User:Yoana Buzova/R&W/Frankfurt School

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Melvyn Bragg and guests Raymond Geuss, Esther Leslie and Jonathan Rée discuss the Frankfurt School

Notes made during listening to the talk

"To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." so wrote the german thinker Theodor Adorno

Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin and others came together around an Independent Institute for Research a.k.a. The Frankfurt School (1924), financed by Felix Weil.

To make sense of 19th century Germany, they turned not to economy but to culture.

After having to flee to the United States, they created a highly influential world view.

1920's Germany -----> Difficult to make sense. Vary paradoxical. There were two completely different moods. A mood of despair and a feeling of hope. A sense that an outdated 19 century culture had died (a kind of Obama moment). A time of youth and hope was foreseen.

Having in mind the political climate at the time, Germany was expected to undergo some sort of revolution, but that did not happen.

There was a continuing appeal of the Soviet ideal, but the left in Germany was unbelievably fractal.

The institute was set up initially to explore the bolshevik concept. Why revolution did not happen. What is the average german worker thinking.

The institute was set up to be absolutely critical of the two main tendencies within german scholarly thought. A scientific body that could do science better than the scientists.

The aim of the school ----> thinking is tied up to the historical moment. They are all united by a sense that philosophical thinking is necessary but it needs to see the world in its entirety. it needs to stap away from the metaphysical plane and universal, timeless truths.

Science is exploited to assist domination and make money for the capitalist cause.

Human liberation was a central thought of the Frankfurt school.

They concentrated on culture, rather on economy.

They were united around the idea that philosophy has to be critical. It shouldn't affirm the world, but to criticise it.

It was inevitable to think that a revolution will happen, but it doesn't. For a philosopher, failure is more important than success, because it rises the question WHY.

this moment of defeat is a moment of great stimulation. It was a big theoretical moment for the Frankfurt school.

They concentrated on the idea that society had accepted obedience to the system and inculcated a "false consciousness" . And they concentrated why was this "false consciousness" there.

They thought that if you understood society as a whole, you would understand that culture and economy are connected.

Critical Theory recognises that every theory is a response to a certain interest and critical theory is based on the future interests of the oppressed. Traditional theory is based on complacency about the the status quo. That is the general distinction.

The Frankfurt School were fascinated by one argument in marxist theory, the one of the fetish character of the commodity. false consciousness and false economic system

One of the tasks of critical theory (and art).....is to undo this fetishism and enable us to see objects as they really are in themselves, rather than just see them in terms of their exchangeability with other things.

Pleasure in a work of art is related to relaxed acceptance of the world in wich that work exists.

So in order to resist this domination, try to see a form of culture negative, rather than affirmative.

"The point of the work of art is to make me unhappy, because if I am happy, I am ging to accept the world in which I live in" T. Adorno

The role Freud played. Very important in terms of the questions of acceptance and conformism. Regression, sadomasochism. We are subjets to a society that keeps us endlessly suffering and turn that into a type of pleasure.

This also comes to explaining why people surrender to the charms of the dictator.....or the hollywood star.

Everyone is tapped in a cage of certain modes of existence.

Everyone carries out the logics of society.

But were they saying that if you are happy, you don't really know what is going on? They think if you are happy you will be rather obtuse.

Freud's concept "gain trough illness" - people became neurotic, because it actually gets them something. So it is not crazy to think that if you are conformist you will get on better.

They are happy to be completely negative and non-affirmative. They hated the United States. People were telling them to smile and be happy.

It is exhausting to be happy.

Walter Benjamin was tempted by the idea of going to the Soviet Union. But the world had changed, capitalism had changed. They use the phrase "late" or "state" capitalism. And the idea was that Soviet Union was capitalist too.

They thought everybody was compromised by the system and America was the place to go.

In Hollywood the meet consumer culture. It was a striking experience. As if they have turned up at the antithesis of Europe. This whole environment ...they found it repulsive. Culture should be a space for subjective impression, but it has become industrialised.

High culture in Germany did not prevent the ultimate barbarism of nazism.

They rejected the necessity to choose. They rejected the idea that if it is not the one, it must be the other.

Adorno compares Hollywood stories to children's stories.

What kind of art could be liberation and both encourage reflection (Alban Berg). It presents happiness but only in the form of contrast with everything that's presented in the world.

Adorno's phrase "The dreams do not dream." Popular culture is not escapism.

The film "It's a wonderful life" is a summary of what they thought popular culture presented.

Some of the members of the Frankfurt School came back to Germany. They continued developing the position they had there. Tried to bring about the high culture without being compromised by the past.

They hated it so much in the United States, that's why they were so productive.

Adorno sais at one point that "The only thing that's true is exaggerations." all of their theoretical activity is an attempt to draw attention to certain things by exaggerating certain features, so they new somehow they were part of popular culture.

They questioned german society.

The death of Walter Benjamin was a moment when the Frankfurt School went out of balance.

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My notes have to be put into better order and concentrated into a smaller, more analytical piece of text.