THE Frankfurt School was a school of philosophical thought and sociological, affiliated with the Social Research Institute, which was born as a project of intellectuals linked to the University of Frankfurt.
Critical Theory was the conceptual link that united the Frankfurt School intellectuals, creating a new interpretation of Marxism, sociology and politics at the beginning of the 20th century. Intellectuals such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Walter Benjamin and Jürgen Habermas participated in the Frankfurt School.
Historical context of the emergence of the Frankfurt School
THE rise of Soviet Union as a socialist power started in the 20th century. Marxism was hotly debated in Europe, especially after the First World War. Some intellectuals advocated the application of pure Marxism in governments; others, from Marxist ideas proposed by basic reforms, but without extinguishing capitalism; still others were totally against socialism, communism or any idea of Marxist inspiration.
![Max Horkheimer (left) and Theodor Adorno (right) are two of the leading thinkers at the Frankfurt School. [1]](/f/0fbc1190e7fa7efc9a8e6954183cf7ac.jpg)
There were also those who advocated a new interpretation of Marx's ideas, more adapted to the reality of the 20th century. The latter include the Frankfurt School intellectuals, which, based on a Critical Theory of society, brought together Marxist elements with a critique of various aspects of everyday life 20th-century European social society, later criticizing mainly Nazi-fascism in Germany of hitler and Mussolini's Fascism in Italy.
The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory emerged after the First Marxist Work Week, an event organized by Félix Weil. The intention of the event was to seek a new interpretation of Marxism, more pure and faithful to the ideas of Marx and with the possibility of application in the 20th century scenario. As a result of this week, the Institute for Social Research was created, which was sponsored by Herman Weil, father of Félix Weil and a German millionaire who made a lot of money by planting cereals in Argentina.
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O Institute for Social Research obtained a partnership with the German government, was attached to the University of Frankfurt and was directed by Kurt Albert Gerlach after its creation by an official decree of the German Ministry of Education in 1923. In the same year, the director of the institute died and the position was occupied, between 1923 and 1930, by Karl Grümberg.
In 1930, an office of the Institute for Social Research was created in Geneva, and in 1933, France became home to a branch of the institute. In 1933, the Nazi government closed the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, which is now headquartered in Geneva. O name Frankfurt School for the Social Research Institute only was joined in the 1950s.
The most famous theorists of the Frankfurt School, beyond Marxism, talked about culture, about totalitarianism and about politics in general. THE philosophy was the main theoretical bias used by them to seek solutions to conflicts of political and social origin.
Read too: Hannah Arendt – another great scholar of totalitarianism
cultural industry
O concept of cultural industry it was one of the most important produced by the Frankfurt School theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. According to thinkers, there is a worldwide cultural phenomenon that has been going on since the beginning of the 20th century — industrial capitalism, which came into being with the Industrial Revolution, needed a strength of ideological propaganda to be assimilated by people.
For industries to produce a lot, it is necessary to sell a lot. To sell a lot, people need to buy a lot. THE consumerism ideology (unnecessary excess consumption) is conveyed by art forms also produced on an industrial scale.
For Walter Benjamin, the reproducibilitytechnique it is the means by which the production of art on an industrial scale is possible; is the ability to mass reproduction of a song, which can be recorded and played back infinite times, or of an image, which can be captured by photography or filming and also played back. For Benjamin, this phenomenon removes its authenticity from art, which he called “aura”.
For Adornment and Horkheimer, capitalism not only used the Cultural Industry to create a consumerism movement, but also used the art as a form of product to be consumed. In this way, cinema, music and even the plastic arts started to have a production based on a formula that pleases spectators because of the ease of assimilating the content of the work. The average spectator of the cultural industry is someone who does not intend to find in a work of art anything but entertainment, falling into an absolute massification of cultural products.
Mass culture, that produced by the Cultural Industry, follows the following formula: it takes elements of high culture (according to Adorno, this is culture authentic and well-crafted), joins the elements of popular culture (originally produced by a people) and throws on the junction elements that please the public. The result is the work of art produced on an industrial scale.
It is noteworthy that culture of pasta differs from popular culture because, while this is authentic, that is a capitalist degeneration of art.
See too: Cultural historical heritage – valuing the popular culture of a people
Philosophers and Sociologists
The main thinkers of the Frankfurt School are:
Theodor Adorno: German thinker who was dedicated to understanding the issue moral and social aspects of the 20th century against capitalism. As a Jew and a Communist, he was persecuted by Nazism and took refuge in the United States.
Max Horkheimer: was one of the directors of the Social Research Institute. The philosopher and sociologist was responsible, together with Adorno, for developing the concept of Cultural Industry, in the book Dialecticof andenlightenment. He was also persecuted by Nazism and took refuge in the United States.
Herbert Marcuse: one of the most controversial thinkers of the Frankfurt School, he dedicated himself to understanding the relationship between sexuality and capitalism, in addition to studying the issues involving race and social exclusion. His studies encompassed Marxism and psychoanalysis Freudian. He was persecuted by the Nazis for his Jewish origins and for the socialist side. Marcuse took refuge in the United States, where he taught at the University of California until 1969.
![Herbert Marcuse, one of the Frankfurt School's First Generation thinkers.[2]](/f/cfdaf95dd5e1caf571912d4108a8622c.jpg)
Walter Benjamin: despite not having a direct link with the Institute for Social Research and dying before its reformulation as the Frankfurt School in the 1950s, Benjamin collaborated with texts for the Revista do Instituto de Pesquisa Social linked to the University of Frankfurt. He devoted himself to literary criticism and art in general.
Erich Fromm: also influenced by Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis, it unites psychoanalytic elements to establish the role of the human being in society as a factor of social change. He analyzed factors in the formation of the person, such as family and social relationships, in a critical aspect of Marxism.
Jürgen Habermas: he is the most influential of the second generation thinkers of the Frankfurt School (he studied there after the institute's reformulation in the 1950s). He is still alive and is dedicated to understanding the ethic and politics amid the extensive possibilities of discourse today. For Habermas, people should seek consensus democratic based on a speech that contemplates all citizens.
Also access: Michel Foucault: French philosopher contemporary to the Frankfurt School
Books
The dialectic of enlightenment – Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer
minimal morality – Theodor Adorno
cultural industry and society – Theodor Adorno
eclipse of reason – Max Horkheimer
man analysis – Erich Fromm
Marxist concept of man – Erich Fromm
Concept of art criticism in German romanticism – Walter Benjamin
The Origin of German Baroque Drama – Walter Benjamin
Eros and civilization – Herbert Marcuse
The ideology of industrial society – Herbert Marcuse
Communicative Action Theory – Jürgen Habermas
The philosophical discourse of modernity – Jürgen Habermas
By M. Francisco Porfirio
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