remnants of Nazism still persist. Xenophobia and misogyny,
for example, they will be politically promoted during times of economic and social crises
through the messages of the communicative culture and based on the objectives
cyclical del system of the corporations transnational
In Negative Dialectics and in Aesthetic Theory, Adorno establishes his position.
intellectual. Both works written at the end of the life of the author from Frankfurt,
Negative Dialectics was closed in 1966 and the Aesthetic Theory appeared
posthumously in 1970), signify the rethinking of the concept of 'dialectic
criticism". Thus, in the face of alienation and the reification of consciousness, both
individual as collective, the Theory must act from negativity; that is,
from a critical use of reason not reconciled with what "is". Praxis, then, does not
cannot resign or submit to any principle of domination. The critical reason-
dialectic, therefore, must be expressed in practices in which negativity
it is the process in which suspicion arises regarding the identification and identity with
that which is irreconcilable with one's own reason. For Adorno, the dialectic of the
contradictions is the meaning of the philosophy of negativity. The 'after of
Auschwitz," with which the Negative Dialectics ends, is nothing but the project of
a new way of doing not just poetry, as Adorno claims, but especially
a new vision of Philosophy and Social Science that is not complicit with
"spectacle of human suffering"

Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) represents the most active member of the

specific historical events. Its incorporation into the School dates back to the year
1933, emigrating the following year to the United States. A country in which he will remain
and in which he will carry out the vast majority of his intellectual production. His
influence over student and youth movements gave him popularity
which largely hindered the objective assessment of one of the contributions
most relevant of critical theory. Among its most fundamental works are:
Hegel's Ontology and Theory of Historicity (1932), habilitation thesis directed
by Heidegger, Reason and Revolution (1941), Eros and Civilization (1953), Marxism
soviético (l958), El hombre unidimensional (l964), Crítica de la tolerancia pura
(1965), The End of Utopia (1967), Psychoanalysis and Politics (1969), Aggressiveness in
The advanced industrial society and other essays (1971), Counter-revolution and revolt
(1972), Aesthetic Philosophy (1972), Studies on Critical Philosophy (1973) and Measures of
the era (1975), apart from a very large collection of conferences, collaborations
in books and articles about current issues. In summary, Marcuse is the
major exponent of the Critical Theory's commitment to the problems of the
contemporary society and its influence in this aspect will be fundamental.
It is currently undoubted that it was Marcuse who reintroduced Freud as
revitalizing core of socio-political analysis. The critique of post- society
industrial and its powerful ideological superstructure goes through reinterpretation not
only from Hegel and Marx, in their early works and, above all, in Reason and
revolution, but social dialectics cannot forget the determinant
unconscious component that acts in collective behavior. For Marcuse, the
the constituted society has broken the ties between Eros and Thanatos. The "principle of
reality," by replacing the "principle of pleasure" and creativity, has led to
historically to a system of global repression in which the great society
managed of the twentieth century is its highest representation. That is why the
critique of the Mass Society cannot be done only from its structures
sociopolitical and cultural, but it is necessary to review the logic of the
domination of the social unconscious that is articulated through a desublimation

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repressive in which reality and the subject are reduced to mere instruments
of production and consumption. Repressive desublimation and technological rationalization
they will be the pillars on which the Unidimensional Society will rest.
The One-Dimensional Society is defined by Marcuse as the society
subjected to the continuous fetishization and alienation of its members. In this sense,
it turns out to be a society in which instrumental reason has achieved, through a
ideological use of science and technology, an impressive power of
transformation of the needs and motivations of individuals, and in this
point must be situated the triumph and survival of the system. For Marcuse, the individual
"unidimensionalized" is one who perceives and feels the perspectives as their own.
needs that advertising and propaganda mechanisms prescribe to it.
Managed Society has managed to establish itself not so much in structures
externals to the subject but rather the unidimensionality moves in a double
psychological dimension: over-repression and the assimilation and adaptation schemes
introjection of social controls. From here, the
bidimensionality; that is to say, the subject's ability to perceive criticism and
self-critically their existence and their society. Consequently, the culmination of the
irrationality in the mass consumer society will be the one that under the apparent
the comfort of well-being and happiness organized destroys the bonds of
causal interpretation and institutionalize a collective behavior in which the
de-individualization of the citizen, despite the propaganda of 'individualism', be
I am effect more evident.
In the face of that global administration of existence that the model implies
Ideological of unidimensionality, Marcuse proposes a way out of that 'consciousness
"generalized unhappiness". The author of Eros and Civilization positions himself in a re-evaluation.
of the historical achievements that the illustrated project has accomplished. Science and the
techniques can be freed from the irrational domain that neocapitalism has
provoked by privately appropriating their findings. Thus, in The End of the
Utopia, Marcuse reconsiders the impressive capacity for transformation that
the human species is arranged. The utopian ideals in which they were embodied
illusions of a fulfilling existence are now possible thanks to knowledge
available scientists and sociopolitical issues. Hunger, disease, precariousness,
they can be overcome materially and objectively. But above all, they are exploitation
of man by man, the aggressiveness, the domination the causes of the hindrance of
History. The struggle against such causes is the realization of Utopia and the
establishment of new human and social forces that will make that reborn
"principle of pleasure" with which Freud reestablished the historical sense. In contrast to the
aggressiveness of a society guided by the 'principle of destruction', Marcuse
it claims the impetus of creation and invention where the synthesis of Marx and Freud
from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
capacity.
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) must be considered a unique figure.
within the group of thinkers of the Frankfurt School. The characteristics of
his own life and his premature death in Port-Bou, -committing suicide on the night of the 26th of
September 1940, in the face of the impossibility of crossing the French border
Spanish with the Nazi invasion of Paris, a city where Benjamin preferred to stay.
after the exile of the vast majority of members of the School to the United States,
they make one consider the author of Illuminations as an author who does not stop
revalue itself over time. Among its most relevant creations are
Fundamentals: The concept of art criticism in German romanticism,
(1918), Goethe's Walhverwandtschaften (1925), Origin of the German Baroque Drama
(1928), Unique Direction, (1928), Surrealism. The last snapshot of the
European intelligence, (1929), The work of art in the age of its reproducibility,
(1934) and German Characters. A sequence of letters, (1936). After his death, it
Berlin Childhood Around 1900 (1950), For the Critique of Power
and other essays, (1965), Essays on Bertolt Brecht, (1966), Charles Baudelaire,
a lyricist in the era of capitalism (1969), and especially, Writings, (1955)

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edited by Adorno, as well as the selection of writings in Illuminations, (1961).
Since 1972, a selected collection has been compiled in the Gesammelte Schriften.
criticism of sus works.
Despite the controversy over whether Benjamin is a full member of the
School, the first reflection in this regard leaves no doubt about its undeniable
affiliation to Critical Theory not only for its themes but also for its position
intellectual. Now, Benjamin means within the set of authors
Frankfurtians have an interest in aesthetic-critical reason. This interest in criticism
literary and artistic has assigned the label of "heterodox frankfurtian" to it. In
At this point, the disagreements with Horkheimer and some cannot be forgotten.
Adorno's reprimands to Benjamin, reproaching him for his lack of systematicity. But,
The truth is that the author of The Work of Art in the Age of Its Reproducibility
technique can not only be considered for its intellectual position as Frankfurtian
in full right, but also enriches and expands the research of
School.

An adequate synthesis of Benjamin's contributions must start from the

renewal of cultural analysis from the perspective of the alienation of the 'high
"humanist culture" in the society of mass capitalism. In this way, the
the review of the aesthetic reason will be made from the following aspects: the language, the
aesthetic reason and its alienations, and the search for the original experience as
utopia.
Benjamin focuses on language based on its nominative capacity.
to establish and found the world. Capacity of language because it is perception
original and mediation between the real and its representations. Therefore, they are the
representations the dimension of reality that Benjamin seeks to recover
through a language that returns to its original stage, before manipulation and
from the consolidation of confusion. And it is here where Art restores the
The concept of messianic and utopian time as a unique representative action. But.
this 'aesthetic time' in contrast to 'historical time' is extinguished in the face of the course of
the creation in mass societies. Thus, Benjamin reconsiders the major themes
of Culture with a capital letter: the 'high culture' to position itself in a kind of
phenomenology of the awareness creator alienated.
In contrast to the other Frankfurtian cultural analysis line that focuses on the
mass industrial culture, Benjamin reconsiders culture-culture and its
manifestations based on the concept of aura. The aura is the uniqueness of the
creation, the essence that assembles tradition with context and determines its "sign of
truth," in Benjamin's words. The "aura," then, is uniqueness as
an unrepeatable manifestation of a distance. But it is that cultural value that has
changed in the Mass Societies. Alteration that affects reproduction
technique the ultimate basis of its distortion and, at the same time, the commodification
shows not only as the self-alienation of creation but, above all, as its
dispersion in a false aestheticism whose end is political. In his famous study on The
Work of art in the age of its technical reproduction, Benjamin explains not the
alienation, as loss of meaning, of the consumer-subject -that has already been analyzed
Horkheimer and Adorno - but the alienation of the aesthetic object and the decline of the
great culture. The emergence of new media causes a
effect, on one hand, positive and that is the spread and access of millions of
people to the knowledge of Art. However, on the other hand, the negative effect results
to be the fetishization of the created. The work of art becomes consumption and in it
that creative singularity defined by Benjamin as aura disappears.
extreme subjectivization and the desublimation of creative meaning are the origin of
the emergence of false vanguards in which ethics and aesthetics appear as spheres
antagonistic.
The harmony between ethics and utopia goes through aesthetics and creation that seeks the
time of the now (Jetzzeit); that is, the original moment of creation that
anticipate a new History without injustices or alienations. The expansion of the

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human faculties that is Culture, acts in favor of that time in which it
restore man with Nature and human beings with each other.
critique of aesthetic reason as a project that recovers the authenticity of the
existence, integrates and dialectically perfects the Frankfurtian search for a
historical project in which the emancipation from domination is the same
overcoming History. Against injustice and hopelessness, Benjamin
He defended with his life and his work the time of creative anticipation. Thus, he
Marcuse recognizes in the final phrase of One-Dimensional Man, citing Benjamin:
"thanks to those without hope we are given the ability to have hope." And in this sense,
Benjamin must be understood as one of the greatest theorists of the
Frankfurt School.

Some topics about the Frankfurt School

It can be said that there is a misinterpreted line of research and

twisted, this has been the Frankfurt School regarding Critical Theory.
here, that opinions have been disclosed that present a series of topics
converted into commonplaces of certain analyses. Among some of these
topics we will cover the most frequent and widespread: elitism, pessimism,
academicism, "theologism" and, finally, the inability to synthesize Marx with
Freud. These topics, among others, wander through texts, manuals, and books.
specialized turning to be, almost, a complement of the School. Well then, to
Next, we will make a brief reference to these trials that have arisen.
sometimes for improvised readings and, other times, for intentions not very coherent with the
theoretical reflection.

Of all these hackneyed ideas, perhaps elitism is the one that has the greatest reach.
Having. As 'elitism' has exposed the critical perspective from a
strange opposition between theory and common sense. The logical difficulty of the
philosophical reading has been extrapolated to the very thought expressed with what
it has caused a deep confusion between topics, method, and approach. Of this
way, the criticism of Mass Culture, as a process of intellectual destruction
of the populations of consumer societies, has been judged as an attitude of
"contempt" for the same society. This aspect is so contrary to the intentions and
purposes of the School that it always made its own -and vitally demonstrated it- the
illustrated project. However, this topic continues to gravitate over works such as the
by Horkheimer and Adorno as a qualifier that overlooks their essential contributions
the study of authoritarianism, pseudoculture, or a topic as everyday as that of
the extension of social irrationality through the horoscope, divination, etc.
in the communicative messages and that are an essential part of the new ones
secondary superstitions

Linked to this topic is that of pessimism. The School is labeled as apocalyptic.

and disappointed. She is blamed for not providing 'solutions' with what is assigned.
image of a closed theory about itself. Again, just like with elitism,
the meaning of negative dialectics is disqualified under an interpretation that
It highlights the concept of the 'negative' in its vulgar use. It is the old resource of belittling.
and reduce the concepts and analysis to more easily refute the arguments. And
with the procedure of labeling as "pessimists," one simultaneously appeals to a positivism
also discounted that is defended as useful and true.

The sum of elitism and pessimism leads to the pretext of academicism.

paradoxically presenting the term 'academic' as pejorative, without
Remember that the academic comes from the Platonic and free classical Academy.

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censorship of critical theorists as "teachers", as if that were the worst of the
insults. Thus, complexity equals pedantry. And the difficulty
intellectual is equated with arrogance. Consequently, work and the
theoretical rigor under the label of heaviness and tedium, citing examples of
to follow the trivial essaying that does so much harm to Philosophy and Social Science.

From the above, it is not surprising, then, that Critical Theory is conceptualized
as 'theologism', and understand that we do not mean Theology in the deep sense
of this area of knowledge; that is to say, abstraction is considered obscure and is demanded
quantitative and empirical methodologies in a sociologism that has little to do with
with the systematicity and objectivity of austere experimental knowledge and
concise. Precisely, the Frankfurt study on instrumental reason warned
about the contempt for areas and intellectual procedures that contained
important conceptual cores on processes of liberation and search for
openings to what has been ethically referred to as the "ought to be" versus the
is

In this list of topics, one that tries could not be missing, finally,
deauthorize the School from Epistemology. To do this, it is necessary to resort to
discredit of the works of Marx and Freud. Logical Positivism and, above all
Karl Popper laid the foundations of this way of acting. Thus, it is repeated
that the Marx-Freud synthesis proved impossible in its critical harmonization. Hence, that
the research on consumption and mass society is omitted again,
culture and communication, the rethinking of unidimensional everyday life and,
a special form, the creation of the 'F' scale of fascism and the application of
statistical methods in the theme of authoritarian personality -basis of
Nazism and its subsequent continuity, the reproduction of authoritarianism in the
family and the functioning of mass behavior and metapsychology.
Consequently, since the assault on the conceptual and thematic dialectical axes and
psychoanalytic approaches undertake the annulment of Critical Theory presented as
lacking objectivity. Under these conditions, the question is why it is taken
so much effort to discredit a Theory that is presented as outrageous.
Precisely, the immense desire to disqualify the analysis of the Frankfurt School
confirms the penetrating capacity of Critical Theory to continue its project
illustrated and classic of continuing to reaffirm the rational clarification of reality.

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