The Critical Humanism of the Frankfurt School as Social Critique (The Frankfurt School in New Times) 166694601X, 9781666946017

Citation preview

The Critical Humanism of the Frankfurt School as Social Critique

The Frankfurt School in New Times Series Editor Dr. Christopher T. Conner  with Angelique Dickens This series is dedicated to the memory of Professor David R. Dickens, who was a founding co-editor. This series focuses on the contemporary significance of the work of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. While almost one hundred years have passed since it was first established, the work of the members of the Frankfurt School is today highly relevant for the analysis and understanding of a broad range of contemporary issues. Just as in the period when the original members of the Frankfurt school were conducting their work, we now face a series of complex challenges due to the number of large-scale historical changes. Many of these are the result of new technologies that, rather than leading to emancipation, have resulted in new forms of domination and divisiveness. All around the globe we are witnessing a new round of war and conflict, the rise of fascism, and impending environmental catastrophe. We also see the heightening of interpersonal conflicts based on racial and ethnic, sexual, regional, and ideological differences. The very technologies that promised to bring us all together have only amplified and monetized these divisions through the use of bots, algorithms, and other sophisticated digital tools. To make matters worse, we see a rise in extremist conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific propaganda, and other forms of misinformation and disinformation that only make matters worse. The books published in the series will address this broad range of concern by employing and updating the work of the Frankfurt School. In so doing we hope to produce a body of work that makes both a theoretical and substantive contribution to the analysis of contemporary social life. We thus invite submissions from those who exemplify Marx’s observation that, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however is to change it.” Moreover, because of the complexity of issues that we face, we welcome approaches that combine other frameworks with the Frankfurt School to create a more robust understanding of the social world. Recent Titles in the Series The Critical Humanism of the Frankfurt School as Social Critique, by Oliver Kozlarek

The Critical Humanism of the Frankfurt School as Social Critique Oliver Kozlarek

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2024 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kozlarek, Oliver, author.  Title: The critical humanism of the Frankfurt School as social critique /  Oliver Kozlarek.  Description: Lanham : Lexington, [2024] | Series: The Frankfurt School in new times | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Using the example of various representatives of the Frankfurt School, the book works out a normative orientation that is to be understood here as ‘Critical Humanism.’ The author argues that Critical Humanism is not   a contemplative appropriation of a humanistic culture, but a political practice of critical social research” —Provided by publisher.  Identifiers: LCCN 2024004511 (print) | LCCN 2024004512 (ebook) | ISBN 9781666946017 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781666946024 (epub) | ISBN 9781666946031 (pbk. : alk. paper) | Subjects: LCSH: Frankfurt School of sociology. | Humanism. | Critical theory. Classification: LCC HM467 .K69 2024  (print) | LCC HM467  (ebook) | DDC 301.01—dc23/ eng/20240205 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024004511LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024004512 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction

1

Why “Critical Humanism”?



1

The Anti-Humanism That Is None



5

Pseudohumanism—The Contradictions of Neoliberal Modernity Humanism as a Practice of Social Critique—The Legacy of Critical Theory References

6 7

10

PART I: THE NEOLIBERAL “ABOLITION OF MAN” AND SOCIETY

13

Chapter 1: The “Abolition of Man”

15



Toward a Critique of Neoliberal Modernity



17

From McDonaldization to Star Cult—The Corporate Culture of Neoliberalism 20 Neoliberalism and the Abolition of Democracy



The Cultural Revolution of Neoliberalism—A Perfect Ideology

23 26

“Hyperculture” and “Cultural Essentialism” as Varieties of “Affirmative Culturalism”

27

Culture Criticism as the Sign of the Totalization of Culture

30

Culture Criticism as Social Criticism v



34

vi

Contents

Neoliberalism and the Academic Storm against Enlightenment and Humanism

37

Postmodernism: The “Cultural Logic” of Neoliberal Capitalism 38 Postcolonialism versus Society



39

Posthumanism: Simulating Humanity



41

The Anthropocene: From the Abolition to the Perversion of “Man” 42 The Humanistic Mask of Neoliberalism The End of Neoliberalism? References



46



51

53

PART II: THE CLAIM FOR A HUMANE SOCIETY AND THE PRIORITY OF CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH

57

Chapter 2: Max Horkheimer: Humanism as Critical Social Research Critical Social Research against Philosophical Anthropology Cosmopolitan Humanism as Reconciliation





70

74

Chapter 3: Herbert Marcuse: Humanism and the Primacy of Critical Social Theory Marcuse’s “New Foundations of Historical Materialism” “Philosophy and Critical Theory” Humanization through Culture





77 80 84



88

From Philosophy to Critical Social Theory



Critical Humanism and Critical Social Theory References

60 66

Horkheimer’s Critical Theory as “Active Humanism” References

59

92

98

100

Chapter 4: Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism 103 Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism”



The “Social Character” between “Having” and “Being”

105

111

vii

Contents

The Social and Cultural Scientific Tasks of “Normative Humanism” 115 References

118

Chapter 5: Theodor W. Adorno: Critique of the “New Type of Man” and the Search for “Real humanity” What Does “Real Humanity” Mean?

121



123

Adorno’s Anthropology of the “New Type of Man”



126

Adorno’s Anthropology of the “New Type of Man” as Critical Social Research Dialectic of Enlightenment Authoritarian Personality Minima Moralia

129 129



132



132



Adorno’s Humanism: From the Loss of “Real Humanity” to Critical Humanism Education in the Sense of a Humanistic Culture

135



136

The Public Sphere and Sociology at the Service of Humanity 138 From Mastery over Nature to a Humane Society References



142

144

Chapter 6: Walter Benjamin: The Critique of Violence as a Critique of Power Remarks on the History of Publication and Reception

147



150

Capitalism as a Religion and the Cunning of Instrumental Rationality 152 The Critique of Violence as a Critique of Unbalanced Power



154

“Critique of Violence” Today: The Problem of the Disempowered 159 References

161

Chapter 7: Bolívar Echeverría: “Critical Discourse,” Modernity and the Search for “Real Humanity” “Critical Discourse” and Revolution



163 164

viii

Contents

“Critical Discourse” after 1989



166

The Theory of Modernity as Critique of Modernity “Real Modernity” in the Shadow of Capitalism



“Real Humanity” and the Resistance of Life Forms

169

“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (Gil Scott Heron) References

Index

170

174

175

Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here? From Critical Humanism to a Necessary Debate about Society References

167

179

182

183

About the Author



195

Acknowledgments

This book is not least the result of countless conversations with friends and colleagues in various countries and continents. Most of the ideas were developed during a stay of several years at the University of Vechta in Germany. I would like to thank Monika Albrecht, Gabriele Dürbeck, Jonas Nesselhauf, Peter Nitschke, Corinna Onnen, and Burghart Schmidt for their hospitality. Manuel Clemens has been a permanent discussion partner in Germany, Mexico, and Australia. I would like to thank Ina Kerner in Koblenz for inviting me to present my first ideas on critical humanism. Paul Jones’s comments at Australia National University, where I was able to present my ideas in the fall of 2019, were very enriching. Thanks also to Ruth Dávila for inviting me to her Marx seminar at CIDE in Mexico City. The conversations with students in Vechta and Morelia played a significant role also in the process of writing this book. I would like to thank my university, the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo in Morelia, for the generous support of my project, “Crítica de los ‘imaginarios de lo humano’—Una investigación social y cultural crítica” (CIC 2023), which allowed me to have the text proofread, and Paul Kersey for turning my English into real English. Finally, I would like to thank Courtney Morales of Rowman & Littlefield for her professional help in preparing the manuscript and Chris Conner for his good instincts in dealing with some content issues. When I try to imagine “real humanity” as a person, my wife, Esperanza Fernández, comes to mind. I dedicate this book to her.

ix

Introduction

Over one hundred years ago, the left, theoretically and politically rooted in Marxian ideas, descended into what would become a long-lasting crisis that has not been overcome to this day, a crisis related to the loss of the conviction that the proletariat was the ‘chosen subject’ to generate the historical transformations that would ultimately lead to the humane society promised by the Enlightenment. This crisis can be thought of as constituting something like an ‘identity crisis.’ Understood in this way, current “identity politics,” which began to increase in strength in the 1990s, also within the ranks of the left (see Rorty 1998), can be seen as a reaction to this crisis. But today we realize that instead of replacing an identity rooted in the proletariat, identity politics tends to fragment the social fabric, weaken the resources of empathy and solidarity that transcend the respective identitarian boundaries, and debilitate transformative power in such a way that critical thinking abandons any pretension to achieve radical social change. It may be that a more recent trend that could be summarized as a kind of “humanist turn” (see Kozlarek 2011) also responds to the excesses of identity politics. However, this “humanist turn” would be misunderstood if it were thought of as the result of the search for a new universal identity. The focus of the “humanist turn” cannot be identity, but rather, it must reinvigorate a strong program of social critique. In this book, such program will be presented as a critical renewal of humanism, or as critical humanism. WHY “CRITICAL HUMANISM”? “Critical humanism” is a term often used when the intuition that humanism is actually a good thing is followed by the insight that this no longer seems to be self-evident today; that is, that the commitment to humanism must be accompanied by some kind of justification. The British sociologist Ken Plummer summarized this in the following words: “[T]hese days [. . .] the 1

2

Introductio

‘human being’ and ‘humanism’ are thoroughly contested terms. A very specific, narrow, ‘Westernized’ version has simultaneously been made dominant and then been heavily discredited. [. . .] All in all, humanism and all it stands for has become a dirty word” (Plummer 2001, 256). Against this background, Plummer opts for a restitution under the signature of “critical humanism.” While emphasizing that he seeks to distance himself from the anti-humanist critique that he believes to be discernible primarily in certain posthumanist, postmodern, postcolonial, and feminist theories and discourses (ibid., 262), he seems committed to incorporating some of the points of these critiques into his version of critical humanism. The result is an inspiring set of ideas in which the following key points emerge. First, Plummer takes strides to emphasize that his critical humanism should be “embedded.” This is his response to the rebuke that the humanists’ conception of the human being is often too abstract: “Human beings cannot be understood if they are taken out of the contexts of time and space of which they are always a part” (ibid.). As we will see, this insight is also important for the humanism that can be extracted from the works of the Frankfurt School. Second, Plummer seeks to impose a corrective on his humanism, which consists in recognizing that human development is not directed toward a clearly definable telos. Thus, there is no ultimate goal of human or civilizational development. Underlying this consideration is the notion that human action and, in a broader sense, the unfolding of human life on our planet, does not follow a written master plan that simply has to be understood, accepted, and executed but, rather, that human development is oriented toward concrete problems that must be resolved. This is accompanied by the following insight: “There is no fixed meaning of humanism and humanity: they operate as a narrative that draws from a widely held pragmatic view of the workability, yet fallibility, of the everyday world” (Plummer 2021, 14). This, too, is an idea that could be attributed to the Frankfurt School, since its representatives thought that any kind of positive fixation of what it means to be human is impossible, so they concentrated their efforts, instead, on revealing the kinds of forces that disrupt the aim of living a humanely dignified life in our contemporary societies. Third, Plummer’s critical humanism insists that individual human beings do not exist independently of others, but must be understood as “symbolic, dialogic, intersubjective” beings. He recalls not only George Herbert Mead’s ideas, but also refers to narrative theories to which he dedicated a recent book (Plummer 2019). Against postmodernity’s declared “end of metanarratives,” he raises the question of current forms of humanistic narratives (cf. Plummer 2021, 105 ff.). The importance of recognizing the intersubjective, or social, character of human life and the insistence on forming a narrative, perhaps

Introduction

3

even an educational program, to communicate this idea, is also something the Frankfurt School stands for, as we will see below (chapter 4; chapter 5). Fourth, and finally, Plummer points to the issue of the relation between cultural diversity and unity. He insists that the symbolic-cultural existence of human beings does not produce only diversity and difference, but also contains universalistic “potentials” that ultimately manifest themselves in our “moral and ethical” orientations (Plummer 2001). This aspect is particularly relevant in a world like ours, where identity politics has become so radicalized that the universal and the general meet equally radicalized forms of categorical rejection. Such insistence on a normative universalism would also have been shared by the representatives of the Frankfurt School, as we will see. Plummer’s critical humanism undoubtedly generates important impulses for updating humanist orientations. However, it also manifests problems that could weaken, precisely, its claim to criticality. His arguments for a critical humanism seem excessively defensive in that they respond too specifically to postmodern or posthumanist critiques. “I have much sympathy for such critiques,” he admits in a newer book on the subject (Plummer 2021, 4). Apart from the fact that in any argumentative situation, adopting a defensive posture always entails a strategic disadvantage, in this specific case the vital argumentative thrust of a critical humanism might be lost. The current critique of humanism largely ignores, or withholds, the fact that humanism itself is already a critical discourse (Fromm 1999, 5), that it is not a naïve celebration of the humaneness achieved in Western societies, but a reminder that these achievements are permanently undermined by the social, political, and economic conditions of our societies. The tradition of humanism that can be extracted from Critical Theory of the early Frankfurt School does emphasize this “dialectical” situation, which reflects ultimately a divided society in which small elites concentrate not only political and economic power, but also the privileges to claim the benefits of “real humanity” for themselves alone, while the “masses” are expected to renounce (see chapter 2). This brings up a second difficulty that burdens Plummer’s critical humanism: his discussion pays too little attention to the social and cultural conditions of current societies. Plummer discusses at length the concepts of humanity that should guide humanism, how possibilities for human coexistence can be conceived from a theoretical perspective, and the role that narrative might play in all of this, but he addresses only superficially the concrete ills in our societies that diminish the possibilities for humane forms of life, and why they are so pervasive.1 In this book, therefore, I take up the question of what kind of intellectual and academic tradition could provide a critique of humanism that does not jeopardize its social-critical commitment. The answer developed focuses on

4

Introductio

Critical Theory as it is understood in relation to the early Frankfurt School.2 It is my contention that the thought of the early Frankfurt School can be seen, above all, as a critique of society oriented by critical humanism. This means that the normative orientation of the early Frankfurt School operated differently from contemporary Critical Theory that, by mechanically aligning itself with individual normative concepts, removes individual aspects from the overall humanistic culture that is always, and already, more than the sum of its parts. What this means is a culture of Enlightenment whose normative core is a humanism that cannot be reduced to a certain “concept of man,” but that confirms itself repeatedly as the negation of the real life of our societies, burdened by a notorious lack of humaneness (Menschlichkeit). In this sense, Roger Behrens wrote: “[T]he real humanism of Critical Theory cannot be separated from the real inhumanity of the conditions” (Behrens 2007, 47). This also means that the humanism of Critical Theory is submitted to an “immanent critique”: a humanist critique of humanism, as it were. In our contemporary world, this self-critical turning of humanism against itself without destroying its social critical character seems to me not only an important way to address the tendencies toward alienation and dehumanization, but also to oppose the illusion that a post- or transhuman world would be a better one. In this framework, the following concepts from the perspective of Critical Theory can be added to the central points of Plummer’s conception of critical humanism: First: humanism in the understanding of Critical Theory is not defensive but, in and of itself, a (self-)critical practice that emerges in modern, capitalist society as a consequence and awareness of extremely contradictory (“dialectic”) social and cultural conditions. This criticism parallels the equally dialectic understanding of Enlightenment humanism and is based on recognizing an extremely unequal distribution of power as well as the imposition of an instrumental kind of rationality. This could already have been the reason for Kant to insist so strongly that no human being should ever be a means for someone or something else. Enlightenment humanism would thus be from the beginning a culture of radical opposition against the dehumanizing tendencies in modern society. Second: its critical thrust is not directed against Enlightenment humanism, but against the conditions that prevent the materialization of a humane society. Third: in order to specify the conditions that prevent modern societies from fully unleashing “real humanity,” Critical Theory does not depict an ideal conception of the human being, instead opting for a sophisticated, interdisciplinary program of critical social and cultural research to discover the mechanisms and dynamics that impede the emergence of “real humanity.”

Introduction

5

THE ANTI-HUMANISM THAT IS NONE From what has been said to this point it could be drawn that critical humanism is neither a doctrine nor a theory, that it cannot be reduced to principles or concepts (for example, certain conceptualizations of “Man” or of “human nature”). Humanism should, rather, be understood as a critical engagement with dehumanizing tendencies and dynamics in our modern societies. However, the question arises whether humanism has not, perhaps, long since been surpassed. After all, has it not been proven that humanism was, at best, a mistake, or worse, an ideology, in and of itself, that justified suffering and atrocities perpetuated by Western colonialism or modernity? Those who give positive answers to this kind of question often ground their arguments in the tradition of anti-humanist thinking in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, it is also possible to understand this alleged anti-humanism not as a rejection of humanism but as a practice of immanent self-critique. In his broad “archaeology of the anti-humanism of the 1960s,” Stefanos Geroulanos traced anti-humanist roots in French thought (Geroulanos 2010, 21). His book, An Atheism That Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought, has the merit of addressing the precursors of the current anti-humanism in the thought after the Second World War. In doing so, Geroulanos shows that the antecedents of current anti-humanist discourses and theories do not seem to be rooted so much in a radical rejection of humanism, but that their primary concern was to follow the process of secularization, which he summarizes in three points: 1. A new radical atheism no longer willing to take humanism as a kind of substitute religion; 2. A “negative philosophical anthropology” that refrained from positively determining the “essence” or “nature of Man”; and 3. a broad wave of explicit “critiques of humanism” that, however, must be seen as a kind of immanent self-critique, not as a radical rejection. The protagonists of this movement are the same figures who are cited time and again as having given humanism the coup de grace: Heidegger—who was already being read in France in the 1930s, but also after the Second World War, and of which a particularly effective piece of writing is his “Letter on Humanism” of 1947—but also Alexandre Kojève, Alexandre Koyré, George Bataille, Emmanuel Lévinas, as well as Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser, and, last but not least, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Geroulanos notes the following when focusing on the debate rather than individual expressions: 1.  First, that the history of French thought must indeed have found its thematic center of gravity in the central question of humanism, so that

6

Introductio

French anti-humanism can also be understood in more positive terms as a debate about humanism. 2.  Second, that this debate was not purely academic. Rather, the critique of humanism should be understood as a reaction to the unfulfilled expectations of the first half of the twentieth century. Geroulanos explains: “If the nineteenth century was marked by a ‘Death of God,’ Man after the era of catastrophe—the age of World War I, the rise of Nazism, Stalinism, World War II, and the immediate postwar period—could no longer claim to fill the void left by God’s absence without bringing forth the worst in human history and, paradoxically, denigrating the dignity of the human subject” (ibid., 2). 3.  Third, the critique of humanism did not ultimately end in anti-humanist and anti-anthropological platitudes. Although Geroulanos’s book presents itself as an archaeology of the anti- and posthumanism of our days, it leaves no doubt that the discussions that took place up to the 1960s were determined by an ambivalence that, against the categorical swan song to any form of humanism, also prepared alternative definitions and interpretations of updated forms of humanism. 4.  Finally, Geroulanos’s book makes it clear that radical forms of anti-humanist impetus began to emerge only in the 1980s under the motto “the Death of Man” (cf. ibid., 14), which he understands as a consequence of the progressive secularization that seeks to break away from the idea of a “divine humanity” (ibid., 8). PSEUDOHUMANISM—THE CONTRADICTIONS OF NEOLIBERAL MODERNITY In this book, I set out to follow this track while adding a sociological perspective. In this sense, the anti-humanist radicalization that has occurred since the 1980s could be understood not only as a consequence of a linear process of secularization, or of the thought of radicalizing anti-humanist intellectuals, but, I argue, be traced back to a strengthening of dispositions that turned against humanism and, in fact, against the human being, which emerge from the social development of recent decades. Intuitively, the sociologist Friedrich Tenbruck perceived in the early 1980s that tendencies were emerging in this process that could be described as an “abolition of Man” (cf. Tenbruck 1984) (see also: chapter 1). Current post- or transhumanist narratives can be seen as the normalization, indeed, celebration, of the idea that a future world free of human beings would be a blessing. From the perspective of Critical Theory, however, it becomes evident that withholding “real humanity” from a large part of humanity has always

Introduction

7

been part and parcel of a radically unequal modern society. Current critical social research, especially the kind that is bundled in recent criticisms of neoliberalism, reveals that these tendencies may have been strengthened over the last thirty years (see chapter 1). The thesis that derives from this is that the “stealth revolution” of neoliberalism (Brown 2015), which has profoundly changed all areas of human life over the last thirty to forty years, is in many ways driving processes that are leading to the establishment of very sophisticated forms of control and subordination that, ultimately, act against human beings, and even strive to “abolish” humanity in its organic and biological state (see Sibilia 1999), but above all, normative understanding that roots in Enlightenment humanism. These processes are fueled by current trans- and posthumanist theories and discourses that celebrate, naïvely or not, these tendencies as some kind of liberation from organic limits (ibid., 103), while ignoring that what is at stake is ultimately humanity itself as we know it today.3 The crucial ambivalence of our societies can thus be expressed as follows: although a humanistic culture seems to have prevailed in them—particularly in the ideological spheres of intellectual and political discourse—social, economic, and political realities keep most human beings on earth from remotely approaching the promises this culture offers. Instrumentalized clichés, disseminated mediatically, produce a self-righteous image of our societies that conceals how distorted, meaningless, politically functionalized, humanist lip service is sworn to practices that clearly contradict them; as when, for example, under the banner of “humanitarian reason,” which adopts a paternalistic logic, what is promoted in the end is the reproduction of inequality (Fassin 2012) or, even more perfidious, when politicians speak of “humane warfare”—a ruse through which the perpetuation of war is justified (cf. Moyn 2021). HUMANISM AS A PRACTICE OF SOCIAL CRITIQUE—THE LEGACY OF CRITICAL THEORY Against this background, this book proposes to return to a critically reflected humanist culture. To this end, the tradition of Critical Theory in the sense of the early Frankfurt School is recalled. Taking this step back into the history of social and political thought makes it possible to reconnect with a kind of critical reflection that was not ready to dispose of the cultural achievements of Enlightenment humanism precisely because the promises of “real humanity” have not yet been fulfilled. In the chapters of the book, I elaborate the normative commitment to a critical humanism in individual studies of some of the representatives of Critical Theory.

8

Introductio

Max Horkheimer not only provided the keywords of “critical theory,” but as the founder of “Critical Theory” and longtime director of the Institute for Social Research (IfS), his work presents a sophisticated program in which interdisciplinary critical social and cultural research are interwoven in such a way as to reveal the image of a society that has become thoroughly inhuman. Horkheimer’s critical humanism can best be understood in terms of this program of critical social and cultural research. The priority of social criticism as the central task of a critical humanism is also clear in Herbert Marcuse’s opus: “The humanist today must first recognize and express what is going on,” Marcuse demands unequivocally, adding, a few lines later, that “humanism today demands an uncompromising critique of the existing state of the world” (Marcuse 2002, 128). In addition to Horkheimer, I see Marcuse’s contribution in his critical social theory presented above all in his One-Dimensional Man (1964). Reading Marcuse today reveals how far social research has moved away from this primacy of a humanistically oriented critical social theory, but it also raises the question of how this kind of academically institutionalized social critique could be reinvigorated. Erich Fromm is likely the thinker from the original Frankfurt Circle who most explicitly identified with the tradition of humanism. Indeed, he has described his humanism with various adjectives, among which socialist, normative, and radical stand out. All these attributes are justified, but they tend to set Fromm’s thinking apart from that of his former Frankfurt colleagues. I wish to show here, in contrast, that a unifying element has been, precisely, their shared commitment to a universalist humanism. I therefore consider Fromm’s “normative humanism” to be a kind of intellectual minimalism that opposes the growing tendencies of relativism and the resulting confusion provoked by the ideologically motivated culturalism (see chapter 1). Those who seek to trace Theodor W. Adorno’s humanism must not be too impressed by sentences like the following one from Minima Moralia: “In the innermost recesses of humanism, as its very soul, there rages a frantic prisoner who, as a Fascist, turns the world into a prison” (Adorno 2005, 89). Despite such harsh, anti-humanist statements, Adorno’s thinking is not far removed from that of his former colleagues. As I will show, he was inspired, above all, by the search for what is mentioned—though only rather fleetingly—in a prominent place in the Dialectic of Enlightenment: “real humanity” (cf. Horkheimer/Adorno 1990, 5). The meaning of this has so far remained largely underexplored in research, so one of my aims is to show that Adorno also connected his role as an intellectual with the goal of realizing “real humanity” in the public sphere. Walter Benjamin published his essay “The Critique of Violence” some one hundred years ago, and it has become one of the most frequently commented

Introduction

9

writings in the history of social and cultural studies. Despite its title, Benjamin does not develop a theory of violence in that work; instead he seeks to unite three key thematic lines: 1. the critique of ends-means-rationality, which runs through many of his works like a red thread; 2. a social critique that, from the perspective of political theory, is primarily ignited by the unjust distribution of political power; and 3. a normative foundation rooted in a critique of “increased humanity” that can be understood as quite an original expression of critical humanism. The suspicion that the seeds of Critical Theory may have fallen on more fertile ground outside Europe will be strengthened by a transatlantic comparison, as in the concluding chapter I discuss the work of the EcuadorianMexican philosopher Bolívar Echeverría4 as an example of how the legacy of Critical Theory can be carried forward and supplemented in a most convincing way. Echeverría’s contribution to what here is called critical humanism consists in extracting the critique of “real-existing modernity” from pretheoretical forms of resistance, so as to make visible a “real humanity” that tirelessly stirs against all attempts to contain it, without categorically opposing the idea of social progress. The critical humanism of the Frankfurt School, which seeks to be understood, above all, as a program of critical social research, can today best be seen as a substantial critique of our neoliberal, and in a more general sense, capitalist modernity, as should become clear in the first chapter of this book, which proposes the following thesis: “neoliberal modernity” systematically promotes the “abolition” (Tenbruck) of the human being in the sense of Enlightenment humanism, and that means also: the “abolition” of a society in which the ideals of Enlightenment humanism could flourish. The second part of the book then elaborates how the Critical Theory of the early Frankfurt School can be seen as an early critique of this tendency that has been radicalized in the recent decades marked by “neoliberal modernity.” The book does not end with a proposal for a “new human being” or a “new society.” But, continuing the line of thought that defines a Critical Theory from the perspective of critical humanism leads, consequently, to the opening up of a space in which discussions and debates about the possibilities of a radically different kind of society should be reactivated. This discussion is not only important because “society” today is in danger of disappearing as a central social imaginary (Dubet 2021), but also because without society, both the critique of society and, above all, the demand for a humane society loses its sense, and humanism would become, once again, an abstract and politically toothless idea.

10

Introductio

NOTES 1. In his new book (2021), Plummer does discuss some of the problem areas, but he addresses them only rather descriptively (cf. 43–101). 2. This means that the later developments in this tradition by Jürgen Habermas or Axel Honneth, for instance, will not be considered at this point. About the anthropology of Critical Theory see: Johannßen 2018. 3. Criticism of these forms of ideology is slowly building up (see: Fuchs 2020; Osborne/Rose 2023). 4. Bolívar Echeverría’s work is being introduced into the non-Spanish-speaking world. A part of Stefan Gandler’s dissertation—which was published in German in 1999 and translated into English in 2015—is dedicated to Echeverría. More recent publications include Andrés Saenz de Sicilia’s chapter in the Sage-Handbook of Frankfurt Critical Theory (Saenz de Sicilia 2018), which includes references to Echeverría’s work during the last ten years of his life (Echeverría passed away in 2010), and the first translations of Echeverría’s own work (see: Echeverría 2019; review: Kozlarek 2020) have to be mentioned.

REFERENCES Adorno, Theodor W. 2005. Minima Moralia. Reflections on a Damaged Life. London/ New York: Suhrkamp. Behrens, Roger. 2007. „Bemerkungen zur Aktualität der Kritischen Theorie.“ In Kritische Theorie heute, edited by Rainer Winter/Peter Zima, 47–66. Bielefeld: Transcript. Brown, Wendy. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books. Dubet, François. 2021. „The Return of Society.” In European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 24, Issue 1, 3–21. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/1368431020950541. Fassin, Didier. 2012. Humanitarian Reason. A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Fromm, Erich. 1999. “Humanismus und Psychoanalyse.” In Gesamtausgabe IX: Sozialistischer Humanismus und humanistische Ethik, 3–11. München: DTV. Fuchs, Thomas. 2020. Verteidigung des Menschen. Grundfragen einer verkörperten Anthropologie. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Gandler, Stefan. 1999. Peripherer Marxismus. Kritische Theorie in Mexiko. Hamburg/ Berlin: Argument Verlag. Geroulanos, Stefanos. 2010. An Atheism That Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1990. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Johannßen, Dennis. 2018. “Humanism and Anthropology from Walter Benjamin to Ulrich Sonnemann.” In The Sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory

Introduction

11

[EPub], edited by Beverly Best/Werner Bonefeld/Chris O’Kane, 5595–678. London et al.: Sage. Kozlarek, Oliver. 2011. “Towards a humanist turn.” In The UNESCO Courier: 64, 18–20. Kozlarek, Oliver. 2023. “Another unfinished project of modernity from a Latin American perspective” (review: Bolívar Echeverría (2019) Modernity and ‘Whiteness’). In European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 26; issue 1: 113–17. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/13684310211062088. Marcuse, Herbert. 2002. “Humanismus und Humanität.” In Nachgelassene Schriften: Philosophie und Psychoanalyse, edited by Peter-Erwin Jansen, 121–30. Lüneburg: Zu Klampen. Moyn, Samuel. 2021. Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. New York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Osborne, Thomas, and Nikolas Rose. 2023. “Against Posthumanism: Notes towards an Ethopolitics of Personhood.” In Theory, Culture & Society, https:​//​journals​ .sagepub​.com​/home​/tcs. Accessed November 25, 2023. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​ /02632764231178472. Plummer, Ken. 2001. Documents of Life 2. An Invitation to Critical Humanism. London/Thousand Oaks/Dehli: Sage. Plummer, Ken. 2019. Narrative Power. The Struggle for Human Value. Cambridge/ Medford: Polity. Plummer, Ken. 2021. Critical Humanism. A Manifesto for the 21st Century. Cambridge/Medford: Polity. Rorty, Richard. 1998. Achieving our Country. Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. Saenz de Sicilia, Andrés. 2018. “Bolívar Echeverría: Critical Discourse and Capitalist Modernity.” In The Sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory [EPub], edited by Beverly Best/Werner Bonefeld/Chris O’Kane, 1986–2053, London et al.: Sage. Sibilia, Paula. 1999. El hombre postorgánico. Cuerpo, subjetividad y teconologías digitales. Buenos Aires/México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Tenbruck, Friedrich H. 1984. Die unbewältigten Sozialwissenschaften oder die Abschaffung des Menschen. Graz/Wien/Köln: Styria.

PART I

The Neoliberal “Abolition of Man” and Society

13

Chapter 1

The “Abolition of Man”

In 1984, the sociologist Friedrich H. Tenbruck published a remarkable book, the significance of which can perhaps only be properly appreciated today. The book presents a critique of his own discipline, sociology. What exactly Tenbruck accuses sociology of is made clear by the subtitle of the volume, which laconically states the “abolition of Man” (Die Abschaffung des Menschen) (Tenbruck 1984, cf.). Now, it could be argued that even a superficial look at publications in sociology reveals the voluntary extirpation of the human being from its language, as what prevails is not the human being, but “systems,” “institutions,” and “roles,” among other terms that characterize the semantics of this science. But Tenbruck’s critique goes further as he denounces sociology for having become a scientific discipline that has turned away from the humanistic tradition in its desire to become an “empirical science.” In so doing, it had “become the bearer of a worldview” that began to rule with enormous “power” over “everyone’s thinking and acting” (Tenbruck 1984, 6). In a review, Franz-Xaver Kaufmann explains, “From this perspective, sociology then appears as the key science of modernity, as the exegesis of the God-term ‘society,’ as the horizon-determining doctrine and thus as the quasi-theology of contemporary self-understanding” (Kaufmann 1985, 107). Kaufmann, who reads Tenbruck quite critically, suspects here a “religion-sociological alienation of sociology” (ibid.), but also hears the buzzing of a “consistent Enlightenment thought” (ibid.). What remains enlightened about this book is, especially, the humanistic claim that seems to have inspired it. The basic insight—that human beings should be understood above all as “social beings” and, at the same time, as individuals—testifies to the fact that sociology is also about the “human being” and cannot leave this question to the Geisteswissenschaften (“Humanities”) (Tenbruck 1984, 7). According to Tenbruck, however, sociology seems to have distanced itself more and more hastily from this tradition, for the human being appears less and less as a “subject” who is able, and has the right, to make his own decisions, being understood instead, and increasingly, as a kind 15

16

Chapter 1

of “technical task” that needs to be solved and administered, precisely, by the “institution of society” (ibid., 230). Thus, sociology is no longer concerned with the human being, but with society, for which, however, human beings seem to have become a problem, since they are reduced to merely the “consumption of their conditions of existence,” with any concern for their role in society being set aside (ibid., 231). The larger and more important society becomes, the more broken “Man” appears, or what is left of him in the worldview of sociology. According to role theories, human beings turn into “role bearers” (ibid., 235). “Faceless role bearers [. . .] are people without individual characteristics” who could still say of themselves “I am” in an emphatic sense (ibid., 235). The broken human being is thus degraded to a “representative of characteristics” (Merkmalsvertreter). In view of the erasure of his autonomy, he assumes “identities” (ibid., 241), which, though they follow the desire to break out of the mechanical and purely instrumental being to regain the lost humanity, ultimately condense into “guiding image[s] of politics” (ibid., 240) that are as schematic as they are communicated by the media and strategically distributed among different positions depending on a whole series of conjunctural topics and problems. According to Tenbruck, truly authentic action oriented by the “will” of a subject is thus not only no longer desired, but has become virtually impossible. The primacy of society over the human being allows new forms of action only if they are preceded by changes in the social structure. In accordance with this, functionalist or rational choice theories are not false understandings of social action, but approaches that symptomatically and unsparingly describe the atrophy of creative human action in concrete social practice. In Tenbruck’s words: “Man, degraded to the status of a social being, must now rely on the change in society that is supposed to make ‘self-realization’ possible for him” (ibid., 240–41). Moreover, the increasing reduction and eventual elimination of the human person and the subordination of still-existing human beings to social norms, leads not only to ever greater control and surveillance, but also to substitute religions that function ideologically. In this context, Tenbruck mentions an almost religious “faith in science” that leads to the expectation of a “scientificized civilization” (ibid., 247). In the wake of this process, sociology and the social sciences as a whole play a decisive role, for their tasks were not only to design that image of the world and of the human being on the basis of which social processes could run as smoothly and trouble-free as possible, but also, by training experts and consultants (cf. ibid., 243)—for example: social workers, journalists, teachers—to achieve a deep impact on people’s lives, and thus transfer the imperatives of “society” to people’s behavior. The “abolition of Man” thus means,

The “Abolition of Man”

17

above all, preventing people from existing “in the freedom of their own way of life and their own conscience” (ibid., 255). Aside from a quickly silenced grumbling within the ranks of his own discipline, Tenbruck’s provocative writing has not sparked any serious discussion. I, however, would like to pick up his thread, because I believe that by focusing on the question of the human being and humanity in our societies, he expressed an awareness that is perhaps even more urgent today than it was forty years ago. At that time, it was thanks to the acumen and courage of a thinker still in the humanist tradition to read in his own discipline the signs of a world that was becoming more and more inhuman. In recent decades, poststructuralist and postmodernist, transhumanist and posthumanist, but also systems-theoretical and culturalist discourses have not only reinforced this tendency, but pushed forward the “abolition of Man” that, according to Tenbruck’s observations, was becoming more aggressive and overt. In this chapter, I deal with various aspects of the “abolition of Man” as they appear not only in sociological theories, but in various domains of our social, political, and economic realities. This book is based on the idea that in all these areas, concrete processes and dynamics directed against the human being prevail, the ultimate consequence of which would be, literally, the “abolition” of human beings as we know them, a tendency that today is not only noted apathetically (Harari 2017), but often even celebrated enthusiastically.1 My intention in these pages is to discuss this on the basis of a series of examples that I prefer to bundle under the banner of ‘critiques of neoliberalism.’ Through current critiques of neoliberalism, most of which emerged after the financial crisis of 2008/2009, and despite their differences and nuances, we can read a critique of current modern society. This society is characterized by a major contradiction: in spite of all the lip service paid to humanity and humanistic “values,” these are systematically undermined by real practices in our current “neoliberal modernity.” TOWARD A CRITIQUE OF NEOLIBERAL MODERNITY Current sociological theory lacks a comprehensive critique of modernity. Social theory in recent decades has developed two basic strands of theories of modernity. Under the sign of “multiple modernities,” some authors promote the idea that there are different modernities and that their variations can be traced back to cultural differences rooted in their respective “axial civilizations.” The most important voice of this idea is that of the Israeli sociologist Shmuel N. Eisenstadt (2000). The other strand of theorizing modernity that has prevailed in sociological theory is the one influenced by the postcolonial critique, which holds

18

Chapter 1

that modernity equals “coloniality,” to quote a famous phrase from Walter Mignolo (2011). The “multiple modernities” approach justifies the respective “actually existing” modernities by pointing to their premodern and cultural conditioning, whereas postcolonial theory simply discredits modernity altogether, opting for a sort of radically postmodern “deconstruction” of modernity that empties it of all normative content. It can be argued, however, that the current critique of neoliberalism can be seen as a kind of critical discourse that seeks to compensate for the lack of critical theories of modernity. To phrase this differently: it is possible to see the most recent set of critiques of neoliberalism as critiques of current “neoliberal modernity.” Linking the current critique of neoliberalism to the theory of modernity in this way, and to critical social theory, more generally, is possible because the recent critique of neoliberalism is not limited to an exclusive critique of economic decisions. Rather, it understands neoliberalism, as Fernando Escalante has noted, as “an intellectual tradition of various, complicated ramifications,” as “a political program, and [. . .], above all, a cultural movement—and a very far-reaching one” (Escalante 2015, 141; see also Brown 2015). In relation to our context, what Escalante says next is interesting: “In fact, the political victories of neoliberal ideology are largely due to a transformation in the way of seeing the world, and in the way of understanding Human Nature” (Escalante 2015, 141). Indeed, at the heart of many expressions of the critique of neoliberal modernity lies the critique of its concept of the human being that culminates in the imaginary of “rational, selfish, perfectly informed individuals who consistently seek to maximize their utility, however they define it” (ibid., 143). Yet another observation of Escalante’s must be highlighted here: the ideal type of human being in neoliberal society would actually be that of a machine (see ibid., 144). Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that Tenbruck’s intuition of the “abolition of Man” could be seen, literally, as the ultimate goal of neoliberal modernity. It is in this sense that I would regard neoliberal modernity not only as the latest form of capitalism, but as a qualitative step toward a new form of domination in which a new type of human being is produced that ultimately tends to abolish itself. I would like to briefly discuss some aspects of this development. The aim is not to develop a systematic theory of “neoliberal modernity,” but rather to present a few pieces of the mosaic that hopefully illustrate the new quality: 1.  A new corporate culture has taken hold, which ensures that customers are involuntarily drawn more and more into the production process as “working consumers” in order to enable companies and shareholders to make ever greater profits.

The “Abolition of Man”

19

2.  The impact of neoliberalism on politics is not that political regulation of the market is diminishing but, primarily, that politics is becoming more and more unequivocally concerned with an undeclared redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top that ultimately subverts democracy. 3.  But crucial to “neoliberal modernity” are not only new forms of production, consumption, and politics but, especially, a new understanding of the world in which central importance is attributed to culture. This process of “culturalization” generates a new ideology that can take on totalizing features primarily because it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the interior and the exterior of culture. I would consider “culturalization” as the most distinctive feature of neoliberal capitalism. 4.  In addition, the “abolition of Man” is being advanced in academic culture. A number of recent discourses, debates, and theories make this clear, principally through the arguments they direct against the Enlightenment and humanism. 5.  The fact that resistance to the neoliberal “abolition of Man” and its ideology remains so low is clearly due to the fact that neoliberal ideology has learned to put on a “humanist mask” that creates a strong tension between discursively constructed normative ambitions and social, political, and economic realities. It should come as no surprise that this contradiction is deeply inscribed in neoliberal theory, as even a brief glance at Friedrich von Hayek’s works shows. Just as neoliberalism is, in fact, not a new form of liberalism, the advocacy of “Western” values, so strongly emphasized in public and political discourse today, should not be confused with any sincere advocacy of humanism. On the contrary, as the deep logic of “humanitarian reason” (Fassin 2012) and the justification of American, or “Western,” wars as “humane wars” (Moyn 2021) reveal, neoliberal modernity tends to pervert the legacy of humanism by converting it into a way to justify inequality and violence, control and surveillance. 6.  Finally, we must ask whether neoliberalism has not, perhaps, already come to an end. This final question could, however, be the result of a misconception that I outline and strive to contradict here. While it could be suggested that capitalism freed from neoliberalism would be the solution to the problems manifested in the current critique of neoliberalism, we could say that neoliberalism is a “culture” of the affirmation, indeed celebration, of capitalism. Neoliberalism is not an aberration of capitalism but, rather, what capitalism looks like once it no longer needs to occult its true rostrum. But this does not mean that a critique of capitalism could take the place of the critique of neoliberalism. As will hopefully become clear in this chapter, neoliberal capitalism is also a

20

Chapter 1

special kind of capitalism in which culture plays a decisive role, substituting a social and political imaginary based on a strong and normative concept of society. The chapters in the second part of this book, which will deal with the critical humanism of the Frankfurt School, will then show that a systematic critique of neoliberal modernity can follow on from this. FROM MCDONALDIZATION TO STAR CULT—THE CORPORATE CULTURE OF NEOLIBERALISM George Ritzer’s famous analysis of “McDonaldization” can be read in our context as an early analysis of key changes in neoliberal capitalism. As Ritzer made clear once again in the new edition of his book, The McDonaldization of Society, his concern since the 1980s has been to show, using the paradigmatic example of McDonald’s corporate logic, that the original business idea was to involve customers in the process of production and sales. According to that program, it is not the market that is at the center, but a revaluation of the people involved in postindustrial production and consumption processes and the accompanying devaluation of overall social orientations. “‘[P]utting of customers to work’ in many ways (serving as, in effect, their own waiters, bus persons, and disposers of trash)” had not only led to greater profits, but also to a particular logic of redistribution; namely, the participation of customers in entrepreneurial processes made it possible to cut jobs, with the resulting increase in capital and profits going primarily into the pockets of shareholders (cf. Ritzer 2019, 15). For Ritzer, it is clear that this system is undisputedly current. Attempting to adapt his thesis of McDonaldization to today’s society, he emphasizes, above all, that the digitalization of recent decades has strengthened this tendency. For our context, this means that this logic accelerates a systematic abolition of non-alienated work, while at the same time leading people to become unsolicited “working consumers” for companies and, in the process, finding themselves increasingly left alone as consumers, especially in the digital world, with no help from human employees who—as Ritzer clearly points out—either no longer exist or can only be contacted under the most exigent of circumstances (cf. ibid.). But it is not only the current tendencies of digitalization and “McDonaldization” that play into the hands of the “abolition of Man” in our current societies. Especially if we understand neoliberalism as a new culture (cf. Escalante Gonzalbo 2015), it is to be expected that almost every area of life will come under its influence, which consists in imposing an

The “Abolition of Man”

21

entrepreneurial logic, even on the understanding and, indeed, self-understanding of human beings. Thus, Patrick Schreiner writes: Neoliberal ideology is omnipresent today, even and especially where one would not expect it at first: it can be found in sports and advice literature. It is the basis for the success of contemporary esotericism. It shapes our thinking about education, the body, and the stars. It provides the mental framework for reality TV and soap operas [. . .]. It makes social networks on the Internet what they are. It shapes our consumption and lifestyle (Schreiner 2015, 104).

What is most significant for Schreiner, just like for Ritzer, is the tendency for individuals to be left alone: “People are thrown back on themselves. In neoliberal societies, everyone is next to themselves” (ibid., 105). What is addressed here is not only a strengthening of the narcissistic tendencies of homo economicus but, especially, the experience of the erosion of social bonds. But despite its tendencies toward social fragmentation, neoliberalism is also “a special form of socialization” (ibid., 107). The increasing self-centeredness is not precisely an expression of subversive nonconformity or even of freedom that people would perform in opposition to society. Rather, it is a particularly efficient form of “submission” to a generalized utilitarian logic and instrumental kind of rationality that people not infrequently push forward voluntarily and with great enthusiasm: “The ideal person in neoliberalism [. . .], in and of himself, is market-conforming, entrepreneurial, and self-referential,” Schreiner wrote, adding, “[h]e shows himself adapted and flexible out of inner drive” (Schreiner 2015, 108). Wendy Brown’s book on the “neoliberal revolution,” meanwhile, establishes what has actually changed by trying to explain how people in neoliberal societies understand themselves. Looking at the educational system, she notes that it is not even longer the once much-vaunted homo economicus that expresses the neoliberal ideal of education, but the notion of “human capital.” If the claim of classical humanistic education always lay in “developing the capacities of citizens, sustaining culture, knowing the world, or envisioning and crafting different ways of life in common” (Brown 2015, 177–78), young people today receive an education oriented toward “market metrics.” Schools and universities then increasingly lose their ‘educational’ character and become institutions that impart knowledge with the blatant purpose of raising the value of capital, “whether that capital is human, corporate, or financial” (ibid., 177). The task of classical education, which was seen to consist in transmitting such values as “social equality, liberty (understood as self-governance and sharing in the powers that govern us together), and worldly development of mind and character,” is abandoned in favor of an “education” reduced to schematic knowledge, concerned primarily with

22

Chapter 1

preparing people for their functioning in the economic processes that maximize the profits of large corporations (ibid., 190). Unlike a few decades ago, when the fear was that people could lose their individuality in ‘mass society,’ today we are experiencing a hypostasis, even celebration, of individualization in all possible spheres of human life. The German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz understands this as the decisive characteristic of our current, “late modern” societies in which people feel a powerful urge to be “singular.” He explains: “Singularization means [. . .] more than independence and self-optimization. Central to it is the complicated striving for uniqueness and exceptionality which, to be sure, has become not only a subjective desire but a paradoxical social expectation” (Reckwitz 2017, 9; italics in the original). Reckwitz finds the reason for this tendency primarily in the “culturalization of the social” that is said to characterize current societies, just as “rationalization” characterized classical modern societies (cf. ibid., 17). We will return to this topic later. Upon comparing Reckwitz’s social theory to Schreiner’s phenomenology of neoliberalization, it becomes clear that the boundaries between what the former calls “culturalization” and “singularization,” on the one hand, and, on the other, the neoliberal economization of all possible spheres of life that Schreiner describes so aptly, are quite fluid. For example, Schreiner also observes an increasing tendency toward self-dramatization and self-representation (cf. Reckwitz 2017; Schreiner 2015), though he attributes it not to an increasing “culturalization,” but to the role model of stars who are “produced [. . .] in order to earn money with themselves” (cf. Schreiner 2015, 69). The human being as a marketable product thus becomes the role model par excellence. The star cult that Schreiner mentions does not consist only in striving for fame or fortune, but also in adopting forms of narcissistic self-presentation. The damage that results primarily affects people’s social skills, but also drives the decomposition of the social fabric. “McDonaldization” and the current cult of stardom, which finds its paradigmatic expression in pop culture and sports, but is increasingly penetrating into other areas—such as politics (politicians as stars) and even religion— arise from a very similar logic. However, this is only inadequately explained through references to an increasing “culturalization” of society. Instead, a social transformation seems to become manifest here, one oriented, apparently and above all, to a changed image or concept of the human being. The result is a condition in which the individual must succumb ever more to the imperatives dictated by large corporations. It could perhaps be argued that this may already have been the case in classic bourgeois society, and that the talk of homo economicus in particular bears witness to this self-image. But with Brown we can say that the “neoliberal revolution” represents a clear caesura. “In neoliberal reason and in domains

The “Abolition of Man”

23

governed by it, we are only and everywhere homo oeconomicus, which itself has a historically specific form. Far from Adam Smith’s creature propelled by the natural urge to ‘truck, barter, and exchange,’ today’s homo oeconomicus is an intensely constructed and governed bit of human capital tasked with improving and leveraging its competitive positioning and with enhancing its (monetary and nonmonetary) portfolio value across all of its endeavors and venues” (Brown 2015, 10). The only point to add here would be that these are by no means selfish self-purposes to which ‘neoliberal reason’ merely gives expression but, ultimately, that they reflect the interests of large corporations (cf. Crouch 2016). Thus, anyone who propagates the thesis of the “culturalization” of society, and suggests through it, some kind of greater freedom for individual, “singularized” forms of life, and who underpins this transformation from modern to late-modern societies in terms of some kind of civilizational progress, will have to deal with the reproach that the socioeconomic factors at work behind it are not given due consideration. In the context of this book, however, another aspect is more decisive: namely, that what has changed is not only the strategies of large corporations, which have come to wield immeasurable power through their global framework of action and new forms of capital accumulation, but, especially, the fact that this power is largely based on significantly greater control achieved through the understanding of human beings primarily as producers and consumers or as human capital. This is even more evident in the age of digitalization and platform economies. NEOLIBERALISM AND THE ABOLITION OF DEMOCRACY Democracy, of course, plays a crucial role in legitimizing the political organization of our societies, but these entities must address questions concerning the quality of their democratic constitutions, especially in light of the ideas developed above. In fact, these questions have been voiced louder and louder in recent years. Above all, the rise of right-wing populist parties and politicians—for example, the continuing popularity of the AfD in Germany, Marie Le Pen’s advances in France, Brexit, and Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States—have fueled suspicions that the victory of democracy may not be as unquestionable as was suspected back in the early 1990s. But this raises the question of whether the right-wing populist phenomena of recent years are in reality causes, or just symptoms, of the weakness of democracy. Nancy Fraser, for one, argues that these events are reactions to the fact that the living conditions of the right-wing populist electorate have

24

Chapter 1

been permanently “hollowed out” by neoliberal policies over the past thirty years (Fraser 2017, 130). She attributes the current electoral successes of right-wing populists to the fact that the voters are rebelling against “progressive neoliberalism,” a posture against which traditional left-wing parties are unable to put anything effective on the field. Fraser explains: [The term progressive neoliberalism] may sound to some like an oxymoron, but it is a real, if perverse, political alignment that holds the key to understanding the US election results—and perhaps some developments elsewhere as well. In its US form, progressive neoliberalism is an alliance of mainstream currents of new social movements (feminism, anti-racism, multiculturalism and LGBTQ rights) on the one side, and high-end ‘symbolic’ and service-based sectors of business (Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood) on the other (Fraser 2017, 130–31).

While figureheads like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan stood for “classic” or “reactionary” neoliberalism, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair represented “progressive neoliberalism,” where “progressive” and partly leftist values and worldviews are mixed with policies that confront the very strata that supported earlier leftist movements—above all, the labor movement— with increasingly precarious living conditions. Fraser summarizes: Continued by his successors, including Barack Obama, Clinton’s policies degraded the living conditions of all working people, but especially those employed in industrial production. In short, Clintonism bears a heavy share of responsibility for the weakening of unions, the decline of real wages, the increasing precarity of work, and the rise of the ‘two-earner family’ in place of the defunct family wage (ibid., 132–33).

Fraser’s reflections make it clear that, despite its “progressive” camouflage, current neoliberalism ultimately stands for the same policies as earlier variants. Thus, she concludes: “the left should refuse the choice between progressive neoliberalism and reactionary populism” (ibid, 147; italics in the original). The imperative, then, is to give priority to criticisms of neoliberalism (or, better still, capitalism) in all its forms. The primary concern should be to shift the focus to the structural problems that are hostile to democracy. Brown, for example, understands neoliberalism as a “peculiar form of reason” that “is quietly undoing basic elements of democracy” (Brown 2015, 17). In this context, she is referring to the ills of our educational institutions and the consequences this has for politics. If people are shaped by institutions whose exclusive, declared goal is the acquisition of “competencies” designed to increase the market value of individuals and, more generally, serve the

The “Abolition of Man”

25

economy, then these institutions will graduate people who will be increasingly incapable of engaging in non-marketable ideas and practices; in other words, individuals are intensively drilled to conform. But in this process, all potential for critique and dissent, those essential features of democracy, also atrophy. Brown summarizes her findings in the following observation: “The survival of democracy depends upon a people educated for it, which entails resisting neoliberalization of their institutions and themselves” (Brown 2015, 200). In the same vein, British political scientist and sociologist Colin Crouch insists that neoliberalism undermines democracy by limiting people’s cognitive abilities: “First, I need to support my contention that certain approaches to markets do damage to knowledge” (Crouch 2016, 23–24). This, he argues, also undermines “trustworthiness and ethical behavior”” (ibid., 24). As should have become clear by now, the “neoliberal revolution” is not a cultural self-runner. Rather, it is accompanied by a shift in the center of social power that must be understood, essentially, as a shift toward the market, as neoliberal ideology pretends (cf. ibid., 24ff). But as is becoming clearer with the passing of time, this also entails a shift from politics and the democratic public sphere to the interests of the large corporations that design and control not only the information that is made accessible to the public sphere, but also the discourses and narratives composed from it through media corporations (cf. ibid., 116ff). Crouch shows confidence in the end. “Unlike totalitarianism,” he writes, “neoliberalism is rarely in a position to impose on us its view of how we should perceive ourselves; we can always reject the attempted exclusion of emotions and values from our knowledge of who we are” (ibid., 73). But where is this alternative image of the human being to come from? Especially when, as we have seen, the sources of a humanistic education are systematically drained and replaced by one oriented to the “values” of a radicalized capitalism where the interests of big business are placed above all else, and where the possibility of achieving the formation of a subjectivity oriented toward desires for emancipation are diminishing more and more. On another front, the neoliberal turn has not left the social and cultural sciences unscathed, for today these academic disciplines in particular face the challenges of a radicalizing identitarian-political relativism that restricts claims of normative and epistemological validity to the respective identitarian groups. Aside from the fact that this promotes individual and collective narcissism in academic debates, it is to be feared that the accepted renunciation of empathy and solidarity beyond one’s own group is likely to damage our ideas of social coexistence in the long run (Lilla 2017; Türcke 2021, 24). The “cultural left,” in particular (cf. Rorty 1998), seems to have made its peace with neoliberalism, not least because it has long since given up both

26

Chapter 1

the struggle for a “large-scale socioeconomic reform” (cf. Fukuyama 2018, 95) and all hope for a better world for all humans. Under these conditions, how (i) the demanded and necessary “transformations” and “reforms” in the fight against increasing social inequality, (ii) the crisis of democracy that has reached endemic proportions, and (iii) the increasingly severe ecological problems are supposed to receive anything beyond superficial corrections remain open questions that not even the political activism that today is displayed repeatedly in pragmatic electoral rituals can hide. In this regard, the moralizing complacency with which both the current representatives and defenders of neoliberalism close their minds to any kind of distinct thinking is also counterproductive. Especially in recent political debates in the context of the COVID pandemic, but also regarding the war in Ukraine, it has become clear just how low the tolerance threshold is in the opinion bulwark of the “progressive”-neoliberal elites (see: Liu 2021). A decisive task, therefore, is to counter this new cognitive, normative, and political “confusion” with an intellectual minimalism that can still be expected to accept overarching normative claims and orientations, and from which profound projects of political, social, and cultural change can be derived. But this is only possible if the rampant, culture-centered ideology comes to be challenged by a normative universalism capable of withstanding accusations of ethical and cognitive “imperialism.” THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION OF NEOLIBERALISM—A PERFECT IDEOLOGY While the thesis of the “culturalization of society” (Reckwitz 2017) may be justified, it raises the question of the extent to which the concept of culture itself changes in this process. In the course of his reflections on this topic, the aforementioned sociologist Andreas Reckwitz has addressed this issue as well, reaching the conclusion that currently in our societies it is not the case that different cultures are facing off against each other (as Samuel Huntington’s thesis of the “Clash of Civilizations” suggests), but that distinct conceptions of culture are vying for acceptance. Some of these conceptions center on the idea of “hyperculture,” in the sense of a normative positing of multiculturalism, but others can be classified better as adherents to a conception that Reckwitz describes as “cultural essentialism” (cf. Reckwitz 2016). I would like to suggest an alternative: I believe that the differentiation between “hyperculture” and “cultural essentialism” is, in itself, due to a change in our understanding of culture that ultimately presents itself as an increasing penetration of market criteria into this realm. In this perspective, “hyperculture” and “cultural essentialism” are simply two varieties of the

The “Abolition of Man”

27

same tendency, as both ultimately serve to “affirm” the given and to handcuff critical potential in a way that suppresses the question of real alternatives. The latter could be generated by a qualitatively different understanding of culture that could be developed through practices of culture criticism. However, as we will see, even the practice of culture criticism can still be imbued with an overall emphasis on affirming the given conditions. “Hyperculture” and “Cultural Essentialism” as Varieties of “Affirmative Culturalism” Reckwitz assumes that the tendencies toward culturalization that exist in our societies are replacing processes of rationalization to which classically modern societies were oriented. In doing so, he seeks to refrain from attributing these processes to economic foundations, explaining that the underlying logic is “only superficially a commercial one, [for] at its core it is rather a matter of competitions involving attention as well as valorization” (Reckwitz 2016, 5). That the tendencies toward culturalization of “late modern” societies might, however, be much more profoundly affected by a “commercial” or market-conforming logic is revealed not least by his own language, which seems deeply attached to this, since he states unequivocally: “the cultural sphere here forms, as it were, a market of attraction and attractiveness, in which a competition for attractiveness and the judgment of what is valuable is fought out” (ibid.). Indeed, throughout his book, Reckwitz relies on an economistic semantics that at least raises the suspicion not only that people’s striving for “singularization” is due to the dominance of a “cultural logic,” but that different formats of social action mimic the market logic of neoliberalism more and more bluntly. In this regard, Reckwitz makes no secret of the fact that singularizing individuals understand social life primarily as a “social market of attractiveness” (Reckwitz 2017, 9), and that singularization and culturalization followed the “rise of cultural capitalism” (ibid., 19). It is in this sense that his ideas are symptoms of both the “cultural logic” (Jameson 1991) of neoliberalism, and of the awareness that a particular understanding of culture, not different cultural contents, might just be the problem. For Reckwitz, “late modern” societies are also conflictual in which distinct social groups confront each other. However, here, too, he tries to distance himself from classical social theories by, once again, following his culturalization thesis, which argues that these conflicts can only be traced “superficially” back to class conflict. He does acknowledge the mutual, antagonistic confrontation of two “classes” in these societies: a “new global middle class” and a “new post-industrial underclass” (Reckwitz 2016), but more important for him than this structural polarization are the substantive distinctions he ascribes to the two “regimes of culturalization.”

28

Chapter 1

On the one hand, there is the so-called culturalization I or hyperculture. “It is indeed calibrated to diversity, since the cultural goods are initially not in a hierarchy to each other, but seem to be equal in principle. Diversity in this context has per se a positive connotation because it expands the space of cultural resources and promises to ‘enrich’ them” (ibid., 6). Again, while Reckwitz sees that this regime of culturalization is supported by “global cultural capitalism and the middle class,” he immediately limits this structural attribution by qualifying it as “superficial.” What is decisive for him is not class membership, but a positive attitude toward cultural diversity. A second important feature in his view is that this positive attitude toward cultural diversity functions, above all, to construct the respective subjective identity: “Whatever the regional, national, or continental, present or historical, or high- or popular-cultural, origin of the cultural goods may be, what is decisive is that they can become resources of subjective self-development” (ibid.). “Cultural essentialism” is what Reckwitz calls the second “culturalization regime”: Superficially, this culturalization II is effective in the new movements and communities that emphatically claim a collective identity. It is, therefore, the culture of the identitarians. In a more moderate form, this applies to parts of the field of identity politics in the U.S., where communities of origin (Blacks, Hispanics, Italian-Americans, etc.) imagine themselves. It applies, as well, to the new nationalisms in Russia, China, or India, for example, and to new, socalled fundamentalist religious movements, such as the Salafists or Pentecostal churchmen (ibid., 7).

Now, as we have seen, Reckwitz develops his theoretical proposal from a discussion with Huntington’s theory of the Clash of Civilizations, which he declares to be “undercomplex” (ibid., 1). His theoretical claim clearly goes beyond Huntington’s, as he strives to provide a comprehensive theory of late-modern society, thus raising the question of whether the conflict between these two “cultural regimes,” as described by Reckwitz, is not also “undercomplex.” This suspicion arises primarily because he seems to assume quite naturally that culture is the key to understanding our societies. While it is true that this suspicion soon emerges when we review the scientific literature of recent decades and become more clearly aware of the “cultural turn” that dominates it, from a critical perspective, of course, this notion could well be questioned. For example, one could ask whether the conflict between these two cultural regimes can really be understood as the fundamental conflict of our societies. There is no doubt that the concept of culture is displacing the concept of

The “Abolition of Man”

29

society as the dominant “social imaginary” today (Touraine 2007), but does this mean that the basic conflict that supposedly characterizes our societies is a cultural one? Responding to these issues requires posing another question: Are the two cultural regimes Reckwitz describes really so fundamentally different, so diametrically opposed that they can account for most of the “current global” (Reckwitz 2016, 9) as well as domestic conflicts, as Reckwitz seems to suggest? It is difficult, indeed, to answer these questions positively because, as we have seen, both cultural regimes are based on a very similar normative orientation. Despite all their differences, “hyperculture” and “culture essentialism” are committed to a culturalism that is no longer concerned with change, but with maintaining things as they are. This applies to “hyperculture” because, contrary to Reckwitz’s assumption, it does not pursue an “opening” of society in the sense of greater cultural diversity but, rather, an unconditional, uncritical recognition of the respective ‘cultures,’ on which no demands may be made. In this regard, Kenan Malik writes: To be able to live in a rather open, lively, and cosmopolitan society is [. . .] about openness, whether of borders or of minds. Multiculturalism as a political process, however, stands for something quite different [. . .] a policy that seeks to manage diversity by pigeonholing people into ethnic and cultural categories, defining their individual needs and rights based on that pigeonholing, and shaping state policy based on this pigeonholing. This is not about openness, but about imposing boundaries, whether physical, cultural, or mental (Malik 2018, 27).

According to this definition, no qualitative difference can be perceived between the cultural regimes so neatly defined by Reckwitz. Even “hyperculture” with its multiculturalism would ultimately favor a kind of recognition or identity politics. Its ideological effect lies in the fact that it so successfully avoids even thinking about profound social change, since it is not concerned with questioning the increasingly unequal distribution of economic and business power. Moreover, despite its announced claim to be critical, which is often displayed only in the form of moralizing indignation, it actually distracts from other problems. This same argument, obviously, applies to the representatives of “culture essentialism,” where, once again, [t]he answer to the question ‘Who are we?’ is determined less and less by the society one wants to create with others [than] by the history and heritage that is supposed to belong to one. As larger political, cultural, and national identities have eroded, and traditional social networks, authorities, and moral codes have lost their cohesive power, people’s sense of belonging has become more limited

30

Chapter 1

and parochial, determined not by a possible shaping of the future, but by myths of the past (Malik, 31).

Malik comes to a worrisome conclusion: a society that follows culturalism loses sight of the question of what society should really be like, how people should live in it, and, above all, how they want to live. Thus, both forms of culturalism, both “culturalization regimes,” settle uncritically into existing conditions. To paraphrase Marcuse, both “hyperculture” and “culture essentialism” could be said to be the current “affirmative cultures” because not only have they ceased to question the given society, but they have lost sight, actually and completely, of a normative concept of society altogether. Current culturalism, which seems to prevail more and more clearly even in mainstream social theory, could also be understood as a late victory of the notion of the “end of history.” If everything is to be culture, then socio-critical energy, always the engine of social change, radiates back to each individual’s own—in some cases—most private and intimate identitarian characteristics and is sealed off not only from any kind of criticism but also from everything social. Thus, the social fabric heats up on the surface through the frictional energy of “cultural struggles,” but without generating any significant pressure for change in the structural dimensions of society that are responsible for the unequal distribution of economic and political power. It is in this way that current culturalism subverts not only the idea of social change itself, but also the necessary ingredients for it; namely, autonomous human actors who draw their autonomy from their deep commitment to the goal of achieving a humane society for everyone. Culture Criticism as the Sign of the Totalization of Culture The current hype that surrounds “culture” coincides thus with a devaluation of “society.” A few years ago, Alain Touraine pointed out that this would be a major thread not only in sociology, but also in other fields (Touraine 2007). Touraine assumes that our social world, which has clearly been structured around the concept of society for some two hundred years, is about to see that center shift to a new central concept: culture. This means, on the one hand, that culture is becoming more and more important and, on the other, that the notion of society and everything related to it (common points of reference like solidarity, tolerance, and, ultimately, justice, freedom, and democracy) is eroding (cf. Dubet 2021). This “paradigmatic” change impacts all areas of life, including human beings’ “social imaginaries” (Taylor 2004), but also their understanding of nature. We can therefore speak of a totalization of culture, as has been diagnosed by corresponding forms of culture criticism.

The “Abolition of Man”

31

Frederik Jameson’s work provides a good entry point. In it he explains that this development can be seen as the quintessence of “postmodernism.” Admittedly, in contrast to current authors, Jameson does not believe that postmodernism has transferred existence completely and exclusively to the realm of culture. What concerns him, rather, is to show that the boundaries between the interior and exterior of culture are becoming increasingly blurred, and to identify the problems that arise from this situation. The postmodern transformation of modernity refers to cognitive changes. Culture is not the new nature, but an almost-perfect “simulation” (Baudrillard 1985), an ideology that increasingly captivates people’s perceptual and cognitive possibilities as well as their means to perform in a social environment. Postmodern culturalization is ambivalent. It gives people only a superficial feeling of increased opportunities, while at the same time provoking greater uncertainty and loss of control. One key characteristic of this for Jameson is the postmodern understanding of space, which is paradigmatically articulated in architecture. In his classic observations on the Bonaventura Hotel in Los Angeles, he wrote: So I come finally to my principal point here, that this latest mutation in space— postmodern hyperspace—has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively map its position in a mappable external world. It may now be suggested that this alarming disjunction point between the body and its built environment—which is to the initial bewilderment of the older modernism as the velocities of spacecraft are to those of the automobile—can itself stand as the symbol and analogon of that even sharper dilemma which is the incapacity of our minds, at least at present, to map the great global multinational and decentered communicational network in which we find ourselves caught as individual subjects (Jameson 1991, 44).

What is exemplified here by the architecture of a hotel is characteristic of postmodern perception more generally. Above all, the neutralization of the physical dimension of perception and the cognitive overload this provokes is forced upon the current world by the increasing medialization, which also gives people the impression that they are living in an ongoing simulation in which the boundaries between the “simulated” and the “real” are becoming increasingly blurred. This gives way to a perfect ideology that is difficult to see through. Jameson seeks to point out to his readers the ‘obvious’: “namely, that this whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world: in this sense, as throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror” (Jameson 1991, 5).

32

Chapter 1

Postmodern culture as an instrument of domination of the global hegemony of the United States? In this sense Jameson’s words could have been prophetic since the military, geopolitical, economic, and cultural hegemony of the United States should define the world for the next four decades. However, in our context it is important to note that the culturalism closely associated with postmodernism has often been understood from a completely apolitical (and correspondingly naïve) perspective, as the result of some kind of cultural liberation, when, in fact, quite the opposite seems to be the case: by virtue of the totalization of culture, culture itself loses its critical competences and becomes a total ideology that supports economic and geopolitical power interests. Precisely because it supplants organic, bodily experiences ever more decisively by means of mediated experiences, people’s consciousness, marked by the simulation of absolute immanence, the idea that we already exist completely and exclusively in culture, plays also into the hands of a readiness for the trans- or posthumanist overcoming of the human being as we know it. Systems of artificial intelligence can be understood against this background as the quintessence of this development; “mind uploading” is the ultima ratio of total culturalization as it seduces with the promise of perpetuating happiness through transhuman technologies.2 Jameson’s critique of this condition postmoderne can be summarized as follows: he warns against the ever-increasing, technologically generated, simulation of an absolute cultural immanence by describing it as a cognitive imposition upon human beings who always exist both physically and bodily, and does not deny the ideological dimension and the longing for total control that seems to be tied to the claim of global domination. Jameson’s culture critique works because it penetrates the totalizing urge of “postmodern” culture with all its political and ideological pretentions. But the fact that culture critique does not always succeed in grasping this ideological ambition of the totalization of culture can be witnessed in the ambitious attempt to redefine culture criticism presented a few years ago by the German philosopher Ralf Konersmann (Konersmann 2008). In his book (Kulturkritik), Konersmann basically obliges culture criticism to unconditionally submit to the totalization of culture and the marketizing logic inscribed within it: “Culture criticism is the organ of multiplication and refinement of one, of this culture; it is the organ of strain, of dissection, of reevaluation, of change and multiplication of available forms of expression, as well as of cultural manifestations and signs” (ibid., 25). What is quite sympathetic about Konersmann’s definition is that he does not want to leave culture criticism only to authorized experts and their “arrogance.” Moreover, his “post-restitutive culture critique” is explicitly not to be oriented to a “leading culture” or to any tradition, for he states: “[t]his is

The “Abolition of Man”

33

a critique whose goal no longer consists in restoration” (ibid., 49). But this culture critique does not actually seek to be critical at all, for it “refrains from directly attacking the hegemonic system” (ibid., 17). Instead, it admittedly “disperses,” “proceeds selectively, and loses access to long-term purposes and goals” (ibid.). This means, finally, that “modern culture criticism has no utopias, but—and this distinguishes it—it does not need any. In the shadow of its normalization, new opportunities for expression, articulation, and experimentation arise” (ibid.). This is a clear example of an expression that evidently confuses the postmodern totalization of culture with new forms of autonomy. Konersmann’s “non-restitutive” culture critique ultimately recalls a situation to which Jameson drew attention in his culture critique of postmodernism: namely, a total cultural immanence, a cultural totality that no longer serves any other purpose than that of reproducing the given in variations. But then, how does this still justify its claim to being a critique at all? Konersmann anticipates this question in the “Preliminary Remarks” of his book, where he argues firmly against those who today perceive a “crisis of critique.” Therefore, the thesis of his book is “that critique is neither endangered nor disappearing, but has long since reorganized itself and successfully looked for new positions and forms of expression. Criticism is in the process of changing fundamentally, and that means concretely: transforming itself into culture criticism” (ibid., 7). For those of us who, as we read on, have trouble locating the critique in Konersmann’s “cultural critique,” this instruction may be helpful, for it emphasizes not only that our criteria for critique may be outdated, but also that critique is precisely what he defines it to be in his book. But is his approach not just as “authoritarian” and “arrogant” as the “experts” and “professionals” who understandably bother him so much? And should we not also be able to expect that a book written in the spirit of criticism will build on arguments developed through comparisons with other points of view, rather than relying on pithy postulates? Be that as it may, I fear that Konersmann’s culture criticism must be read, above all, as a variant of the “affirmative culturalism” of neoliberal modernity. A critique that deliberately hides the big picture is, at best, an amplifier of the “restlessness” (Unruhe) that Konersmann likewise observes in our world (see: Konersmann 2015), but not really a serious critique of existing conditions. The unending talk about culture, which pulls everything into its maelstrom and is, in and of itself, a kind of self-occupational therapy that follows the claim of critique but is hardly able to redeem it, justifies the illusion of infinite diversity and autonomy that, however, ultimately confounds freedom and the loss of what “being different” once meant, on the one hand, with the consumption of superficial patterns of variations, on the other.

34

Chapter 1

Jameson’s critique of postmodern (neoliberal) culture, as seen here, is more convincing than Konersmann’s. Jameson’s thought penetrates what is actually happening on the colorful surface of appearances, which demands more and more from people. In doing so, he brings the political and economic conditions into focus. At the same time, however, he astutely recognizes the lack of alternatives that characterizes “contemporary media culture” (Kellner 1994; Hepp 2013; also Horkheimer/Adorno 1990 [1944]) despite all its apparent diversity, creativity, and “singularity” (Jameson 2016, 12; also Reckwitz 2017). Real “system change” cannot be expected, for people can no longer imagine such a change at all. Konersmann provides a perfect example. A good starting point for any kind of serious culture criticism, then, is to criticize the anti-utopian thinking characteristic of contemporary culture. Against this backdrop, what could be held up is an idea of culture criticism that is guided by a radical social critique, but not one whose goal is to destroy society and substitute it with culture, but one that would ultimately be oriented toward the search for a more humane society and, in this way, would counteract the movement from society to culture that Touraine observed. Culture Criticism as Social Criticism This was the sense in which Max Horkheimer understood culture criticism. He takes us back to a time when capitalism was in a different phase. However, Horkheimer perceived the transformations of a production-based capitalism to a market- and consumption-oriented model very early on in the United States. In fact, he and his collaborators at the Institute for Social Research (IfS) also perceived the central importance of culture very clearly, as is shown, not least, by the famous chapter on “culture industry” (Kulturindustrie) in Dialectic of Enlightenment, authored jointly with Theodor W. Adorno. In our context, especially in contrast to Konersmann’s proposal, Horkheimer assumes that the capacity for critique has diminished decisively in contemporary society, arguing that this has occurred primarily because the “subject” that is considered the ideal of bourgeois society no longer exists. In 1959, he wrote: [to] become conscious as a formative force of the ego, as a basic motive of autonomous life, and to persevere in the individual, the moral disposition requires sheltered childhood, the capacity for differentiated experience, for identification with the happiness to which violence happens [. . .] those gifts which the world in the period of full industrialization seems to deny members of all classes, even the highest (Horkheimer 1985 [1959], 94–95).

The “Abolition of Man”

35

References to childhood, like this one, today have a rather anecdotal flavor, but they were quite typical of nineteenth-century thought; that is, in the intellectual world to which Horkheimer and his fellow researchers at the Institute for Social Research were attached. For Horkheimer, however, this “self-”observation fulfills a thoroughly sociological claim, for it reveals the socio-psychic genesis of bourgeois “Man.” In his short text, “Philosophy as Culture Criticism” (Philosophie als Kulturkritik), to which I refer here, the description of the end of philosophical culture criticism is introduced with the above quotation and reference to the precarious situation of the subject capable of criticism, which arose under the conditions of full industrialization. For Horkheimer, what is fatal, “ambivalent,” or “dialectical” in this context is, above all, the fulminant cancellation of spirituality: “Spirituality that does not clearly have the index of a purpose [belongs] to a division for which there is scarcely time or strength, and from which no right path leads to life” (ibid., 94). Despite the somewhat antiquated sound of these words, it is useful to reflect on their meanings. What is meant by this is, not least, an ability to remove oneself from the concrete constraints of practical life. This is what makes critique possible in the first place. Horkheimer makes this point in terms of the ability to perceive the discrepancy between “being” (Sein) and “ought to be” (Sollen), and he observes that it is the ability to make this distinction that has decreased over the course of “progressive industrial practice” (ibid., 93). “Raising standards of living” would be accompanied by a “neutralization not only of philosophy, but also of all theory not aimed at mastery” (ibid.). What is meant here is nothing more nor less than the annihilation of “free thought” and “the disappearance of the possibility of imagining it in the real world” (ibid.). For Horkheimer, of course, the eradication of “free thought” is tantamount to the loss of autonomy. If things can no longer be thought freely—that is, above all, “differently”—then all things are hopelessly subjected to the imperatives of the existing order. Even the simulation of freedom, today packaged in terms of “creativity” and “singularity,” does not change much about this, for freedom is not limited to agile or virtuoso movement on the surface, but refers—maintaining the spatial image—to a dimension of depth. To contradict the existing, be it existing thought, be it the given natural and social reality, thought is only able to do so if it does not simply nullify that which in each case demands belief and recognition (unless it consists in mere falsehood), but takes over as something spiritually penetrated, brought to its right in the flesh and blood of the future form of consciousness (ibid., 85–86).

36

Chapter 1

Here, the message is this: to follow the “contradiction between the existing and thought itself.” Philosophy owes its privileged role to its reflection on the nature of the concept: “Criticism, consciousness of difference, has always been the force of philosophical thought, which experiences itself as the essence of reality and, at the same time, as its opposition, with which it deals. The concept is never reconciled with itself” (ibid., 85). It is thus the realization of the “inadequacy” of the concept that also enables consciousness of criticism and freedom. Crucially for our context, however, Horkheimer had to believe that this is what seems to predestine philosophical sensitivity to the concept for critical cultural practice. In Horkheimer’s sense, culture criticism can be understood in a double sense: on the one hand, it allows us to observe and critically comment on changes on the phenomenological surface of culture. This is how his observations on language can be understood: “People are emancipated,” he writes, “but too little depends on the individual for the word, spoken by him as the particular individual, to help him express himself, serves as an instrument, a mark of recognition, a weapon” (ibid., 98). This instrumental character of language, which is advantageous to those who know how to move skillfully on the surface of ‘language games,’ may not be far removed from the logic of Konermann’s cultural critique, for the latter is also concerned with “creative” maneuvering in the domain of the existing symbolic networks. But Horkheimer finds a distinct development still more scandalous; namely, the gradual abolition of speech and the increasing dominion of silence: It is not the oft-discussed level of the leisure industry that characterizes the situation—it is questionable whether a detective film or Rigoletto on the television screen exerts the more beneficial effect, and soon people will likely need more powerful stimulants—but the muteness of the individual. Mutely, children are banned to that screen and experience the world through it; mutely, lovers sit in the cinema; mutely, like a sport, they complete long dances; and mutely, and of course noisily, they race into nature on a motorcycle with a pillion rider. No conversation in a restaurant or café, where people want it to take place, can assert itself against the blare of a band or the racket of slot machines, and conversation not intended for a specific purpose, if it is not avoided, is better left to ‘small talk’ and should not touch on what has been repressed (ibid., 98–99).

This tendency reflects another: the increasingly clear concentration of people on their own interests coupled with an ever greater disinterest in society, two tendencies clearly radicalized in neoliberal modernity: “The many people who today can lead a material life like the old bourgeoisie must, like them, care for themselves, but that care hardly includes care for others or even for the whole” (ibid., 99). It is precisely these, and similar, statements that show how culture criticism is unmistakably linked to the claim of social criticism,

The “Abolition of Man”

37

revealing that the newer forms of cultural practice lead to a kind of erosion of social bonds. As will be shown in more detail below, Horkheimer’s social critique is concerned primarily with the possibility of a humane society. The normative orientation of his culture critique thus results from a humanism, which we specify herein as “critical humanism”: It is not so much abstract or superstitious thought as thoughtlessness, the lack of ability to take care of the society they have produced without political coercion, staring at the next worries, letting go of the economy, which is conducive to doom. The more a humane constitution of the European states is endangered— and not only the years of National Socialism speak to this, but also historical development since then, which seems to rationalize it afterwards—the more exclusively the negatively directed works of contemporary art and philosophy, which today exercise their effect apart, stand for truth and humanity (ibid., 96).

In contrast to Konersmann’s self-limiting, but also to Jameson’s resigned, culture criticism, Horkheimer’s proposal is characterized by a socially interested critique of culture, which—and herein lies the crux of the matter—thinks of society and culture from a humanistic perspective. Horkheimer’s utopia is a thoroughly humane social existence that, however, cannot exist under the conditions of “full industrialization” or, we might add, “neoliberal modernity.” What remains possible, in contrast, is the critique that, like cultural critique, promises to keep the thought of this ideal alive and strives to preserve the humanist core. We can conclude that culture criticism remains ineffective as long as it fails to reconnect culture to society. Any form of culture criticism that does not succeed in doing this will not only pervert the idea of culture by promoting the abstract idea of a radical cultural relativism, but will also contribute to the ideology of neoliberalism, summarized in Margaret Thatcher’s famous slogan: “There is no such thing as society.” Finally, this is a crushing verdict against humanism, since a humane life cannot exist outside a humane society. Before returning to the Frankfurt School, I would like to resume a few more aspects of neoliberal modernity. NEOLIBERALISM AND THE ACADEMIC STORM AGAINST ENLIGHTENMENT AND HUMANISM Tenbruck’s book appeared three years after Jürgen Habermas declared war on postmodernism in a legendary essay resolutely intended to take up the tradition of the Enlightenment (Habermas 1990 [1981]). There seems to be

38

Chapter 1

a common underlying motive: the realization that the cultural achievements of the Enlightenment, at the center of which a historically unique humanism could be articulated, are exposed to a serious danger. Habermas could not yet see that this danger emanates today from three debates prefixed with “post,” which will be the subject of the following pages. They direct the potential of critique typical of modernity against modernity itself. This becomes clearest in the case of postmodernism, but as we will see, it can also be asserted for the debates that may form around a certain kind of postcolonialism and posthumanism. Postmodernism: The “Cultural Logic” of Neoliberal Capitalism Perry Anderson mentions in his study on postmodernity that this term appears in the context of the debate about modernity and modernism, especially in poetry, as early as the 1930s in “Hispanic America” (Anderson 1999, 3). However, based on those early appearances, it is hardly possible to derive any kind of systematic development up to the present day. More far-reaching, therefore, are the theoretical discussions that began in the 1960s, reached their peak in the late 1970s and the 1980s, and coincided with a changing understanding of our social, political, and economic reality the sociologist Daniel Bell describes as “post-industrial” (Bell 1973). Jean Baudrillard explained what this means for a critique of society. For the French sociologist and philosopher, Marx’s critique of capitalism, based on the exploitation of labor under postmodern conditions, had to focus today rather on the transformation of the symbolic order. As Gerard Delanty and Neal Harris explain, resuming some core ideas of Jean Baudrillard’s intent to update a Marxist critique of political economy for post-industrial society (Baudrillard 1981): “capitalism pointed to something far deeper than the exploitation of labour. Rather, advanced capitalism had wrought and thrives upon the fundamental disintegration of the symbolic order” (Delanty/Harris 2023, 128). The consequences of these developments seem to be strikingly current: “Instead of a reticulated system of exploitative produc­tion, we see the ascent of a ‘code,’ of a self-referential system of signs that dominate human action” (ibid., 129). And: “The commodity is no longer understood as a product of labour which emerged from humans working on the natural world, rather it is a part of dynamic and illusive code which lacks any stable referent” (ibid., 129). This explains, not least, the focus on culture that this chapter strives to highlight. In epistemological terms, the concept of postmodernism is primarily inscribed with a sharper awareness of difference. In theoretical terms, it

The “Abolition of Man”

39

carries the standard of resistance to the universalism implied by “modernity” and “modernization.” As we have seen, Reckwitz sees “late modern” society as being characterized by an increasingly strong urge toward “singularization,” which must also be understood as an expression of the “culturalization” of our societies (Reckwitz 2017). However, the decision to abandon modernity implies a strong normative claim of “radical pluralization” (Welsch 2008). Critics contend that if “truth, justice, and humanity were plural” (ibid., 5), then the claims to validity associated with them would become problematic. The truth is that the epistemological problems of postmodern theories cannot be understood if they are not read against the background of their political motivations. These are interpreted into postmodern theories wherever they are assumed to approach neoconservative thinking (cf. Habermas 1990 [1981]). However, it is, above all, the rejection of modernity as a society-producing condition that falls victim to an “anarchist” tendency of postmodernism (see Habermas 1989, 13). As a result, the focus is not on politics or society, but it shifts precisely to culture. As we have seen, Jameson describes postmodernism as the “cultural logic of late capitalism” (Jameson 1991). He is primarily concerned with showing how strong the influence of culture communicated through the mass media has become on people’s consciousness, and attesting to its “hegemonic” quality. Jameson avoids seeing the cultural dynamic as liberalized from politics and the economy. The political and ideological victory of postmodernism consists, on the one hand, in the fact that people are completely drawn into the maelstrom of media culture, which no longer seems to have an exterior. On the other, however, due to the arbitrariness of narratives after the supposed end of “metanarratives” (Lyotard 1979), which are constantly being formed anew inside the over-culturalized world, political space is not eliminated but, in fact, superficially fragmented, while political but also economic power becomes more and more concentrated. Postcolonialism versus Society Postcolonial theories are attributed primarily to three authors, often understood as the “postcolonial trinity” (Kerner 2012: 18): Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. While it is not possible to speak here of a school, the strong affinities among their theoretical and political claims can hardly be overlooked. Above all, the orientation toward the works of Michel Foucault (Said) and Jacques Derrida (Spivak) must be mentioned. Another common feature is that they have launched a kind of critical thinking that seeks to see itself more radically as an alternative to Marxism. Here, Marxism must be renounced, principally because of its Eurocentrism.

40

Chapter 1

The Argentine-born literary scholar Walter D. Mignolo, one of the main proponents of “decolonial critique” (which grew out of an attempt to articulate a kind of postcolonial critique from a Latin American perspective), holds that even the critique of capitalism and the alternatives that emerged from it are deeply caught up in a “Western logic,” so a distinct kind of critique is needed: instead of a critique of capitalism, he calls for a critique of colonialism. This gave rise to various utopian claims that are no longer oriented toward a socialist or communist, that is a social, alternative, but they assume that “decolonization” is the alternative: “neither capitalism nor communism, but decolonization,” Mignolo demands provocatively and strikingly (Mignolo 2012). “Decolonization” in this sense is not a plea for a social project of any kind, but for the “deconstruction” of “Eurocentric” discourses and cultures. Without doubt, various postcolonial theories can be understood from the context of discussions of modernity since they seek to revise the understanding of this concept by challenging the “Western” monopoly on the interpretation of human affairs. In this context, it is assumed that modernity began about five hundred years ago as a result of European colonization that started in the fateful year of 1492. From the perspective of postcolonial critique, however, modernity is not only the history of colonialism, but also a call to reassess this history. Specifically, it is deemed necessary to include the experiences of the colonized. Observations of this kind are followed by calls to integrate colonial and postcolonial experiences more fully into curricula and research projects (Connell 2007). In this vein, it can be noted clearly that the struggle to which postcolonial thinking is committed is above all a cultural one. Through the lens of postcolonial critique, “temporal logic” is replaced by spatial thinking, similar to postmodern thinking (cf. Kozlarek 2011). Seen in this light, “modernity” is no longer understood in terms of a profound process of the constitution and/or modernization of societies, but as a spatial system that spans the entire planet, where individual societies and cultures come together in constellations of power that find their center of gravity in the “Global North.” This understanding of modernity, anticipated in Latin American dependency theory (cf. Katz 2022), is now being updated with terms like entangled histories (Conrad/Randeria 2002, 17) and entangled modernities (cf. also Therborn 2003, 303), as well as the phrase connected histories, a concept that can be traced back to the Indian historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam, which was introduced into social theory by Gurminder Bhambra (cf. Bhambra 2007) and merits consideration in this context. Criticisms of postcolonialist theories focus on three key points: 1) a radical rejection of Marxist theories results in omitting the problem of social justice from the critique (Ortega/Sierra 2019); 2) an equally important critique of ideas of progress could lead postcolonial critique to abandon its potential for social change; and 3) postcolonialism has been accused of a geographical

The “Abolition of Man”

41

and historical one-sidedness: Monika Albrecht notes that so-called postcolonial studies understand colonialism as starting exclusively from the “West,” or “Europe,” and that phenomena “such as the Soviet/Tsarist Empires and the Ottoman Empire and other Islamic empires” are consistently omitted (Albrecht 2019, 2). In summary, postcolonial critique is not a critique of society, not only since no alternative social project can be identified there, but especially because the concept of society does not play a central role in it. Posthumanism: Simulating Humanity Since the late 1990s, posthumanism has developed as a discourse that exclusively addresses the opposition to humanism, while drawing quite clearly on postmodernism. Posthumanism can be divided into two strands. One, sometimes called “technological posthumanism,” connects to the technological optimism of transhumanism (Herbrechter 2009; Loh 2018), while the other—reflecting on a more philosophical critique—could be called “critical posthumanism” (Loh 2018). The exact demarcations of these two discursive strands are not always clear, but more or less latent anti-humanist positions can be distinguished in a transversal manner for the discursive field of trans- and posthumanism. One of the earliest, and best-known, books that mentions the concept of the posthuman in its title is Francis Fukuyama’s Our Posthuman Future (2002), which primarily discusses the question of the limits of biotechnological and neurotechnological developments, together with their ethical implications. While Fukuyama is skeptical of these developments, more recent contributions enthusiastically affirm the possibilities of transcending the human condition. Ray Kurzweil, for example, caused furor by insisting that in a few years the technical possibilities for developing artificial intelligence will reach a level that surpasses human intelligence, thus making humans superfluous (Kurzweil 2006). This expectation of the imminent achievement of technologies that could overcome the organic limitations of human beings is seen, normatively, as “progress,” for it could prolong life, eliminate physical suffering and disease, and perpetuate happiness.3 An important, though often completely underestimated, issue in this context concerns the images of the human being that underlie such ideas, since they could not only be fundamentally negative, but also simply wrong, as Thomas Fuchs sustains (cf. Fuchs 2020, 7). Fuchs deems the idea that human intelligence, even human life, can be simulated technically unrealistic, and he charges that the spreading of this goal of overcoming the human condition emerged without this condition ever being clearly understood (cf. ibid.). As a consequence, he champions not only bringing the human being back

42

Chapter 1

into focus, but also a necessary “defense of the human being” based on an uncompromising recognition that the human being is not only a certain kind of “intelligence” or rationality, but also a corporeal being (Fuchs 2020). This means, as Jörn Rüsen recently claimed, that humans are, necessarily and always, “fallible,” “fragile,” and “suffering creatures” (Rüsen 2020). At the same time, a necessary critique of trans- and posthuman discourses and theories could also be developed from the understanding that human beings are, above all else, social beings, which means that the completion of humanely dignified life is conditioned, more than any other factor, by the kind of society, understood as a normatively emphasized organization of social life. The success of all three “post”-discourses can be attributed less to their critical pretensions (though they often serve as justification for those who speak and write in their name) than to the fact that they capture the changes in the perception of a capitalist world that, apparently, contains no alternatives. Postmodernism in particular draws attention to this. Postcolonialism, through its critical impulse to turn against Marxism, serves to abolish the question of an alternative society, while posthumanism ultimately destroys the final impetus of the critique of capitalist society by undermining the desire for a different, more humane, society and promoting in its place the belief in the perpetuation of eternal happiness within or better: without society. The further thought and culture move away from Enlightenment and humanism, the more difficult it becomes to understand the unease that results from the absence of a humane society that enables autonomous human beings to mature, precisely, in the face of their mistakes, failures, and fragility, and the more uncritically we accept the neoliberal idea of humans as efficiency-enhancing machines as the measure of all things. The Anthropocene: From the Abolition to the Perversion of “Man” Now, it could be argued that in comparison to Tenbruck’s diagnosis of the “abolition of Man,” the current situation—also in sociology—is distinct. Today, once again, discussions center on the human being. Specifically, the so-called Anthropocene debate focuses—as its name makes clear—quite explicitly on the Anthropos. The philosopher Sverre Raffnsøe summarizes the basic attitude of Anthropocene discourse as follows: “the human being has taken on a new significance as a decisive factor in the world. The world seems to have turned toward the human, insofar as the human being is perceived as having a decisive impact on even very fundamental conditions in the world, and on how these conditions become evident and present themselves” (Raffnsøe 2016, xiii). Raffnsøe thinks that a “human turn” can be observed here (ibid.).

The “Abolition of Man”

43

Sighard Neckel argues that in the framework of theories of the Anthropocene, there is a clear demand for humans to act responsibly in terms of a “world citizenry” and to orient their behavior toward “planetary guidelines.” However, Neckel holds that these ideas are not only based on false social-ontological premises (there is no such thing as one humanity acting as a unit), but they conceal the fact that they are institutionally generated and, hence, follow particular political and economic interests (Neckel 2020, 138). Above all, he emphasizes the role of the United Nations in this context, summarizing: The image of a global political subject amounts to a normative outreach of an ideal that infers, from the diagnosis of global threats, the constitution of a global actor without considering—as is known to sociology—that the formation of global actors is not simply a function of their necessity. It is the task of sociology to scrutinize such a normative outreach instead of letting itself be guided by it (ibid.).

“Normative outreach” is an institutionally generated, globally propagated system of imperatives for action. This idea is, thus, not only sociologically problematic, but it harbors political problems that converge in planetary surveillance strategies that not only derive their justification from a moralizing narrative, but play into the hands of the systematic “abolition” of autonomous, critical human beings who make independent decisions. Thus, it is also clear that the Anthropocene debate is not to be regarded as the latest expression of enlightened criticism in the sense of idealist philosophy. On the contrary: according to idealism, the universality of the human is founded upon autonomy. Clearly, little of this remains in the “normative outreach” of Anthropocene ideology institutionalized by the UN. It contradicts Enlightenment humanism that, according to Kant, is based on the formula that humans must always be understood “as ends in themselves,” not as “means” (Kant), when it seeks to persuade people to prioritize their actions, indeed their very “life forms,” in accordance with guidelines established to mitigate the effects of climate change. The current “human turn” in the context of the Anthropocene debate, then, does not represent a return to the values of the Enlightenment and humanism, but it effectively perverts these traditions by connecting to a moralistic narrative that ultimately deprives them of their real meaning. From an action-theoretical perspective, one may think at first glance that the theories of the Anthropocene, and related ones, satisfy the demands of a post-metaphysical thinking (which is understood as an advance of political and social thinking) by insisting on the need to understand real people in their concrete, worldly embeddedness. An important clue to such a post-metaphysical orientation would be that these theories often set out

44

Chapter 1

from relational ontologies that seek to understand human beings through their relation to nature or to “things” (cf. Raffnsøe 2016; Latour 2001). Upon closer examination, however, we note that thereby the interrelations among humans are increasingly out of focus. Those who insist on “world relations” (Weltbeziehungen; Rosa 2012), or on human beings’ relations to objects and things in the world or to the earth (cf. Latour 2017), no longer necessarily set out from a conception of humans as social beings. Thus, although the post-metaphysical claim is formally redeemed here, ultimately the anthropological thesis behind it (namely, human beings are first and foremost social beings) is evaded. Once again, one might conclude that the quest for a better society is omitted. An example of this strategy is found in the work of Bruno Latour, which, in recent years, has become important for the Anthropocene discourse. As is well known, Latour’s aim was to develop an alternative to the separation of society and nature, or language and the world, that prevails in modern thought (cf. Gertenbach/Laux 2020, 151). He seeks to solve this task by examining “modes of existence” to, on the one hand, discern their pre-human origins, and, on the other, ask what consequences they could have for the nonhuman world. Lars Gertenbach and Thomas Laux note here an “operative sense” that characterizes Latour’s work, and explain: This operative sense plays a key role in Latour’s new theoretical model, because it precedes social forms and concrete entities. Accordingly, the concept is not limited to the human world. Everything that exists is engaged in meaningful processes; chains of action articulate a difference, leave a trace that can be traced, and link events in a way that is different from other ways of connecting them (ibid., 171).

In terms of the argumentation developed here, it would not be wrong to assume that this conception of theory also contributes to the neoliberal “abolition of Man.” In addition to the fact that Latour repeatedly and quite explicitly combats humanism (cf. Latour 1993), his basic theoretical structure is thus one that consistently undermines and/or omits all reference to humans and to humanity, both heuristically and normatively. The seriousness with which some of the contributions to the Anthropocene debate are concerned with the “abolition of Man” is rarely as clear as in Ewa Domańska’s proposal for a posthuman kind of humanistic research. Climate change collapses the traditional dichotomy between natural and human history,” she writes, and therefore takes a rather bizarre decision: “I study anthropogenic soil change linked specifically to the decomposition of human bodies and remains [. . .], I pose the question of how, through processes

The “Abolition of Man”

45

of mineralization and humification, do we unbecome human? Thus, my ‘unbecoming human’ (and with it, becoming humus, or a tree, all of which are posthuman life forms made possible by various necromorphological procedures) also implies the ability to transcend the homo sapiens condition (Domańska 2020, 202).

Anyone who thinks the way to compensate for the process of nature becoming culture consists in degrading the human to nature, only reveals just how arbitrary (and absurd!) everything has suddenly become. In the semantics of Latour and others, however, “nature,” “the outside world,” and “the earth” are carriers of meaning that not only replace “Man” and “humanity,” but also lead to calls to morally discredit these concepts: Since geologists are beginning to use the term ‘Anthropocene’ [. . .], it is convenient to use this vocabulary in the future to summarize in a single word the meaning of the epoch that extends from the scientific and industrial revolutions to today. If geologists, rather prudent, serious people, make of man a force that can rival in scope the volcanoes or even the tectonics of the earth’s plates, then one thing is now certain: we have no hope at all of seeing tomorrow better than yesterday, as science and politics definitely differ (Latour quoted in Gertenbach/ Laux 2020, 243).

Here, “Man” is not only abolished, but hypostasized as a negative force of nature: human beings emerge as the source of all evil and, perhaps for this reason, should interest us only as the end product of biological decomposition after death (cf. Domańska 2020). This conviction, which is spread not only in science but, quite successfully, in the non-scientific public through the media, promotes a guilt complex that can no longer be reduced to the problem of a socially and culturally contingent way of controlling nature, but condenses, as it were, in a perverted image of the human being. This can also be understood as a later triumph of the counter-Enlightenment. The goal here is not to emancipate the human subject, but to reissue, one might say, the universalized guilt complex, traditionally enshrined in theology and instrumentalized to exert political and social control and subordination. Reducing the image of the human being to the ultimate villain means advancing an anthropology that has ceased to connect with the issue of a humane society. On the contrary, the degradation of the human being finally helps convert him once again into the broken mass of the waste materials of economic and political power. Neckel is, therefore, correct in demanding a critical sociology that questions the normative claim responsible for these concealed practices of patronizing and control. We must ask, however, what might this look like? Neckel

46

Chapter 1

seems to have a clear answer, based on a sharp critique of capitalist modernity and, more importantly, of its unequal distribution of power. THE HUMANISTIC MASK OF NEOLIBERALISM Up to this point, we have seen a connection between the neoliberalism that prevails globally today and Tenbruck’s thesis of the “abolition of Man” articulated in the early 1980s. My aim was to clarify that developments in the areas of culture, politics, and social and economic life visibly and systematically counteract the values of Enlightenment humanism. This state of affairs is welcomed by those who see in the Enlightenment and humanism nothing more than a Western ideology whose sole aim is to justify colonialism and imperialism. Others, however, might think that the concern with humanism is not justified at all, because “Western” societies are already perfectly humane. In this section, I attempt to elucidate this contradiction. How can we explain that in our current neoliberal modernity, despite an almost undeniable perpetuation of violence at all levels (from the smallest social units, like the family, to international violence that, once again, is contracting into a very real threat of a new world war), an increasingly unequal distribution of economic and political power, ever greater existential insecurities and experiences of alienation, a narrative of moral superiority that ultimately invokes Enlightenmenthumanist values can take hold so successfully? The question can only be answered if it is considered that in the last decades, which coincide with the consolidation of neoliberal modernity, an ideological-cultural development has taken place that is characterized by the fact that thoroughly progressive ideas and themes, even those that are actually humanistic in their origin, have entered the ruling discourse and ideology. This development has led not only to a substantial loss of discourse from the critical left and progressive liberals, but also to the fact that people who still think in an authentically leftist and progressive way have fallen under the spell of this discourse. The contradiction between the claims of this basic humanistic substance and the realities in neoliberal modernity, in a society that has long since ceased to be one, and that proceeds toward the dehumanizing shell of purely mechanical social and political functions, is perhaps greater today than ever before. The thesis that guides the following remarks is that the supposed humanitarianism of today’s political and economic elites is not only an ideological distortion of their actual intentions (greater control and concentration of economic and political power, enforced and defended by any means), but that the “humanist” or “humanitarian mask” is a typical feature of current neoliberal

The “Abolition of Man”

47

ideology, which serves the strategic goal of giving capitalism a more humane appearance. It is in this context that Nancy Fraser wrote of a “progressive neoliberalism” that attempts “[c]ombining mass production and mass consumption with public provision, state-managed capitalism” (Fraser 2017, 135). However, what it is that motivates welfare politics today remains an open question. In neoliberal modernity, where the ideal of purposive, strategic action is inculcated from early childhood, a humanistic motivation can, in all likelihood, be ruled out. Politics is more concerned with preventing the underprivileged classes from organizing politically. So, as history has taught us, it is imperative to preserve “social peace,” and to this end the guarantee of a “basic supply” (Grundversorgung) is just as helpful as a liberal lifestyle, which the new elites partly cultivate themselves but, above all, have integrated into their ideology. The liberalization of sexual orientations, multiculturalism, gender equality, and so on, must be seen in this context as historical achievements that, however, are instrumentalized for “virtue signaling” political communication (see: Furedi 2022). Fraser makes it clear that the deceptive strategy of “progressive” and supposedly “humane” neoliberalism can be seen through by astutely pointing out that the hope for a truly more humane society is assumed discursively by political and economic elites, but never implemented. On the contrary, “in so far as the whole edifice rested on the ongoing (neo-)imperial predation of the Global South, on the institutionalization of women’s dependency through the family wage, and on the racially motivated exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers from social security” (Fraser 2017, 135–36). The contradiction between “humanistic masks” and the simultaneous expansion and consolidation of a model of society that is profoundly inhumane has led to a new and radical form of “cynicism” (Sloterdijk 1983) in the last thirty years, which many have perhaps only become aware of today, after the experiences of the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine. However, pseudo-humanism is already deeply inscribed in the theory of neoliberalism, as becomes evident, for example, in the work of Friedrich A. von Hayek, one of the founding fathers of that theory. In his work, Hayek explicitly acknowledges the tradition of liberalism that originated in the Renaissance and was reinforced by the Enlightenment (cf. Hayek 2004 [1944], 16). He thus refers implicitly to the tradition of Western humanism. But beyond this strategic lip service, his thinking takes a very different path, one that ends up undermining human freedom, that is, the very core concept of liberalism and Enlightenment humanism. Despite Hayek’s liberal semantics, the concept of freedom is complemented by a strong emphasis on order in which enforcement is attributed to anonymous, but supposedly “fair,” market logics. Consequently, political authority is seen only as a passive

48

Chapter 1

executive organ of the market, which appears “idolatrous” (Ptak 2008, 52). The fact that this conception presents not so much a theoretical error as an ideological twist, has not escaped critics, who explain: “This has the advantage that the [. . .] particular interests of the rich and powerful are covered up. Hayek builds on the internalization of constraints in subjects, who are supposed to adapt to immutable conditions” (ibid.). For the purposes of this book, it is interesting to note that the oft-invoked liberal legacy in Hayek’s work is, in reality, hollow in terms of content, and it turns basic assumptions of liberalism on their head, ultimately justifying the notions of politics typical of neoliberalism—for example, its abandonment of consequent redistribution. Ptak comes to the following conclusion: Neoliberal freedom is based on a profoundly instrumental understanding of freedom, in which the problem of economic power and the necessity of material conditions for the development of personal freedom are ignored. Freedom is limited solely to non-discrimination in market participation. With this one-sided equation of freedom with economic freedom, neoliberalism distances itself from the emancipatory roots of bourgeois liberalism: political freedom—the most important pillar of the bourgeois revolutions—becomes a threat to market society. This is the point at which neoliberalism tips over into authoritarianism (ibid., 63).

Underlying these theoretical assumptions lurks a conception of humanity that goes far beyond “methodological individualism” and holds that people must submit to the logic of the market because of their supposed moral and cognitive limitations. This thoroughly anti-humanist attitude was also captured by the Mexican sociologist Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo in his book on neoliberalism: “It is not that from an idea of human nature one comes to understand the economy in a certain way. It is the other way around: the definition of human nature is postulated from an idea of the economy and a model of the market” (Escalante 2015, 143). It has been said already that these inversions and contradictions are not limited to the realm of theory, but that they have found a place in political discourse and propaganda. In this sense, Didier Fassin assumes that something like a “humanitarian reason” must have become irrevocably established in the political self-understanding of Western societies (Fassin 2012). The way in which humanitarian policy is concretely implemented is well known: humanitarian governmental, and non-governmental organizations carry out work with people who need all kinds of aid, including, on occasion, military support or even military interventions in foreign countries. However, Fassin is less interested in the ambivalence of the latter, focusing

The “Abolition of Man”

49

his attention primarily on the significance that “humanitarian reason” might have for the political culture of modern societies. He reaches the following conclusion: “On the one hand, moral sentiments are focused mainly on the poorest, most unfortunate, most vulnerable individuals: politics of compassion is a politics of inequality” (ibid., 3). The sociological precondition for any kind of humanitarian aid is thus social inequality. However, the internal logic of humanitarian policy is not to overcome this inequality; rather, this policy reproduces power relations both within a given society and at the international level. It is a politics of “precarious life”: threatened and forgotten lives that humanitarian government brings into existence by protecting and revealing them. When compassion is exercised in the public space, it is therefore always directed from above to below, from the more powerful to the weaker, the more fragile the more vulnerable. The concept of precarious lives therefore needs to be taken in the strongest sense of its Latin etymology: lives that are not guaranteed but bestowed in answer to prayer or in other words are defined not in the absolute of a condition, but in the relation to those who have power over them (ibid., 4).

We might say that “humanitarian reason” applies to the reproduction of the existing structures of inequality and, hence, of the given power structures. Under the guise of humanity, it promotes a paternalistic politics that is also a justification to do nothing that might upset the existing structures of inequality but, to the contrary, feeds upon them. “Humanitarian reason,” then, does not promote a politics that challenges given social conditions, much less advocate for alternatives. Finally, humanitarian politics can also be understood as the ideological spearhead of a social format that permanently generates inequality and inhumanity, while at the same time morally condemning them with the full weight of the power of the mass communications media. The crucial point here is that any moral judgment that fails to generate practices devised to change social, political, and economic structures actually promotes a politics that eases the conscience of those who are better off. Against this background, another development is interesting, one vividly illustrated recently by the historian Samuel Moyn. In his book with the short title Humane, Moyn draws attention to the fact that the United States has been waging a permanent war around the globe for decades, but it has succeeded in justifying it as a “humane” war—for instance, by taking care to spare civilian populations by developing ever more precise weapons systems. Moyn sees here a development that originated after World War II and which, after the experience of the brutality unleashed during that war, pursued the goal of placing war under moral supervision. At least since the war in Iraq after

50

Chapter 1

9/11, this claim has been articulated increasingly clearly by successive U.S. administrations. Under the heading of this “humanization,” wars are said to have become more “humane.” By reminding his readers that movements in the United States once aspired to overcome war altogether, the “humanization” of belligerent confrontations has led to a renewed tolerance of violent conflict as a legitimate means of politics and, finally, to a perpetuation of wars that no longer seems to bother the public. Moyn concludes, “We fight war crimes but have forgotten the crime of war” (Moyn 2021, 23). It is even possible that the “humanization” of war could lead to the whitewashing, or even glorification, of armed conflict: “the moral improvement of belligerency could risk merely prettifying it” (ibid., 26). Moyn wrote his book before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2021. In the context of this new conflagration, debates in Germany make all too clear just how right he is in his concern that the supposed “humane” advantage of the wars fought by “the West” may have broken the resistance to war as a means of politics. Similar to the case of “humanitarian reason,” a contradictory underlying motive can be discerned here: moral indignation at the way enemies wage war morally justifies one’s own “humane” wars. However, the fact that this is also war—that is, an extreme form of violence—is strategically omitted, resulting in an extremely selective process of moral judgment. Finally, Moyn points out another consequence that the perpetuation of “humane” war could have: that in the process of humanization, war could become normalized and, potentially, lead to an increase in military control and surveillance of the citizenry as a whole. In his view, “[R]ule and surveillance by one or several powers across an astonishingly large arc of the world’s surface, patrolled by armed drones or paid visits by the Special Forces acting as quasi-permanent military police” could bring about a gruesome reality and increasingly push back claims to the civilian character of politics and social life (Moyn 2021, 22). For our context, we can note the following: although certain developments might suggest that our current societies may have embraced humanistic ideas and values, a critical analysis clearly reveals that in these societies awareness of these humanistic commitments ultimately plays into the hands of ideologies. Instead of striving toward a truly humane society, practices that ultimately work against this goal are justified in the glow of humanistic values. This ambivalence between the media-intensive promoted, but ideologically instrumentalized, claims are derived from a strange coexistence of a humanistic culture and practices that ultimately contradict humanism. It has led us into a world that is only seemingly “better,” a world in which the same power relations are defended by the same means (ultimately, by war, which

The “Abolition of Man”

51

always entails the “abolition” of human lives). Above all, the moralizing “pseudo-humanism” has ensured that any kind of resistance can be broken very effectively. In a world where, as we have seen, humanistic education is replaced by the formation of “human capital,” we cannot expect that this pseudo-humanism will be seen for what it really is. THE END OF NEOLIBERALISM? Since at least Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States in 2016, the question has arisen as to whether neoliberalism might be over. During his campaign, Trump made no secret of the fact that he was determined to rail against the bastions of neoliberal power structures. In doing so, he attacked, especially, the political and cultural elite who represent the new, “progressive” kind of neoliberalism (Fraser 2017). Michael Lind referred already in the 1990s to this new elite as the “overclass,” leaving no doubt that their rule must have taken Machiavelli’s advice to heart and, consequently, ruled by means of “force” (sforza) and “fraud” (fredo) (cf. Lind 1996, 364). The “force” results from the classic concentration of economic, political, and, not least, military power. The strategy of “fraud” or deception is more complicated to explain. It is, as we have seen, the result of ideological learning processes that assume certain liberal, or even leftist, aspirations, but that have diverted from talking about class differences and social mobility and radical social change. This ideological twist seems to work so well that even the left is gradually falling for it. Many left-wing parties now show strong affinities with liberal groups: cheering identity politics while abandoning such classic leftist topics as social justice and the systematic critique of political and economic power. One consequence of these developments is that politically and intellectually orphaned “underclasses”—including people of distinct ethnic or religious origins, people with different sexual orientations, and people of different genders—are not only barely heard any more in academic discourses, but they also have fewer and fewer opportunities to articulate their reality in the public sphere, even as their situation in the globalized economy is becoming increasingly precarious. Right-wing populist political movements and parties in particular are now profiting from these circumstances, as well as shamelessly courting the favor of these neglected groups (again, Trump can be mentioned, although he is not alone4). They drive the division of the non-privileged classes by attempting to politically functionalize the idea of a national community via xenophobic motifs, which also ties in with culturalist and identity-political themes. They do not offer any real alternative, though. On the contrary, they are also

52

Chapter 1

ultimately concerned with preserving and, wherever possible, expanding, the privileges of the “overclass” to which their representatives so often clearly belong (or which they yearn to join!). In this regard, William Davies and Nicholas Gane wrote: “A powerful challenge to neoliberal technocracy and globalization today is coming from the right” (Davies/Gane 2021, 6). However, a real challenge to “neoliberal modernity” can only be expected when this trend is being taken up by the left, and that means: when it is connected to a serious critique of untamed capitalism and a never-before-seen concentration of economic and political power in the name of Enlightenment humanism. So, in this sense we cannot speak of a post-neoliberal era. Davies and Gane seem to agree: “‘postneoliberalism’ cannot refer to something that comes exclusively after neoliberalism, but rather—as with the notion of ‘post-Fordism’—to a set of emergent rationalities, critiques, movements and reforms that take place” (ibid., 4–5). However, these “emergent rationalities, critiques, movements and reforms” must express a real commitment to a humane kind of society. Neoliberalism must not be understood as merely a vicious version of capitalism, the overcoming of which would leave us with a “good” version of that political-economic system. Quite to the contrary, neoliberalism is pure, unvarnished, and uncontrolled capitalism. What is needed is thus a critique of capitalism that is not blinded by the kind of self-limited capitalism that prevailed during the trente glorieuses. This explains why many of the ideas of Critical Theory broached by the early Frankfurt School seem so up-todate to us—as we will see in the following chapters. Indeed, the work of the “Frankfurt School,” which can be understood under the signature of “critical humanism,” can be seen as a starting point from which a post-neoliberal project might be articulated today. But it must be made very clear that this critique does not surrender to the illusion of a “somewhat improved” capitalism; rather, it bases its nonnegotiable claim on a humane form of society and the conviction that any kind of capitalism seems unable to redeem. NOTES 1. A very prominent movement that has formed to promote the use of artificial intelligence in order to enhance human life has gathered under the banner “Humanity+” and was founded by David Pearce and Nick Bostrom (see: https:​ //​ www​ .humanityplus​.org/). 2. See https:​//​www​.humanityplus​.org/. 3. See: https:​//​www​.humanityplus​.org/.

The “Abolition of Man”

53

4. As we write this, in Argentina and in the Netherlands, right populists won elections.

REFERENCES Albrecht, Monika. 2019. “Introduction: Postcolonialism Cross-Examined: Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the Neo-colonial Present.” In Postcolonialism Cross-Examined. Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the Neocolonial Present, edited by Monika Albrecht, 1–47. London: Routledge. Anderson, Perry. 1999. The Origins of Postmodernity. London/New York: Verso. Baudrillard, Jean. 1981. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. Telos Press. Baudrillard, Jean. 1985. Simulacres et simulation. Paris: Éd. Galilée. Bell, Daniel. 1973. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books. Bhambra, Gurminder K. 2007. Rethinking Modernity. Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Brown, Wendy. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books. Connell, Raewyn. 2007. Southern Theory. The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. Cambridge/Malden: Polity. Conrad, Sebastian, and Shalini Randeria. 2002. „Einleitung. Geteilte Geschichten— Europa in einer postkolonialen Welt.“ In Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften, edited by Sebastian Conrad/Shalini Randeria, 9–49. Frankfurt/M./New York: Campus. Crouch, Colin. 2016. The Knowledge Corruptors. Hidden Consequences of the Final Takeover of Public Life [EPub]. Cambridge/Malden: Polity. Davies, William, and Nicholas Gane. 2021. “Post-Neoliberalism. An Introduction.” In Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 38, issue 6: 3–28. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​ /02632764211036722. Delanty, Gerard, and Neal Harris. 2023. Capitalism and Its Critics. Capitalism in Social and Political Theory. London/New York: Routledge. Domańska, Ewa. 2020. “History, anthropogenic soil, and unbecoming human.” In Dipesh Chakrabarty and the Global South. Subaltern Studies, Postcolonial Perspectives, and the Anthropocene, edited by Saurabh Dube, Sanjay Seth/Ajay Skaria, 201–14, London/New York: Routledge. Dubet, François. 2021. “The Return of Society.” European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 24, Issue 1: 3–21. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000. “Multiple Modernities.“ In Shmuel N. Eisenstadt et al. (eds.) Daedalus: 129: 1–29. Escalante Gonzalbo, Fernando. 2015. Historia mínima del neoliberalismo. Mexico City: Colegio de México. Fassin, Didier. 2012. Humanitarian Reason. A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

54

Chapter 1

Fraser, Nancy. 2017. “Progressive neoliberalism versus reactionary populism: a Hobson’s choice.” In The Great Regression, edited by Heinrich Geiselberger [EPub], 128–48. Cambridge/Malden: Polity Press. Fuchs, Thomas. 2020. Verteidigung des Menschen: Grundfragen einer verkörperten Anthropologie. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Fukuyama, Francis. 2002. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fukuyama, Francis. 2018. Identity. The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Furedi, Frank. 2022. “Joe Biden’s Woke Imperialism,” Spiked, June 2022. Accessed June 2, 2023. https:​//​www​.spiked​-online​.com​/2022​/06​/12​/joe​-bidens​-woke​ -imperialism/. Gertenbach, Lars, and Thomas Laux. 2020. Zur Aktualität von Bruno Latour. Einführung in sein Werk. Wiesbaden: Springer. Habermas, Jürgen. 1989. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Habermas, Jürgen. 1990 [1981]. „Die Moderne—ein unvollendetes Projekt.“ In Die Moderne—ein unvollendetes Projekt. Philosophisch-politische Aufsätze 1977– 1990, 32–54. Leipzig: Reclam. Harari, Yuval Noah. 2017. A Brief History of Tomorrow. London: Vintage. Hayek, Friedrich A. von. 2004 [1944]. Der Weg zur Knechtschaft. Edited by Manfred E. Streit. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hepp, Andreas. 2013. Medienkultur: Die Kultur mediatisierter Welten. Wiesbaden: Springer. Herbrechter, Stefan. 2009. Posthumanismus: Eine kritische Einführung. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Horkheimer, Max. 1985 [1959]. „Philosophie als Kulturkritik.“ In Gesammelte Schriften, Band 7: Vorträge und Aufzeichnungen 1949–1973, 81–103. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1990 [1944]. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Jameson, Fredric. 1991. “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” In Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, 1–54. Durham: Duke University Press. Jameson, Fredric. 2016. An American Utopia. Dual Power and the Universal Army, edited by Slavoj Žižek. London/New York: Verso. Katz, Claudio. 2022. Dependency Theories After Fifty Years. The Continuing Relevance of Latin American Critical Thought. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Kaufmann, Franz-Xaver. 1985. „Der Gesellschaft neue Kleider.“ In Soziologische Revue, Vol. 8: 107–10. Kellner, Douglas. 1994. Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics between the Modern and the Post-modern. London/New York: Routledge. Kerner, Ina. 2012. Postkoloniale Theorien zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius. Konersmann, Ralf. 2008. Kulturkritik. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Konersmann, Ralf. 2015. Die Unruhe der Welt. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer.

The “Abolition of Man”

55

Kozlarek, Oliver. 2011. Moderne als Weltbewusstsein. Ideen für eine humanistische Sozialtheorie in der globalen Moderne. Bielefeld: Transcript. Kurzweil, Ray. 2006. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Penguin Books. Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, Bruno. 2017. Facing Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime. Cambridge/Medford: Polity Press. Lilla, Mark. 2017. The once and future liberal: After identity politics. New York: Harper Collins. Lind, Michael. 1996. The Next American Nation. The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution [EPub]. New York: Simon & Schuster. Liu, Catherine. 2021. Virtue Hoarders. The Case against the Professional Managerial Elite. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. Loh, Janina. 2018. Trans- und Posthumanismus. Eine Einführung. Hamburg: Junius. Lyotard, Jean-François. 1985. La condition postmoderne. Rapport sur le savoir. Paris: Éditions de Minuit. Malik, Kenan. 2018. „Die kulturelle Wende.“ In Die sortierte Gesellschaft. Zur Kritik der Identitätspolitik, edited by Johannes Richardt, 26–34. Frankfurt: Edition Novo. Mignolo, Walter D. 2011. The darker side of western modernity: global futures, decolonial options. Durham: Duke University Press. Mignolo, Walter D. 2012. “Neither Capitalism nor Communism, but Decolonization: Interview with Walter Mignolo.” In Critical Legal Thinking. Accessed September 3, 2023. https:​//​criticallegalthinking​.com​/2012​/03​/21​/neither​-capitalism​-nor​ -communism​-but​-decolonization​-an​-interview​-with​-walter​-mignolo/. Moyn, Samuel. 2021. Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. New York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Neckel, Sighard. 2021. “Scholastic fallacies? Questioning the Anthropocene.” In Thesis Eleven, Vol. 165(1): 136–44. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/0725513621993278. Ortega Esquivel, Aureliano, and Paloma Sierra Ruiz. 2018. “Sobre el pensamiento poscolonial. Una aproximación crítica.” In Devenires. Revista de filosofía y filosofía de la cultura, 38: 153–91. Ptak, Ralf. 2008. „Grundlagen des Neoliberalismus.“ In Kritik des Neoliberalismus, edited by Christoph Butterwegge/Bettina Lösch/Ralf Ptak, 13–86. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Raffnsøe, Sverre. 2016. Philosophy of the Anthropocene. The Human Turn. London: Palgrave McMillan. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2016. “Zwischen Hyperkultur und Kulturessenzialismus. Die Spätmoderne im Widerstreit zweier Kulturalisierungsregimes.“ Accessed April 22, 2023. http:​//​www​.soziopolis​.de​/beobachten​/kultur​/artikel​/zwischen​-hyperkultur​ -und​-kulturessenzialismus/. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2017. Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Zum Strukturwandel der Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Ritzer, George. 2019. The McDonaldization of Society: Into the digital age. Los Angeles et al.: Sage.

56

Chapter 1

Rorty, Richard. 1998. Achieving Our Country. Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard University Press. Rosa, Hartmut. 2012. Weltbeziehungen im Zeitalter der Beschleunigung. Umrisse einer neuen Gesellschaftskritik. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Rüsen, Jörn. 2020. Menschsein. Grundlagen, Geschichte und Diskurse des Humanismus. Berlin: Kadmos. Schreiner, Patrick. 2015. Unterwerfung als Freiheit. Leben im Neoliberalismus. Köln: PapyRossa Verlag. Sloterdijk, Peter. 1983. Kritik der zynischen Vernunft. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Taylor, Charles. 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Tenbruck, Friedrich H. 1984. Die unbewältigten Sozialwissenschaften oder die Abschaffung des Menschen. Graz/Wien/Köln: Styria. Therborn, Göran. 2003. “Entangled Modernities.” In European Journal of Social Theory, 6(3): 293–305. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/13684310030063002. Touraine, Alain. 2007. A New Paradigm for Understanding Today’s World. Cambridge/ Malden: Polity Press. Türcke, Christoph. 2021. Quote, Rasse, Gender(n). Demokratisierung auf Abwegen. Lüneburg: Zu Klampen Verlag. Welsch, Wolfgang. 2008. Unsere postmoderne Moderne. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.

PART II

The Claim for a Humane Society and the Priority of Critical Social Research

57

Chapter 2

Max Horkheimer Humanism as Critical Social Research

In the 1960s, it still seemed beyond any doubt that humanism and Critical Theory belonged together. In its issue of February 5, 1968, the German magazine Der Spiegel published an article on Max Horkheimer on the occasion of the German publication of his book Eclipse of Reason (Zur Kritik der instrumentellen Vernunft), in which this connection is expressed again and again. The fact that Horkheimer was supposed to be a humanist must have been more important to the authors of that article than anything else they might have said about the German philosopher and longtime director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (IfS): “Although as a humanist, a convinced Jew, and an admirer of Marx, he belongs among those thinkers who trust in humanity (‘Vertrauen in den Menschen’)—worldly experience and critical thinking prevent him from rash paradisiacal expectations” (Der Spiegel, 1968, 103; italics added). The Marxism with which Horkheimer is associated is also said to have been primarily of the “humanistic” type (ibid.). Finally, in the summary of Horkheimer’s Critical Theory, the article underscores that it was clearly concerned with the human being: “By proclaiming to subjugate man’s nature, it helped develop instruments of subjugation of human beings by other human beings” (ibid.; italics added). However, this connection between Critical Theory and humanism, which is taken for granted, and which the journalists’ view here presupposes for Horkheimer’s thinking, must not obscure the fact that the figure who coined the keywords of Critical Theory transferred, precisely, his quarrel with “traditional theory” to thought about the human contained therein. This becomes especially clear in Horkheimer’s systematic examination of the so-called Philosophical Anthropology (Philosophische Anthropologie), where his criticism focused primarily on the claim that there exists one essence, or nature, of the human being that can be grasped conceptually (cf. Horkheimer 1988 [1935]). 59

60

Chapter 2

In his search of alternatives, Horkheimer repeatedly concluded, as early as the 1930s, that ultimately only social research could help philosophy extricate itself from its self-imposed blindness in this regard. In light of this “professional turn” or, better, the consistent, systematic connection between social scientific research and philosophy, it would no longer be possible to determine how the human being is constituted without taking into account the historical factors that affect the “nature” of the human being involved.1 It is against this background that I now proceed to elucidate Horkheimer’s version of humanism. I begin this chapter by examining some texts that are not necessarily the focus of the scholarly study of this author. My aim is to penetrate, so to speak, through the back door into the main building of Horkheimer’s humanism. One of these writings is the essay “Zum Begriff des Menschen” from 1957 (here, 1985). I prefer not to read this text as a contribution to a debate on the history of ideas about conceptions of the human being, but as a piece of critical social research that follows the diagnosis of earlier works, such as Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944/1947), written with Theodor W. Adorno, and Eclipse of Reason (1947). While the first part of this chapter deals with Horkheimer’s thought on anthropology and its significance for his project of critical social research, the second and third sections analyze in detail Horkheimer’s humanism. Two basic ideas can be distinguished. The first springs from the insight that people in the contemporary world are inevitably united among themselves in their humanity across the boundaries of their respective nations, ethnicities, cultures, or groups. Behind this insight lie Horkheimer’s own experiences as a world citizen (Weltbürger). Beyond this, however, there is another source of Horkheimer’s humanism, one that can be tapped by referring to the essays “Egoism and the Freedom Movement” (Egoismus und Freiheitsbewegung) (1936) and “Montaigne and the Function of Skepticism” (Montaigne und die Funktion der Skepsis) (1938). These writings make clear just how deeply Horkheimer’s thinking is inspired by a critically reflected humanism, which not only constitutes the normative backbone of his Critical Theory, but also orients his program of systematic and inter- or transdisciplinary social and cultural research. CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH AGAINST PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Horkheimer’s intellectual and scientific self-positioning between social criticism, philosophy, and anthropology is made clear in the very first sentence of his 1957 essay:

Max Horkheimer

61

Wherever philosophers talk about Man in the present day, there is seldom an indication that the fundamental question of philosophy, namely, that of being as such, cannot be detached from the question of Man, and at least in recent European philosophy, that of existence or Dasein not excluded, is characterized by the fact that the doctrine of being as such follows, if not in substance, then at least in the practice of research, the effort to gain insight into Man’s being (Horkheimer 1985 [1957], 55).

At this point, a thoroughly problematizing approach to the question of “Man” is already apparent. Even if this issue is moved into the center as a “basic question,” and even if it is understood as a precondition for the fundamental philosophical question about “being,” all hope for a positive answer seems to be suspended. Simply put, an entity like the “nature of Man” cannot be fathomed. This insight is basic to Horkheimer’s understanding of anthropology and humanism. Horkheimer expressed similar ideas in the 1930s, a time when he was motivated by discussions in the framework of Philosophical Anthropology, which he may have perceived, above all, through his engagement with Max Scheler (cf. Breuer 2016). By that time, he had reached the essential insight to which he would later adhere: “The task that Max Scheler has set for anthropology, to show precisely how ‘all specific monopolies, achievements, and works of Man emerge [. . .] from a basic structure of being human [. . .]’ is impossible to achieve” (Horkheimer 1988 [1935], 251). But likewise, as early as that decade, and despite the elan of his critical reactions, especially to Scheler, Horkheimer was not tempted to eliminate anthropological thought completely from his approach. With great clarity, he confessed: “Although history is by no means to be regarded as the unfolding of a unified human being, the reverse fatalistic formula, that a necessity independent of Man dominates the course of things, would be just as naïve” (ibid.). By 1935, he suspected that the anthropological question must be situated in a tension among ontological, normative, and social theoretical coordinates. In concrete terms, this meant that the “concept of Man” (Begriff vom Menschen) emerges in the crosshairs of the relations among the individual, society, and nature. The first insight, however, that arises with regard to Philosophical Anthropology—once again, primarily in relation to Scheler—is that there can be no general “formula that establishes, once and for all, the relations among individual, society, and nature” (ibid., 251). If the question of the human can only be posed meaningfully in the constellation “individual-society-nature,” then it is to be expected that it must always be tied, as well, to historical conditions. The search for the one definition, for the unique concept of the “nature” of the human being beyond that, is politically disreputable, because

62

Chapter 2

in this perspective only “the individual as she/he is now should be given meaning” (ibid., 254). This kind of conformist Critical Theory must be rejected decisively. Horkheimer suspects that Scheler’s excessive claim must be related to his theological ambitions, which bundle together all forms of the localization of meaning and direct them toward a “theistic presupposition.” In doing so, however, Philosophical Anthropology places itself in a position where it aspires, at one and the same time, to “too much and too little” (ibid., 259). “Too much” refers to the assumption of the one, unique nature of the human being; while “too little,” according to Horkheimer, is that Scheler chose not to contextualize the concept of the human historically. Thus, the director of the Institute for Social Research seems to miss, above all, a pragmatic research claim in Philosophical Anthropology. It is not the question about the human being that he rejects, but how the answers to this question are generated. Instead of philosophical-conceptual reflection alone, Horkheimer thus proposed a “materialistic theory of society” (see also Dubiel 1978). This theory is responsible, above all, for the unsparing analysis of the respective forms of present society, which must be concerned with tracking down those conditions that result in people being deprived of humane forms of life. In this context, Horkheimer also notes that recognizing the barriers that thwart the full development of humane societies could pave the way for a return to the humanism of the Renaissance. But he rejects this as well, referring to a critical social theory. The basic insight of anthropology, following critical social theory, assumes that “human qualities” are “entwined in the course of history” and must be updated in every historical phase (Horkheimer 1988 [1935], 275).2 This was explained previously by referring to the aforementioned constellation of ‘individual,’ ‘society,’ and ‘nature.’ If the respective “concept of Man” results from this constellation, then it would be a matter of social-theoretically oriented social research to make it explicit. This is, in fact, the quest that Horkheimer undertakes in his 1957 essay. It was precisely the rejection of a positive concept of human nature that seems to have inspired Horkheimer, for “the transition from critique to positivity and concretion does not mean exaltation, but resignation” (Horkheimer 1985 [1957], 57). Here, it is not only the self-understanding of Critical Theory that manifests itself but, especially, its relation to the human being. Horkheimer cautions that this should not be fixed in one particular image, for this would only lead to withholding human dignity from those who do not correspond to that image. This insight is accompanied by his goal of developing anthropological questions out of the blatant inhumanity he saw in contemporary society.

Max Horkheimer

63

Not only the concretion—that is, a too specific and limited positive image of the human being—is problematic for Horkheimer, but also the fact that any attempt to describe this would produce concepts far too abstract. What must have troubled him at that time—the late 1950s—is probably no longer self-evident today, so it needs to be explained: before the critique of humanism had become so much a part of common usage that words like humanism, human, or humanity could not be used without reservations, Horkheimer must have observed an almost inflationary use of these words. Against this background, he makes it clear that the problem is not a quantitative one. Rather, the call of the human—the formula “it depends on Man” (ibid.)—refers to an illusion that is typical of both social conditions and “Man’s” state of mind and, therefore, is dangerous. For this always means that all is not lost, that an almost-natural residue of resistance against the coercion of the “apparatus,” of the “system,” continues to exist intact in the individual human being, available there to be called upon at any time. Horkheimer understood the evocation of the human as a symptom of a time in which things were extremely bad. The abstract commitment to Man, as if it were directly up to him to turn the tide of disaster that lurks behind all economic miracles, sounds both reproving and appeasing at the same time. Real suffering under injustice, under complicated existence, which despite the rise in living standards and expectations is becoming ever more difficult and uncertain, is referred to the insight that it is, first of all, a matter of personality; psychological suffering is appeased by figures from the past and present, who are supposed to guarantee that one can still be a human being instead of a mass to which no one wants to belong (ibid., 58).

Seen in this light, Horkheimer’s preoccupation with the “concept of Man” can certainly be understood as critical. However, he is not concerned only with conceptual philosophical work; rather, the text discussed here is to be understood, in itself, as a contribution to critical social research that makes it possible to gain insight into the social conditions that, in turn, make a certain type of human being possible. Horkheimer assumes, as in his 1935 essay, that the socially relevant concept of the human being must arise primarily from the relation between society and the individual (cf. Horkheimer 1985 [1957], 55). Consistently following this insight, he concluded his more recent essay with a socio-critical analysis that aimed to reveal changing sociocultural structures and claims to explain how the “type of Man” characteristic of contemporary society develops. Three perspectives on this topic can be distinguished: How society shapes the individual. Horkheimer believed the influence of society on the individual begins right after birth and is formative for the rest of every individual’s life, placing special emphasis on the mother in this

64

Chapter 2

context. However, through this immediate point of reference of the child, the characteristics of society must also affect her/him. Horkheimer concludes, “The individual, in other words, is real only in the context of the whole to which he belongs” (ibid., 61–62). In stark contrast, he sees the role of the father in “bourgeois society” primarily in terms of professional preparation. While in classic bourgeois society, fathers wanted to prepare their sons to one day assume their position, current society strives to produce individuals who fit well into the “apparatus.” “The characteristic social type today would be the white-collar worker” (ibid., 62). It becomes clear here that Horkheimer had perceived the tendency that led to what Daniel Bell later called a post-industrial society, which, as we have seen, paves the way to neoliberalism (see chapter 1). Fundamentally, however, this development also undermines the classic functions of the family, which are now transferred to society. Ultimately, this produces a “different kind of human being” who, due to the “shrinking of inwardness,” can be said to have a character oriented only toward conformity and obedience. Horkheimer also perceived a change that is quite decisive for our context regarding the future life paths of young people, for here “education in the specific sense of humanism and German idealism” is being abandoned. Academically educated people, like doctors and lawyers, who at one time would also have been available to the “common” citizens as role models and advisors in matters of “humanity,” have themselves long since been reduced to the role of “professionals.” This development corresponds to the function of universities, which may come to be degraded more and more into simple “professional schools” (cf., 64). Here Horkheimer could be accused of idealizing the classic-bourgeois world. Nevertheless, his concern with the situation of humanistic education, especially at our universities, can perhaps be better understood today than in the 1950s. As we saw in the first chapter of this book, similar criticisms to those Horkheimer made in the 1950s are being articulated today in more recent critiques of neoliberalism and its impact on formal education (see Brown 2015; Crouch 2016). Critical Theory has always been concerned with the cultural consequences of social development. One text still widely cited in this regard today is the famous “Culture Industry” chapter of the Dialectic of Enlightenment coauthored by Horkheimer and Adorno. In the text we are examining here, Horkheimer seems to summarize some central ideas from that work: especially that the mechanization and “industrialization” of culture could no longer be reconciled with the cultural ideals of bourgeois society since this would result in a mindless culture that does not deserve this name. The aforementioned signs of decay in education are accompanied here by a “de-spiritualization” of culture in general, for it is now concerned only with

Max Horkheimer

65

diversion and, especially, consumption, a place where the individual, isolated from any social context, appears to become ever more important. But what is exposed, behind this apparent, superficial freedom, is ever-stronger social coercion and control. The connection between the “concept of Man” and society. All these changes ultimately led to the realization that the human being had, indeed, become another. For Horkheimer, this insight made it clear, once again, that what is unchangeable in the human is only that which ultimately returns to nature: “All that remained unchanged through the ages,” he writes, “[was] the overwhelming physical pain and all the extreme situations in which Man is not master of himself and is thrust back into nature from the spiritual existence involved in society” (Horkheimer 1985 [1957], 65). Thus, the text returns to the priority of the “theory of society,” articulated previously in 1935, and, hence, of sociological research, for the “concept of Man” is understood here, once more, as a social reality made comprehensible by sociological knowledge, which assumes the changeability of the human in response to social conditions: “[T]he human condition is [. . .] a historical product, it is related in its own sense to the forms of social life, of the culture to which it belongs, however little it may be absorbed in them” (ibid.). The human being in post-liberal bourgeois society. What characterizes the human in today’s society, as Horkheimer perceived it, can be reduced to a simple formula: he is characterized by “human traits of the violence of the alienated whole” (ibid., 66). The centrality of violence in this diagnosis should not surprise us. For the context developed here, however, it should first be pointed out that, precisely according to Horkheimer, we must also assume that, in fact, “human traits of violence” exist. This shows that Horkheimer does not surrender to the illusion of some kind of ‘good core’ in the human being. Violence, which emanates from the alienated whole—that is, distorted, totalitarian social conditions—can thus be seen not only as violence against human beings, but as bearing clearly “human traits.” The human being, it could also be said, is characterized by the violence that emanates from himself. It would also be wrong, however, to think that the human being is therefore violent “by nature.” Rather, the significance of Horkheimer’s rejection of a theory of the “nature of Man” becomes clear once again: humans are neither violent nor peaceful “by nature,” but they adopt these different dispositions under certain, prevailing social conditions. Nonetheless—and this seems to me just as important for our discussion—it is not “society” that does violence to humans, but humans themselves, so they cannot elude their responsibility. Horkheimer was thus skeptical of a metaphysical concept of the human being, as this had been developing since the 1920s, especially within the framework of Philosophical Anthropology. However, he did not conclude

66

Chapter 2

from this that it is only possible to ponder “that man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea” (Foucault 2002, 422). “Concepts of Man” exist in society or, more precisely, emerge from the tension among the individual, society, and nature, and they must be made intelligible through critical social and cultural research. This kind of inquiry, in turn, must be oriented toward the notion of a “humane” society. As is well known, Critical Theory did not develop any positive models of such a society, limiting itself only to the tasks of perceiving and recognizing the dehumanizing tendencies and dynamics of current societies without, however, disguising the fact that these, too, are “man-made.” Seen in this light, the problem of modern society cannot be reduced to the opposition between humans and a system or “apparatus,” but it is inscribed as a dialectical moment in the “concept of Man” itself. In other words, the “concepts of Man,” the “imaginaries of the human,” must not be understood as a lifeline from the dehumanizing current of capitalist society, but as an ongoing task. In this context, critical social research sees itself as a practice that continually updates the normative potentials of the respective “concept of Man” by connecting to “Kantian hope” (Horkheimer 1985 [1957], 66), but without losing sight of social realities. The importance of anthropology for Critical Theory is often underestimated, but as these remarks reveal, it is intimately intertwined with Horkheimer’s program of critical social research. In the following section, Horkheimer’s move from anthropology to humanism is reconstructed. Two motifs can be distinguished. The first springs from the experiences he owed to his cosmopolitan life; the second, once again, is deeply rooted in his understanding of the nature of critical social research. COSMOPOLITAN HUMANISM AS RECONCILIATION We have already seen that Critical Theory has no wish to engage in a kind of anthropology in which the conception of the human being is positively fixed in any way. But the question then arises of whether humanism needs such a positive conception at all. This issue has special urgency against the background of the awareness that our life-worlds (Lebenswelten) have long since assumed planetary proportions. Is an ethical constitution of a world society still plausible if it cannot also be understood as a global community of all people? Hannah Arendt is often quoted today when it comes to naming one of the first sparks of cosmopolitanism that should still correspond to the current consciousness of globalization. In our context, Arendt is also interesting because she does so regarding the tradition of humanism. For her, it was clear that what characterizes this cosmopolitanism is that our conceptions of

Max Horkheimer

67

humanity are changing, for from an “abstract notion or a guiding principle for humanists only” it is becoming more and more evident that there is a “really existing entity whose members at the most distant points of the globe need less time to meet than the members of a nation needed a generation ago” (Arendt 1958, 257). The intrinsic connection among Arendt’s awareness of “real existing unity,” today’s consciousness of globalization, and the normative claim that coalesces in a concept of cosmopolitanism has also been noted by the British social theorist Gerard Delanty, who wrote: “The normative and methodological implications of globalization can be more readily assessed from the more conceptually and philosophically nuanced position of cosmopolitan theory” (Delanty 2009, 2). Delanty is particularly interested in the concept of cosmopolitanism, for he sees it as an important, indeed necessary, complement to “critical social theory”: “Cosmopolitanism offers critical social theory a means of adapting to new challenges. It offers a solution to one of the weaknesses of the Critical Theory tradition of both the Frankfurt School and Habermasian social theory, namely, the failure to respond to the challenges of globalization and to go beyond a preoccupation with an exclusively Western set of issues” (ibid.). It is not my goal here to examine this statement in detail. However, upon looking at some more marginal texts of the so-called first generation of the Frankfurt School, one discovers a cosmopolitan consciousness that can be expected from intellectuals who had lived in exile for years. In normative terms, this cosmopolitanism can be reduced to the fact that the experience of shared humanity provokes a sense of “brotherhood,” despite the many differences that may exist. Martin Jay writes: “This was a lesson that only an elite of educated Europeans had learned”—an elite to which Max Horkheimer undoubtedly belonged (cf. Jay 2020, 135). This can be gleaned from a short text by Horkheimer himself (which Jay also mentions) that preceded a lecture he gave on October 25, 1958, on the occasion of the photo exhibition The Family of Man, by the North American photographer and painter Edward Steichen, in Frankfurt am Main. Steichen’s five hundred photographs show people from sixty-eight countries in various life situations, divided into the categories of friendship and love, work, celebration, religion, growing old, and dying. The exhibit had been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City a few years before, and Jay makes the point that it was still controversial in the United States. He refers to a book in which Steichen’s display is described retrospectively as a “blockbuster exhibition of postwar ideology” that is supposed to correspond to a “capitalist consumer culture” (cf. Foster/ Krauss/Bois/Buchloh 2004, 426). Why, then, did Horkheimer evaluate the exhibition so positively? The reason may be that despite its commercial

68

Chapter 2

and conformist nature, it struck an important nerve in him. Even a good ten years after World War II, it could have met the authentic need to realize the commonalities that exist among people. But not only that: the question of what to think of humans after the atrocities committed in the first half of the twentieth century also seems to have corresponded to a need of the time, as documented in the catalog of the U.S. exhibition in New York, where Anne Frank is quoted as saying: “I still believe that people are really good at heart” (Steichen 1955, 162–63). The exhibition expresses a desire for reconciliation, or at least Horkheimer seems to have seen it in that light: “It forms a symbol for the togetherness of human beings in spite of all political discord, for the selflessness of their being despite the diversity of their individual and national character, people in non-identity” (Horkheimer 1989, 31). Immediately afterward, Horkheimer reminds us that this idea has been most forcefully articulated by philosophy. On the one hand, he refers to Kant and the maxim “that everything that bears the face of Man should never be merely a means, but always an end”; on the other, he recognizes a similar “core idea” in North American philosophy from Ralph Emerson through William James to John Dewey and the so-called new individualism (ibid.). In America, Horkheimer sees this humanism rooted in a mentality of “brotherhood” that he proposes tracing back to the “tradition of the early settlers.” The fact that he does not mention colonialism or the racism that shaped public life in the United States in the 1950s may be forgiven; the exhibition for which he spoke here not only presented the work of a U.S. artist, but it was also curated by the Amerika-Haus in Frankfurt am Main. However, Horkheimer then leaves the level of history and diplomacy to return to the realm of ideas. The claim he pursues is expressed in an unnecessarily complicated sentence and consists in showing that the idea of the “unity of mankind” seems to prevail more and more clearly, after all, despite many setbacks. That Horkheimer is, indeed, concerned here with ideas is made clear by the fact that for him “humanity” seems to be, first and foremost, something “spiritual.” Thus, it is not about something that has already become reality—as Arendt’s talk of the “real existing entity” suggests—but it is about a “concept that, with the goodwill and consciousness of those who are acting according to it, is to realize itself one day in the future” (ibid., 32) and “[u]nderstanding the idea of mankind, which is yet to become itself as mankind, it required the encompassing thought, the effort of the concept” (ibid.). This, however, should not remain at the level of ideas. Promoting the idea of one humanity requires images, like those presented in that exhibition. The advantage that images hold over theory or concepts is, primarily, the possibility of “identification,” says Horkheimer (ibid., 34): “The experience to which images help is that of identity” (ibid., 36).

Max Horkheimer

69

People can only have experiences that are paired with identity if they become involved in something and give themselves over to it: “Only to the extent that someone not only loves himself but can give himself to the things and people he deals with, even to lose himself in them, can he regain himself more richly, can he unfold his powers [and] lead his meaningful life” (ibid. 34). Here the normative claim becomes clear, as does the fact that Horkheimer is not afraid to push it even further. Referring again to Scheler, he ultimately evokes the “devotion he is concerned with” as that of “love” (ibid., 35). Identification, which can rise to the level of love, is by no means arbitrary for Horkheimer, for it opposes the “ultimate evil” (ibid., 57). The logic of this would have to lie in the fact that identification is only possible with what one “has within oneself” (ibid., 36). Thus, from Horkheimer’s perspective, the exhibition could, indeed, be understood as a humanistic experience, for in it people experience themselves as human beings. Upon seeing images of other human beings, a normatively charged moment of “identification” sets in. This is not just a matter of an attitude on the part of the viewer, but it involves the establishment of an actual connection. In contrast to the philosophical “idea of humanity,” something akin to “real humanity” is what can be grasped here. Martin Jay, who refers to Horkheimer’s lecture in his essay mentioned earlier, underlines its closeness to Kant: “Horkheimer was making clear what he saw as the regulative, counterfactual, even utopian quality of the notion of unified humankind. As had Kant, he hoped that it might serve as a telos of human practice rather than a description of what was destined to occur” (Jay 2020, 136). I believe that Jay described a crucial aspect of Horkheimer’s Critical Theory; namely, that humanism was not, for this German sociologist, a stale intellectual tradition, but a utopia that he strove to update through his Critical Theory. Of course, a second important issue is also quite decisive here: the fact that the humanist utopia does not come into play in Horkheimer’s scientific works but, rather, in a lecture presented to a more general audience. No matter what “darkly pessimistic sentiments” (ibid., 133) Horkheimer might allow himself in private, as a public figure he had long assumed the role of a “reeducator.” In this context, he did not see himself as the uncritical defender of the worldview that the victorious Western powers—especially the United States—sought to establish, but as someone who wanted to warn young people, in particular, not to reconcile themselves to the status quo: “If we take Horkheimer’s interpretation of the exhibition as less a celebration of the present than as a challenge to make a different and better future, his endorsement of an essential human condition as normative rather than descriptive, and his adoption of perpetual peace as the telos of history in a counter-factual Kantian, regulative ideal with practical intent, we can discern the utopian

70

Chapter 2

impulse that lurks beneath the surface of what may appear as unabashed Cold War ideology” (ibid., 165). Even if Horkheimer’s scholarly work lacks the utopian humanism manifested in his public interventions, it is driven by a normative humanism that quite substantially informs his scholarly project. HORKHEIMER’S CRITICAL THEORY AS “ACTIVE HUMANISM” In his book on Horkheimer, John Abromeit makes an important contribution to the understanding of his work. In doing so, he contradicts the widespread prejudice that holds that Horkheimer’s achievements in Critical Theory were limited primarily to “methodological reflections” (Abromeit 2011, 248). According to Abromeit, the theoretical and philosophical foundations of Horkheimer’s thought simply cannot be separated from methodological ideas. I would now like to show that these two dimensions are held together by the brackets of a humanism that, under the title of “active humanism,” attempts to redeem the claim of anthropologically oriented critical social research, concerned not only with holding up a mirror to the “abstract” humanism of bourgeois culture, but also with raising awareness of a new humanism: “The humanism of the past consisted in the critique of the feudalistic world order with its hierarchy, which had become a fetter on the development of Man. The humanism of the present consists in the critique of the forms of life under which humanity is now perishing and, in the effort to change them in a reasonable sense” (Horkheimer 1988 [1938], 290). It is precisely this research-pragmatic claim that justifies speaking of an “active humanism” that seeks to set itself apart from “abstract humanism,” which Horkheimer assumes to have an ideological purpose since it propagates an image of the human being that only a few reach, even though it represents a general claim. These ideas are found primarily in two early texts from the 1930s, which I discuss briefly in what follows. The first is a lengthy essay from 1936, “Egoism and the Freedom Movement—On the Anthropology of the Bourgeois Age.” As Abromeit summarizes, “The essay is in fact about the origins, proliferation, reproduction, and persistence into the present of the type of Man that became dominant in the modern period; that is, bourgeois Man” (Abromeit 2011, 262). Here, too, an anthropological concern is in the foreground, but this time it is directly related to the humanistic claim, because Horkheimer’s sketch of the bourgeois ideal of the human is primarily understood as a normatively guided critique. Horkheimer meets the demand of social-scientific research by deciding not to limit himself to philosophical-conceptual work,

Max Horkheimer

71

but to engage with “historical persons in whom theory and historical practice became one” (Horkheimer 1988 [1936], 88). Thus, the focus is not on the lives of individual personalities isolated from the social whole. Rather, an insight into the “bourgeois epoch” is to be gained through the lives of these personalities, in whom a special “bourgeois type of Man” could develop. This also means the bourgeois human being is not timeless and universal, but full of “peculiarities” that result “from its historical function in the bourgeois world” (ibid., 26; cf. also Abromeit 2011, 268). But what can be said specifically about this type of person? Above all, how can its ambivalent, contradictory nature be explained? For Horkheimer, it was clear that this type of human being initially reflected the discord of class society. In other words, a harmoniously closed image of the human cannot exist in a class society. And if this is claimed, it must be assumed that it is either a very abstract concept or an ideology whose task is to conceal social divisions. Now, Horkheimer searches in the early modern period of Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for the first prototypical manifestations of this new kind of human being. He dedicates some long passages in his text to two specific figures: Cola di Rienzo (1313–1354) and Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), both of whom correspond to the type of the “bourgeois leader” in whom the bourgeois type of human being, in general, is paradigmatically manifested: “The leader is only the potentiated type,” writes Horkheimer (Horkheimer 1988 [1936], 67). Toward the end of his consideration of these two personages, Horkheimer devotes a few additional pages to the Jacobin Robespierre (1758–1794). Although here his claim to portray a “bourgeois leader” seems more plausible, Horkheimer explicitly insists that, despite all the differences among the three figures, there are similarities in their essence, which he explains by the fact that in spite of “the different historical situations” in which they found themselves, all three lived in the same “form of society” that—and therein lies for Horkheimer the kernel of his arguments— persists in current bourgeois society (cf. ibid. 66). But in what does the ambivalence or “dialectic” of the bourgeois type of human being consist? Horkheimer contends that claims to new freedoms and submission, to obedience and renunciation, manifested themselves in society, politics, and religion. This does not mean, however, that all people in bourgeois society are embodiments of these two contradictory orientations, that they have preprogrammed them, as it were, in their mental dispositions, but that they are distributed differentially in society according to social divisions: while the elites claim the right to freedom for themselves, they withhold it from the “masses,” obliging them to obedience and renunciation.3 His study of “bourgeois leaders” also allowed Horkheimer to reveal the ideological character of their actions and thinking. The demand for freedom for oneself is undoubtedly accompanied by the demand for obedience and

72

Chapter 2

renunciation on the part of those who do not belong to the leading class. In this respect, the assertion of one’s egoism is unbrokenly accompanied by the moral condemnation of the egoism of others. The larger part of humanity should rather get used to mastering its own claim to happiness, to repressing the desire to live as well as that small part which, for that very reason, gladly put up with having its existence, strictly speaking, condemned by [the] useful moral verdict. This significance of bourgeois virtue as a means of rule gained ever greater weight (ibid., 17).

This disproportion, which extends into the realm of culture, also characterizes the humanism of bourgeois society: The humanism that pervades the history of the modern spirit shows a double face. It means directly the glorification of Man as the creator of his own destiny. The dignity of Man lies in his power to act independently of the powers of blind nature within and without him. In the society in which this humanism spread, however, the power of self-determination is unequally distributed (ibid., 73).

But for Horkheimer the unequal distribution of the dignity of power for self-determination is not a reason to renounce humanism. The problem is, rather, social in character or, more concretely, a problem of bourgeois society. He thus establishes clearly in this essay that the cultural-critical view of the prevailing image of the human provides deep insight into social conditions: “The further the abstract concept of Man transfigured by humanism was removed from their real situation, the more the idealistic deification of Man, manifested in the concepts of greatness, genius, the gifted personality, the leader, and so on, conditioned the self-abasement, self-contempt of the concrete individual” (ibid.).4 These words make it clear that Horkheimer was not interested, as postmodernist, postcolonialist, or posthumanist discourses are, in blaming humanism for the atrocities committed in modernity, but in showing that humanism under the rule of capitalist modernity always remains the exclusive privilege of the elites. This does not mean that humanism is wrong, but that “bourgeois” or capitalist society is wrong. Not less humanism, but more, accompanied by equal access to its promises, would be the consequent reaction that follows upon this insight. This also means that it cannot be a matter of categorically condemning all human beings and hoping for a posthuman future but, on the contrary, of working on a conception of society in which all human beings can shine under the sun of humanist promises, though Horkheimer focused on one step before this: namely, the one he wanted to address through his work, which was to be devoted to the analysis of grievances and critique, focused

Max Horkheimer

73

essentially on understanding why so many people in the bourgeois world, which normatively invokes humanism, are plagued by a “sense of their absolute nothingness” (cf. ibid.). Abromeit recalls that the 1936 essay “Egoismus und Feiheitsbewegung” was not only highly praised by some of its readers—he names Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Henryk Grossman, Herbert Marcuse, and Karl Wittfogel—but also that Horkheimer himself considered this work particularly valuable (cf. Abromeit 2011, 261). Indeed, it can be argued that questions similar to those formulated at the end of the last paragraph appear time and again in Horkheimer’s work. Foremost among these we must mention Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944/1947), written with Adorno, which states, “What we had set before us was nothing less than the realization of why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism” (Horkheimer/Adorno 1990, 1). Pursuing this question, however, not only presupposes a commitment to humanism, but in effect makes this the normative reference point from which Horkheimer’s critical social research sought to be guided. It is precisely the connection between humanism and social research that is important here, because only in this way can humanism be brought back from the heights of empty abstraction to the ground of social reality. In this process, “abstract humanism” becomes an “active humanism” that works to achieve a more humane society (cf. Horkheimer 1988 [1938], 289). “Active humanism” in the sense of Horkheimer’s critical social research is thus always related to the concrete conditions of the society involved, which is subject to relentless criticism. Without this critical and practical reference to social reality, without critical social research, humanism would remain a “mere confession” (ibid., 290) and, hence, ideology. We have seen that humanistic culture is vulnerable and by no means safe from ideological abuse. Indeed, this was one of the key insights of Critical Theory. Horkheimer’s proposal of a practical, “active” actualization and appropriation of humanist culture, activated through critical social research, is to be understood as a response to the ideological abuse of humanistic ideas. It restores to humanism what has always been its essence: a critique of certain social circumstances under which human beings are deprived of their possibilities to develop a humanly dignified life. NOTES 1. This came to be understood later in other branches of philosophy (see: Löwith 1999 [1957]).

74

Chapter 2

2. As we will see below, Horkheimer also thought that cultural achievements, like humanism, must be seen against the background of the social achievement of the ideals deposited in them. 3. The sociologist Peter Wagner reached a similar conclusion. In his widely acclaimed Sociology of Modernity (1995), Wagner assumes that any understanding of modernity must remain unsatisfactory as long as it is limited either to progressist narratives or to those that radically reject such narratives. He thus proposes a “different narrative of modernity,” one in which modernity must be understood primarily as a social dynamic characterized by an internal tension generated between the two poles of “freedom” and “discipline.” While this understanding is similar to Horkheimer’s insofar as it assumes a tension at the core of modern society, Wagner refuses to attribute this ambivalence to the unequal distribution of roles and power in capitalist-modern societies. Hence, in his analysis, modernity appears as a civilizational movement that rules over people’s heads, as it were. In contrast to Horkheimer’s analysis, class conflict no longer plays a role in Wagner’s work. On the contrary, he gives class differences a culturalist turn when speaking of “class cultures” that exist alongside other offers of identity (cf. ibid., 234). 4. Once again, observations emerge that coincide with current critical appraisals of neoliberalism; for example, when Patrick Greiner refers to the cult of stardom (cf. Schreiner 2015).

REFERENCES Abromeit, John. 2011. Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of the Frankfurt School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Breuer, Stefan. 2016. „Anthropologie 3.0.“ In Stefan Breuer. 2016. Kritische Theorie. Schlüsselbegriffe, Kontroversen, Grenzen, 97–128. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Brown, Wendy. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books. Crouch, Colin. 2016. The Knowledge Corruptors. Hidden Consequences of the Financial Takeover of Public Life [EPub]. Cambridge/Malden: Polity Press. Delanty, Gerard. 2009. The Cosmopolitan Imagination. The Renewal of Critical Social Theory. Cambridge/New York et al.: Cambridge University Press. Dubiel, Helmut. 1978. Wissenschaftsorganisation und politische Erfahrung. Studien zur frühen Kritischen Theorie. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Foster, Hal, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. 2004. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. New York: Thames and Hudson. Foucault, Michel. 2002. The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London/New York: Routledge. Horkheimer, Max. 1985 [1957]. „Zum Begriff des Menschen.“ In Gesammelte Schriften, Band 7: Vorträge und Aufzeichnungen 1949–1973, 55–80. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer.

Max Horkheimer

75

Horkheimer, Max. 1988 [1935]. „Bemerkungen zur philosophischen Anthropologie.“ In Gesammelte Schriften, Band 3: Schriften 1931–1936, 249–76. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Horkheimer, Max. 1988 [1936]. „Egoismus und Freiheitsbewegung. Zur Anthropologie des bürgerlichen Zeitalters.“ In Max Horkheimer. 1988. Gesammelte Schriften, Band 4: Schriften 1936–1941, edited by Alfred Schmidt, 9–88, Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Horkheimer, Max. 1988 [1938]. „Montaigne und die Funktion der Skepsis.“ In Max Horkheimer. 1988. Gesammelte Schriften, Band 4: Schriften 1936–1941, edited by Alfred Schmidt, 236–94. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Horkheimer, Max. 1988 [1952]. „Humanismus nach Montaigne und die Funktion der Skepsis.“ In Max Horkheimer. 1988. Notizen, Gesammelte Schriften, Band 14: Nachgelassene Schriften 1949–1972, edited by Gunzelin Schmid-Noerr, 200–01. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Horkheimer, Max. 1989 [1958]. „Eröffnung der Ausstellung ‚The Family of Man— Wir Alle.‘“ In Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 13: Nachgelassene Schriften 1949–1972, edited by Günzelin Schmid Noerr, 30–37. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1990. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Jay, Martin. 2020. „Max Horkheimer and the Family of Man.“ In Jay Martin. 2020. Splinters in Your Eye. Frankfurt School Provocations [EPub], 126–66. London/New York: Verso. Löwith, Karl. 1990 [1957]. „Natur und Humanität des Menschen.“ In Karl Löwith. 1990. Der Mensch inmitten der Geschichte. Philosophische Bilanz des 20. Jahrhunderts, 171–206. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Schreiner, Patrick. 2015. Unterwerfung als Freiheit. Leben im Neoliberalismus. Köln: PapyRossa Verlag. Der Spiegel. February 5, 1968. Accessed April 4, 2020. https:​//​www​.spiegel​.de​/spiegel​/print​/d​-46135584​.html. Steichen, Edward. 1955. The Family of Man. New York: Museum of Modern Art/ Maco Magazine Corporation. Wagner, Peter. 1995. Soziologie der Moderne. Freiheit und Disziplin. Frankfurt/New York: Campus.

Chapter 3

Herbert Marcuse Humanism and the Primacy of Critical Social Theory

The status of Marx’s early writings in comparison to his later works has long been debated. In the context of this book, it is important to recall Louis Althusser’s objections, for today they not only evidence an attempt at correction in Western interpretations of Marx, but also a resumption, even reinforcing, of the anti-humanism that became increasingly popular after World War II (cf. Althusser 2005 [1965]; also: Geroulanos 2010). Althusser’s anti-humanist reading of Marx’s works seems to have stemmed primarily from a philological interest and revolved around the question of Ludwig Feuerbach’s influence on Marx’s thought. Pursuing this interest, Althusser wrote two books that attracted worldwide attention: For Marx (2005 [1965]) and Reading Capital (2015 [1965]). The motivations behind those works, as well as the concrete discursive contexts in which they operated, were highly complex and will not be traced in detail here. Of interest, however, is the aforementioned anti-humanism, which Althusser not only advocated vigorously, but actually imputed to Marx: Strictly in respect to theory, therefore, one can and must speak openly of Marx’s theoretical anti-humanism, and see in this theoretical anti-humanism the absolute (negative) precondition of the (positive) knowledge of the human world itself, and of its practical transformation. [. . .] So, any thought that appeals to Marx for any kind of restauration of a theoretical anthropology or humanism is no more than ashes, theoretically (Althusser 2005, 229–30).

Those who follow Althusser’s anti-humanism today, however, overlook the fact that he had to deal with a plethora of counterarguments. Among the most important opponents were Henri Lefebvre (1971), Edward P. Thompson (1978), and, above all, Lucien Sève (1969)1. Those who do not wish to 77

78

Chapter 3

engage in this debate could also try to reread Marx himself, as Werner Schmidt decided to do in a recent book that attests to a clear continuity in Marx’s thought of a “scientific anthropology,” insisting that this belongs to a “historical-materialist humanism” that, though striving to overcome a “philosophical” humanism, should by no means be understood as anti-humanism (cf. Schmidt 2020, 23). A third viable path seems to consist in refraining from addressing the philological question of the development of humanism in Marx’s work and inquiring, instead, into what those who followed Marx’s anthropology and humanism actually made of it. It is precisely this question that guides me in the following engagement with Herbert Marcuse’s Critical Theory. In this endeavor, I wish to show that Marcuse’s humanism is not only oriented toward Marx, but it possesses a critical potential that cannot be overlooked, especially vis-a-vis the tendencies to “abolish Man” (Tenbruck 1984) in our current societies. Polemically, one could claim that “theoretical anti-humanism” is here accompanied by a practical social-critical humanism that, moreover, complements Horkheimer’s “active humanism” (see chapter 2). Today, however, Marcuse is not necessarily seen as belonging to those representatives of the Frankfurt School who drew attention to themselves through new editions of their works or original attempts to update them. Rather, Marcuse is associated with the social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Especially during his time as a professor of philosophy at the University of California–San Diego, he not only supported the political and social struggles of his students, but he soon became an icon of student movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Clearly, though, Marcuse’s political engagement cannot be separated from his theoretical interests. While it may be true that he did not give the “student movement a chance” to “have a socially intervening effect” (Schweppenhäuser 2000, 14), he seemed to have seen in it a promise that Critical Theory could not lose sight of. The elder philosopher’s closing of ranks with the rebellious youth of the 1960s was definitely not the result of shared lifestyle; more than anything, it was the consequence of a certain understanding of Critical Theory, a tradition Marcuse himself helped establish. Although today Horkheimer’s 1937 essay, “Traditionale und kritische Theorie” (“Traditional and Critical Theory”), is often cited when it comes to identifying something like a programmatic starting point of Critical Theory, we should not forget that Marcuse also published his article “Philosophy and Critical Theory” (“Philosophie und kritische Theorie,” here: Marcuse 2011) in the same year in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, with a preface by Horkheimer. It would, then, hardly be an exaggeration to claim that Horkheimer’s text must be read in conjunction with Marcuse’s essay if one’s aim is to fully understand the original outline of Critical Theory.

Herbert Marcuse

79

The overriding interest in Marcuse as a public figure often thwarts efforts to elaborate more serious examinations of his theory. In fact, the philosophical foundations of his thought are rarely perceived in views on his later works, which are often assumed to be of a popular-scientific character. A few years ago, however, the Spanish philosopher José Manuel Romero Cuevas attempted to bring those foundations to the fore (see Romero Cuevas 2010). His strategy was to refrain from examining Marcuse’s later work and, instead, delve into his earlier writings, which articulate issues that can still be of interest today in terms of social theory and social philosophy. Above all, Romero Cuevas focused on the connections among Marxism, phenomenology, and, especially, Heidegger’s critique of modernity. His book showed that as early as the 1920s, Marcuse sympathized with the critique of “orthodox Marxism,” which at that time found prominent expression in Karl Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy (cf. Korsch 1923), but was also influenced by Georg Lukács’s Society and Class Consciousness, a critique ignited primarily by the recognition of the oblivion of the philosophy in Marxism that paved the way for a worldview that was becoming increasingly scientistic. By joining this criticism, Marcuse sought to redeem his claim to a “critical” theory that should be conceived in a way that incorporates concrete political action (cf. Romero Cuevas 2010, 25–26). While in the 1920s Marcuse still believed firmly that Marxism should be understood as a theory characterized by its sensitivity to the “pre-theoretical” forms of political and social action, he also thought it tended toward abstraction. In the “new” philosophies of the time (Husserl’s phenomenology but, especially, Heidegger’s existentialism), Marcuse believed he had discovered the possibility of thinking “historicity” more concretely. If one compares those early philosophical interests of the young Marcuse with his later works, it soon becomes apparent that his philosophical-theoretical foundations changed to some extent. His turning away from phenomenology and Heidegger must be mentioned, but also his turning toward Freud. In practical-political terms, however, Marcuse has remained amazingly true to himself over the years. His reference to the emancipation and civil rights movements of the 1960s does not reflect some kind of paternalistic opportunism but, in fact, follows a basic theoretical-practical conviction that he sustained unwaveringly, and which the political scientist Norbert Lechner summarized in the following two words in an obituary of Marcuse published in Spanish after his death in 1979: “critique” and “utopia” (Lechner 2012 [1980]). In what follows, I focus on this continuity in Marcuse’s thought, for it is essential to understand his normative orientation, which can be understood as an unbroken form of anthropologically oriented thought. I will argue that this anthropology is informed by Marx and is rooted in a humanism that also

80

Chapter 3

follows Marx, although Marcuse’s critical humanism professes the primacy of critical social research that is oriented toward a critical social theory. MARCUSE’S “NEW FOUNDATIONS OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM” In his doctoral dissertation, Jóhann Páll Árnason stated that a reading of Marcuse’s work not only leads to a return to Marx, but also reveals a crucial anthropological claim in the process (cf. Árnason 1971). An important event in this context is the discovery of some of Marx’s key texts, among which the so-called Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 should be highlighted for our purposes. The important influence on the understanding of Marxism the discovery of these writings had in the early 1930s, especially in Western Europe, can hardly be underestimated. In order to classify Marcuse’s enthusiasm for the “Manuscripts,” it is admittedly helpful to recall that his interest in Marx began during World War I, a time when he saw Marx primarily as a revolutionary theorist. Through his reading of Marx, Marcuse sought explanations for the failed revolution in Germany after that conflagration. As mentioned at the outset, he later found important inspiration in Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness (1923) and Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy (1923). As we have seen, those two texts gave rise to a new orientation within Marxism in the 1920s, one that sought to emancipate itself from an increasingly dogmatic interpretation that focused on a one-sided economistic worldview. Thanks to the discovery of those hitherto-unknown early writings by Marx, it became possible to focus more on “philosophical” issues. In this context, Marcuse’s first published article of 1928, entitled “Contributions to a Phenomenology of Historical Materialism” (Beiträge zu einer Phänomenologie des Historischen Materialismus),2 is interesting, since the young philosopher, who would continue his studies with Heidegger in Freiburg a year later, announced there his intention to build a bridge between Heidegger’s phenomenological existentialism and Marxism (cf. Kellner/ Pierce 2014, 14). In his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx situates himself, interestingly, in a context that seems to have fueled current discussions oriented around the following question: How can it be that there is so much talk about the value of the human being when, at the same time, he is so blatantly disregarded? Marx’s response to this contradiction was quite original: instead of distancing himself from humanism, or even renouncing it altogether, his early writings provide a good example of how humanism can be updated in the face of newer social developments.

Herbert Marcuse

81

Marx perceived the particularity of these newer social conditions primarily as the decoupling of “labor,” “capital,” and “landed property” (Marx 1968, 511). In this light, it is remarkable that Marx wrote the following: “With the valorization of the world of things, the devaluation of the world of Men increases in direct proportion. Labor not only produces commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity, in the relation in which it produces above all commodities” (Marx 1968, 512). Much has been written about the commodity character of labor and the human type of the worker ever since, but Marx’s manuscripts are illuminating in this respect, for they go beyond recognizing the commodity character of labor to attempt to shed light on why this situation is so problematic for all human beings. In other words, for Marx what lay behind the economic conditions were, ultimately, their severe consequences for human life as such. It was precisely this humanistic thought in Marx that drew Marcuse’s attention and motivated him to write a detailed review as early as 1932, immediately after the Paris Manuscripts came to light. That essay, entitled “New Foundations of Historical Materialism,” appeared in the social democratic journal Gesellschaft and expressed Marcuse’s enthusiasm in the very first sentence: “The publication of Marx’ 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts [. . .] must become a decisive event in research on Marx. These manuscripts could place the discussion of the origins and original meaning of Historical Materialism, indeed of the whole theory of ‘scientific socialism,’ on new ground” (Marcuse 1932, 136). At that point, Marcuse seemed to have found in Marx himself the philosophical foundation he had been seeking in other authors. The role of philosophy is, therefore, central for Marcuse because the “expulsion and elaboration of the concepts comprehending human beings and essence is the business of philosophy” (ibid., 144). Marcuse is concerned here—as he was in his already-mentioned essay written in 1937—with showing that philosophy is not a specialized science alongside others, but that it justifies its own outstanding position by addressing anthropological questions. From Marcuse’s point of view, one could say that Marxism had finally come to its own philosophy through the discovery of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts. Even if there should be no doubt that the discovery of the Manuscripts and the deeper look into the thinking of the young Marx was a theoretically and, especially, philosophically important event, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the different interpretations of Marx’s work always had political consequences or were politically instrumentalized (cf. Kellner/Pierce 2014, 26). Those who, like Lukács, Korsch, or Marcuse, were interested in a “more philosophical Marx” also wanted to make a point against an increasingly bureaucratically truncated form of socialism.

82

Chapter 3

Marcuse, of course, never renounced his “practical-revolutionary” claim, the background to his reading of Marx, as he continued to ponder an “overthrow of capitalist society by the economically and politically struggling proletariat” (Marcuse 1932, 137), and he believed that Marx would be misunderstood if people failed to see that only a “certain philosophical [. . .] interpretation of the human essence and its historical realization” made the economic-political basis of his theory of revolution comprehensible (ibid.). The Manuscripts would thus always be related to the theory and practice of revolution and be understood in their theoretical status as a kind of “practical theory”: the envisaged revolution cannot be satisfied with achieving structural changes in institutions but must be a “revolution of the whole history” and of “human life” itself (ibid., 138). It is precisely against this background that criticism should focus on the critique of “economics” (Nationalökonomie). Here, one might ask why the critique of this particular scientific discipline should be so important, even be placed above philosophical interests. Marcuse explains that in bourgeois society, the task of economics is to justify or “cover up” the “total [. . .] ‘alienation’ and ‘devaluation’ of human reality” (cf. 138). “Economics” is an essential element of ideology in capitalist societies that has an impact far beyond that of an economic science oriented toward the current academic division of labor. Marcuse makes this especially clear at the point in his essay where he uses Marx’s reconstruction of economic facts (the separation of the means of production from the product that has become a commodity, the weighing of the labor wage against the “physical subsistence minimum,” the “analysis of alienated labor” and, as a correlate, “private property,” etc. [cf. 139–40]) to move his readers to reflect on relations that have become self-evident in our times. Immediately afterward, however, he makes clear how Marx breaks through the self-evident nature of economic facts by asking, simply, what effects they have on human life: “But if we take a closer look at the characteristics of alienated labor, something strange becomes apparent: what is characterized is not only an economic fact but an alienation of Man, a devaluation of life, a reversal and loss of human reality” (ibid., 140). Shortly thereafter, Marcuse summarized: “It is, therefore, a matter of a state of affairs concerning Man as Man (and not only as a worker, economic subject, and the like), a happening not only in economic history but in the history of the human being and his reality” (ibid.). What must have convinced Marcuse, then, about Marx’s Manuscripts was their ability to (i) reconnect the economic reality that determines our societies to questions that are philosophical in nature, and especially to issues concerning the human being, and (ii) articulate a critique in these terms: “Precisely because bourgeois economics does not have the essence of Man and his history in view, being thus in the deepest sense not a

Herbert Marcuse

83

‘science of Man’ but of the inhuman being and of an inhuman world of things and commodities, precisely for this reason it must be turned upside down by critique [for] it does not come to see its real object, Man, at all” (ibid., 141). When we set these words against the background of the current neoliberal tendency toward the “abolition of Man” (Tenbruck 1984; see: chapter 1), even in the sciences that see themselves as critical, we can only guess how much further this development must have been driven, but also how much weaker resistance has become. In any case, Marcuse’s words sound like those of someone who has suddenly seen the light after a long period of darkness. It is not just about economics—Marcuse here resolutely turns against the reproach of economicism, which has been repeatedly related to Marxian thinking—but about “human reality” (Marcuse 1932, 142). But if Marx’s writings shatter the economistic image of human beings like bludgeoned glass, the question arises as to what emerges behind it. In this context, Marcuse does not shy away from moving the concept of humanism to the forefront, the same concept Marx used in the context of the idea of “positive communism.” This concession to humanism thus does not manifest a metaphysical idea of the human being but, rather, leads to a conception of social realization and the practical appropriation of nature.3 Against this backdrop, the key to understanding the concept of alienation lies in a relational idea of human existence that is encoded in a double way. On the one hand, it results from the social world of reference; on the other, from human beings’ relation to nature. The latter is not prefigured by the “domination” of nature, neither for Marcuse nor for Marcuse’s Marx. Crucial in this context is Marx’s understanding that the human being is a “species being” (Gattungswesen), a term Marx employed in an effort to clarify that the human being is “not only a natural being, but [. . .] a human natural being”; that is, a “being that exists for himself and, therefore, a species being. As such, he must confirm himself and act accordingly in both [aspects]: his being and his knowledge” (Marx 1968, 579). This means two things: first, the human being is a creature “that has the ‘species’ (its own and that of other beings) as its object” (Marcuse 1932, 147); second, thanks to this determination, humans can behave precisely toward themselves and other species, and do so reflexively. This does not in any way imply an imperative to develop mastery over non–human beings or objects, but a kind of appropriation that for Marx found its realization in the process of non-alienated labor. Once again, we must emphasize that in drawing attention to this kind of connection between humans and nature, Marcuse—and Marx before him— do not assume the exploitation of nature by humans. Appropriating nature is not equivalent to dominating it, but rather, it is to be understood as a reciprocal process in which the nature of humans is objectified by acting back into nature. Marcuse writes: “Wherever nature is encountered in the history of

84

Chapter 3

Man, it is ‘human nature,’ while Man for his part is always already ‘human nature’” (ibid., 148; italics in the original). Understanding human beings as “species being” (Gattungswesen) does not mean they enclose themselves in their own being, but that they are conscious not only of themselves, but also of the “other.” The human being does not act in nature through claims of mastery, but with a yearning for a kind of connectedness. By already paradigmatically understanding this process as labor, Marx also clarified that labor is not driven by material needs, but by the desire for “objectification”; that is, human “realization” in nature. And since the process of work is not only an action of the individual human being but always bears within itself, as well, the human being in general, it can also be said that “just as he has realized himself in the object of his work, so he becomes Man” (ibid., 153). Finally, the following idea, also expressed in Marx’s writings, anticipates an essential understanding of Marcuse: the idea that non-alienated labor follows not only the criterion of freedom but also that of beauty. Marx writes: “The animal forms (formiert) only according to the measure and need of the species to which it belongs, while Man knows how to produce according to the measure of every species and everywhere knows how to apply the inherent measure to the respective object; Man, therefore also forms according to the laws of beauty” (cf. Marx 1968, 517). These considerations emerged early on for Marcuse, yet he would remain committed throughout his work to an anthropological and humanistic basis of his thinking. I now propose following this commitment into different stations of his thinking. In doing so, I will primarily address his understanding of critical theory and social criticism. “PHILOSOPHY AND CRITICAL THEORY” Five years after his essay on Marx appeared, Marcuse published “Philosophy and Critical Theory.”4 As mentioned above, it appeared alongside Horkheimer’s legendary paper, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” published in the same year and one of the undisputed foundational texts of Critical Theory, with which the Institute for Social Research (IfS), directed by Horkheimer (by that time operating out of New York City), completed the programmatic shape of that theory. Because of that coincidence in time, Marcuse’s text is often lost from sight. Just how closely these two texts belong together, however, is made clear by the fact that Horkheimer wrote a kind of introduction to Marcuse’s essay, in which he once again emphasized what Critical Theory is supposed to be about: “The critical theory of society [. . .] has as its object

Herbert Marcuse

85

human beings as the producers of their entire historical life forms,” he wrote (Horkheimer 1937, 625). Clearly arguing anthropologically, he added: “What is given in each case does not depend solely on nature, but also on what Man is capable of doing” (ibid.). For this reason, the critique of Critical Theory has always been directed at conventional attempts at explanation, as they began to prevail in the social sciences and humanities. Horkheimer was particularly concerned with the “economism to which Critical Theory is in some places reduced” (ibid., 629). Thus, by “critical theory,” he does not mean his own project, but a Marxist theory in general. The “critique of critique” (cf. Henning 2020) that Horkheimer alludes to here, however, was primarily directed at those who read Marx too one-sidedly—that is, only from the perspective of Das Kapital. What was lost from sight thereby was the “meaning aiming at the whole” that disappeared through the “focus on limited phenomena” (Horkheimer 1937, 629). While this was by no means a distraction from the analysis of economic conditions, Horkheimer clearly observed a tendency to “narrow” the view to purely economic facts. Thus, a “critical theory” of whatever size or shape must be concerned, especially, to include the “entire social life of human beings” in the analysis. The problem of what is produced, and how, whether relatively fixed groups with special interests exist, if social differences are fixed or [can] deepen, as well as the active relation of the individual to the government, the relation of all decisive administrative acts that affect the individual’s knowledge and will, the dependence of all conditions controllable by Man on a real agreement; in short, the degree of development of the essential moments of real democracy and association, all these belong to the content of the concept of socialization (ibid., 629–30).

Consequently, they must not be overlooked. Against this background of the goal of Critical Theory, which Horkheimer spelled out succinctly in this short text—namely, to push for the “indissoluble moment of the historical effort to create a world that satisfies the needs and forces of Man” and ultimately unequivocally advocates the “emancipation of Man” (ibid., 630)—a special kind of philosophy becomes necessary, one that pursues the vision of “a reasonable society,” the possibility of which Horkheimer considered inherent in human beings. This philosophy shares with idealism the insight of transcendence; that is, the possibility to go beyond given things and facts. At the same time, however, it must guard against “retreating from concrete economic and social analyses into empty, unrelated categories” (ibid.). Horkheimer ends his introduction to Marcuse’s essay with the following words: “Philosophy that thinks it can find rest in itself, in some truth, therefore has nothing to do with

86

Chapter 3

critical theory” (ibid., 631). This spins the thread that Marcuse picked up in his essay with the minimalist heading “Philosophy and Critical Theory.” Marcuse seems to have perceived his task as defining the role of philosophy in the program of Critical Theory. In doing so, he begins with an assessment of philosophy in the context of social and cultural constellations. Although philosophy had been considered something like the “most advanced form of consciousness” as late as the 1830s and 1840s, it was true that contemporary conditions of society had lagged far behind the degree of reason expressed in it. For Marcuse, however, this contradiction cannot be explained by the fact that social processes had not yet reached the goals set by philosophy. The problem lay, rather, in the self-understanding of philosophy, which failed to adequately comprehend the forces at work in society. Recognizing this was the merit that Marcuse attributed to Critical Theory, for it succeeded in identifying the “economic conditions” that were responsible for the existing social conditions. At the same time, however, he leaves no doubt that recognition of the social conditions should not lead, as many currents of Marxism believed, to an economicism that considered only one aspect of human reality. Quite decisively, he makes the case that his conception of Critical Theory was, once again, about the “whole of Man” (Marcuse 2011, 102), adding that “Critical Theory is driven by a concern for the happiness of human beings.” This motivation, however, compels the insight that this happiness depends on the “material conditions of existence” (ibid.). The task of a Critical Theory of society, then, would consist in orienting the analysis of existing “economic and political conditions” such that their transformation toward a happier frame of human existence would be “mapped out.” But the steps that could lead to change can only be achieved in practice; that is, they require going beyond theory (cf. ibid., 103). At this point, Marcuse uncompromisingly draws attention to the fact that what his theory claims is far from modest since, when all is said and done, a connection exists between theory and the concrete transformation of society. Significantly, this also means that theory is never an end in itself. As we can see, the consistent connection between theory and practice was always of special concern for Marcuse. Based on the foregoing, it also follows that theory and philosophy lose their justification at the moment when social forces concretely succeed in bringing about a free, rational society. This, in turn, means that “When reason—precisely as the reasonable organization of mankind—has been achieved, philosophy is left without an object, for philosophy, as long as it is more than just another program within the given academic division of labor, has hitherto survived based on the fact that reason was not yet a reality” (ibid., 103). Once again, theory or philosophy is not a kind of retreat where the world still seems to be in order, but always a reflexive practice within the

Herbert Marcuse

87

social world that must remind us this world has not yet become a world for human beings. By reconstructing the meaning of reason in idealist philosophy, Marcuse also illustrates the extent to which this core philosophical concept undermines the possibility of creating a more reasonable world, precisely because it does not push to be implemented in social reality, instead allowing itself to be socially neutralized, as it were, in purely philosophical practice. Only the rupture from the idealistic tradition of thought can liberate this concept and allow us to reawaken the hope for a reasonable world. The decisive factor here is the desired goal, which is: “creating a social order in which individuals jointly regulate their lives according to their needs” (ibid., 109). This also outlines the task of Critical Theory, distinguished from idealistic philosophy by its materialistic claim to, ultimately, always put the “needs” of people first. “Materialist protest and materialist critique grow up in the struggle of oppressed groups for better living conditions, and remain permanently connected with the factual course of this struggle” (ibid.). This also means that Critical Theory replaces philosophy in that it is not concerned with preserving an idea of reason, but with demonstrating that the social conditions of human life can—indeed, must—become reasonable; that is, “the philosophical ideal, the better world, and true being enter into the practical goals of human beings,” and so acquire a “human content” (ibid., 110). Critical theory, then, is not about storing reason in a sterile abstract space, but about “constructing” the human possibilities of a more tolerable, humane society (ibid., 111). This “constructive” aspect of Critical Theory is particularly important to Marcuse, although it does not mean that theory should dictate what a better society should look like; rather, it is about suggesting “better possibilities” by pointing out “bad facticity.” In my understanding of Marcuse, I perceive that he was not concerned only with imposing the ideals that had coagulated into philosophy (reason and freedom, but also happiness), but that he was also, perhaps even primarily, concerned with human beings obtaining the possibility to, once again, experience themselves as human beings. Marcuse’s Critical Theory could thus also be understood to mean that critique is tied to an image of humanity that holds that people are not only to be understood “as bearers of labor power, of useful functions in the exploitation process of capital,” but they can discover themselves in their “full humanity” (ibid., 118–119). To understand the role of Critical Theory in this context, I now turn to a discussion of Marcuse’s understanding of culture.

88

Chapter 3

HUMANIZATION THROUGH CULTURE The concept of culture plays a central role in Marcuse’s Critical Theory. In an anthropological, or humanistic, reading of his work, however, culture emerges as important because he conceived it as playing a major role in the “process” of humanization. In his essay, “Remarks on a Redefinition of Culture,”5 he wrote: Culture is more than mere ideology. Given the declared aims of Western civilization and the claims to realize them, we would define culture as a process of humanization characterized by the collective effort to preserve human life, to pacify the struggle for existence, or maintain it within controllable limits, to consolidate a productive organization of society, to develop the mental faculties of Man, and to reduce and sublimate aggression, violence, and misery (Marcuse 1968, 148; italics in original).

As this citation makes clear, Marcuse thought of culture as a structural phenomenon of the organization of human life endowed with clear normative claims. “Humanization” means meeting these normative claims. At the same time, he attributed the fact that normative goals are not realized in our societies to cultural problems. Marcuse had addressed this topic systematically as far back as the 1930s. Those reflections found a first expression in the essay “On the Affirmative Character of Culture,” which appeared also in 1937 in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. Here it seems, initially, as if Marcuse set out from a rather elitist concept of culture that, according to his understanding, was already indicated in ancient philosophy; namely, where Aristotle spoke of a separation between the “expedient and necessary” on the one hand and the “beautiful” and “enjoyment” on the other (cf. Marcuse 2011b, 56). Marcuse believed he had detected, in this early thought, a setting of the course that anticipates the later—especially in observable “bourgeois society”—“immobilization of happiness and the spirit in a reserved area of ‘culture’” (ibid., 57). To refer to the realm of the necessary, Marcuse also uses the term civilization. In doing so, he follows a distinction between “civilization” and “culture” found, typically and above all, in a German intellectual tradition that is not free of prejudice. Although he claims that civilization should be “animated by culture” (ibid., 62), in bourgeois society these two spheres have been broken apart irreconcilably. Out of that movement arose the concept of culture he calls “affirmative culture”: By affirmative culture is to be understood the culture that belongs to the bourgeois epoch, which in the course of its own development has led to the

Herbert Marcuse

89

detachment of the spiritual-psychological world from civilization as an independent realm of value and to its elevation above all else. Its decisive trait is the assertion of a general obligatory, eternally better, more valuable world that must be affirmed, and which is essentially different from the actual world of the everyday struggle for existence, and in which, however, every individual can realize himself ‘from within’ without changing the actual world (ibid., 63).

Now, what is significant for our context is that the realm of “affirmative culture,” which appears detached from the sphere of “necessity,” is also the domain in which the idea of humanity as “pure humanity” wishes to perceive itself: “With its idea of pure humanity, affirmative culture has taken up the historical demand for the general liberation of the individual,” Marcuse writes, citing Herder in this context (cf. ibid., 69). As might be expected, however, he goes beyond Herder and the “bourgeois” tradition of humanism by clarifying that this tradition is an “educational” program designed to make bearable that great shock reproduced in everyday life: on the one hand, the constant preaching of the indispensable freedom, greatness, and dignity of the person, of the glory and autonomy of reason, of the goodness of humanity, and of indiscriminate human love and justice, and, on the other, the general degradation of the greater part of humanity, the irrationality of the process of social life, the victory of the labor market over humanity, [and] of profit over human love (ibid., 89–90).

Marcuse concludes the great achievement that “affirmative culture” represents for bourgeois society consists in suggesting to people that “they can feel happy even if they are not” (cf. Marcuse 2011b, 90). We will come across this motif—the attempt to convict classical humanism of its detachment from reality—quite often in the following pages. But this also explains how it is possible that a society that affords itself a humanistic culture in the sense of an “affirmative culture” is capable of the most scathing inhumanities. As long as the beautiful, the true, freedom and justice, “pure humanity” are concentrated in only a small reserve, the illusion that these values determine society continues to exist, though it is never capable of fully suppressing real inhumanities. The thrust for emancipation is thus countered by the illusion of “pure humanity,” a situation, as we have seen, that is characteristic as well of our neoliberal societies (see chapter 1). Using the example of the person, Marcuse makes it clear how this problem can be understood by arguing that the person internalizes culture without reflecting it outward toward society: “The person is now no longer a springboard for the attack on the world, but a protected line of retreat behind the front. In its inwardness, as a moral person, it is the only secure possession

90

Chapter 3

that the individual cannot lose. It is the source no longer of conquest but of renunciation” (ibid. 92). The ambivalence of “affirmative culture,” Marcuse continues, is that it knows the values of “pure humanity” but cannot transmit them to society. Therefore, “affirmative culture” is in league with the status quo, instead of posing a challenge to it. Marcuse paints the picture of a weakened humanism that provides a conception of happiness to the individual, but at the same time reproduces the social conditions that counteract this happiness, leading the individual to simply learn to accept them with indifference. Of course, even this text, written in exile, cannot be separated from the historical experiences that must have shaped it. But anyone who wishes to understand Marcuse’s ideas about the contribution of culture to the liberation of humanity from the constraints of a dehumanizing social reality must also read an essay that appeared almost three decades later. As we will see, it is no longer society as it presented itself in the totalitarian systems of the 1930s and 1940s that ignites Marcuse’s criticism, but a new type of society, the prototype of which he experienced in the United States, and which he called “affluent society” or “highly developed industrial society” (cf. Marcuse 2015 [1968]). This society could be understood in its completion as a precondition of neoliberal society. We will deal with Marcuse’s social critique in more detail in the following section; here we shall only anticipate his critique of the process of cultural humanization in the 1960s, which appears to have been enriched by some insights that seem to be of central importance even today. The importance of this critique becomes clear when we read the following sentence, which Marcuse uttered at a famous lecture he delivered in London in 1967: “Now, as to today and our own situation. I think we are faced with a novel situation in history because today we have to be liberated from a relatively well-functioning, rich, powerful society. I am speaking here about liberation from the affluent society; that is to say, the advanced industrial societies” (ibid., 414–15). A little later in the same lecture, Marcuse explains this more precisely: It is a society in which, as I mentioned, the material, as well as cultural, needs of the underlying population are satisfied on a scale larger than ever before—but they are satisfied in line with the requirements and interests of the apparatus and of the powers which control the apparatus. And it is a society growing on the condition of accelerating waste, planned obsolescence, and destruction, while the substratum of the population continues to live in poverty and misery (ibid., 425–26).

Marcuse further raises the question of whether people should have to liberate themselves at all in such a society. We will try to do justice to this issue, as

Herbert Marcuse

91

well, in the next section, but in this regard, we can anticipate that Marcuse observes, in conjunction with the historically incomparable satisfaction of material and cultural needs, an equally enormous increase in the concentration of material and political power—perhaps even more evident today than in the 1960s—that ultimately leads to a distorted process of humanization: “The result is a mutilated, crippled, and frustrated human existence: a human existence that is violently defending its own servitude” (ibid., 430). Yet Marcuse’s reflections on culture, in the 1960s in particular, signal more hope than those made three decades earlier, for his works now at least allow the possibility of a “redefinition” of culture to shimmer through (cf. Marcuse 1968). The main point here is to position and strengthen the “cultural values” deposited in culture against civilization: the “realm of freedom” against the “realm of necessity,” against “non-operational thinking,” and so on (cf. ibid., 150). And it is ultimately a matter of envisaging “a new culture [. . .] that fulfills the humanistic promise” (Marcuse 1969, 24). This demand, however, may not sound so spectacular today. Hasn’t cultural freedom long since been established in our “permissive societies” with freedoms and liberties that seemed unthinkable just a few decades ago? But for Marcuse, the problems lay deeper. Just as material, or a certain cultural, satisfaction of needs was insufficient to sustain the prospect of a qualitative change in our societies, the shift toward superficial cultural possibilities would also fall far short of being sufficient to generate real change. Repeatedly in the spirit of Marxian theory, Marcuse foregrounds the question of the relations between humans and the world, between “Man” and “Nature.” In doing so, he concludes that, despite all these superficial freedoms, ours “is still a society in which the subjugation of nature takes place through the subjugation of Man, the exploitation of natural and spiritual resources through the exploitation of Man” (Marcuse 1968, 165). Here, aesthetics is thus referred to in its original meaning. Before it was primarily concerned with questions of beauty and taste, it generally referred to the preoccupation with “sensual perception” and thus the cognitive component of human relations with nature. Marcuse’s interest in aesthetics thus always already connects questions about the relationship of humans to nature and other humans with the question of beauty. In doing so, similar to many current debates, he indicts the “subjugation” of nature. Unlike many current debates, however, Marcuse repeatedly insists that the subjugation of nature entails the subjugation of human beings. And if humans are responsible for the destruction of nature, then human emancipation must also be in the interest of nature. Marcuse’s humanism is thus convinced, despite the insight into the problems of culture in our societies in which humanism is ultimately suspended, that this is a cultural achievement that must not be abandoned. The question

92

Chapter 3

that Marcuse poses is how this culture of humanism can be reactivated in our societies. It is against this background that the following sentence—taken from Marcuse’s lecture in London quoted above—must be understood: “I am very happy to see so many flowers here and that is why I want to remind you that flowers, by themselves, have no power whatsoever, other than the power of men and women who protect them and take care of them against aggression and destruction” (Marcuse 2015, 412). The tendency to abjure a culture of humanism and, above all, humanity, would not have been an option for Marcuse. On the contrary, his Critical Theory inquires, first and foremost, into the quality of human life in our societies. The key to changing things, however, lies in changing social conditions. Nick Stevenson recently summarized this point: “An emancipated society would mutually liberate human beings and the natural world” (Stevenson 2021, 217). A fundamental change in society is, therefore, a prerequisite even if we wish to place nature, earth, or the climate first. The intrinsic relation among social structures, culture, and the quality of human existence is the thematic thread that holds the fabric of Marcuse’s social critique together in his book One-Dimensional Man, published in 1964, as I seek to demonstrate in the following section. FROM PHILOSOPHY TO CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY The question of how Marcuse now brings together the various threads of his Critical Theory has a clear answer: they converge in a Critical Theory of society expressed in One-Dimensional Man, though prepared in earlier works. Most notable in this context is Reason and Revolution, published already in 1941. There, based on extensive studies of Hegel, Marcuse develops the idea that the need for social theory imposed itself as a consequence of the “end of philosophy,” which he sought to understand, at the same time, as the “realization of philosophy,” or the “realization of Man” (Marcuse 2004, 232). At some point, Marcuse discovered this necessary transition from philosophy to social theory in Marx. He wrote that, “Turning philosophy on its head” can be accomplished, especially if one follows Hegel, only through critical social theory. But this movement did not remain a purely intellectual mission. Referring again to Marx, and following his utopian claims, Marcuse insisted that the overcoming of philosophy must coincide with a social dynamic, for it was ultimately the work of a social force; namely, the proletariat that opposed the reason coagulated in philosophy because it was deprived of “the human possibilities” it held out as prospects. Marcuse quotes Marx here: the proletariat rather “represents the complete loss of the human being” (ibid., 231): “The philosophical structures had hitherto harbored ‘truth’ by detaching

Herbert Marcuse

93

it from the historical struggle of Men, in the form of an epitome of abstract, transcendental principles” (ibid., 232). Only, however, if the real dynamic of the “historical struggle” of liberation is recovered can “Man’s emancipation become his work, the goal of his self-conscious practice” (ibid.). To put this bluntly: the solution of the basic problem that Marcuse assumes for modern societies cannot be solved philosophically. On the contrary, only by overcoming philosophy can emancipation movements also free themselves from the alienation of the “affirmative culture” to which philosophy belongs. This cultural alienation ultimately reflects the alienation that characterizes the labor process: “The worker, alienated from his product, is at the same time alienated from himself. His labor itself is no longer his own. The fact that it becomes the property of another betrays an alienation that touches the inner essence of Man” (ibid., 245). The problem of capitalism, then, is not a purely economic one. Rather, it has a profound effect on the possibility of the realization of humanity. Marcuse summarizes this as follows: “Marx’ analysis of labor under capitalism is thus more profound; it goes further, from the structure of economic relations to the actual human content” (ibid., 246). This analysis of the problem again reveals clearly that it goes far beyond the possibilities of philosophy. Consequently, the aim is not to develop a new philosophy, but to make a radical, consistent turn from philosophy to a critical social theory. What is meant here is a “theory of the consciousness of a practice that aims to change the world” (ibid., 282). But not even changing the world represents an ultimate goal for Marcuse. What he was concerned with, when all is said and done—he repeatedly draws attention to this in all its clarity—is generating a more humane society, a process that entails not only a critical analysis of the conditions that thwart such a society but, as a critical social theory, is made possible in the first place only by holding up this thoroughly humanistic goal. In his 1941 book, Marcuse was still thinking in terms of class struggle, even though he might no longer have believed in it. But this explains the high value he assigns to the proletariat. This adherence to outdated categories is also due to the fact that the idea of a new type of capitalism does not seem to have materialized in his writings around that time, though this had clearly changed some twenty years later in One-Dimensional Man, which focuses strictly on these issues. Marcuse makes clear at the beginning of this book not only that the claim of critique is to be unmistakably central, but also that the matter of critique seemed to be in crisis in the early 1960s. Thus, the title of the “Preface” is “The paralysis of criticism: a society without opposition” (2014 [1964], 11). The idea that in the late 1960s oppositional forces should still be as badly off as this title suggests is something Marcuse might not have affirmed with the same degree of certainty. His constant search for signs of utopian potential

94

Chapter 3

had, at least in the meantime, sparked the hope that the protest movements of those years might initiate a qualitative social upheaval. But they did not, nevertheless, persuade him to renounce his more critical view. Marcuse’s social diagnosis was deeply shaped by his experiences in the United States. It was in postwar US society that he perceived the prototype of the “affluent society,” the “advanced industrial society,” after World War II. What struck him most about this new type of society was a glaring contradiction: people are faced, on the one hand, with the absolute destructive potential of atomic weapons; on the other, with a historically unique increase in material prosperity. Marcuse suspects a structural connection here: “If we try to relate the causes of danger to the way society is organized and how it organizes its members, we immediately confront the fact that advanced industrial society becomes richer, bigger, and better by perpetuating danger” (ibid.). It is precisely from this tension that justification strategies derive, strategies that not only give this new type of society enormous stability, but also make it appear rational. In this context, Marcuse recognizes the central function of the mass media and explains: “Under these circumstances, it is not difficult for our mass media to sell particular interests as those of all reasonable people. The political needs of society become industrial needs and desires, their satisfaction promotes business and the common good, and the whole appears as the pure embodiment of reason” (ibid.). Whoever reads this sentence today, some sixty years later, cannot overlook the coincidences with what today can be observed. Is it not still the media that, in conjunction with big business and politics, prepare interests and “needs” in such a way that they appear to be the interests, needs, and values of all? And is it not still sporadically changing crises, similar to those of the 1960s, that determine the needs of people in our societies? In this light, today’s “climate crisis” could serve as an example of how crises are used to deeply affect the ways in which people structure their needs and consequently their lives (see Keucheyan 2017). This is not to minimize the problem of climate change, but we cannot ignore that its need-generating potential plays into the hands of some of the most powerful industries in our world—for example, the automotive industry—by opening the possibility of a veritable reboot that will irrevocably stimulate the desire to purchase a vehicle with non-fossil-fuelpropulsion technology in the medium or long term. This situation is similar to other “climate-friendly” or supposedly “CO2-free” technologies and products. Hence, it would hardly be an exaggeration to see the “climate crisis” as a massive boost for production that will generate enormous markets under the label of the “green economy.” For our context, however, it is crucial to recognize that Marcuse also focused on the question of needs in his analysis of society because this results from a decision that is both conceptual and content-related: on a conceptual

Herbert Marcuse

95

level, he defines the sociocultural reality of human existence at the interface with “nature,” for needs are not purely intellectual or cultural, but they result, above all, from the biological-material constitution of human bodies. Thus, Marcuse follows the claim of a materialist social theory, which also connects to his anthropological concern, taken from Marx, to which we referred above. According to this view, “human” needs have their origin primarily in the need for survival (Heller 1974). Their satisfaction requires a confrontation with nature from which human beings must extract their “means of survival” (Lebensmittel). It is precisely in this context that the double consciousness of nature and humans arises in a dialectical manner. For Marcuse, as for Marx, it is crucial that the satisfaction of needs and, hence, the organization of the interaction between humans and nature, essentially determines the organization of society. This means that the question of the respective social and cultural organization of needs becomes the central question, to which the critique of the respective type of society must also orient itself. In a society in which the basic needs required for survival are considered to be satisfied and where, as a result, the possibility of freedom could arise, this possibility can be undermined, once again, by the manipulation of people’s structures of needs. For Marcuse, this not only changes society, but because of the fundamental importance of human needs for the realization of human life, any modification of the structure of needs also changes the (self-)understanding of the human being. In other words, the consequences of the respective policy regarding needs can, therefore, be read from the respective “type of Man.” This explains Marcuse’s title: it is the “one-dimensional Man” not the “one-dimensional society” on which he focuses his criticism. At the center of Marcuse’s critical social theory, then, we find the real-existing human being (not his philosophical ideal), at the point where his humanity is concretized at the interface with nature, on the one hand, and simultaneously with other human beings, on the other. The commitment to the perspective of humans is imperative to Marcuse’s “real humanism.” The realism evoked here derives from the implicit critique of “Philosophical Anthropology” we addressed in our analysis of Horkheimer’s work (see chapter 2). Marcuse is not interested in the “essence of Man” as something determined once and forever, but in the question of how the quality of human life changes through historical processes. It is precisely this question that, in turn, gives rise to his social-theoretical interest in the kinds of structures of needs to which people orient themselves in each case. The crucial question for Marcuse’s social theory is, therefore: which “historical design,” which “project,” allows the relations of “human-to-nature” and “human-to-human” to be thought of in such a way that, compared to a given situation, “greater chances of liberation” can emerge (Marcuse 2014, 235).

96

Chapter 3

Time and again, it is these “world relations” (Rosa 2012) on which Marcuse centers his analytical resources. This is clear in his 1953 Eros and Civilization (here: Marcuse 1969b), where he attempts to reach the “human-nature” interface via a synthesis of Freud and Marx. Here, too, he is interested in examining the structure of drives in “advanced industrial” societies. In the introduction to this book, however, he leaves no doubt that he is not concerned with psychoanalysis in the sense of its “technical” understanding, but with a “philosophy of psychoanalysis” and, ultimately, with a “theory of Man” (Marcuse 1969b, 13; italics in the original). And Marcuse makes something else clear here: Eros and Civilization was preceded by a decidedly socio-theoretical interest (cf. ibid., 11). The book thus combines this “social-theoretical interest” with a “conception of culture without oppression [. . .] based on a completely different experience of existence, on a completely different relation between Man and nature, on completely different existential relations” (ibid., 11). In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse follows this idea consistently. But now the focus is placed more clearly on socially and culturally organized structures of needs. The task of critical social theory in this context, he argues, is to make people aware of the possibility of defining their own needs by showing how, in any given society, this is precisely what must be thwarted: “The most effective and tenacious form of the struggle against liberation,” he writes, “consists in inculcating in people material and spiritual needs that perpetuate the outmoded forms of the struggle for existence” (Marcuse 2014, 24). “Advanced industrial civilization” succeeds in this in a previously unknown way as even the concept of alienation becomes doubtful given the high degree of identification of people with heteronomous needs, because: “[p]eople recognize themselves in their goods; they find their soul in their car, their hi-fi receiver, their kitchen appliance” (ibid., 29). Nothing seems to have changed in this regard today. Quite to the contrary, consumption-radicalizing neoliberalism may have radicalized this commodity fetishism as well, evidencing lives oriented toward unauthentic needs. Marcuse, therefore, believed that one of the central tasks of Critical Theory must be to distinguish between “true” and “false needs.” “‘False’ needs are those imposed on the individual by particular social powers interested in his oppression: those needs that perpetuate hard work, aggressiveness, misery, and injustice” (ibid., 25). The problem with these needs, as Marcuse sees it, is that they are imposed on people from without, and serve a primarily “social function.” Since these needs, and people’s striving to satisfy them, serve to reproduce their social powerlessness and repression, Marcuse also calls them “repressive needs.” For this thinker, an essential step toward liberation would, then, consist in individuals learning, anew, to determine their own needs. But since theory cannot be called upon to do this, Critical Theory limits itself to

Herbert Marcuse

97

describing these “repressive needs.” “In the last instance, the question of what needs are true and what ones are false must be answered by the individuals themselves, provided they are free to give their own answers” (ibid., 26). Marcuse thus diagnoses contemporary society as an extraordinarily adaptive bulwark. The basis of its rule consists in controlling people’s needs, which can take the place of physical violence and artificially generated material scarcity to the greatest possible extent and is able to absorb certain expressions of criticism and protest, only to project them back onto the individuals of society: “The very mechanism that ties the individual to society has changed, and social control is anchored in the new needs it has generated” (ibid., 29). If the question of needs ceases to be included in social and political debates, then no real opposition can be expected at the level of politics, if by opposition is meant a political-social project that identifies with a truly alternative order of political and economic power. Accordingly, no real social change can be expected. Marcuse assumes that this is systematically suppressed (cf. 42 ff), though this does not mean that social processes come to a standstill. On the contrary, the prescriptions of an ever more strongly driven frenzy of production and consumption create the impression of change and, thereby, of a renewing of social dynamics. In reality, however, what lies behind this is a drive toward a “frantic standstill” (rasender Stillstand) (Rosa 2005) of a society that is not advancing, even though its spinning tires are starting to burn. In normative terms, Marcuse’s critical social analysis is not oriented toward the ideal of a different society (cf. Marcuse 2014, 265); rather, he is concerned with a change that, from the perspective of what exists, can only be seen as a “catastrophe” (ibid., 239). With this, he likely wishes to connect to the meaning given to catastrophe in classic tragedy, where it is understood as a radical turning point of events. The drama of humanity, we could say, has reached a tragic point in the present, one where humanity can only cling to the hope of a “catastrophe.” At the same time, however, catastrophe is defined not only as a turning point in human history but also as the destruction of society. In this context, Marcuse’s social utopia reveals itself as a radically humanistic one whose priority is to ponder the relations among human beings in a liberated form that involves connecting to nature. However, he recognizes that it is especially the relation between humans and nature that today finds itself in a most precarious condition: “The exploitation of nature by capitalism both prevents human beings from seeing themselves as part of nature and disables the prospect of nature being recognized as a ‘subject in its own right,’” recalls Nick Stevenson, who considers Marcuse’s thoughts in this sense highly contemporary, especially in the context of debates about the Anthropocene (Stevenson 2021, 18).

98

Chapter 3

But here, too, Marcuse seems to see the key to the problem primarily on the level of perception, so he pleads emphatically for a “new sensibility” that is “aesthetic” in a double sense, since the term ‘aesthetic’ can be understood in its two meanings of ‘concerning the senses’ and as ‘concerning art’” (Marcuse 1969, 44). For our context, what is most crucial is that the ideal Marcuse has in mind is a kind of “pacification of Man and nature,” ultimately made possible by the new “humane sensibility” (humane Sinnlichkeit) (ibid., 52). Current post- or simply anti-humanist thoughts, expressed in the context of debates on climate change, the environmental crisis, or the Anthropocene, would have been completely alien to Marcuse because in his view the problem is not the human being as such, but the specific type of human being that capitalism has brought into existence. CRITICAL HUMANISM AND CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY So, the question of whether Marcuse’s Critical Theory is still valid under the current conditions of neoliberal capitalism remains. I believe what Marcuse’s work reveals is a radically new “worldview” from the perspective of a new understanding of the human being, which is very urgent today, as we have seen (see: chapter 1): “a new type of man, a different type of human being, with new needs, capable of finding a qualitative different way of life, and of constructing a qualitatively different environment” (Marcuse 2014b, 343). In his work, Marcuse devoted himself much more intensively to the search for this new “type of human being” than to the question of changing social structures. At the same time, however, he must have thought that social change would not necessarily bring any real change if human beings were not to change as well. This also applies to any attempt to realize a socialist society: Unless socialism is built by such a new type of human being, the transition from capitalism to socialism would mean only replacing one form of domination by another form of domination, perhaps more efficient, perhaps even more egalitarian than the capitalist controls (and this of itself would be a great contribution). But by no means would this yet be the qualitatively different life, the life of authentic freedom, that Marx envisaged as the substance of socialism. If this often-forgotten idea, this insistence on a new type of human being as prerequisite to the transition to socialism, is reexamined, the radical libertarian trend in Marxian theory must be recognized (ibid.).

Herbert Marcuse

99

The search for the “new type of human being” thus cannot succeed through blind actionism. While the practical dimension of social and political struggles is, for Marcuse, an essential component of any revolution, so is theoretical reflection and critical social research. In a short reflection on the tradition of humanism, Marcuse wrote unmistakably: “The humanist today must first recognize and express what is going on, [. . .] humanism today demands an uncompromising critique of the existing state of the world” (Marcuse 2002, 128). Thus, Marcuse’s humanism cannot be understood primarily as an attempt to rescue human spirituality through philosophy or erudition, but as a practice of critical social research. This humanism is oriented, primarily, to the question of what a life worthy of a human being can mean in today’s world. Gerhard Schweppenhäuser summarized this as follows: “The struggle of people for humane living conditions, their claim to the development of the possibilities of life inherent in them—these were impulses to which Marcuse’s critical social philosophy gave concepts, methods of cognition, and formulable goals” (Schweppenhäuser 2000, 15). Crucial for Marcuse, however, was the critique of contemporary society. Marcuse’s critical humanism is a “negative humanism”6 insofar as he did not want it to be reduced to positive images, but he wished to set out from the critical analysis of a given society. Critical social theory and critical humanism are, therefore, inseparably interwoven in Marcuse’s work. Whoever follows the insights that stem from this connection will also come to understand the precarious situation of humanism in our current world: Where the readiness for a serious critique of contemporary society gives way to the complacent conviction that there can be no better world than the given one, the increasing “abolition of Man” (Tenbruck) virtually ceases to be noticed, and the people who crumble under its weight are accounted for simply as statistics that can easily be written off. NOTES 1. See above all “The Poverty of Theory or the Orrery of Errors” (Thompson 1978), 1–210. 2. I am quoting here from the German version: „Neue Quellen zur Grundlegung des historischen Materialismus“ (Marcuse 1932). 3. Axel Honneth has claimed recently that the “idea of socialism” seems to be rooted normatively in the idea of “social freedom” (Honneth 2015). 4. I am quoting here from the German version of the text “Philosophie und kritische Theorie.” 5. I am quoting from the German version: „Bermerkungen zu einer Neubestimmung der Kultur.“

100

Chapter 3

6. “Negative Humanism” is used by Adorno and Horkheimer (see: Johannßen 2018; also: Bonefeld 2023). I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this tip.

REFERENCES Althusser, Louis. 2005 [1965]. For Marx. London/New York: Verso. Althusser, Louis et al. 2015 [1965]. Reading Capital. The Complete Edition. London/ New York: Verso. Árnason, Jóhann Páll. 1971. Von Marcuse zu Marx. Prolegomena zu einer dialektischen Anthropologie. Neuwied/Berlin: Luchterhand. Bonefeld, Werner. 2023. “On (Negative) Humanism and the Critique of Capital.” https:​ //​www​.academia​.edu​/100537045​/On​_Negative​_Humanism​_and​_the​_Critique​_of​ _Capital. Accessed 27 November, 2023. Geroulanos, Stefanos. 2010. An Atheism That Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Heller, Agnes. 1976. The Theory of Need in Marx. London: Allison & Busby. Henning, Christoph. 2020. „Marx als kritischer Theoretiker: Eine dreistufige Neuinterpretation von Kritik.“ In Vielfalt und Einheit der Kritischen Theorie— Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, edited by Oliver Kozlarek, 35–55. Wiesbaden: Springer. Honneth, Axel. 2015. Die Idee des Sozialismus. Versuch einer Aktualisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Horkheimer, Max, and Herbert Marcuse. 1937. „Philosophie und kritische Theorie.“ In Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, Jahrgang 6/1937: 625–47. Horkheimer, Max. 1988 [1937]. “Traditionelle und kritische Theorie.” In Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften Band 4: Schriften 1936–1941, 162–225. Frankfurt: Fischer. Johannßen, Dennis. 2018. “Humanism and Anthropology from Walter Benjamin to Ulrich Sonnemann.” In The Sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory [EPub], edited by Beverly Best, Werner Bonefeld, and Chris O’Kane, 5595–678. London et al.: Sage. Kellner, Douglas, and Clayton Pierce. 2014. “Introduction: Marcuse’s Adventures in Marxism.” In Herbert Marcuse. 2014. Marxism, Revolution and Utopia. Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, Volume Six, 1–68. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Keucheyan, Ramzig. 2017. „Was brauchen wir?” In: Le monde diplomatique. Accessed 7 April 2023. https:​//​monde​-diplomatique​.de​/artikel​/!5373706. Korsch, Karl. 1970 [1923]. Marxism and Philosophy. New York: Monthly Review Press. Lechner, Norbert. 2012 [1980]. “Marcuse: crítica y utopía.” In Norbert Lechner. Obras I. Estado y derecho, edited by Ilán Semo, Francisco Valdés Ugalde, and Paulina Gutierrez, 541–48. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Lefebvre, Henri. 1971. Au-delà du structuralisme. Paris: Anthropos. Lukács, Georg. 1972 [1923]. History and Class Consciousness. The MIT Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 1969. Versuch über die Befreiung. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.

Herbert Marcuse

101

Marcuse, Herbert. 1932. „Neue Quellen zur Grundlegung des Historischen Materialismus.“ In Die Gesellschaft. Internationale Revue für Sozialismus und Politik, IX,8: 136–74. Marcuse, Herbert. 1968. „Bemerkungen zu einer Neubestimmung der Kultur.“ In Herbert Marcuse. 1968. Kultur und Gesellschaft 2, 147–70. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Marcuse, Herbert. 1968b. Triebstruktur und Gesellschaft. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Marcuse, Herbert. 2002. “Humanismus und Humanität.” In Nachgelassene Schriften: Philosophie und Psychoanalyse, edited by Peter-Erwin Jansen, 121–30. Lüneburg: Zu Klampen. Marcuse, Herbert. 2004 [1941]. Vernunft und Revolution. Hegel und die Entstehung der Gesellschaftstheorie (Herbert Marcuse Schriften Band 4). Lüneburg: Zu Klampen. Marcuse, Herbert. 2011. “Philosophie und kritische Theorie.“ In Herbert Marcuse. Kultur und Gesellschaft 1, 102–27. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Marcuse, Herbert. 2011b. „Über den affirmativen Charakter der Kultur.“ In Herbert Marcuse Kultur und Gesellschaft 1, 56–101. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Marcuse, Herbert. 2014 [1964]. Der eindimensionale Mensch. Studien zur Ideologie der fortgeschrittenen Industriegesellschaft. Lüneburg: Zu Klampen. Marcuse, Herbert. 2014b. “Marxism and the New Humanity: An Unfinished Revolution.” In Herbert Marcuse. Marxism, Revolution and Utopia, Vol. 6, Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, edited by Douglas Kellner, and Clayton Pierce, 340–45. London/New York: Routledge. Marcuse, Herbert. 2015 [1968]. „Liberation from the Affluent Society.” In The Dialectics of Liberation [EPub], edited by: David Cooper, 412–54. London/New York: Verso. Marx, Karl. 1968. „Philosophisch-ökonomische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844.“ In Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. Werke, Ergänzungsband, Schriften, Manuskripte, Briefe bis 1844, 1. Teil, Band 40, 465–591. Berlin: Dietz-Verlag. Romero Cuevas, José Manuel. 2010. “Herbert Marcuse y los orígenes de la teoría crítica. Una aproximación.” In Herbert Marcuse y los orígenes de la teoría crítica, 7–76. Madrid/Mexico City: Plaza y Valdés Editores. Rosa, Hartmut. 2005. Beschleunigung. Die Veränderung der Zeitstruktur in der Moderne. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Rosa, Hartmut. 2012. Weltbeziehungen im Zeitalter der Beschleunigung. Umrisse einer neuen Gesellschaftskritik. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Schmidt, Werner. 2020. Karl Marx—Ein humanistischer Denker für unsere Zeit. Hamburg: Argument. Schweppenhäuser, Gerhard. 2000. “Kunst als Erkenntnis und Erinnerung. Herbert Marcuses Ästhetik der ‘großen Weigerung.’” In Herbert Marcuse, Nachgelassene Schriften. Kunst und Befreiung, 13–40. Lüneburg: zu Klampen. Sève, Lucien. 1969. Marxisme et théorie de la personalité. Paris: Éditions sociales. Stevenson, Nick. 2021. „Critical theory in the Anthropocene: Marcuse, Marxism and ecology.” In European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 2/Issue 2: 211–26. https:​//​doi​ .org​/10​.1177​/1368431020962726.

102

Chapter 3

Tenbruck, Friedrich H. 1984. Die unbewältigten Sozialwissenschaften oder die Abschaffung des Menschen. Graz/Wien/Köln: Styria. Thompson, E. P. 1978. The poverty of theory & other essays. London: Merlin.

Chapter 4

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

As we have seen, the financial crisis of 2008/2009 provoked a new wave of critiques of capitalism that came together under the terminology of a critique of neoliberalism that went far beyond issues of political economy to pay particular attention to the cultural dimension of a market- and consumption-centered global capitalism that had become hegemonic (cf. Escalante Gonzalbo 2015; chapter 1).1 It is precisely the cultural penetration of neoliberal ideas and lifestyles that has succeeded in coalescing into a certain image of the human being, and in impacting even the most remote corners of the planet and the most intimate spheres of human life. The connection between the critique of the relations of economic and political power, on the one hand, and the role of culture, on the other, is interesting because it reveals the idea that we live in a world in which culture seems to be the only aspect that matters (see: chapter 1). However, it must be made clear that this understanding is essentially a “false consciousness” that plays down both the power structures of a global economy and the political power structures that are constantly shifting away from the concerns and needs of the citizens of many countries. A political consciousness centered on culture is also related to the strengthening of so-called identity politics. Under the keywords of diversity and plurality, only seemingly classic themes of philosophy are taken up, such as the relationship between universality and particularity, or the sociological theme of the relationship between individual and society. Current identity politics resolve the tension between particularity and universality, and between individuals and society, on the side of particularity, individuality, or “singularity” (Reckwitz 2017). But this means that the original problem is not resolved satisfactorily in either a philosophical or sociological sense. Quite to the 103

104

Chapter 4

contrary, it is only suspended by the decision to prioritize particularity, individuality, or singularity. This decision is also unsatisfactory from the perspective of ambitions for theoretical emancipation and practical liberation because the question of how society as a whole should be changed is no longer considered (cf. Malik 2018). By refraining from a critique of the whole, leftist identity politics performs important handmaiden services to the reality that has coagulated in neoliberal modernity. It impedes achieving a thorough critique of society by reinforcing a general impression of “confusion,” which mistakes superficial diversity for real plurality, “alterity,” or “diversity,” and thus, it replaces critical thinking focused on a profound change of social, political and economic power relations with distraction. Against this background, and given the hardly deniable success of identity-political thinking, how can a critical thinking be reactivated that is still concerned with more radical social change? This question can be answered, as we have seen already, by turning to the “critical humanism” of Critical Theory, where one crucial task is countering that neoliberal “confusion” and “distraction” with intellectual minimalism. It should still be possible to posit overarching normative claims and orientations from which profound projects of social and cultural change can be derived, but only if relativism and particularism can be countered by a normative universalism that does not negate the particular. In the following pages, I set out to show that just such a universalism was articulated in an uncompromising return to placing the focus squarely on the human being, as we can read in Erich Fromm’s “normative humanism,” which combines normative claims with an anthropologically grounded critique of the market and consumer-oriented capitalism. As a first step, I reconstruct Fromm’s humanism as “normative humanism.” This feeds on a sociological insight (human beings as social beings) but finds in the “souls” of human beings a reliable normative control station whose dashboard we have, admittedly, forgotten how to read. In a second step, I will show that one of Fromm’s essential concerns was to sharpen these skills. The two opposing poles of this scoreboard are the parameters of “having” and “being,” which Fromm understands as dispositions deeply embedded in the psyche that enable distinct “modes of existence.” Finally, I will inquire into the consequences of Fromm’s “normative humanism” for the cultural sciences. To this end, I take up his proposal for a humanistic “Science of Man,” reading it as a social and cultural research program that is, at one and the same time, suitable for our present situation.

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

105

ERICH FROMM’S “NORMATIVE HUMANISM” The importance and centrality of humanism in Fromm’s critical theory has been emphasized time and again. Recently, Michael J. Thompson wrote: “Fromm’s entire concept of Critical Theory, of ethics, and social and cultural critique is premised on the thesis that there exist, in some sense, normative statements about the nature of human beings that are objectively valid, and which must serve as an anchor to any theory of society if it is to be understood as critical in any sense” (Thompson 2012, 44). The basis of this humanism for Fromm is primarily the works of two authors who are quite obviously present as sources of inspiration in all his writings: Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Marcuse found Marx’s humanism, as we have seen (cf. chapter 3), primarily in the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts,” which were not discovered until the late 1920s. How important these writings were for Fromm is shown not least by the fact that he felt called to publish and comment on some excerpts in English as late as the 1960s (cf. Fromm 2003 [1961]). In an introductory study, he elucidates what he thought he had discovered in Marx’s humanism, where, above all, a continuation of the Enlightenment, a subversive impulse of Enlightenment thought, needed to be revitalized. This led him to the following insight: “Marx’ philosophy is one of protest; it is a protest imbued with faith in man, in his capacity to liberate himself, and to realize his potentialities” (ibid., VI). A year later, Fromm published Beyond the Chains of Illusions, in which he explains at length that Freud, as well as Marx, had strongly influenced his thinking. Although he did not want to concede to Freud the “world-historical significance” that Marx had (cf. Fromm 2002 [1962], 7), he recognized that Freud had to be understood as one of the key thinkers of the twentieth century. This was especially true concerning an insight that was essential to any form of critical thinking—namely, that what people think about themselves can be wrong. However, Fromm again saw a certain kinship to Marx, precisely in this insight. While in Marx’s theory this idea was condensed in the concept of ideology, for Freud the discovery of the “subconscious” was central. Moreover, both thinkers believed that “illusions” could be approached through a “materialistic” theory: “Marx thought the basic reality to be the socioeconomic structure of society, while Freud believed it to be the libidinal organization of the individual” (ibid., 9). Crucial to Fromm’s critique of Freud was the realization that the influences acting on the psyche could not be explained solely in terms of sexual drives and their denial, but that the existing social conditions played a decisive role. He expressed this conviction early on during his collaboration with the Institute for Social Research (IfS); for example, in his contribution to the

106

Chapter 4

introductory theoretical study of the Studien über Authorität und Familie (Studies on Authority and Family) published by the Institute in 1936, he stated: “The individual is interwoven with the environment as natural as well as social. It is at the same time the object as well as the barrier of his drive satisfaction” (Fromm 1987 [1936], 93). That Fromm was thinking primarily of Marx in this context becomes clear in the following quotation: It is precisely to be shown in this work that a psychic instance such as the superego and the ego, a mechanism such as repression, impulses such as sado-masochistic ones, which condition people’s feeling, thinking, and acting in such a decisive way, are not ‘natural’ conditions, but are themselves coconditioned in each case by people’s way of life, ultimately by the mode of production and the resulting social structure (ibid., 92).

Fromm read Marx and Freud primarily as humanists, though scholarly opinions differ as to where his own humanism began to be articulated systematically. While older scholars see his Man for Himself as a key work in this regard (Birnbach 1962, 81; Hausdorff 1972, 38), younger colleagues argue that points of departure were observable as early as 1932 (Durkin 2014, 3). I am not concerned here with tracing Fromm’s humanism back to its origins, but to understand his approach in its systematic sense. In this regard, Man for Himself seems to offer a good starting point, for that book reveals, with particular clarity, that the locus of Fromm’s “normative humanism” was a normatively oriented character analysis of human beings in industrial capitalist societies based on insights that emerged from a tangle of ethics and psychology. The focus of the book is Fromm’s attempt to develop a theory of human normativity that deals with “ethics,” “norms,” and “values,” understood not as ultimate ends in themselves, but as guidelines for the development of the human self and its relationships to the world (cf. Fromm 2002 [1947], vii). Crucial for Fromm’s scientific understanding of psychology is the normative claim mentioned earlier. Psychology, then, is not merely an empirical science oriented to the natural sciences, for “problems of ethics cannot be omitted from the study of personality,” as he wrote with great clarity (ibid., viii) to indicate that ethics must not be understood solely as a subdiscipline of philosophy but, rather, that philosophy is dependent on psychology in ethical questions. This is said to have been clear to earlier representatives of philosophy since “The great humanistic ethical thinkers of the past, on whose works this book is based, were philosophers and psychologists; they believed that the understanding of man’s nature and the understanding of values and norms for his life were interdependent” (ibid.). From today’s perspective, these considerations give rise, above all, to the imperative of breaking down the subject-specific boundaries already

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

107

established in the social and cultural sciences. Fromm attempts to accelerate this by placing a theory of “human nature” at the center of his understanding. He believes in the universal in humans, thereby following the “great tradition of humanistic ethics which looked at man in his physico-spiritual totality, believing that man’s aim is to be himself and that the condition for attaining this goal is that man be for himself” (ibid., 7). Here the title of the book is paraphrased twice, emphasizing that the ultimate question is what it might mean for humanity to come to itself. Only if this question can be answered can ethical issues be addressed, for “the affirmation of his truly human self is the supreme value of humanistic ethics” (ibid.). Humanism thus represents, for Fromm, a practice of “immanent” critique in which human beings ultimately have to derive the normative criteria from an understanding of themselves and their respective conceptions of the human being. These criteria are inherent in the psyche, but they find expression in culture and are concentrated, especially, in the respective images of the human being that all human cultures contain. Fromm’s thinking is explicitly anthropocentric. He explains: Humanistic ethics is anthropocentric; not, of course, in the sense that man is the center of the universe, but in the sense that his value judgments, like all other judgments and even perceptions, are rooted in the peculiarities of his existence and are meaningful only with reference to it; man, indeed, is the ‘measure of all things.’ The humanistic position is that there is nothing higher, nothing more dignified than human existence (ibid., 13).

Pathos-laden sentences like this one sound suspicious against the background of current sensitivities and, above all, the current criticism of humanism. We must recall, however, that Fromm’s emphatic affirmation of the human being was of a thoroughly provocative character even in his own time. Not least his former colleagues at the IfS articulated their anthropological and humanistic claims in a much more restrained way, even though they shared many basic convictions, as we have seen (see also: Kozlarek 2020; 2021). Nevertheless, the emphatic expression and communication of humanism and the central position of the human being in Fromm’s worldview must be considered hallmarks of his Critical Theory. So, it is precisely this ongoing attempt to rehabilitate a culture of humanism that must have been an absolute priority for Fromm. He was concerned not only with a critical analysis of current society or its culture but, above all, with defending a humanistic culture whose roots he assumed lay in the Enlightenment and that, in his view, could only reach maturity in socialism (cf. Fromm, 2002 [1955], 228), despite repeated historical setbacks.

108

Chapter 4

This emphatic advocacy of a culture of humanism as a task of Critical Theory is coupled with the recognition that turning away from it is not only a consequence of increasing inhumanity but could be a cause of it. In other words, the loss of humanism, the “abolition of Man” (Tenbruck, 1984; see: chapter 1) and of “humanity” from our languages and our thinking could be one of the main factors that lie behind the progressive “dehumanization” of our world. Against this background, Fromm’s resolute advocacy of humanism can also be seen as a cultural struggle with which he engaged—not a struggle of one culture against others, but one centered on defending a culture of humanity, which Fromm understood as a concern of numerous world cultures. The culture of humanity should not sink into an abstract universalism but follow a decidedly differentiable universalism. Thus, Fromm’s image of the human being is not an abstract ideal. He considered such an ideal simply impossible, because: “Human nature can never be observed as such, but only in its specific manifestations in specific situations” (Fromm 2002 [1947], 24). In this context, one might once again recall Fromm’s criticism of Freud, which focused precisely on the latter’s biological reductionist conception of the human. It is not the search for a fixed nature of humans that drives Fromm, but an interest in understanding humans in concrete “human situations.” He traces these back to basic attitudes of the psyche that manifest themselves in the form of problems: The problem of man’s existence, then, is unique in the whole of nature: he has fallen out of nature, as it were [but] is still in it; partly divine, partly animal; partly infinite, partly finite. The necessity to find ever-newer solutions for the contradictions in his existence, to find ever higher forms of unity with nature, his fellowmen, and himself, is the source of all the psychic forces that motivate man, of all his passions, affects, and anxieties (Fromm 2002 [1955], 24; italics in the original).

The problematic existence of the human being is engraved deeply within his psyche, but it is also reflected in the cultural/social and political/ economic realities they create. It can be categorized into the following dichotomies: relatedness vs. narcissism, transcendence/creativeness vs. destructiveness, rootedness/brotherliness vs. incest, sense of identity/individuality vs. herd conformity, and the need for a frame of orientation and devotion/reason vs. irrationality (ibid., 26–64). It is difficult, indeed, to think of any current topic that is not charged with the tension between one of these dichotomies. Fromm’s suggestion, therefore, reminds us that most of the problems confronting humanity today seem to be rooted, ultimately, in the human condition.

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

109

Yet this general, anthropological insight is unsatisfactory on its own because it opens up a whole new series of questions that make it clear there can be no satisfying solutions, so human beings are condemned to live as permanent ‘seekers.’ Moreover, sentences like the following one are not promises of a final salvation, but rather, they call for an awareness of the human situation and the need to face it: “Only if he recognizes the human situation, the dichotomies inherent in his existence, and his capacity to unfold his powers, will [man] be able to succeed in his task: to be himself and for himself and to achieve happiness by the full realization of those faculties which are peculiarly his—reason, love, and productive work” (Fromm 2002 [1947], 45). Now, for Fromm, it is not the individual human being who is responsible for whether or not “reason,” “love,” and “productive work” are used to the maximum extent. The respective society and its cultural dispositions are co-decisive. These do not directly affect the “intact” constitution of the individual human being, but they certainly intervene deeply in his psyche, where they form the “personality” and “character” of that being. Thus, while human situations remain constant, people’s socially induced “personalities” and “characters” are malleable. Given the specificity of each society, the strategies for dealing with existential problems also vary. Nevertheless, Fromm did not understand the individual human being solely as an innocent victim of external conditions, as the following quotation makes clear: “Men are alike, for they share the human situation and its inherent existential dichotomies; they are unique in the specific way they solve their human problem. The infinite diversity of personalities is in itself characteristic of human existence” (Fromm 2002 [1947], 50). Although Freud once again provides the keyword, Fromm sets himself apart. He is interested in Freud because he recognizes “the dynamic quality of character traits and that the character structure of a person represents a particular form in which energy is canalized in the process of living” (ibid., 56). However, he breaks decisively away from Freud where the latter believed “that the sexual drive was the source of energy of the character” (ibid., 57). As mentioned above, Fromm’s criticism of Freud is also a consequence of distinct conceptions of the human being. For Fromm it is not the single, isolated individual, controlled by his drives and needs, that is decisive, but the human being in his relationship with other human beings and with nature. What was vital for Fromm was not biology, but exploring and understanding the “modes of existence” of human beings and their respective “world relations” (cf. Rosa 2012). His anthropology oriented to human situations, and his “relational” conception of the human being (cf. Thompson 2016, 162) also helped Fromm establish the criteria for his critique of society. As might be expected, he

110

Chapter 4

did not give modern capitalist society particularly good grades. “Productive work” cannot be expected in societies that increasingly rely on industrial production. Moreover, a hierarchy of values has emerged under capitalism in which creative production has ceded its place to the value of “having.” This observation prompted Fromm to speak of a “revaluation of values.” Thus, for example, class struggle can also be understood as a conflict of values: “The conflict between capital and labor is much more than the conflict between two classes. [. . .] It is the conflict between two principles of value: between the world of things, and their amassment, and the world of life and its productivity” (Fromm 2002 [1955], 92). Above all, social relations in capitalist society also suffer. As we have seen, the “human situation” is defined by the dichotomous pair “relatedness vs. narcissism.” The basis of this “situation” is that the individual always feels lonely and, therefore, will always be attracted to others. The individual “cannot bear to be alone, to be unrelated to his fellow men. His happiness depends on the solidarity he feels with his fellow men, with past and future generations” (Fromm 2002 [1947], 43). The crucial instance that expresses this discomfort is, once again, the soul. The question is how successfully a particular society compensates for the experience of solitude. Fromm believed this problem could not be satisfactorily solved in a capitalist society, because in a society integrated by the market, social relations are primarily utilitarian in nature and only tend to drive individuals apart, leaving them even lonelier. As a Marxist, Fromm sees paradigmatic social relations in the process of production and exchange of commodities, and observes: What is modern man’s relationship to his fellow man? It is one between two abstractions, two living machines, who use each other. The employer uses the ones whom he employs; the salesman uses his customers. Everybody is to everyone else a commodity, always to be treated with a certain friendliness, because even if he is not of use now, he may be later. There is not much love or hate to be found in human relations of our day. There is, rather, a superficial friendliness, and a more than superficial fairness, but behind that surface is distance and indifference (Fromm 2002 [1955], 135).

Finally, Fromm observed that “reason” is not in good shape in our societies. This diagnosis may not be obvious at first glance, for it could be argued that modern societies are characterized by an increase in intelligence. But Fromm sees a crucial difference between intelligence and reason: “Intelligence [. . .] is taking things for granted as they are, making combinations that have the purpose of facilitating their manipulation; intelligence is thought in the service of biological survival” (ibid., 165). Intelligence is, therefore, not a competence that makes people freer. On the contrary, it arises from heteronomous

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

111

conditioning, from the fact that each individual has to adapt to circumstances, whether biological or social. “Most intelligence tests are attuned to this kind of thinking; they measure not so much the capacity for reason and understanding as the capacity for quick mental adaptation to a given situation; ‘mental adjustment tests’ would be the adequate name for them” (Fromm 2002 [1947], 75). “Reason, on the other hand, aims at understanding; it tries to find out what is behind the surface, to recognize the kernel, the essence of the reality which surrounds us” (Fromm 2002 [1955], 165). It is precisely these abilities that are not promoted in market-oriented capitalist societies. Though it is always a matter of producing knowledge, this is itself subject to the laws of the market, and thus becomes a commodity that must constantly be offered for sale in new forms. The knowledge that has become a commodity and been brought to the market would itself undermine its validity, as it were. That which goes beyond the respective fashion soon ceases to be of interest. Fromm’s “normative humanism” is thus designed to perceive humans in their respective “human situations.” The anthropology underlying this humanism does not reduce humans to an “essence,” a “nature,” or arbitrarily chosen individual characteristics. It is in these concrete situations, always socially mediated, that problems manifest themselves for which there can be no definite solutions, but which can, nevertheless, be understood and judged according to universal normative criteria. Fromm considers the respective character, which is formed from the socially mediated attempts at solutions with which people confront their existential situations, to be the target of criticism. But even in the 1940s, his critique was directed at a society that operated according to the logic of the market and the power structures formed there. Fromm’s Critical Theory must always be understood as a critical social theory, and this applies to his subsequent works, whose somewhat popularizing character should not be allowed to obscure this key aspect. THE “SOCIAL CHARACTER” BETWEEN “HAVING” AND “BEING” Fromm’s To Have or to Be? (19762), published almost thirty years after Man for Himself, builds on the anthropological and humanistic foundation outlined there, and concludes with the—far from modest—call for a “new man” and a “new society.” The starting point of the discussion in this book is the insight into the end of the illusion of “unlimited progress” (cf. Fromm 2020 [1976], 13), as it was unmistakably articulated in the early 1970s in the first two reports of the Club of Rome (1972, 1974). The book thus also represents a reaction to an awareness that dominates current debates that unfold under

112

Chapter 4

such keywords as “climate change” or, more recently, “the Anthropocene.” But even if these topics are discussed much more broadly today through the mirror of the media than they were forty years ago, Fromm’s To Have or to Be? surprises current readers with a radicalism rooted in his uncompromising desire to think of these problems in terms of human problems. Unlike many current contributions to the aforementioned Anthropocene debate—which is very ambivalent about humans (cf. Bajohr 2020; see also chapter 1)—Fromm’s point is not to attribute the causes of the problems categorically to humans but, in contrast, to a specific form of society (cf. Neckel 2021). Fundamentally, he assumes that coming to grips with problems like increasing environmental degradation is ultimately inseparable from the question of a more humane society. As in earlier works, Fromm assumes that the psyche provides a reliable sensorium for human well-being. But because, as shown earlier, the human “soul” is connected to social conditions, the preoccupation with it always commits to a critical engagement with society. It was in this sense that Fromm’s call for a “radical psychological” change (Fromm 2020 [1976], 23), which goes hand in hand with the demand for a “new society” where a “new man” is to flourish, emerged. In the first part of To Have or to Be? Fromm attempts to develop the concepts of 1) “having” and “being” from a cultural-sociological perspective, 2) more socio-structural interest is in the foreground in the second part, and finally 3) ideas about the “new man” and the “new society.” 1) First, in his dissertation, Das jüdische Gesetz. Zur Soziologie des Diaspora-Judentums (Jewish Law. A Contribution to the Sociology of the Jewish Diaspora, 1922), Fromm followed a cultural-sociological line of inquiry. An explicit connection between cultural-sociological and socio-psychological interest is forged there. Later, in his Escape from Freedom (1941), he asserts that “To understand the dynamics of the social process we must understand the dynamics of the psychological processes operating within the individual, just as to understand the individual we must see him in the context of the culture which molds him” (Fromm 1965 [1941], viii). Fromm also writes in terms of cultural sociology in To Have or to Be? There he approaches the two central concepts by citing examples from both poetry and common language usage. He observes that all cultures must always have had an awareness of the difference between a “mode of existence” oriented toward “having” and one oriented toward “being,” which could settle in culture and language. Still, his preoccupation with philosophical concepts of “being” at the end of the chapter can be understood in terms of this culturalsociological overview, for Fromm also understood the philosophical concern with “being” as a cultural sensitivity toward the difference between these two

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

113

modes of existence. Finally, his remarks on the Old and New Testaments in the third chapter belong to the realm of his cultural-scientific explorations. Similar to Max Weber, the brother of his doctoral advisor, Alfred Weber, Fromm must have regarded religion as an important archive of documented culture. In terms of content, however, he recognizes that the Old and New Testaments can also be read as documents of a culture of protest: “protest against a life oriented toward having” (Fromm 2020 [1976], 72). In the second chapter, Fromm adopts a more sociological posture. Here, he highlights the differences between the basic modalities of “having” and “being” in different social practices, such as “learning,” “remembering,” “communicating,” “reading,” “exercising authority,” “knowing,” “believing,” and “loving.” To the person who is characterized by possessions, power, prestige, or accumulated knowledge, Fromm holds up the mirror of the other in him: the “being-oriented” person “who prepares nothing and does not puff himself up but reacts spontaneously and productively. Such a person forgets himself, his knowledge, his position; his ego does not stand in his way; and for this very reason, he can fully attune himself to the other and his ideas. He gives birth to new ideas because he does not strive to hold on to anything” (ibid., 51.). 2) The second part of the book also deals with the distinction between the two fundamental “modes of existence”: “having” and “being.” This time, however, the focus is on the socio-structural conditions that are responsible for the inclination toward one side or the other. Fromm assumes that our current societies rest on the “three pillars of private property, profit, and power” (ibid., 89). He is particularly interested in how these three pillars of social life in capitalist societies can be read from their respective cultural and social practices. The logic linking these three pillars can be described as follows: What counts for maintaining and increasing power is the profit that can be made from the private property that is exploited. The absolute basic prerequisite for the functioning of this logic is, hence, private property: “The mode of existence of having is derived from private property. In this mode of existence, the only thing that counts is appropriation and the unrestricted right to keep what has been acquired” (ibid., 97). Fromm emphasizes that even a society oriented toward “having” cannot completely eliminate the mode of existence oriented toward “being” that is inherent in all human beings, but can push it so far into the background that the practices that oppose “having” often vanish from view: “The frequency and intensity of the desire to give, to share, and to sacrifice are not surprising,” he writes. “What is surprising, rather, is that this human need has been repressed to such an extent that acts of selfishness eventually become the rule in industrial society [. . .] and acts of solidarity the exception” (ibid., 133).

114

Chapter 4

Against this background, it is necessary to revise the image of the human being that exists in these societies. One must insist that “both modes of existence, having and being, are possibilities within human nature” (ibid., 125). But an intellectual revision of the conception of the human being alone would be insufficient. As indicated earlier, Fromm assumes that social conditions would also have to change fundamentally in order to allow the human dispositions of a mode of existence oriented to “being” to become dominant. Cultural and socio-structural changes would have to intertwine: “[A] fundamentally changed socioeconomic structure and a completely different image of human nature” would be necessary (ibid., 133). 3) In the third part of his book, Fromm devotes his arguments to the possibilities of conceiving a “new man” and a “new society.” Central to this is, once more, the concept of the “social character” and the methodological connection among psychology and the social and cultural sciences that determine it. He emphasizes anew: The starting point of these reflections is the observation that the character structure of an average individual and the socioeconomic structure of the society to which he belongs are interrelated. The result of the interaction between individual psychic structure and socioeconomic structure I call social character. The socioeconomic structure of a society shapes the social character of its members in such a way that they want to do what they are supposed to do (ibid. 163; italics in the original).

In addition to the psychological and socio-structural dimension, Fromm again assumes a third cultural dimension, one that makes visible a normative idea of successful life via the instance of the psyche, and thus promotes “human development, the unfolding of specifically human forces” (ibid., 166). In doing so, he again assumes that the psychic sensorium, which provides information about whether the dominant mode of existence is good for people or not, has been culturally perceived primarily as a “religious need.” Thus, he sees in most religions cultural documents of humanity articulated from the depths of the psyche that can be understood primarily as a permanent resistance to the existential mode of “having.” Fromm concludes, “The socioeconomic structure, the character structure, and the religious structure are inseparable from one another” (ibid., 169). Against the background of this psychological-social and cultural-scientific-methodological orientation, Fromm then focuses his attention, first, to the critique of capitalist society and the “marketing character” that dominates it (ibid. 179ff), a concept developed, as well, in his earlier book, Man for Himself (1947). In the more recent book, he explains: “I have chosen the term ‘marketing character’ because the individual experiences himself as a

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

115

commodity and his own value not as ‘use value’ but as ‘exchange value’” (ibid., 180). Fromm calls the “religion” that accompanies this social character “cybernetic religion,” to refer to a culture that is dedicated to the belief that people and society function according to the rules and principles of a machine (cf. ibid., 183). He was also concerned to show that the idea of the “functioning” human being goes hand-in-hand with the potentiation and concentration of power: “We have elevated the machine to the status of deity and to becoming equal to God ourselves by operating it” (ibid., 187). THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SCIENTIFIC TASKS OF “NORMATIVE HUMANISM” Admittedly, it could be assumed that Fromm’s proposal is well-intentioned but, at the same time, naïve and abstract. Once again, an attempt to update humanism would have to face the reproach of having fallen prey to an unrealistic enthusiasm and a belief in the good nature of humans. However, this suspicion is also refuted by the 1976 book, since Fromm reveals there that he understood society, culture, and humans as thoroughly contradictory and conflictive or “dialectical.” The two modes of existence, “having” and “being,” coexist as possibilities in the psychic dispositions of each human being, but are always in conflict in society and culture. Fromm’s basic understanding of social life is thus by no means naïvely optimistic, but nor does it seek to remain in a negative critique that squanders its utopian potential. In the last part of the book, Fromm strives to ponder critique and utopia together within the framework of a “Science of Man,” emphasizing, as well, the practical tasks of the social and cultural sciences. In a 1957 paper, he had outlined a similar program. Instead of taking the natural sciences as a model, a “humanistic science of man” must be developed in which universal values are central, values that are common to all human beings, but that have been lost from view because of the relativism that has become rampant in the social sciences (cf. Fromm 1991 [1957]). “The study of man,” Fromm argued, “should take place in the spirit of humanism,” which presupposed general universal “human interests” (ibid., 227). Here Fromm’s “normative humanism” manifests itself unequivocally. The insight of an increasing relativism that can no longer grasp what is actually human because the ontologization of cultural and political differences is pushed forward ever more irreconcilably, sounds today like an early warning against the excesses of identity-political tendencies. This does not mean, however, that Fromm would have dreamed of a consensual harmony among all human beings. On the contrary: as we have seen, conflict is inherent in

116

Chapter 4

the constant struggle between “having” and “being.” Many social and political conflicts can, therefore, also be understood as transfers from this basic conflict. Nor does this mean that social criticism is to be neutralized psychologically, as it were. On the contrary, also in his late book from 1976 Fromm follows the claim of a radical social critique. In our society oriented to “having,” he complains in particular about the unequal distribution of economic and political power. At the center of his critique are large corporations and businesses, and the place where a new form of class struggle is to take place today, no longer just the factory but, above all, the market. Thus, he insists that in current societies the question of “healthy and reasonable consumption” must take priority (ibid., 215), but he sees the responsibility for this not only with individuals, who must act with greater personal responsibility, but also with corporations, which wield their power to manipulate the market and consumers to their advantage. Fromm insists on the need to hold corporations more accountable. What class conflict was to production society, the conflict between companies and consumers is to current consumer society. The fact that this new “class struggle” still lacks “class consciousness” is made clear by the fact that it has not yet been possible to establish a counterforce directed against the power of large corporations and enterprises. To achieve this, “consumer organizations” would have to come forward to represent the interests of consumers as strongly and emphatically as the labor movement and unions once represented the interests of workers. More than that, organized consumers could use similar means of struggle. Fromm thought of “consumer strikes” that could be used to put pressure on companies and markets and force them to develop products according to people’s interests. The final goal is “humane consumption” and a market aligned with the interests of consuming people, to be watched over by a “humanistically oriented consumer movement” (ibid., 220–21). Thus, Fromm’s proposal for the construction of a “new humanist society” begins at the “economic basis” but moves from there to the realm of politics. He is thinking of participatory forms of democracy. These should begin in the realm of labor—Fromm writes here of “industrial democracy”—but then extend out to other social and political spheres. He sees an essential prerequisite for such forms of “co-determination democracy” as the consistent “decentralization of the economy and politics” (ibid., 224). It is essential to limit the size of companies and state institutions, as this should ultimately also limit their power. In addition, smaller organizational units that are less bureaucratically organized and enable more “humanistic” forms of “management” and political administration should be established (ibid., 226). All these ideas remain at a very general level and would, of course, need to be fleshed out in light of current conditions. However, they possess a provocative power, especially against the background of current debates, in that

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

117

they insist on a radical civilizational rupture. This is also true of the following ideas: Fromm thought that his practical proposals would be realistic only if people could return to an authentically “humanistic religiosity.” As seen above, he did not understand religion in the sense of a theistic dogma, but as a cultural organ through which human beings experience their humanity in a way of existence oriented toward “being,” and through which they are warned against giving themselves up to an alienated way of life oriented exclusively toward “having” (cf. Fromm 1991). He sees the task of intellectuals as that of advising people in the sense of the “humanistic religion.” The “science of man” is thus an area in which the social and cultural sciences, in particular, can make practical contributions to the molding of a more humane society. Fromm sees another such area in a “supreme council of culture,” which would advise not only politics but also citizens in matters of humanity (ibid., 236). Reading Fromm today is like rediscovering ideas that have fallen into oblivion over the past decades. But the topics he addressed have not lost their validity. Many of the points he raised for discussion in the 1970s still move us today (or once again today!). In particular, his emphatic advocacy of the actualization of a humanistic culture that seeks to place itself entirely at the service of a more humane society, as well as the connection of this culture to a social critique that begins with economic and political power relations, could also open up once firmly sealed paths of critique in current debates and promote political and social discussions in a future-oriented manner. I also still find Fromm’s normative humanism convincing today because it follows an intellectual drive that, in sociological and psychological terms, is unmistakably concerned with the question of how the living conditions of all human beings could be improved. In doing so, it refers to a view of humanity with a priority for what is common and unifying, not for what is divisive and particular. This “intellectual minimalism” consists, first, in a complexity-reducing return to the human and to humanity as anchors of a normative imperative. By unequivocally binding itself to a form of existence oriented toward “being,” which is to emancipate itself from one oriented toward “having,” Fromm’s proposal is interesting not only as a critique of the culture of neoliberalism, but also as an advocacy of a civilization that treats natural and human-made material goods more thoughtfully and cautiously. His intellectual minimalism is thus inseparable from material minimalism. Seen in this light, his “normative humanism” would be the long-sought-after ‘missing link’ of a Critical Theory that contemplates, together, the claim to improve the quality of human life and the care and protection of the natural environment. It could also be a model for a Critical Theory that, once again, turns into a program of concrete critical social and cultural research that takes the pulse of people in their concrete living conditions—not only in a material sense—in

118

Chapter 4

our current societies and, at the same time, seeks ways to channel articulations of protest and resistance that are appropriate for those societies. NOTES 1. An earlier version of this chapter was published in German in the journal Psychosozial, Vol. 45 (2022). No. 168, Issue II: 60–73. 2. I am quoting here from the German translation: Fromm 2020 [1976].

REFERENCES Bajohr, Hannes. 2020. „Keine Quallen: Anthropozän und Negative Anthropologie.“ In Der Anthropos im Anthropozän. Die Wiederkehr des Menschen im Moment seiner vermeintlich endgültigen Verabschiedung, edited by Hannes Bajohr, 1–16. Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter. Birnbach, Martin. 1962. Neo-Freudian Social Philosophy. London: Oxford University Press. Durkin, Kieran. 2014. The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm. New York: Palgrave McMillan. Escalante Gonzalbo, Fernando. 2015. Historia mínima del neoliberalismo. Mexico City: Colegio de México. Fromm, Erich. 1987 [1936]. „Sozialpsychologischer Teil.“ In Studien über Autorität und Familie. Forschungsberichte aus dem Institut für Sozialforschung, edited by Institut für Sozialforschung, 77–135. Lüneburg: Zu Klampen Verlag. Fromm, Erich. 1965 [1941]. Escape from Freedom. New York: Avon Books. Fromm, Erich. 1991 [1957]. „Humanistische Wissenschaft vom Menschen.“ In Erich Fromm. Die Pathologie der Normalität, 222–59. Zur Wissenschaft vom Menschen. Open Publishing. Fromm, Erich. 1991. You Shall Be as Gods: A Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament in Its Tradition. New York: Henry Holt & Company. Fromm, Erich. 2002 [1947]. Man for Himself. An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. London/New York: Routledge. Fromm, Erich. 2002 [1955]. The Sane Society. London/New York: Routledge. Fromm, Erich. 2002 [1962]. Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud. New York/London: Continuum. Fromm, Erich. 2003 [1961]. Marx’s Concept of Man. London/New York: Continuum. Fromm, Erich. 2020 [1976]. Haben oder Sein. Sie seelischen Grundlagen einer neuen Gesellschaft. München: DTV. Hausdorff, Don. 1972. Erich Fromm. New York: Twayne. Kozlarek, Oliver. 2020. „Vom Verlust der realen Humanität.“ In Kritische Theorie aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive, edited by Oliver Kozlarek, 231–50. Wiesbaden: Springer.

Erich Fromm’s “Normative Humanism” as Intellectual Minimalism

119

Kozlarek, Oliver. 2021. “From the Humanism of Critical Theory to Critical Humanism.” In European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 24(2): 246–63. https:​//​doi​ .org​/10​.1177​/1368431020960958. Malik, Kenan. 2018. „Die kulturelle Wende.“ In Die sortierte Gesellschaft. Zur Kritik der Identitätspolitik, edited by Johannes Richardt, 26–34. Frankfurt: Edition Novo. Neckel, Sighard. 2021. “Scholastic fallacies? Questioning the Anthropocene.” In Thesis Eleven, Vol. 165(1): 136–44. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/0725513621993278. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2017. Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Zum Strukturwandel der Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Rosa, Hartmut. 2012. Weltbeziehungen im Zeitalter der Beschleunigung. Umrisse einer neuen Gesellschaftskritik. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Tenbruck, Friedrich H. 1984. Die unbewältigten Sozialwissenschaften oder die Abschaffung des Menschen. Wien: Styria. Thompson, Michael J. 2012. “The Normative Humanism as Redemptive Critique: Knowledge and Judgement in Erich Fromm’s Social Theory.” In Reclaiming the Sane Society. Essays on Erich Fromm’s Thought, edited by: Seyed Javad Miri/ Robert Lake/Tricia M. Kress, 37–58. Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei: Sense Publishers. Thompson, Michael J. 2016. The Domestication of Critical Theory. London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Chapter 5

Theodor W. Adorno Critique of the “New Type of Man” and the Search for “Real humanity”

Like Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno believed that capitalist society was producing a “new type of man,” one that, in turn, demanded a “new anthropology” (Adorno 2016; 2006; also: Breuer 2016, 98). In this respect, Adorno’s anthropology differed markedly from Philosophical Anthropology: “Its object is not,” Nicholas Coomann summarized, “‘Man’ as a positively given, sterile object of research, but the dynamics of his socially and economically conditioned deformation. People and their relations are to be grasped solely as signifiers of their social context, in which they are inextricably entangled” (Coomann 2017, 62). Adorno, thus, questioned the notion of a fixed, unchanging human nature, since he suspected that this only made sense in “a society based on exploitation” (Adorno 2006, 651). Adorno chose to limit himself to describing the “new type of Man.” Ideas related to this theme are scattered throughout his writings. Essential ideas go back to the “dialectic of the individual” (Breuer 2016, 110), which found expression in the “Odyssey chapter” of Dialectic of Enlightenment, but they left an impressive testimony, above all, in Minima Moralia, which Alfred Schmidt called Adorno’s “most anthropological book” (Schmidt 1981, 32). It is more difficult to trace Adorno’s humanism than that of the other authors analyzed in this book. Unlike Fromm, one searches in vain for enthusiastic appeals and claims to actualization. Adorno’s humanism, like his conception of the Enlightenment, springs from the recognition that it is profoundly dialectical. Here again, Schmidt’s aforementioned essay, “Adorno, a Philosopher of Real Humanism,” elaborated this point in a most sophisticated way. Schmidt makes it clear that Adorno, like Benjamin (cf. chapter 6), wanted to avoid being drawn into the maelstrom of a quasi-theological hypostasizing of “Man.” Indeed, this resistance pervades his opus. It can, however, be assumed 121

122

Chapter 5

that, for Adorno, “the cause of humanity” to which he was uncompromisingly committed had not yet been lost. Therefore, the reserve of his writings is not explained by a rejection of humanism but, rather, by his concern to oppose the “God-hypostasis” and its associated solemn, but ultimately false, humanism, as well as tendencies that sought to project human beings back to pure nature (Schmidt 1981, 51). Even in these initial attempts at demarcation, a potential for reflection becomes visible that would distinguish Adorno’s humanism as a truly “critical humanism.” This critical claim, however, is also connected to the conviction that, in the end, it is not about a somehow theoretically postulated or dogmatically fixed humanism, but about striving for humaneness in the form of “real humanity” in society. Adorno pursued this along two paths. One is that of science, where he connected his philosophical-conceptual work with critical social research that, he believed, should also inform about the “real humanity” that still exists, even if only residually, in contemporary societies. The other was as a public intellectual, where he expressed the—not immodest—claim that he was working toward practicing this “real humanity.” As we will see, Adorno also combined his work in the public sphere with his scientific expertise. Both these strategies place themselves at the service of “real humanity” primarily by seeking to shed light on the increasing dehumanization that occurs in capitalist society. Because I assign the concept of “real humanity” a central place in Adorno’s humanism, my first step must be to elucidate it. The role that the “new type of man” plays in Adorno’s anthropology will be explored first, with the help of two texts that were found in his estate: “Notes on the new anthropology” (Notizen zur neuen Anthropologie), available since 2003 and republished in 2016, and the fragmentary text, “Problem of the new type of man” (Problem des neuen Menschentypus) (2006). Adorno’s approach could also be understood as a “negative anthropology” (Sonnemann 2011 [1969]) as Hannes Bajohr has recently argued stating, quite correctly, that “negative anthropology” “taps the human from its negations, which deny and disavow it” (Bajohr 2019, 73). It is also true that negative anthropologies are “formulated against total theories of the human.” However, I would argue that Adorno’s “negative anthropology” cannot be reduced to a critique of essentialist concepts of the human, but that it was concerned mainly with revealing the “negations of the human” in our current societies through social and cultural critique. We may not know what absolute good is, what the absolute norm is, or even what Man, the human being, or humanity is, but that which is inhuman, we know very well. And I would say that the place of moral philosophy today is to be sought more in the concrete denunciation of the inhuman than in the uncommitted, abstract situating of, say, the being of Man (Adorno 1996, 261).

Theodor W. Adorno

123

In this way, Adorno showed his interest lay in a more humane world embedded in a humanistic culture that, though seriously endangered, is still available to us today. This research-pragmatic issue must, indeed, have been one of Adorno’s main concerns as he developed his Critical Theory. Subsequently, it will be shown that his humanism must be understood as “critical” for the very reason that Adorno did not want to understand it as an intellectual resource that would be available unchanged at any time and that could be drawn upon without loss. Instead, I argue that this humanism must be updated constantly through an active concern for humanistic culture through education and “interventions” (Eingriffe) in the public sphere. Adorno dealt at great length with the relations between human beings and nature. This subject interested him greatly, though only perhaps because he was determined to contradict the fatal idea of human beings becoming nature. In the final part of this chapter, this relation will be discussed against the background of Adorno and Horkheimer’s interest in the increasing domination of nature that, as is well-known, was the focus of their book, Dialectic of Enlightenment. This endeavor will make it clear that Adorno, as well, considered that this problem seemed to be connected, ultimately, to the loss of “real humanity” in our societies. WHAT DOES “REAL HUMANITY” MEAN? As a starting point for the following considerations, a sentence from the second edition of Dialectic of Enlightenment (1969) is helpful: “Critical thinking, which does not pause even before progress, today demands partisanship for the residues of freedom, for tendencies toward real humanity, even if they seem impotent in the face of the great historical train” (Horkheimer/Adorno 1990, IX; italics added). What is meant by “real humanity” here? In my explanation I draw on a lecture by Adorno that has been available for some years (2004) and was reprinted recently (2019a). This text, entitled “Kultur and Culture” (Kultur und Culture) (1957), is of particular interest not least because it brings together various threads of thought concerning the intersections between “humans and nature.” As the title suggests, Adorno was concerned with comparing the understanding of culture in Germany and the United States, where he had spent some ten years in exile. He first attempts to define the concept of culture in general terms tracing it back to its Latin origin, colere, and recalling that the contexts in which it was originally used pertained to the field of agriculture, where it was associated with “caring” (Pflege). This clarification is important to Adorno not least because he reminds us that “culture,” in a more general sense, always refers to humans’ “engagement with nature” (Adorno

124

Chapter 5

2019a, 156). The question that follows this statement is equally important, but it was surely on Adorno’s mind in his academic youth (cf. Adorno 2003), for it would ultimately become the guiding principle of Dialectic of Enlightenment—namely, the relation between culture and nature, especially in modern societies. It is important to note at this juncture that, for this thinker, culture always means something like “humans coping with nature in the sense of its mastery” (Adorno 2019a, 156), and that this practice can affect social life in various ways.1 Referring to the case of the United States, Adorno thought the concept of culture that best fit was one that could be understood primarily as a strategic “shaping of reality,” whereby the unlimited availability of nature as a resource is assumed absolutely and the aspect of “caring” for nature is largely eliminated. Especially illuminating here is the way in which he deals with material goods, for Adorno distinguishes two aspects in this regard. On the one hand, he uses the imagery of the “land of milk and honey” (Schlaraffenland) in connection with the seemingly infinite abundance of goods in supermarkets, which did not yet exist in Germany in the late 1950s: “You only have to go once through a so-called American ‘supermarket,’ one of those giant markets that are found, above all, in the new cities and centers of the American West, and you will somehow have the feeling [. . .] that there is no longer any scarcity, it is unbounded, the perfect fulfillment of material needs in general” (ibid., 162). The feeling that material scarcity has been abolished and the unquestioned assumption of nature’s bounty that lies behind it, also arise, in Adorno’s view, from a notion of “fulfilled utopia” that manifests itself in everyday social life through a striking form of “peacefulness and unaggression” that no longer existed in Europe in that way (ibid., 163). Added to this, Adorno draws attention to the fact that the underlying prerequisite of this condition must always be a bourgeois society, consistently thought through to its end, and with the principle of exchange inherent within it. On this cultural-comparative claim, he further stated: “The universality of the exchange principle also means [. . .] that all are there for all and that no human being is so hardened in himself and the narrowness of his interest as in our old Europe” (ibid., 164). In this vision, Adorno seems to abandon a functionalist-Marxist argumentation, which would hold that the relations of production determine social reality. Rather, he bases his assessment on observations he was able to make during the years he lived in the United States, a context that seems to have spurred his interest in another aspect of social life that he experienced there. Once again, he seeks to illustrate this point by comparing it to Europe: namely, the aforementioned “narrowness” of each individual’s “own interests in each case.” This seems to be fostered by a false image of the human being that has managed to engrave itself on European culture and leads to the assumption that the “process of

Theodor W. Adorno

125

humanization takes place from the inside out” (ibid., 165). Adorno argues vehemently against this, citing Hegel: We do not actually become human beings by realizing ourselves as individuals, but by going out of ourselves and entering into a relationship with other human beings, in this ‘going out of ourselves’ and, in a certain sense, giving ourselves up to others. It is only through this externalization that we determine ourselves as individuals, not by watering ourselves like little plants, as Wilhelm v. Humboldt, for example, expected of us in his concept of education, so we become only perfectly educated personalities (ibid.).

Humanism, then, is neither a philosophical theory, nor a clearly defined educational program, but a kind of social and cultural practice. This idea of the fundamental sociality of human existence finally led Adorno to the issue of political order. In his vision, it is not the political institutions that occupy the foreground, but the public sphere, where he claims to have observed in the United States a “freedom of discussion” that did not exist in Europe (cf. ibid., 166). This is where the circle closes: setting out from observations of everyday forms of social action, Adorno refers, on the one hand, to a positive image of the human being that corresponds to the basic ideal of equality as the exchange principle;2 on the other, to political forms that he did not see as being embodied in specific political institutions, but in a culture of public discussion and debate that was deeply-rooted in the conviction of equality. I have omitted here the criticisms that, of course, Adorno also expressed; above all, the tendency toward a high degree of conformity must be mentioned. But it is interesting that Adorno’s concept of “real humanity” seems to be a response to an overly spiritualized humanism that raised his suspicions because it sets out from an erroneous conception of the human: the individual enclosed within himself, to which Adorno opposes a thoroughly social and, indeed, public being. It is problematic, however, that this “real humanity” owes itself to an absolute availability of nature, for it is precisely on the hubris of the domination of nature that the loss of humanity—which occurs through the bourgeois type of human being—and to which the anthropology of Critical Theory is dedicated, is founded, as I will show in the following section. To summarize: the concept of “real humanity” connects Adorno’s anthropology and his humanism by orienting the latter in a normative manner.

126

Chapter 5

ADORNO’S ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE “NEW TYPE OF MAN” Let us, then, look first at the writings that Adorno dedicated explicitly to the field of anthropology. Here we must mention the provisional character of the first text, as announced in its title: “Notes” (Notizen). In some places, it consists only of series of not fully formulated sentences that initially convey only relatively loose sketches of ideas (cf. Adorno 2016, 262; second paragraph). Adorno, here, begins with a far-reaching attempt at demarcation: “The new anthropology; that is, the theory of the new type of man forming under the conditions of monopoly and state capitalism, stands in explicit opposition to psychology” (ibid., 261). Lying behind this statement is the insight into a new form of society in which “the individual can no longer exist in relative closure, constancy, and autonomy of purpose”—understood in “Freudian language as ‘ego’” (Adorno 2006, 652). Whereas psychology still started out from the assumption of the individual, the anthropology of current societies had to bid this idea adieu. “The representatives of the new type [of man] are no longer individuals; that is, the uniformity, continuity, and substantiality of the individual has been dissolved” (Adorno 2016, 261). In place of psychology, Adorno perceived behaviorism, which holds that individuals only submit, blindly, to structural imperatives. Two specific defining terms of psychology no longer operate in the new, postliberal society with its new type of person: repression and the unconscious. Since the “ego instance” is missing—having been replaced by a kind of “collective subject”—satisfying drives is no longer the responsibility of the individual, but rather has been transferred to this “collective subject.” The elimination of the unconscious leads to the circumvention of the established barrier against uncritical identity thinking. Adorno goes on to state that these fundamental changes in the structure of personality have cultural consequences: anthropology is not only understood here as critical social research but also implies cultural criticism. A new kind of novel, which Adorno believed was observable, especially in the United States, is insinuated as the tool of a deception that is not limited to the level of content, but would, in fact, consist of making readers believe in a possibility that has long since withered; namely, that “one can still have experiences” (ibid., 263). By explicitly echoing Benjamin’s notion of experience, Adorno aims to show that what compensates for the loss of experience is the illusion of the particular. “The shameful thing in America is that it is precisely here, where the particular has been absolutely destroyed by the general, where in place of experience comes the repetition of the same old thing, that the attempt is made to present the particular as surviving” (ibid., 263).

Theodor W. Adorno

127

In light of recent social-theoretical literature in Germany (Reckwitz 2017; see also chapter 1), where our current, “late-modern” societies are said to have, indeed, transformed toward ever greater “singularity,” as the singular and the particular are deemed to have won an irreversible victory over the general and the universal in all areas of life, Adorno sounds as an early warning: Is this transformation, with its esteem for the particular (qua “singular”), real? Does it not perhaps merely conceal the “universality of social domination, which leaves nothing that is not determined from above out of its concept namely, from its economic category?” (Adorno 2016, 263). Is it not rather, one might further ask, that behind the “society of singularities” the “totality” of the absolute shines through, which now advertises itself by simulating plurality and diversity? Whatever the case, the dissolution of experience goes hand in hand with the disappearance of all that is really different and special. This social tendency affects human beings as a whole for, apparently, they can only experience and continue, even potentiate, their individuality, while, in fact, they are subjected more and more to “mass society.” Two further considerations that impose themselves on today’s readers should be mentioned briefly. The first concerns the relation of the new type of human being to technology. Adorno recognizes a kind of techno-fetishism that, in his perception, was closely related to “commodity fetishism” (ibid., 267). However, he sets this strictly apart from an understanding of technology. “Concerning technology, it is characteristic of the new type [of man] in that what matters is not understanding technical things, but identification. The boys who stand around a particularly sleek car are far from being the experts they pretend to be. Their joy consists, rather, in the fact that they know the name of this car and the technical terms of any innovation” (ibid.). Thus, it is not the actual understanding of technology, but a kind of submissive worship of gadgets that takes on a quasi-mystical character, precisely because they are no longer understood. But Adorno hints at a way out: actually, understanding the highly complex technical interrelationships. In the following sentence, Adorno appears as an early herald of current debates: “The boy who has really understood the principle of the electric motor will stop worshipping the 12-cylinder” (ibid.). Adorno uses the example of dealing with technology to address another problem, one that goes far beyond the area of technology in the narrower sense to touch on the issue of cognitive competencies in our societies. This topic is only touched upon here and would, of course, have to be discussed further. One could ask whether more knowledge (for example about the technical details of twelve-cylinder engines, airplanes, cell phones, solar energy, AI technologies, etc.) would really make a difference. Is it this lack of knowledge that provokes something like the cognitive stress that people seem to experience in our societies? Adorno seems to pursue a distinct facet: desiring

128

Chapter 5

to know how technical things really work presupposes an inquisitiveness that, it seemed to him, people had lost under existing social conditions: “To think more, that is, to think beyond the immediate requirements of the nearest necessities, means for most people today a disturbance of that very adaptation which seizes all their psychological energy” (Adorno 2006, 658). Ultimately, it is a question of how people cognitively set themselves up in their respective worlds. Another context that Adorno addresses in this vein is human beings’ relation to nature. In doing so, he first distinguishes the conception of eighteenth-century Enlightenment from that of the nineteenth century, concluding that, while both placed the concept of nature in the center, the eighteenth-century version was concerned with “natural law,” the “inherent rights of all beings” and, hence, with rights and freedom (Adorno 2016, 267). In contrast, nineteenth-century Enlightenment was concerned to convey to people that they are “creatures in a context from which there is no escape” (ibid.); in other words, faith in nature now meant faith in the absolute order and, consequently, recognizing the constraints placed on human freedom. According to Adorno, “Nazism” capitalized on precisely this mindset: “The violence of Nazism, that which has taken such hold of people, is probably the belief that man himself can simulate nature” (ibid., 268). “To simulate nature” in this context means something like allowing the forces of nature to break in over other people, such that the origin is no longer in nature, but in “man” himself. “It is decisive for this world of nature that it combines subjugation, brutality, and irrationality with a complete lack of images and poverty of imagination” (ibid., 268). This also means culture is eliminated. But society completely reduced to nature, in this way, must not only do without culture, but also forfeit its right to freedom, since it subordinates itself absolutely to the dictates of the strongest. By submitting to the absolutism of the natural order, to the “cosmos,” it becomes its harshest adept and imitator. Adorno launches his appeal against this tendency. In the words of Nicholas Coomann, this can be summarized as follows: “‘[Adorno’s] reflections are ‘anthropological,’ first of all, insofar as he places man at the center of his consideration” (Coomann 2017, 57). However, as has already been stated, this is not accomplished through recourse to the human being in a positive way, but by describing the “bourgeois type of man” and the pathologies visible within him.

Theodor W. Adorno

129

ADORNO’S ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE “NEW TYPE OF MAN” AS CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH From the outset, critical theory sought to be perceived as an interdisciplinary research project. When Horkheimer was named director of the Institute for Social Research (IfS) in Frankfurt am Main in 1931, he made this unmistakably clear. Even at that early date, he wanted to pursue the “question of the connection between economic life, the psychological development of individuals, and the changes in the cultural fields in the narrower sense, which include not only the so-called spiritual contents of science, art, and religion, but also law, custom, fashion, public opinion, sports, modes of amusement, lifestyle, and so on” (Horkheimer 1988a, 32). This should not obscure the fact that all these individual subjects must be held together by the bracket of a “social philosophy,” which Horkheimer described as follows: “Its ultimate goal is the philosophical interpretation of the fate of human beings, insofar as they are not merely individuals, but members of a community. It must, therefore, concern itself, above all, with such phenomena as can be understood only in connection with the social life of human beings” (ibid., 20; italics added). The concept of the human being, however, is not a neutral one. As we have seen (cf. chapter 2), the respective “concepts of man” (Begriffe vom Menschen) are woven into the ideological texture that envelops the respective society. For this reason, Horkheimer’s Critical Theory can be understood primarily as a kind of critical anthropology of the bourgeois “type of man.” In John Abromeit’s words: “More than any other concept in his work in the 1930s, the anthropology of the bourgeois epoch represents the content of Horkheimer’s theory: his effort to provide a positive determination of the historical period in which he was living” (Abromeit 2011, 268). My objective in what follows is to show that this anthropological concern should be understood as a bracket that holds together also Adorno’s diverse approaches to critical social research and culture criticism. This also means that some of Adorno’s emblematic works, such as the Dialectic of Enlightenment, his studies of “Authoritarian Personality,” and, last but not least, Minima Moralia, must be understood against the background of these anthropological concerns. Dialectic of Enlightenment The first version of Adorno and Horkheimer’s co-authored book, entitled in English Dialectic of Enlightenment, was completed in 1944 but not published until 1947, by the Querido publishing house in Amsterdam, one of the most

130

Chapter 5

important German publishers in exile. The version that circulates today, however, is the second edition, revised and published in 1969. Much has been written about the history of the reception of this work (Schmidt-Noerr/Ziege 2019). This makes sense because there are many varied interpretations, and the book has been discussed in distinct historical contexts. Since an attempt to address this history and its numerous readings is beyond the scope of this chapter, I will focus on a few key points that are of special interest for my own argumentation. I am particularly concerned with the force field, charged by anthropological interests, of the argument that unfolds in the book. As indicated earlier, I will assume that Dialectic of Enlightenment, at least from Horkheimer’s point of view, can be interpreted as a continuation of the aforementioned “anthropology of the bourgeois age” (see chapter 2). In Dialectic of Enlightenment, this is traced back with great consistency to the fundamental point that divides “Man” from nature. As also mentioned above, Horkheimer and Adorno assumed that this context is marked by an intensified drive to dominate nature that impacts inter-human relations and, over the course of the history of civilization, has been characterized by increasingly uninhibited forms of control, violence and brutality (see: Fischer 2005; Imbusch 2005, 335ff.) The structure of the Dialectic of Enlightenment has often been underestimated in its reception. Probably the subtitle of the book, which points to a “fragmentary” character of the argumentation, is also responsible for this, as it suggests a rather random order of the individual chapters. Nevertheless, there is no mistaking that the structure of the book follows a certain narrative structure, whose concern is already a substantive one and is decidedly opposed to the Enlightenment idea of progress. The intention, however, is not to unfold a kind of “negative philosophy of history” that turns positive development into the negative. The criticism, rather, begins more deeply and strikes the sense-creating function of Enlightenment thinking of history. It was in this context that the Ecuadorian Mexican philosopher Bolívar Echeverría wrote: “The conviction that history is ‘meaningful’ or has a progressive sense—an Enlightenment conviction in which belief in the salvific sense of divine creation is secularized—is fading incessantly: it is no longer a matter of the meaning that history seems to have but, at best, of its ‘counter-meaning’ (contrasentido)” (Echeverria 2011, 777). Of course, Horkheimer and Adorno do not assume that purposeful deception was responsible for the failure of the original good intentions that the Enlightenment carried, first and foremost, to free humans from fear. Rather, they indicate that something must have gotten out of hand. To understand this, the underlying question must be asked once again in all clarity: “Why is humanity, instead of entering a truly human state [. . .], sinking into a new form of barbarism?” (Horkheimer/Adorno 1990, 1). This question names

Theodor W. Adorno

131

both the original goal (a “truly human condition”) and the opposed result (a new “form of barbarism”). The human condition is not just narrowly missed; it is not a matter of setting the process that was supposed to produce it back on course, since that would mean that the direction pursued was the correct one. Rather, the point is to show that Enlightenment goes hand in hand with the loss of humaneness. According to Adorno and Horkheimer, this process culminated in the 1940s. In the last chapter of their book, they designate the preliminary low point of this development with the keyword anti-Semitism. After two world wars and the systematic, ‘industrialized, murder of millions of human beings,’ Horkheimer and Adorno could reach no other conclusion than that the “ocean of open violence” must have washed away virtually all traces of humaneness (ibid., 93). Moreover, the reality of this cataclysm reflected two additional, fatal developments. First, culture was forced into the mold of industrial production and thus neutralized as a moral authority; second, and even more decisive for our context, a certain “type of man” had to prevail, one they believed they could read in Homer’s Odysseus and de Sade’s Juliette, and elucidate in two anthropological excursuses in their book. The first (“Odysseus, or Myth and Enlightenment”) deals with the constitution of enlightened subjectivity and follows, methodologically, a “dialectic of the individual” (Breuer 2016, 110). For Horkheimer and Adorno, Odysseus represented the prototype of modern “Man,” who not only masters—that is, suppresses—his inner nature violently, but also demands renunciation and sublimation from those who work for him: “Society has always seen to that. Fresh and focused, those who work must look ahead and ignore what lies to the side. They must doggedly sublimate the drive that urges them to distraction into additional effort. Thus, they become practical” (Horkheimer/Adorno 1990, 40). The second excursus (“Juliette, or Enlightenment and Morality”) pursues the question of the normative stability of modern “Man” and, based on reading de Sade and Nietzsche, arrives at a devastating verdict: Enlightenment does not provide the normative support required to withstand the excesses of violence. For philosophy, this means that Enlightenment is characterized by “the impossibility of offering a principled argument against murder [based on] reason” (ibid., 163). This is precisely what these authors—in contrast to Habermas—made no attempt to correct by proposing some kind of new interpretation of “reason” or “rationality.” Rather, they were concerned with showing that a certain type of human being had emerged in contemporary societies where instrumental reason predominated (see also chapter 6).

132

Chapter 5

Authoritarian Personality In the lecture, “Aspects of the New Right-Wing Radicalism” (Aspekte des neuen Rechtsradikalismus), presented in Vienna on April 6, 1967, but published only recently (Adorno 2019b), Adorno blamed the continuing “concentration tendency of capital” for the fact that a progressive “declassification of social strata [could occur]” that “according to their subjective class consciousness, were thoroughly bourgeois” (ibid., 10). Here, Adorno is not talking about, somehow intuited, but by their nature very abstract experiences of alienation. Rather, he is referring to the social processes that certain social strata perceive as existential threats. He describes the typical reactions to such experiences of loss as ‘emotional’: primarily they evoke a “fear of the consequences of developments in society as a whole” (ibid., 14) that, just as emotionally and irrationally, explain the influx of people into radical right-wing parties and political movements that absorb and bundle these irrational forces to strengthen their political ambitions. Thus, for Adorno, right-wing radicalism in the Federal Republic of Germany was by no means a relic of the National Socialist era—maintained by a few “incorrigibles”— but a phenomenon that is reproduced again and again through structurally anchored social conditions. The decisive point here is that these social conditions ultimately change human beings significantly by forcing them to form an “authoritarian personality.” For Horkheimer, it must have been clear that this concept referred to a “type of man” characteristic of bourgeois society. Thinking, presumably, of the program he had developed in the 1936 essay “Egoism and the Movement for Freedom” (Egoismus und Freiheitsbewegung) (see chapter 2), he wrote in the “Preface” to The Authoritarian Personality (published by Adorno and several collaborators in 1950), that in his opinion the book was concerned mainly with “the rise of an ‘anthropological’ species we call the authoritarian type of Man” (Horkheimer 1950, ix). Minima Moralia Some time ago, the philosopher Rahel Jaeggi authored an interesting paper in which she referred to Adorno’s Minima Moralia as an example of a “critique of forms of life” (Jaeggi 2005). In doing so, Jaeggi pursued an ambitious plan that culminated in an equally ambitious book published a few years later (Jaeggi 2014). The critique of forms of life, at least in the tradition of modern theory, seems anything but self-evident. Commonly, they are attributed to the realm of private life, thus eluding any universally valid ethical judgment. Indeed, such judgments of forms of life are even more problematic today, given the plural character of current societies. Jaeggi is, therefore, right when

Theodor W. Adorno

133

she states, “As with taste, it is then no longer possible to argue about forms of life” (Jaeggi 2005, 115). Nevertheless, she insinuates that Adorno paved the way for such a still-possible critique of forms of life in Minima Moralia, the book she traces in her essay, where she deals at length with the question of the normative justification of a critique of that kind, concluding that Adorno is said to have somehow avoided positively prescribing these criteria: “One cannot say how the liberated society would live. But one can very definitely analyze what objectively prevents it from doing so” (ibid., 133). Adorno confined himself to such a ‘minimalist’ program in Minima Moralia, an unconventional book “about gift-giving and leisure, hospitality and tact, the relationship to refrigerators or cars, about how one lives or loves” (ibid., 115–16). In all the descriptions of everyday scenes in which these themes are manifested, readers are made aware of just how strong the “alienating character of the world” under which they suffer really is (ibid., 123). However correct and creative her reading of Minima Moralia may be, Jaeggi ultimately fails to identify the normative horizon that is crucial to Adorno’s critique. There is no way around thinking about why people suffer under the conditions described. Why do we agree with Adorno—and Jaeggi— that the “forms of life” described have an alienating character? Answers to these questions are not rooted in any universality of the negative, nor in the conventions of “communities” as, according to Jaeggi, Michael Walzer suggests (Jaeggi 2014, 25). Rather, they can only be generated when Adorno’s ideas from Minima Morelia appear in the context of his humanism. Even if his humanism is no longer formulated in the self-conscious unambiguity of quasi-dogmatic certainties, it can be argued that without the solid foundation of a humanism deeply rooted in bourgeois culture, his critical theory would hardly be conceivable. Following this line of reasoning, it also becomes clear that a book like Minima Moralia cannot be understood solely as philosophical. As Adorno explains at the beginning, it arose from an “attempt” to develop a “philosophy” out of “subjective experience,” though he also clarifies that this aspiration has not been fulfilled, indeed that it must be postponed for now as a “future effort of the concept”3 (Adorno 2005, 18). What remains is not a philosophically oriented critique of forms of life, but a cultural-critical exercise informed by the anthropology of the “new type of Man,” described above. From this perspective, the aphorisms that make up the book read like documents of a society that, while formally clinging to the achievements of humanism, seems to have long since ceased to live according to “real humanity.” The book can be divided roughly into two major directions or intentions. The first is to describe different contexts of life: from childhood to family, marriage, working life, love, eroticism, and property relations. The second is

134

Chapter 5

to deal with “cultural” or ideological topics: the “industrial” transformation of culture in general, but also specific changes in language, music, literature, and art. Despite this diversity of topics, Adorno is intent on drawing our attention, above all, to one specific problem: a deep-seated contradiction between the claim to “humanity” (Humanität), on the one hand, and a reality that permanently and systematically undermines this claim, on the other (see also chapter 1). Adorno’s criticism here is not based on what is morally or ethically superior, but on his self-understanding as an ‘enlightener’ (Aufklärer) whose goal is to make his readers see. “The subject still feels sure of its autonomy, but the nullity demonstrated to the subjects by the concentration camp is already overtaking the form of subjectivity itself” (Adorno 2005, 16). The book is, thus, about this tragic relation between humanity held in prospect and its irrevocable loss. This theme is explored in several cases, as when Adorno laments the urge toward conformity in culture, noting, “[u]sually it is rationalized as humanity, desire to be understood by others, wordly-wise responsibility” (ibid., 29), or denounces the—today, again, very current—attempt to humanize war (see also: Moyn 2021): “ Satanically, indeed, more initiative is in a sense demanded here than in old-style war: it seems to cost the subject his whole energy to achieve subjectlessness. Consummate inhumanity is the realization of Edward Grey’s humane dream, war without hatred” (Adorno 2005, 56). In addition, when he states, referring to Anatole France, that “[t]he nihilistic revulsion in his words is not merely the psychological, but the objective condition of humanism as Utopia” (ibid., 78), he is responding to the false humanity, the false humanism, that reduces itself to the concept of biological life. Finally, the understanding of the animal world, which imputes a certain “humanity” to the open-air concept of Hagenbeck’s zoo, because the animals there are no longer locked up in cages, shows how little the concept of humanity is still worth (ibid., 115). The book is thus about a description of human situations that, while upholding claims to humanity, have long since abolished it, as closer examination reveals: “It signifies that the individual as individual, in representing the species of man [Gattungswesen], has lost the autonomy through which he might realize the species” (ibid., 38). Given this tragic situation, the book traces an image of the human that does not result from conceptual-theoretical reflections, but from a kind of “subjective experience,” identified as a methodological guideline (ibid., 18). The image that emerges in this process is that of a person who seems to flee in society from society. Adorno sees marriage as an “enforced community of economic interests” (ibid., 31), but also as a “human cells within universal inhumanity” (ibid., 31). Here, as in other parts of the book, the “self-limitation” of the human being and the “withering of the subject” (ibid., 36) is followed by the loss of solidarity (ibid., 51) or

Theodor W. Adorno

135

real tolerance (102–03), and by a flight into “instrumentalized” social bonds (ibid., 41). ADORNO’S HUMANISM: FROM THE LOSS OF “REAL HUMANITY” TO CRITICAL HUMANISM Even though Adorno’s diagnosed “end of real humanity” could only lead one to expect the emphatic demand of humanity, right-wing radicalism already prophylactically invalidates this: “One should not operate primarily with ethical appeals, with appeals to humanity,” Adorno warned, “for the word ‘humanity’ itself, and everything connected with it does, after all, make the people it is about furious, has the effect of fear and weakness, roughly in the same way that in certain events with which I am familiar the mention of Auschwitz led to shouts of ‘Hoch Auschwitz’ and the mere mention of Jewish names to laughter” (Adorno 2019b, 27–28). It would seem, then, that the new type of human that thrives in the shadow of the loss of “real humanity” has immunized itself, as it were, against the normative force of humanism, against any desire for humanity. Horkheimer recorded the following reflection in a cursory note that reinforces this assumption: “Man becomes superfluous—in this society—before his abilities dwindle” (Horkheimer 1988b, 59), referring to the increasing mechanization of our societies, especially in the labor process. Nevertheless, we can relate this thought to our discussion, because in this sense, with the loss of “real humanity,” a positive concept of “humanism” would also be out of place, since whoever pretends to be human would achieve nothing in this society. The fate of human beings would consist in abolishing humanity, along with themselves. For Adorno, however, it seemed clear that the loss of “real humanity” can be understood less as a problem of the loss of positive images of the human than, precisely, as a compulsion to identify oneself with positive ideas. Cognitively, as well as morally and politically (cf. Holloway 2008), Adorno’s philosophy distinguished itself as a critique of “identity thinking” (cf. Kozlarek 2003), a concept to which he built a monument in his late work, Negative Dialectics, in 1966. But this commitment to negativity does not mean that his thinking, notably his humanism, are devoid of positive ideas. As we have seen, a reference in the Preface to the first edition of Dialectic of Enlightenment sheds light on Horkheimer and Adorno’s concern with the fact that humanity is “sinking into a new form of barbarism” instead of “entering a truly human state” (Horkheimer/Adorno 1990, 1). This phrase has often been quoted, and the word barbarism frequently seems to hold special appeal (cf. Miller/Soeffner 1996), as it is assumed to condense the irreconcilable

136

Chapter 5

judgment on the history of civilization that critical theory is supposed to have stood for. Less often, however, do scholars ask what the two authors might have meant by a “truly human state.” This question is pursued here. Although no clear positive answer can be expected it is possible that Adorno’s intellectual work, in particular, had to follow an insight similar to the one expressed by Volker Gerhardt: “After all,” Gerhardt wrote, the human being is so convinced of himself in his ability to go into himself [. . .] that he first has to be reminded that he is already connected with his consciousness to a public sphere that unites him with his peers. He is homo publicus, a being turned toward the world even in his inner being, who in all his essential achievements, in thinking, speaking, knowing, and believing, in laughing as well as in crying, and above all in his artificial productivity, is dependent on the presence of his peers, which makes possible both comprehension and contradiction (Gerhardt 2019, 21; italics in original).

Adorno would likely have been suspicious of this anthropological attempt to positively define the ’nature of man’ as homo publicus, but we can assume that his thinking could not have been too far removed from Gerhardt’s. In a second step, I would like to show, based on some of Adorno’s lectures and more marginal texts, that he may have understood his work in the public sphere also as offering the possibility to counteract the loss of “real humanity.” We will find that he ascribed a predestined role to sociology in particular in this context. In the first step, I will show that Adorno must, indeed, have been concerned primarily with understanding himself in his role as an educator, but also in his role as a public intellectual, as an agent of a humanistic praxis, where a main concern revolved around using education to “actualize” a humanistic culture, thus saving it from its eventual disappearance. Education in the Sense of a Humanistic Culture One of Adorno’s texts that deals explicitly with humanism is the short work, “On Technology and Humanism” (Über Technik und Humanismus), which was preceded by a lecture on November 10, 1953, given at the Technical University of Karlsruhe. There, he outlined his conception of humanism by distinguishing it from technology. At several points, he refers to technology as a field in which a “progressive rationalization” (Adorno 1986, 313) can be observed, that occurs, as well, in music. The main purpose of technology, he argues, is “to solve problems left unsolved or neglected by one person, to have been taken up and solved by the next” (ibid., 312). Such a purposive, efficiency-oriented understanding is foreign to humanism. The concept of

Theodor W. Adorno

137

“getting things done” is “inappropriate to [humanism],” writes Adorno (ibid., 311), but he also sought to clarify to his audience at the Technical University that the division between technology and humanism is artificial and, hence, already a feature of the ideology of postliberal capitalist society: “[the antithesis of humanism and technology] belongs to false consciousness. In a fragmented society, its different sectors do not know what they are and do not know what the others are. The rupture between technology and humanism itself, however incurable it may seem, is a piece of socially produced sham” (ibid., 314). Social criticism must, therefore, oppose the notion of humanism as a domain untouched by other social realms. In a society artificially divided into distinct domains that operate according to distinct rationalities, Adorno argues, it is impossible to understand the overarching connections. Again, one could say that a kind of cognitive stress is preprogrammed, which is perhaps even more evident in our societies today than it was in Adorno’s time. It seems that he wanted to warn the technicians in the audience against intellectual differentiation by arguing for a connection between technology and humanism, and by persuading them to ask themselves not only what can be achieved in terms of the ‘technically possible’ but, above all, whether they can contribute anything “to a more humane society” (ibid.). Humanism for Adorno is, as we have seen, not a sum of normative orientations to be taken from a certain ideal of “Man,” but the search for humane social conditions that, in his view, were dwindling away in modern society. The fact that these cannot easily be restored is due, not least, to an “educational crisis” that seems to go hand in hand with the weakening of the “educational ideal of humanism” and has led to the instrumental reason of technology expanding into many other areas of society. But it is also a consequence of the failure of the humanistic ideal of education: “That it has failed, that culture has not succeeded in cultivating its humanity, is not only the fault of people but also of culture which, detached from the idea of realized humanity, has a moment of untruth [. . .] that now returns through people’s disrespect for culture” (ibid., 316; see also Adorno 2005). The failure to follow the humanistic ideal of education also implies this “disregard”; that is, the turning away of people from culture, as Adorno perceived, above all, in and through the “culture industry.” How prophetic his reflections were at the time should only become clearer today (see also Breuer 2016; Behrens 2007). For Adorno, however, it seemed certain that humanism could no longer claim to be able to offer an alternative to these developments, for in its now a coagulated form, it had long since forfeited any “hope for a form of education.” Therefore, Adorno’s judgment on humanism is not a condemnation. He does not allow himself to be carried away into radical anti-humanism. Similar to his critique of the Enlightenment (see: Horkheimer/Adorno 1990), this

138

Chapter 5

later text is not driven by a naïve, arrogant rejection but, above all, by a disappointed view of the promises of the Enlightenment and of humanism. The “dialectic of Enlightenment” obviously mirrors the “dialectic of humanism” and can today be seen as a reminder of what humanism once stood for, but also of the fact that only rigid forms of humanist culture remain today that are easy to be subverted (see chapter 1). Adorno’s Critical Theory is firmly rooted in this Enlightenment and humanistic culture, which he perceived to be gradually eroding in contemporary societies. His self-image, especially as a public intellectual, was shaped by the fact that he saw himself as a mediator of this culture. To this end, he used every kind of cultural field in which he moved with virtuosity. In what follows, this will be shown primarily by the examples of philosophy and sociology. However, it should also become clear that Adorno’s ideal did not consist in telling those who no longer knew this culture what it was all about, but that he was convinced that the humanity that still existed in culture had to be transformed into socially lived, “real humanity.” How can this be achieved? The Public Sphere and Sociology at the Service of Humanity Representatives of critical theory have certainly not always been convinced of the public penetration of their thought. How different the confidence in being noticed at all must have been is documented today by their most famous book. In its present form, Dialectic of Enlightenment contains both the “Preface” (Vorrede) from the first edition (published in 1947), and “Zur Neuausgabe,” a new preface written for the second edition, in 1969. Upon comparing the two, one perceives that while Adorno and Horkheimer still anticipated only a rather weak public impact in the late 1940s, the second edition shines under a much brighter star because the “Frankfurt School” was emerging, and its influence on a broader, not only academic, public had gained significant momentum in the “intellectual constitution” of the Federal Republic of Germany (Albrecht et al. 2009). Using Adorno as an example, I would now like to show that a belief in the political-social constitution of human life, understood in an emphatic sense, was coupled with the simultaneous realization that this is only possible in a public space that resists the totalizing tendencies of society. In the early Federal Republic, however, Adorno conceived his first task as establishing this public space. Comparing Adorno and Habermas, Lydia Goehr asserts: If to use the normative terms of Jürgen Habermas, a democratic society supports a rational and communicative public sphere in which debate and deliberation can freely take place, then it did so for Habermas’s teacher Adorno only as

Theodor W. Adorno

139

the historical result of an ongoing critique and reeducation of expressed public opinion. Reason, freedom, and, indeed, communication cannot be presupposed (Goehr 2005, xv).

The pedagogical claim emphasized here, which can justifiably be attributed to Adorno’s “interventions” (Eingriffe) in the public sphere, must not be misunderstood as patronizing paternalism. Rather, Adorno seems to have been concerned with placing himself and, especially, his sociological expertise, at the service of the people. Adorno makes this clear in the lecture “The concept of political education” (Der Begriff der politischen Bildung) delivered on February 1, 1963. Although the concept of “political eduction” (politische Bildung) is usually assigned to the political sciences, Adorno’s lecture is striking in that it contradicts this conventional understanding of the division of labor among academic disciplines. For him, political education falls, essentially, within the area of competence of sociology. There are two reasons for this, one empirical, the other content-related. The empirical reason was revealed to Adorno in a study conducted at the Institute for Social Research, which found that in the few school classes, for instance, where Social Studies instruction includes real sociological categories and questions, where, that is, the real play of forces in society is dealt with instead of merely the formal categories of the procedure [. . .], the proportion of convinced democrats among the pupils is noticeably higher than in classes where such sociologically accentuated Social Studies instruction does not take place (Adorno 2019c, 381).

The substantive reason serves to explain this statement: the political cannot be understood if not perceived as part of the social processes in society. Adorno insists on this at the beginning of his lecture: What I want to do today is actually something very modest. Namely, I would like to make you realize that even your political education must not be content with the fact that you are now learning political procedural rules, or the party system, or the course of political administration, or any phenomena of this kind [. . .], but that, in order for you to really arrive at a lively understanding of politics [. . .] you must think socially, you must think sociologically (ibid., 377).

Politics is thus not to be understood as an isolable technocratic-administrative institution, but as a social phenomenon embedded in the dynamics of society as a whole. Seen in this light, the separation of politics and society would not only be a problem for scientific understanding but, precisely as well, for the political

140

Chapter 5

consciousness of citizens. Indeed, serious experiences of “alienation,” “objectification,” or “reification” could be expected, that would produce dehumanizing effects the further they progress: “the more people tend to humanize, for their consciousness, the world in which they would otherwise virtually freeze to death, by presenting the dehumanized world to themselves as if it were a human one that depended directly on the human being” (ibid., 378). Adorno observed that this occurs primarily through the “personification” of political functions that he perceived, for example, in the presidentialism of the United States. As understandable as such reactions may be at first glance, they are counterproductive for the realization of a democratic society, because they only seem to compensate for the humanity that is missing in the coexistence of people through a kind of substitute humanization. However, the result is that political interest is potentially diverted: “And then some prominent figures become so tremendously important as if it mattered which person plays this or that role in politics” (ibid.). The true social functions, the current social distribution of power, and the resulting real social and political conflicts remain hidden behind the shadow battles of political actors. Personification is thus not a solution to the problem; on the contrary, it can exacerbate feelings of alienation because people still feel excluded from any real participation in political decision-making, sensing they have no real political power (see chapter 6). It is precisely these experiences of exclusion that have been taken up, manipulated, and instrumentalized by certain political groups. One of the essential principles of fascism, for example, consisted, and still consists, in suggesting to people who are excluded, and who perceive themselves as such, that they belong to “the people” (Volk) or the community, but without allowing them any real participation in political and economic power.4 Moreover—and Adorno draws particular attention to this point—it is in fascism and national socialism that, in addition to the ideology of “the people” and “community,” a bizarre cult of the elite is lauded, but one that does not give horizontal ideals of distribution any real chance. Adorno summarizes the results of his reflections in the following plea: “You must not, ladies and gentlemen [. . .], equate the political form under which we live with the real social consciousness of the people. One can live in a democracy and yet, according to one’s consciousness, be completely dominated by ideas and forms that are incompatible with democracy, even if one professes it, as so many people do today” (Adorno 2019c, 380). The potential for frustration arising from these mechanisms was mobilized by fascism and national socialism in the early twentieth century. But these tendencies can still be observed today: currents of identity politics have been on the rise again for several decades and declare the respective others—Jews, but also Muslims,

Theodor W. Adorno

141

refugees, etc.—to be the cause of one’s own experiences of alienation. And something else seems to match clearly with current tendencies: the greater the frustrations of the group of the “chosen,” the more violent their reactions against the “others.” In a lecture that Adorno gave in 1951, entitled “The actuality of sociology” (Die Aktualität der Soziologie), he emphasized that an ideology like national socialism, which relied on segregation, must ultimately have been driven by a deep fear of what we could call the self-determination of society. A fear that the moment people become aware of the interrelationship that prevails among them and that asserts itself in the production and reproduction of their lives, that if people could become aware of these interrelationships, that then the despotic system itself would have to collapse like a house of cards (Adorno 2019d, 31).

These “interrelationships” that Adorno supposed among people, the social connectedness that he evokes here, contradict all notions and conceits of identity politics (including those that fancy themselves leftist!). Adorno did not believe in cultural, national, or ethnic identities, but in a human sociality that precedes any identity. However, a discussion of how this can be grasped theoretically is beyond the scope of this chapter. What matters to me here is to note that for Adorno sociology seems to emerge, once again in this context, as a privileged science: “And if I may tell you what seems to me, in any case, the task of a meaningful sociology alone, it would be to awaken the consciousness of objective social conditions and to spread this consciousness of objective social conditions among people” (Adorno 2019c, 383). Referring to a similar idea in a separate text, Adorno spoke of a “humane determination” of sociology (Adorno 2019d, 34). However, this discipline of the social sciences could only realize this objective if it came to understand how to make its findings accessible to the general public. In summary: after his return from exile in the United States, Adorno argued in favor of a sociology unwilling to see itself merely as an esoteric science turned away from the world, but as one obliged to fulfill two fundamental purposes in, and through, its discursive deployment in the public sphere. On the one hand, it should perform an ideological-critical task that seeks to unveil the view of political reality and social conflicts in a way that makes the superficial political “shadow battles” transparent. On the other hand, sociology must strive to uncover a reality that is hidden from people in our contemporary societies: namely, the thorough social and political constitution of human existence. Finally, the citizens must learn that they gain, or constitute, power at the moment they realize this. As we might expect, Adorno refuses to give a positive answer to the question that seems to arise from these insights;

142

Chapter 5

that is, what a better society would ultimately look like, nor does he speak of what must be done to make it a reality. He does not develop a political program. Yet the lectures quoted here do not testify to a resigned spirit. On the contrary, they reveal a political-social spirit that reflects on the political and social function of the public sphere (cf. Söllner 2020) where the residues of “real humanity” are revealed not only through the vanity of presenting alternatives. Adorno believed that his time was one of resistance: “There are times and situations, such as these, in which positive programs are discredited or have no prospect of being realized, in which all true politics, that is, politics that serves the concept of a proper society, has contracted into resistance” (Adorno 2019a, 386). Nevertheless, not even this resistance could be completely devoid of thoughts of what might be better. Adorno’s texts reveal glimmers of hope that he still suspected that the spark of a “real humanity lived on in our societies,” and that critical theory sought to draw attention to this, above all, by criticizing its gradual, systematic extinction. FROM MASTERY OVER NATURE TO A HUMANE SOCIETY We have seen that Adorno assumed an altered personality structure for the “human type” of postliberal bourgeois society. These considerations, as we have shown as well, connect to the topic of the relation of human beings to nature. In this context, it is interesting to recall how, entirely in line with a dialectical understanding of the Enlightenment, Adorno distinguished between two conceptions: eighteenth-century Enlightenment, where the concept of “natural law” dominates and in which he saw an expression of the fact that all “beings” are granted a naturally “innate right” (cf. Adorno 2016, 267), and the nineteenth-century version, which sought, instead, to convey to people that they were “creatures in a context from which there is no escape” (ibid.), a reality that forced them to subordinate themselves to the order imposed by “nature.” An understanding of nature as a guarantor of freedom is thus opposed to the understanding of nature as a concept of absolute order. In this sense, we must also remember that Adorno had been dealing with this issue since his youth. In a very early essay entitled, “The idea of natural history” (Die Idee der Naturgeschichte) (Adorno 2003), which goes back to a lecture from 1932, the young philosopher sketched a thought that continued to reverberate in his final works, even as late as his main philosophical book, Negative Dialectics (1966). Adorno does not refer to philosophy here in terms of its conceptual expertise; rather, he seems to see in it a cultural testimony that allows a privileged view of the cognitive attitudes of bourgeois society. Philosophy, then, serves him as the object of his critical social and

Theodor W. Adorno

143

cultural investigations, which are also intended to interrogate humans’ relation to nature. In her book, Adorno on Nature (2014), Deborah Cook summarized Adorno’s ideas on this topic, concluding that the cognitive notions of this relation that emerge in philosophical discourse are compatible with a reality directed, in increasingly unmistakable ways, against life, both human and nonhuman: Adorno is concerned that the primacy of the capitalist process of production, on which our lives now completely depend, will lead, quite literally, to the annihilation of all life on the planet because that process shackles us to our socially determined interest in our individual survival in complete disregard of the more rational interests of our species (Cook 2014, 159).

Perhaps it could be argued that up to this point, Adorno’s diagnosis differs little from that of current theories that are critical of climate change and environmental destruction. What sets Adorno’s ideas apart, however, is the outlook they allow. According to Cook, it was clear to Adorno that survival on our planet could only succeed if a new “solidarity” among all human beings developed, whose new quality would have to arise from a fundamental “sympathy” of all people toward each other. “Survival depends on sympathy with the human, with embodied and finite individuals whose diverse needs and interests make them all too vulnerable to the pain and suffering they must now endure” (ibid., 161). Only such a “realized” humanity could also offer the possibility to change the quality of its relation to nature or, better: the relation of society and nature, in such a way that the imperative of dominating nature would no longer be the priority. A human existence realized in this sense, however, would presuppose a distinct society, one in which the organization of labor and, hence, the human-nature “metabolism” would no longer be predetermined by the logic of capitalist society. Reconciliation would finally enable communication to take place among nature, the socioeconomic order, and the human and non-human particulars over whom nature and society will always preponderate [. . .]. Establishing freer intercourse between mind and body, ego and instinct, human beings would also improve their metabolism between themselves and the environing natural world (ibid., 161–62).

“Real humanity” then, for Adorno, can only proliferate where relations among human beings and between them and their non-human environment become more harmonious. One sentence in the Dialectic of Enlightenment is particularly telling in this context: “The disenchantment of the world is

144

Chapter 5

the eradication of animism” (Horkheimer/Adorno 1990, 11). This reference to animism can be read here primarily as a reminder of a world in which the hubris of “increased” or “augmented humanity” (see Benjamin: chapter 6) had not yet led to capitalist forms of life’s desire to understand Man’s relation to his nonhuman environment as a merciless form of domination. Following Adorno’s logic, however, resistance to this situation would not mean understanding animals as humans or humans as animals, for this would only maintain “anthropomorphism”—“the projection of the subjective onto nature” (Horkheimer/Adorno 1990, 12). Adorno’s appeal is different: he is concerned with recalling interpersonal solidarity and sympathy, the “real humanity” that trains itself by opening up to the other. But, and this seems crucial, the problem is not simply the human being, but how humans currently organize their social life. In other words: it is not fewer humans that would be beneficial for nature, the climate, and so on, but a more humanely organized society committed to “real humanity.” NOTES 1. The topic goes clearly back to Marx and Engels. However, it must be remembered it is highly contested in contemporary debates about the degradation of natural environments and climate change. 2. Although it has to be made clear that Adorno saw, in correspondence with Marx, the exchange principle as a “real abstraction.” I owe this clarification to an anonymous reviewer. 3. I allowed myself to change the translation. The exact wording of the translation is: “future exertion of thought.” However, I would like to insist on the original idea, which uses the word Begriff (concept) (see: Adorno 1997, 17). 4. This is, above all, a problem of systems of so-called representative democracies.

REFERENCES Abromeit, John. 2011. Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of the Frankfurt School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Adorno, Theodor W. 1986. „Über Technik und Humanismus.“ In Theodor W. Adorno. Gesammelte Schriften, Band 20.I, Vermischte Schriften, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, 310–17. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Adorno, Theodor W. 1996. Probleme der Moralphilosophie. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Adorno, Theodor W. 1997. Minima Moralia. Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben, Gesammelte Schriften 4, edited by Rolf Tiedemann. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.

Theodor W. Adorno

145

Adorno, Theodor W. 2003. “Die Idee der Naturgeschichte.“ In Theodor W. Adorno. 2003. Philosophische Frühschriften, 345–65. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Adorno, Theodor W. 2005. Minima Moralia. Reflections on a Damaged Life. London/New York: Verso. Adorno, Theodor W. 2006. “G. Problem des neuen Menschentypus.“ In Theodor W. Adorno. 2006. Current of Music. Elements of a Radio Theory, edited by Robert Hullot-Kentor, 650–61. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Adorno, Theodor W. 2016. “Notizen zur neuen Anthropologie.“ In Mensch und Gesellschaft zwischen Natur und Geschichte. Zum Verhältnis von Philosophischer Anthropologie und Kritischer Theorie, edited by Thomas Ebke/Sebastian Edinger/ Frank Müller/Roman Yos, 261–74. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. Adorno, Theodor W. 2019a. „Kultur und Culture.“ In Theodor W. Adorno. 2019. Vorträge 1949–1968, 156–76. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Adorno, Theodor W. 2019b. Aspekte des Neuen Rechtsradikalismus. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Adorno, Theodor W. 2019c. “Der Begriff der politischen Bildung.“ In Theodor W. Adorno. 2019. Vorträge 1949–1968, 377–86. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Adorno, Theodor W. 2019d. “Die Aktualität der Soziologie.“ In Theodor W. Adorno. 2019. Vorträge 1949–1968, 30–54. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Albrecht, Clemens et al. (eds.). 2009. Die intellektuelle Gründung der Bundesrepublik. Eine Wirkungsgeschichte der Frankfurter Schule. Frankfurt/M./New York: Campus. Bajohr, Hannes. 2020. „Keine Quallen: Anthropozän und Negative Anthropologie.“ In Der Anthropos im Anthropozän. Die Wiederkehr des Menschen im Moment seiner vermeintlich endgültigen Verabschiedung, edited by Hannes Bajohr, 1–16. Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter. Behrens, Roger. 2007. „Bemerkungen zur Aktualität der Kritischen Theorie.“ In Kritische Theorie heute, edited by Rainer Winter/Peter Zima, 47–66. Bielefeld: Transcript. Breuer, Stefan. 2016. „Anthropologie 3.0.“ In Stefan Breuer. 2016. Kritische Theorie. Schlüsselbegriffe, Kontroversen, Grenzen, 97–128. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Cook, Deborah. 2014. Adorno on Nature. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Coomann, Nicholas. 2017. „Im Schema: ‚Caput mortuum‘. Adornos Fragmente einer dialektischen Anthropologie.“ In Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 65(1): 51–66. Echeverría, Bolívar. 2011 [2006]. “El humanismo del existencialismo.” In Crítica de la modernidad capitalista. Antología, 745–53. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado plurinacional de Bolivia. Fischer, Karsten. 2005. “In the Beginning Was the Murder: Destruction of Nature and Interhuman Violence in Adorno’s Critique of Culture.” In Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 6/2: 27–38. Gerhardt, Volker. 2019. Humanität. Über den Geist der Menschheit. München: C.H. Beck. Goehr, Lydia. 2005. “Reviewing Adorno: Public Opinion and Critique.” In Theodor W. Adorno. Critical Models. Interventions and Catchwords, xiii–lvi. New York: Columbia University Press.

146

Chapter 5

Holloway, John, Fernando Matamoros, and Sergio Tischler. 2008. Negativity and Revolution: Adorno and Political Activism. London: Pluto Press. Horkheimer, Max. 1950. „Preface.” In The Authoritarian Personality, edited by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford. New York: Harper & Brothers. Horkheimer, Max. 1988a. „Die gegenwärtige Lage der Sozialphilosophie und die Aufgaben eines Instituts für Sozialforschung.“ In Max Horkheimer. 1988. Gesammelte Schriften. Band 3: Schriften 1931–1936, 20–35. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Horkheimer, Max. 1988b. „Der Mensch wird überflüssig.“ In Max Horkheimer. 1988. Gesammelte Schriften, Band 14: Nachgelassene Schriften 1949–1972, edited by Gunzelin Schmid-Noerr, 59. Frankfurt: Fischer. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1990. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Imbusch, Peter. 2005. Moderne und Gewalt: Zivilisationstheoretische Perspektiven auf das 20. Jahrhundert. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag. Jaeggi, Rahel. 2005. „‘Kein Einzelner vermag etwas dagegen‘. Adornos Minima Moralia als Kritik von Lebensformen.“ In Dialektik der Freiheit. Frankfurter Adorno-Konferenz 2003, edited by Axel Honneth, 115–41. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Jaeggi, Rahel. 2014. Kritik von Lebensformen. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Kozlarek, Oliver. 2003. „Identidad o crítica? La actualidad y los límites de la dialéctica negativa.” In Política, identidad y narración, edited by Gustavo Leyva, 67–91. Mexico City: UAM-I/Miguel Ángel Porrúa. Miller, Max, and Hans-Georg Soeffner. 1996. Modernität und Barbarei: soziologische Zeitdiagnose am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Moyn, Samuel. 2021. Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. New York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2017. Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten. Zum Strukturwandel der Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Schmidt, Alfred. 1981. „Adorno—ein Philosoph des realen Humanismus.“ In Alfred Schmidt. 1981. Kritische Theorie. Humanismus. Aufklärung. Philosophische Arbeiten 1969–1979, 27–55. Stuttgart: Reclam. Schmidt, Noerr Gunzelin, and Eva-Maria Ziege. 2019. „70 Jahre Dialektik der Aufklärung.“ In Zur Kritik der regressiven Vernunft. Beiträge zur „Dialektik der Aufklärung,“ edited by Gunzelin Schmidt Noerr and Eva Maria Ziege, 1–22. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Söllner, Alfons. 2020. „Adorno als ‚Political Scholar‘?“ In Leviathan 48/2: 338–49. Sonnemann, Ulrich. 2011 [1969]. Negative Anthropologie (Schriften 3: Spontaneität und Verfügung. Sabotage des Schicksals). Lüneburg: zu Klampen.

Chapter 6

Walter Benjamin The Critique of Violence as a Critique of Power

If one of the most important formulas of modern enlightened humanism was perpetuated by the pen of Kant, it was intended, above all, to see people only as ends in themselves and prevent them from becoming means for other people to achieve their ends or create systemic conditions that come to acquire a life of their own.1 The critique of humanism also puts an end to this demand. Tzvetan Todorov refers to Lévi Strauss, whose works have certainly lost none of their validity, especially with regard to current debates taking place under the sign of posthumanism. Todorov sums up Lévi Strauss’s ideas as follows: “it is human beings, excluding all other living species, who serve as the measure of all things, the raison d’être and purpose for all human activity. Humanism [. . .] has wanted to organize the world around man; therein lies its sin, or more simply, its error” (Todorov 1991, 89). He concludes: “Thus, it is not an abuse to say that Lévi-Strauss considers himself the bearer of an anti-humanist ideology” (ibid.). The human being is the “measure of all things.” This unequivocal anthropocentrism, unclouded by doubts that fed the arrogance that in the twentieth century repeatedly confronted humanity with ruin, could easily be seen as a hubris worthy of criticism. But, compared to Kant, from the perspective of today’s anti- or post-humanist discourses the focus of the critique has changed. Today it is no longer the critique of instrumental reason or means-end rationality but, curiously, the demand to focus on humans that resides in the center of the critique. This means the lever of critique was moved to the wrong position. Instead of taking up Kant’s imperative to broaden the critique, to extend the validity of humanist values, or to strive for a more inclusive humanism—that would include, for instance, non-human species—the proposal is to dispense with it altogether. 147

148

Chapter 6

However, Kant’s ideas can be pondered in another way, not as a precursor of an increasingly ruthless anthropocentrism, but as an early warning signal of a world that stands out for the evermore evident subjugation to purely instrumental criteria of action and thought. Seen in this light, Kant’s ideas are still relevant today, for they make us sensitive to a world that is moving further and further away from the ideal of a more humane life. Historical evidence for this tendency was much more evident in Walter Benjamin’s time than in Kant’s. Where else, if not in his Theses on the Philosophy of History, is this conviction more explicitly expressed? The “Angel of History”—depicted in Paul Klee’s famous drawing, Angelus Novus—looks back upon the “pile of debris” (Benjamin 1968, 258) left behind by a history that Kant had only perceived in its beginnings unable, as he was, to imagine just how bad things were still going to get. But what can we say today: Do we not live in a much better world? Or even in the best world ever? Especially in the highly developed societies of the West, it should be easy to cultivate this conviction. The reason is that, apart from a high level of material well-being, institutionalized politics in these societies today allows itself to adopt some of the demands that originated in the agendas of the critical social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, so that today issues such as gender equality, the fight against environmental destruction, and campaigns against racism and homophobia occupy important places on the agendas of even some conservative political parties and official policies in many countries. However, all these concessions do not translate precisely into a qualitative challenge to political and economic power, which tends to be concentrated in increasingly exclusive sectors of these societies. The growing awareness of economic inequality, which is becoming more and more evident again also in highly developed societies, reveals the advanced degree of the concentration of economic power, which has established itself clearly as an important topic in the social sciences (see Piketty 2014). A critique of political inequality, however, seems more difficult to sustain. Neoliberal discourse obscures the view of a reality that reflects a highly unequal distribution of political power, as well, despite the operating of formal democratic processes. A strategy that favors a more equal distribution of political power is today overshadowed by the aforementioned claims of recognition of identity politics that, however, do not challenge the real concentration of power. On the contrary, they may be functionalized ideologically to favor an even greater concentration. It is precisely in this scenario that Benjamin’s critique of modern capitalist society has a relevance today that can hardly be overlooked once we see that one of its central concerns is to make visible the completely instrumental nature that characterizes the functioning of our societies serving, above all,

Walter Benjamin

149

the goal of accumulating economic and political power and avoiding any kind of serious, systematic resistance. Against the background of this initial thesis, I take this occasion to analyze the text “Critique of Violence” (Benjamin, 1991 [1921]), written some one hundred years ago, to show it interlaces three central thematic threads: first, that of the critique of means-ends rationality that runs through Benjamin’s entire oeuvre; second, political power and its unequal distribution; and, third, a normative orientation that points toward an approach that in this book is called “critical humanism.” My main interest here is neither exclusively philosophical nor social theoretical. I would, rather, place it on the horizon of “culture critique.” Thus, I also seek to situate the essay “Critique of Violence” in a broader framework that transcends individual disciplines. In other words, the essay should be understood as a sample of a transdisciplinary effort of culture critique connected to the Benjaminian project that must have been nurtured from the outset by the intuition that processes of modernization must be seen as a civilizational rupture that is reflected in all conceivable spheres of human life. Benjamin actually traces these processes in philosophy, literature, modern mass culture, the world of consumption and commodities, and the institutions of modern societies, by diagnosing, time and again, the centrality and increasing exclusivity of means-ends rationality that, in this 1921 text, is seen as a logic that preserves and reproduces the unequal concentration of power and deprives people of achieving a truly humane life. Seen in this light, it could be said that Benjamin’s work has a certain unity, despite its fragmentary character. But this also means the overall project of culture critique revealed in his work to the retrospective gaze must be seen as a key to understanding his individual works which, on their own, are often of an enigmatic, if not cryptic, character. This seems to mirror David Frisby’s understanding, as he wrote: one cannot simply fall back on a single conception of the project as a whole. Over more than a decade, Benjamin’s plans for his project of the passages took shape in the context of his philosophical, literary, political, and personal concerns, and changed at crucial moments in light of them, to the extent that the plans themselves must also be constructed. To trace their formulation, change, and development is also to reconstruct the traces of their connections with his other projects (Frisby 1985, 188).

In what follows, I briefly analyze the history of the publication and reception of this text, which could support an attempt to relocate it within the broader Benjaminian project of culture critique of modern capitalist society, at the center of which stands the problem of means-ends, or instrumental, rationality. Benjamin’s critique of modernity also implies a kind of critique of

150

Chapter 6

resacralizing tendencies. He understands capitalism in this sense. However, as I will try to show in the third section, capitalism as a “pseudo-religion” elevates to a level of the sacred precisely those profane practices that are characterized by their exclusive orientation to the centrality of instrumental rationality. In the following section, I take up the thread of argumentation in the essay “Critique of Violence” with the goal of demonstrating that the complex interweaving of distinct thematic fields there is held together by some transversal lines that characterize Benjamin’s entire culture-critical project. Apart from the aforementioned critique of means-end or instrumental rationality, I also focus my analysis on the theme of power inequality, which Benjamin connects not only to the topic of violence but also normatively to what I would like to call “critical humanism.” Finally, I dedicate some reflections to the possible current validity of the ideas that Benjamin expressed in his text just over one hundred years ago, arguing that the unequal distribution of political power may well be one of the keys to understanding the most pressing problems in today’s societies, since it could be responsible not only for the multiple crises of democracy that manifest themselves across the globe today, but also for the outbreaks of excessive violence that continue to threaten the political and social reality of our current societies. REMARKS ON THE HISTORY OF PUBLICATION AND RECEPTION Benjamin wrote “Critique of Violence” between December 1920 and January 1921, anticipating its publication in the journal Die weissen Blätter. This plan is by no means insignificant for our understanding of the text. Die weissen Blätter was a notably unconventional magazine, as the painter, cartoonist, caricaturist, and satirist George Grosz recalled in the following words: “Die weissen Blätter, edited by the German-Alsatian René Schickele, was an intellectual magazine with a pacifist tendency that made a veiled statement against war and in favor of international understanding. Even in the middle of the war, one could read in it poems and articles by ‘enemy’ foreigners” (Grosz 1954, 1). The writers who appeared in that forum were not concerned with academic recognition, but with joining in the awakening of a new generation that sought to define the coordinates of a new culture in a totally changed world. Thus, in “Von dem Charakter der kommenden Literatur” (“On the Character of Coming Literature”), the first essay in the journal’s first issue, written by Franz Blei, we find the following statement:

Walter Benjamin

151

Everything that follows is indebted to what went before, so also, surely, the young people of today are in some way debtors of the old; in a certain way we suffer or rejoice in what was. Only this that was is still today and is denied by those of today! They deny the present to that so-called modern literature because the present of today’s youth is more than this today, it is this today and for the next two decades at least (Blei 1913/14, 5).

Benjamin was firmly convinced of the obligation of the youth to rethink issues in depth. Moreover, he was certain that this can only succeed where thinking does not develop along conventional lines. In this respect, as well, Die weissen Blätter offered an excellent organ in which the section entitled “Essay” was followed by those entitled “Poems,” “Drama,” “Epic,” “Glosses,” and even “Drawing” (Die weissen Blätter 1916, January–March). No more and no less than the complete picture of cultural expression that the editors wished to bring together in that bold, innovative project is embodied in this plurality of headings. It was only because the editors of the journal found Benjamin’s text “too long and difficult” that it was passed to the social scientific journal Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, founded by Max Weber, where it was published in 1921 (cf. Eiland/Jennings 2014, 133). Laying the groundwork for a much broader history of scholarly reception, the essay was subsequently read as a significant contribution to social theory, social philosophy, and, especially, political and even legal theory. It is important to mention that the essay initially received scant attention. Indeed, it was not until after World War II that its fortunes changed. First, it was republished by Theodor W. Adorno and Gershom Scholem in a compilation of Benjamin’s works. Second, and more importantly, it was included in a volume published in 1965, edited by Herbert Marcuse, who added a highly acclaimed commentary. At that point, the text attracted broad attention. The timing of the publication was decisive, for once again it was mostly young people who read it, those who desired, once again, to become aware of what was new. Today, we can look back on a truly fascinating history of reception. The American philosopher Richard J. Bernstein wrote: “Benjamin’s essay has challenged thinkers all over the world. The essay has virtually acquired a life (and afterlife) of its own, and has provoked radically diverse and conflicting interpretations and evaluations” (Bernstein 2013, 47). The list of those who have engaged with the text and whom Bernstein names in his chapter is truly impressive: “Theodor Adorno, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, Giorgio Agamben, Gillian Rose, Dominick La Capra, Martin Jay, Axel Honneth, Judith Butler, Simon Critchley, Slavoj Žižek,” and Bernstein recognizes that even this list is incomplete.

152

Chapter 6

Here I will not approach Benjamin’s text from the perspective of the history of its reception, but what the plurality of it has generated indicates it clearly goes beyond the limits of political theory. It can be better understood as a kind of transdisciplinary cultural critique, and this will be the guiding principle of my reading. It shall become clear that the text is not precisely an attempt to justify a kind of violence that somehow appears in signs of the “divine,” but, rather, that it sets out to remind modern culture of a structural problem that is based on the concentration of political power and reproduced through a means-ends or instrumental rationality, functionalized for the unequal reproduction of that power. CAPITALISM AS A RELIGION AND THE CUNNING OF INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY Given the foregoing, it would be not impossible, but certainly reductionist, to read Benjamin’s article exclusively from a perspective of political theory. The sphere of the political organization of human life in modern capitalist societies is also subject to a logic that seems to have a firm grip on all other spheres of human life, to which Benjamin referred quite clearly: the aforementioned means-ends rationality. Axel Honneth, in his reading of the text, also underlined that “Benjamin does not limit himself to the narrow circle of more or less juridical-philosophical questions [. . .] but goes beyond them by a few pages in the direction of a completely different problem that he calls ‘philosophical-historical’” (Honneth, 2009, 88). This sentence is quite revealing and refers to the important clarification that Benjamin, however, did not share with his readers until the end of his essay. “The critique of violence,” he wrote, “is the philosophy of its history” (Benjamin 1991, 202). Here it is clear that his interest lay in a philosophical analysis of concrete historical processes, based on the outcome of those very processes. It is precisely this retrospective view of history that makes critique possible through reference to concrete “temporal data” (ibid.). Here we catch a first glimpse of the reflections that Benjamin would later culminate in his Theses on the Philosophy of History, which have found representation in Paul Klee’s work, Angelus Novus. In this sense, Benjamin’s view of history is not at all to be confused with an evaluation of historical “data,” which are then judged by the—supposedly— wiser minds who were born later. He is concerned, rather, with identifying the logic that reveals itself more and more clearly in the course of history and then elaborating his critique of it. Thus, one can state, also with Honneth, that: first, this critique focuses on the priority of a means-ends thinking that is dominant in the present, and, second, that it “could only be opposed if the

Walter Benjamin

153

intramundane presence of the non-instrumental divine being was credibly demonstrated” (Honneth 2009, 90). Now, for Benjamin, “the divine” refers to a cultural instance that escapes instrumental or means-ends logic and opens itself up to something different. But in modern society and culture, the elimination of the divine coincides with the renunciation of aspirations to something different. Moreover, the recovery of a cultural zone that opens toward something different is further complicated by the sacralization of established conditions; that is, the reality of capitalist society. In a modern capitalist society, then, the cultural function of the divine, or the sacred, is lost in a twofold sense: on the one hand, because the divine and the sacred are called into question through processes of secularization; on the other, because the impulses of resacralization wear themselves out in their efforts to affirm what is given. In this sense, Benjamin sees capitalism as a kind of “substitute religion,” describing it as a cult religion that has “no special dogmatics, no theology” (Benjamin 1991a, 102). But it is precisely this lack of dogmatics and theology, this completely practical and pragmatic nature of “capitalist religion,” that favors “utilitarianism” (ibid., 100). Although Benjamin does not develop this idea in the excerpt from the text cited here, the connection between capitalism as a substitute religion and the insistence on means-ends rationality is made clear by the reference to utilitarianism. It is the pretentiously pragmatic character that must have struck him as totalitarian: “Capitalism is the celebration of a cult sans rêve et sans merci. There is not a ‘day of the week’ that is not a holiday in the terrible sense of the deployment of all the sacral pomp, of the extreme tension of the cult” (ibid.). The only thing that is sacralized and absolutized here is the permanent existential struggle to which people must submit, surrendering their lives to a regime oriented exclusively toward the reproduction and affirmation of the self. We can also say that with the disappearance of the divine, it is not the human that triumphs but, instead, instrumental rationality. Benjamin refers to this theme when he discusses the “exploding of Heaven” that results from the imposition of an “increased humanity” (gesteigerte Menschhaftigkeit) (ibid., 101). For Benjamin, the “exploding of Heaven” means, above all, the elimination of the hope of redemption and the perpetuation of guilt, which human beings seek to compensate for by producing and amassing ever greater amounts of material wealth. Thus the “increased humanity,” which coincides with the elimination of the divine, does not refer to a more humane life, but, on the contrary, to the loss of human meaning that results from absolute subordination to the regime of necessity. Seen in this light, the divine is of interest to Benjamin due to the understanding of its cultural function, which in modern and capitalist societies is only compensated in an unsatisfactory way. The “exploding of Heaven”—that

154

Chapter 6

is, the elimination of all hope for a truly different existence, for a real and just remuneration for work done, for a truly sacred appreciation of what is not undone in the profanity of the struggle for survival—leads people to learn to understand their existence, first and foremost, in terms of the reproduction of economic and political power. The elimination of the cultural function of the divine from modern capitalist societies has less to do with an emancipation of thought from the religious sphere than with an impoverishment of culture, from which even the thought of rupture with the status quo is sanctioned. In other words, the only finality to which everything must be subordinated is unconditional capitulation under the rule of the given, the total adaptation of all “means,” of all thought, and of all action to the demands of the systemic compulsion of capitalism, which has been established for eternity. Capitalism is, then, a deficient substitute religion that only ostensibly transfers the role of the religious or the sacred to a modern worldview while, in reality, depriving modern human beings of a life not determined by the compulsion of eternal production and consumption, one in which they could experience themselves as human—a life in which they can truly experience themselves as free, if only momentarily, from existential needs. As these comments show, Benjamin’s various ideas and lines of reflection always culminate in a kind of critique of capitalist modernity, understood as a culture dominated by the exclusivity of means-end rationality that deprives people of the possibility to develop their truly human faculties. As we shall see below, this situation also characterizes the sphere of institutionally organized political life, for here, too, people follow the same obsession with an “increased” or “augmented human” life to which Benjamin does not oppose any kind of anti-humanism, but, on the contrary, a humanism oriented by “non-augmented humanity.” THE CRITIQUE OF VIOLENCE AS A CRITIQUE OF UNBALANCED POWER Benjamin begins his article “Critique of Violence” with a clarification: “The task of the critique of violence can be confined to the representation of its relation to law and justice” (1991, 179). More specifically, “violence” is to be understood as an “effective cause” that intervenes in “moral relations” (ibid.). It is clear here that for Benjamin, it is decisive that these relations are characterized by means-ends rationality, and that, in fact, they impose an additional restriction on the concept of violence, since it must always be understood only as a means, never as an end. The question that must be asked, then, is: What means would be permissible for just ends? But Benjamin prefers not to leave his critique of violence to these technicalities. Rather, he is concerned

Walter Benjamin

155

with a deeper critique, one that connects to the theme of means-ends rationality that is oriented by an ideal of humans as social beings. This thematic interweaving comes on stage through the question of the proper measure of “humanity” (Menschhaftigkeit), which Benjamin understands from a social-theoretical perspective against the background of his critique of modern capitalism. As we have seen, he first imputes a kind of “increased humanity” to capitalism, made possible by the “exploding of Heaven.” Uwe Steiner sees in this theme an intimate connection to Benjamin’s political writings, among which “Critique of Violence” represents only the most extensive fragment of the few that are still accessible to us. But Steiner found, however, a definition of Benjamin’s understanding of politics elsewhere in his works that is informative for our context. There, he explains that politics is responsible, precisely, for the “realization of non-augmented humanity” (Steiner 2004, 77). If “augmented humanity” is understood as a kind of hubris, Benjamin confronts it not by appealing to old or new authorities, but by trying to remind us that a truly humane politics can only come about if the search for the “just human being” (Benjamin 1991, 201) becomes the practice of its realization. However, this realization of the “just human being” is hindered not only by the fact that it has not yet been possible to establish the correct political order, but also because the kind of unjust distribution of power that has prevailed shows a clear tendency to reproduce itself. In this way, Benjamin cements the reference to his critique of means-end rationality, assuming that the forms of violence perpetuated in the State and law serve, above all, the “purpose” of the uncritical reproduction of the established and immoderately concentrated and institutionalized power in the State. It is, then, to this concentration of political power that Benjamin refers with the expression, “augmented humanity.”2 To explain how this is constituted, Benjamin recalls the monopolization of violence by the modern state and that in the same process, citizens are deprived of the availability of violence (cf. ibid., 183). Now, Benjamin must have observed here a relation that is established as a structural imbalance in the distribution of political power, and that represents a permanent source of conflict that “parliamentarianism” only incompletely compensates for, if at all. However, in his time, Benjamin still saw in “organized labor” a counter-power to the power of the State, which is not based solely on a legal legitimization but, more precisely, on its access to violence: “Organized labor is, apart from States, probably the only legal subject today that has the right to violence,” he writes (ibid.). In this context, the “general strike” (ibid., 184), to which Benjamin attributes the power to “overthrow” the State order and the applicable law (ibid., 185), receives special appreciation. As a sort of

156

Chapter 6

provisional conclusion, he summarizes “that [violence] is capable of establishing and modifying legal relations, however much the sense of justice may be offended by it” (ibid.). At this point, one must ask what Benjamin meant by the “sense of justice” upon which his understanding of a truly humane form of political life is built. Based on these reflections, it should be clear that his understanding is not limited to distributive justice, nor does it refer to a kind of formal political justice—that is, one regulated by law—but, rather, to a kind of material, concrete justice, rooted in the balance of “forces.” In his article, Benjamin also addresses the pacifist movements that received an important impulse during World War I, and that found organs of expression, for example, in the journal Die weissen Blätter, where Benjamin originally wanted to publish his text. He counters these movements, however, with the suspicion that their critique of violence might be too myopic if it is limited to wartime situations. Instead, he argues, we have to recognize that violence is inherent in the institutions of modern societies, the State, and law. He sees this thesis confirmed in the death penalty, for this is not simply a matter of applying constituted law, but of “affirming” it through a kind of demonstration of violence that is always implicit within it (ibid., 188). But Benjamin is not only concerned with revealing the more or less concealed sites of State violence and the imbalance between the power of the State and that of citizens. Rather, he confronts the question of whether there can be such a thing as “nonviolent conflict resolution” (ibid., 190). Against the background of our analysis, it should be clear that a form of “legal contract” can hardly be the answer here, as this would, once again, appeal to law based on violence. Benjamin does not, however, set aside the question of potentially nonviolent conflict resolution, for he refers to “conversation as a technique of civil agreement” (ibid., 192). As proof that violence has not entered the realm of human language, he points to the practice of lying, which is not punishable under any jurisdiction in the world; that is, it remains beyond the reach of law and the violence inherent in it. In this sense, lying would establish a practice that evades the almost-all-compassing reach of State violence. Following this thought, Benjamin cites examples of political practice in which conflicts can be resolved through communication and diplomacy (see, for example, 195). But the reference to language is important to him for another reason. Again, he is concerned with the question of means-ends rationality. From this perspective, Benjamin sees in language the possibility of escaping from the imperatives of this rationality. He had experimented with similar ideas in other texts, especially his 1916 essay “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man” (Benjamin 2011), where it is clear that he has no desire to reduce language to the function of a “means” to achieve certain ends, as

Walter Benjamin

157

is the case in causal logical models of communication. Steiner summarizes Benjamin’s idea on this point in the following way: “Language never shows itself to be effective by serving as a means to an end that lies outside of it, but only by acting in an ‘in-meditated’ way” (Steiner 2004, 44). Therefore, language is also a “pure medium”: a medium that is not absorbed by certain ends but, instead, frees itself from means-end relations altogether. In his critique of violence, Benjamin also introduces the idea of “pure means.” The question raised here is: What “pure means” can be identified in the political organization of social life? Benjamin believed he had discovered these “pure means” in the specific form of the strike. To define this more precisely, he distinguished between “political strikes” and “proletarian general strikes.” While the former posed no threat to the State—on the contrary, they could strengthen its structure—the latter could destroy it. The “political strike” could be said to have a function “constitutive of law,” while “proletarian general strikes” would have an “anarchic” impact (Benjamin 1991, 194) that makes no “concessions” to the existing State order, instead seeking to liberate workers from it. It is also important to note in this context that by “pure means” Benjamin meant a “pure” practical execution that resulted from a historically developed situation of political action, but which does not pursue any clearly-defined final goal. Here, he seems to be thinking not of revolution, which requires intellectual preparation and precisely a predetermined goal, but of the more spontaneous “revolt” (ibid., 194). He seems to want his “pure means” to be freed from subordination to the finality of even revolutionary goals. “Pure means” are those that break away from any instrumental relation. Another point to be emphasized is that “pure means” are not “pure” because they are nonviolent, but because they cannot be subordinated to any heteronomous end. Benjamin clarifies this particularity by distinguishing between two types of violence. The first he calls “mythical violence,” the second “divine violence”: “Mythical violence in its archetypical form is the mere manifestation of the gods. Not a means to their ends, merely a manifestation of their will, at first a manifestation of their existence” (ibid., 197). “Mythical violence” would not live up to the claim of “pure means” because it represents the established power that it helps reproduce. It is precisely the topic of power that Benjamin addresses in this part of his text. Whether it is the power of the gods or of the State makes no difference. What is important is that “mythical violence” reaffirms established power. For Benjamin, however, it is also clear that legislative power goes hand in hand with the institutionalization of power. “In the clearest manner it is shown that power, rather than the most effusive gain of possession, must be secured by all legislative violence” (ibid., 198). And, inspired by George

158

Chapter 6

Sorel, he insists that law must always be understood as the “right” (Vor-recht) of the powerful. The question of a “pure immediate violence,” whose impulse can now be understood more clearly as one that is directed against “mythical violence” (ibid., 199), remains unanswered up to this point in the essay. However, it is this kind of violence that Benjamin now introduces as an attribute of the “divine.” Drawing on a classic theme, he summarizes: “As in all spheres, God confronts myth, so too does divine violence confront mythical violence” (ibid.). What is crucial here is that it is not God who exercises this violence and thus intervenes in human affairs. The focus is, rather, on political action that under the sign of divine violence breaks with the imperatives of established power. Applied to the problem of modern law, this means that divine violence is neither “law-making” nor “law-preserving,” but “law-destroying” (ibid., 199–200). There is no prior justification for breaking away from established law. On the contrary, it is necessary to evaluate each historical situation with prudence and, above all, “responsibility” (cf. ibid., 201). The decisive criterion is the “historical” understanding of this action; the critique of violence is consequently a “philosophy of its history” (ibid., 202) that results in emancipatory action. Benjamin’s critique of violence is thus not a categorical, naïve rejection of violence (cf. Bock 2021). For him, the issue is the relation between the violence exercised by human beings and juridical-institutional structures. The violence that affirms or recasts law and the State is problematic because it serves as a means to achieving the ends of these institutions and, above all, the power that is erected over them. That Benjamin’s critique of violence opts for the divine finds further explanation in the last sentence of his text: “Divine violence, which is badge and seal, never a sacred means of execution, can be called the governing one” (Benjamin 1991, 203). Thus, what seems to interest him ultimately is that there is a form of human action that does not want to submit to a means-ends rationality and, consequently, to established power, or any other heteronomous end. The connection of distinct thematic areas (violence, State power, workers’ movements and strikes, language, and the critique of means-ends rationality) naturally increases the difficulty of understanding the text. Moreover, its normative orientation is not immediately clear. Is Benjamin concerned with an argumentative strengthening of the workers’ movement (like Sorel) or, perhaps, with a justification of revolutionary violence (Marcuse 1971 [1965]), or does he focus on the search for a peaceful form of conflict resolution through human language? I believe all these interpretations fall short if they overlook the fleeting reference at the end of the text that reveals what could be called a sort of “Critical Humanism.” To understand this correctly, one must first take the

Walter Benjamin

159

following sentence seriously: “The human being does not coincide at any price with the mere life of the human being, nor with the mere life in him as with any other of his states and qualities, nor even with the singularity of his bodily person,” writes Benjamin (Benjamin 1991, 201). What is announced here is a conception of the human being that is not reduced to the philosophy of life, or to biologism, but that attributes a leading role to the social realization of human life. But the social fulfillment of human life is disturbed in modern society by a radically unequal distribution of power and, ultimately, is rooted in the concentration of the resources of violence in the State. The fact that it has come to this, Benjamin holds, is also due to the process of modern secularization, which has led to an overvaluation of the human being in the sense of “augmented” or “increased” humanity, as we have seen. Benjamin, however, does not seem to see the solution to this problem in a new religiosity, but in a type of political organization of social life in which the concentration of power by the State is neutralized by a counter-power. His quest, then, is for a form of political life oriented toward the idea of a more modest “unaugmented humanity.” Benjamin does not provide any clear details as to what this might look like. But he may have thought that this goal is only achieved when the powers sustained by the recourse to violence are more equally distributed. Ultimately, Richard Bernstein is correct when he writes: “The value of Benjamin’s essay is in the questions [. . .] not in the answers or solutions it provides, because it does not provide answers” (Bernstein 2013, 78). These words force us to inquire into the current validity of the questions that set Benjamin’s thought in motion. “CRITIQUE OF VIOLENCE” TODAY: THE PROBLEM OF THE DISEMPOWERED So, are Benjamin’s questions still relevant? Over one hundred years later, his article owes its existence to a historical situation that, according to the dominant narratives of the last thirty years, would no longer correspond to our own in many respects. The world war that had ended only a few years earlier, the revolutionary upheavals that followed it, and the political violence that had become normal, must all have had an enormous impact on his perception of political life in those years. Compared to this, the perception in our societies today was, until recently, shaped by the narratives of “peaceful revolution,” “consolidation of democracy,” and the “end of history,” all of which have influenced political imaginaries in recent decades.3 But in more recent times we have many reasons to be skeptical of these narratives. The enthusiasm of the 1990s has waned, and political developments, even in the so-called core countries of democracy, once again have raised fundamental questions, some

160

Chapter 6

of which also make Benjamin’s reservations about “parliamentarianism” more understandable. But it must also be emphasized that our present is anything but peaceful. Violence for political, racial, religious, or profanely lucrative purposes has not ceased to be experienced in our societies, even in highly developed Western countries. But if we understand capitalist modernity as a global phenomenon, the picture becomes even clearer, since in many societies around the world the extent of the most vicious forms of violence—perpetrated by both State and non-State actors—can hardly be overlooked. And something else must be clear: violence is always directed, as well, against civilian populations that States that claim the monopoly on the use of violence are sometimes unable or unwilling to protect. Following Benjamin, one could argue that the concentration of violence in the hands of the State seems to function less and less as a peacekeeping mechanism and as a protection for those sectors of the civilian population that have surrendered their right to use violence to the State. Moreover, there is no longer any organized counter-power (e.g., “organized labor”) capable of responding to the concerns of the disempowered sectors of society. The civilian populations of today’s modern societies, which have been subordinated to the care of the State, may well find themselves in a more fragile situation today than in Benjamin’s time. Wolfgang Bock writes: “Benjamin wants justice for the lawless” (Bock 2021, 2). However, if this means integrating the “lawless” into the legal system, then Benjamin’s claim would go further. When referring to the violence inherent in law, Benjamin seems to show greater interest in the problem of the unequal availability of the means of violence and, ultimately, in the unequal distribution of power that accompanies it. Rather than those “outside the law,” he seems to have in mind the disempowered, the “lambs.” His critique is directed against the political order of modern societies, which he must have perceived as a structure characterized by a profoundly unequal distribution of power that the law does not compensate for, but at best conceals, and whose reality manifests itself time and again wherever the disempowered become helpless victims of State or non-State violence. The ruthless way in which State-concentrated violence can strike parts of the defenseless civilian population is exemplified in both the concentration camps of the Nazi regime and the police violence unleashed, for instance, in the United States, especially against the African American population. But even when such excesses of violence do not occur, people in modern societies can develop a malaise, well aware as they are of their powerlessness. It is for all these reasons that I read Benjamin’s critique of violence oriented by the thought of George Sorel—primarily as a critique of an extremely unequal distribution of power in modern societies.

Walter Benjamin

161

But the topic of “augmented” or “increased” humanity to which Benjamin links these reflections, and for which he seems to have found a suitable metaphor in Nietzsche’s “Übermenschen” (“superman”), points to a problem that haunts our current societies. Benjamin considers the arrogance of the “Übermensch” as, above all, a problem that characterizes the political order of modern societies, since it places no limits on aspirations for power. It is not the power of a single person that is in play, but political power, constituted institutionally in and through law in the State, that leads, at the same time, to the disempowerment of the civilian population. As a correction to the immoderation of the “Übermensch” institutionalized in law and political institutions, Benjamin does not offer any kind of anti-humanism. On the contrary, he stresses the need to correct immoderate and institutionally concentrated humanism. We can say, then, that his is not a radical critique of humanism but, instead, a critique of the hubris of political power that is reflected in an always-dangerous institutional reality. The “non-augmented humanity” that Benjamin seeks to oppose to this reality should not be misunderstood as a reduced form of being human. It is, rather, an aspiration oriented toward the ideal of human life that comes to itself, something that is only possible in a world in which human beings cease to subordinate their thinking and acting to the kind of instrumental rationality that serves only one end: that of affirming and reproducing a profoundly unequal distribution of power. NOTES 1. A first version of this chapter was published in Spanish in: Gustavo Leyva (ed.) (2021), Walter Benjamin. Hacia la crítica de la violencia, Mexico: UAM/Gedisa, 127–50. 2. Throughout this text, one can hardly fail to see that Benjamin must have had Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan in mind. 3. It is important to note that this essay was written before February 24, 2022—that is, before the war in Ukraine and the warmongering paraphernalia unleashed in political debates since then.

REFERENCES Benjamin, Walter. 1968. “Thesis on the Philosophy of History.” In Walter Benjamin (1968), Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books. Benjamin, Walter. 1991. „Zur Kritik der Gewalt.“ In Walter Benjamin. 1991. Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. II.1, edited by Rolf Tiedemann/Hermann Schweppenhäuser, 179–204. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.

162

Chapter 6

Benjamin, Walter. 1991a. „Kapitalismus als Religion.“ In Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. VI, edited by Rolf Tiedemann/Hermann Schweppenhäuser, 100–03. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Benjamin, Walter. 2011. “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man.” In Early Writings 1910–1917, 251–69. Cambridge, MA/London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Bernstein, Richard J. 2013. Violence: Thinking without Banisters. Cambridge, UK/Malden, MA.: Polity Press. Blei, Franz. 1913/1914. „Von dem Charakter der kommenden Literatur.“ In Die weissen Blätter Eine Monatsschrift. Vol. 1,1: 1–5. Bock, Wolfgang. 2021. „Irgendwie anders: vom Levitenlesen. Direkte Aktion, Tod und Geschichte in Walter Benjamins ‚Zur Kritik der Gewalt‘“ (unpublished manuscript). Eiland, Howard, and Michael W. Jennings. 2014. Walter Benjamin. A Critical Life. Cambridge, MA/London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Frisby, David. 1985. Fragments of Modernity. Theories of Modernity in the Work of Simmel, Kracauer and Benjamin. New York: Polity Press. Grosz, George. 1954. „‘Ich bin noch nicht durch‘ Erinnerungen an den Dichter Theodor Däubler.“ In Zeit-Online. Accessed May 20, 2021. https:​//​www​.zeit​.de​ /1954​/23​/ich​-bin​-noch​-nicht​-durch​/komplettansicht​#print. Honneth, Axel. 2009. “Saving the Sacred with a Philosophy of History: On Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Violence.’” In Pathologies of Reason. On the Legacy of Critical Theory, 88–125. New York: Columbia University Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 1971 [1965]. „Nachwort von Herbert Marcuse. Walter Benjamin.“ In Zur Kritik der Gewalt und andere Aufsätze, 97–107. Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp. Piketty, Thomas. 2014. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA/London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Steiner, Uwe. 2004. Walter Benjamin. Stuttgart/Weimar: Verlag J.B. Metzler. Todorov, Tzvetan. 1991. Nosotros y los otros. Reflexión sobre la diversidad humana. Mexico City: Siglo XXI.

Chapter 7

Bolívar Echeverría “Critical Discourse,” Modernity and the Search for “Real Humanity”

In the 1959 essay “Philosophy as Culture Critique,” Max Horkheimer wrote: In the eighteenth century, when Europe had a future, philosophy and its inherent critique were timely, and even in the nineteenth century the utopia that expressed itself in the negative was no mere illusion. In the middle of the twentieth century, the spirit of the world seems to have passed to other peoples and European thought does not continue in Europe (Horkheimer, 1985 [1959], 103).

In confusing times like ours, when even criticism is confused as it clings to conjunctural issues driven by petty political interests, a glance toward other parts of the world can be revealing. Undoubtedly, whoever comes across the work of Bolivar Echeverría from a European perspective will discover a breath of fresh air in an intellectual environment suffocated by the kinds of identity politics that currently occupy not only most of the critical spaces of thought, but also of political activism. I understand Bolívar Echeverría’s ideas as a sort of reminder of the possibilities of a Critical Theory that maintains a firm commitment to the conviction that the world we are living in could be truly different. In the context of this book, however, I wish to show that this author’s work could be considered a legitimate continuation of a type of Critical Theory that is oriented toward the pursuit of “real humanity.” In what follows, I shall emphasize, above all, three aspects of Bolívar Echeverría’s thought: his “critical discourse” (discurso crítico), his commitment to modernity, and the search for what could be called “real humanity” in the face of all the adversities of living a humanly dignified life in our current societies. 163

164

Chapter 7

“CRITICAL DISCOURSE” AND REVOLUTION In an analytically very subtle text, the philosopher Christoph Henning developed an ambitious attempt to recall that a complete design of Critical Theory combines three levels of reflection that could already be identified prototypically in the work of Karl Marx and, later, also by members of the Frankfurt School (Henning 2020). The first level is that of the critique of social realities; that is, the critique of capitalist society in the case of Marx and the pioneering thinkers of the Frankfurt School. The second involves the critique of other critiques of this reality—what we might call “a critique of critique.” Finally, at the third level, a Critical Theory inquires into the reasons lying behind the success of the theories subjected to critique in level two. Here, one could place the critique of ideology: The German Ideology by Marx and Engels, or the critical discussion of “traditional theory” by Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and others. What interests me about these reflections here is that, as Henning observes, recent versions of Critical Theory have curiously lacked clear approaches, especially at the first level. Such versions lack a clear commitment precisely to the critique of society and have therefore to be submitted to the kind of critique on the second level (see also: Thompson 2016). It is in this context that Bolívar Echeverría’s Critical Theory distinguishes itself. The starting point of this theory is clearly, and forcefully, the critique of modern capitalist societies. But this critique does not content itself with simply denouncing aberrations and social pathologies, for it does, in fact, maintain a firm commitment to revolution. In this way, Echeverría’s Critical Theory reminds us that Henning’s list actually lacks a fourth level—namely, one where pretensions are generated to significantly change current societies. It is precisely a practical ambition to achieve profound political and social change that, by no means, renounces orienting itself in a scientific theory with strong claims to truth that Echeverría calls “critical discourse” (discurso crítico). His 1986 book, El discurso crítico de Marx (Marx’s Critical Discourse), begins with a chapter devoted to defining “critical discourse,” accompanied by a reflection on the history of ideas (Echeverría, 2017 [1986], 57–74). There, Echeverría draws attention to the fact that in the first half of the twentieth century, social change in Latin America was understood from two distinct discursive universes: one liberal, the other communist. Without referring to concrete examples, Echeverría stresses that the liberal proposals were condensed in “positivist sociology,”1 which he understands as a guarantor of the status quo. “Historical materialism,” in contrast—understood as “scientific theory” rooted in “scientific communism”—manifested a commitment to qualitative social change: “to realize oneself in scientific theory means to

Bolívar Echeverría

165

realize oneself in a theory of revolution; that is, in a theory that participates in revolution and a theory about revolution” (ibid., 59). In the 1950s, Echeverría observed signs of a strengthening of this latter type of theory in Latin America. Although he does not elaborate on the reasons behind this, it can be affirmed, on the one hand, that there were signs that positivism as a scientific ideal, but above all as a political ideology, it was losing power (see: Zea 1968 [1943]); and, on the other, that political dynamics in Latin America were indeed pointing toward revolutionary changes. The Cuban Revolution of 1959 represented a sign of hope that a distinct, non-Soviet, path to communism could be possible. Finally, it has to be mentioned that the region had reached an intellectual high point, crowned in the social sciences by the international success of Marxist-influenced dependency theory.2 Echeverría’s interpretation of Marx’s theory must be seen in this context, and one must understand that it refers not only to purely academic but also to political and social discussions and practices. Essential to “critical discourse” is, then, a striving to ensure the mutual reinforcement of theory and transformative political and social practice. In this sense, Echeverría recalls that Marx developed his thought as a theory for, and of, the workers’ movement, which at that time was surging toward revolution. What also results from this construct is Marx’s perfectly coherent dual role: that of the “philosopher” and that of the “militant” (Echeverría, 2017 [1986], 59). We can say then, that for Echeverría, Critical Theory as “critical discourse” has always been intrinsically linked to the project of emancipatory social change. But when does the certainty that revolution must be the true practicaltheoretical objective emerge? How do we know that the theoretical wager in favor of revolution is not mistaken? Why should the emphasis on revolution be more correct than “reformism” or “utopianism”? Echeverría answers these questions by referring, precisely, to the social changes that were already underway in his time giving, as it were, a response that stemmed not only from philosophical reflections but also from social and cultural scientific observations of the existing social and cultural dynamics: as the totality of the social process of reproduction has entered, since the first crises of capitalism, in a whole epoch of radical destruction and restructuring, in the epoch of total revolution the development of a true knowledge can only correspond to a discourse that necessarily follows the impulse of this movement: to the communist discourse or one composed from the practice of the properly anti-capitalist and revolutionary class, the proletarian class (ibid.).

166

Chapter 7

“CRITICAL DISCOURSE” AFTER 1989 If Echeverría’s “critical discourse” can be understood as the theoretical element of a revolutionary movement that was already underway, and if in view of historical trends in Latin America such a movement should be observable at least from the time of the Cuban Revolution, the years of the late 1980s brought growing, and troubling, indications that clouded such optimism. First, the Cuban Revolution failed to trigger large-scale upheavals in other countries in the region. Second, although the Sandinistas in Nicaragua had played an important role in the imaginaries of the Latin American left in the 1980s, its defeat in the 1990 elections quickly extinguished that spark. Third, obviously, and no less pronounced, has been the impact of the end of “real socialism,” which today is remembered above all under the sign of “1989.” Bolívar Echeverría recognized that 1989 marked the end of a revolutionary period of longue durée that began in 1789. In an article entitled “1989,” which opens the collection of essays, Las ilusiones de la modernidad (The Illusions of Modernity) (Echeverría 1997, 13–23), he returns to 1789 because he uses the events associated with that date to forge a comparison with those surrounding the year 1989, emphasizing that the storming of the Bastille and the fall of the Berlin Wall stand out for their symbolism. In his view, the “fall of the Wall” symbolized not only the “collapse” of “real socialism,” but also the dismantling of the “Wall” as a physical obstacle that impeded people from escaping socialism (Echeverría 1997a, 17). While not ignoring the failure of Soviet socialism, he goes on to ask: Does capitalism not also provoke the desire to escape from “the hells it generates?” (ibid.). He reaches the following conclusion: “The populations overwhelmed by ‘capitalism’ [. . .] those that find themselves in the ‘less favored’ zones of it [. . .] do not flee because they cannot do so, for their fantasies are authentically utopian: there is no already existing place to which they can channel their will to flee” (ibid., 17). Today, the mass flight that manifests itself in ever-larger migratory flows from those “less favored places” of global capitalism has become a reality that can no longer be ignored. More and more people are throwing themselves into the waves of the oceans, risking their lives in the hope that the tides will carry them away to a better life. The fact that the destinations these people seek are, precisely, the countries at the center of the capitalist world indicates that, in reality, the desire to escape must be stronger than the desire to reach a truly different prospect of life. Echeverría is also skeptical of the illusion that capitalism promises better politics. He states unequivocally that capitalism cultivates an inherent “anti-democratic phobia” that arises from an “oligarchic functioning of

Bolívar Echeverría

167

political decision-making” (ibid., 20). For those who read this sentence in the 1990s, the frenzy surrounding “third wave democratization” (Huntington) might have raised some doubts, but as recent decades have unfolded, evidence is mounting of the continuity, even strengthening, of authoritarian and corrupt structures of politics in all the world’s democracies. In the wake of Trump’s presidency and the naked authoritarianism and elitism that characterize so many other countries, Echeverría’s warnings of the early 1990s seem timelier than ever. Echeverría concludes that both capitalism and “real socialism” have failed. But compared to the failure of capitalist modernity, which drags itself from one crisis to the next (see: Streeck 2015), the failure of socialism is the failure of a relatively short phase of Bolshevism. If socialism is understood primarily as the negation of capitalism, then, Echeverría argues, its validity can hardly be denied; indeed: “Its critique of the destructive irrationality of the way in which capitalism mediates—realizes and configures—the relation between Man and Nature remains, ever more dramatically, valid” (Echeverría 1997a, 18). In other words, while the problems of capitalism continue to accumulate, socialism keeps on operating as a kind of mirror that permits the critique that “critical discourse” must keep alive. THE THEORY OF MODERNITY AS CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY A central task of Echeverría’s “critical discourse” seems to be to secure capitalism’s place within modernity without allowing the two concepts to converge. His interest in modernity reflects one of the central concerns of Latin American thought throughout the twentieth century.3 However, as Sérgio Costa has shown (Costa 2019), current Latin American reflections on modernity seem to have concentrated on two paradigms: that of “multiple modernities” (see: Larraín 2000; Roniger 2009), and that of the post- or decolonial approach. While the “multiple modernities” argument is characterized by an uncritical attitude that simply maps and compares different forms of modernity, the “post”- or “decolonial” approach sets forth a critique that suggests the need to overcome modernity in a postmodern sense (see: Albrecht 2019). In the face of these two currents, Echeverría’s proposal for an understanding of modernity represents a highly suggestive alternative in which the critique of capitalist modernity, as the dominant form of global modernity, does not lead to postmodern abysses. Echeverría enters the discussion based on certain premises. First, it is clear that for him, the modernity of the late twentieth century represents an “undeniable destiny” with which all societies on the planet must come

168

Chapter 7

to terms. Therefore, he no longer sees modernity as an “external” imposition that would be an integral element of a colonial or neocolonial project, as something that could still be rejected, but as a genuine challenge that all societies must take up. Second, he understands modernity as a threat to traditions and collective identities, though he emphasizes that the solution to identitary problems does not lie in a return to pre-modern communities, as some currents of indigenism suggest.4 His critique of modernity is neither reactionary nor fundamentalist but, instead, expresses a commitment to modernity’s emancipatory possibilities, without which “critical discourse” would not be possible. Finally, it is important to mention in this context that, thanks to his engagement with Marx’s work, Echeverría develops a theory of materialist modernity that places the question of the forms of “social reproduction” at the center of interest, not the question of the cultural constellations of the respective types of “axial civilizations” that—as Shmuel N. Eisenstadt maintains (see: Eisenstadt 2000)—precede every type of modernity that exists in the world today. In this sense, Echeverría pays particular attention to the question of the qualitative technological evolutions that characterize modernity. Drawing on authors like Lewis Mumford, he finds these in the phase of “eotechnics” from the tenth century onward, and especially that of “neotechnics” from the nineteenth century to today (Echeverría 2011a, 121–27). It is especially through these moments in the civilizational process that changes in consciousness become evident to completely redefine the production process and, therefore, the relation of human beings to nature. Instead of sporadic, accidental inventions, the development of new technologies was established strategically in the tenth century and has been maintained consistently since that time (ibid.). Moreover, the phase of “eotechnics” is notable for having changed the relation between humans and nature enhancing the capacity to learn systematically from nature. Echeverría sees two positive possibilities in this evolution. By learning from nature, humans were, first, able to overcome their fear of nature’s arbitrariness and enter into a more harmonious “cooperative” relation with nature. Second, humans’ existential situation improved qualitatively, for they were finally able to face the permanent threat of scarcity by acting with foresight, supported by technological efficiency that resulted in the benefit of an ever-better quality of life. Another positive aspect lies in the realm of culture, as modern life was freed from metaphysics: The important point [. . .] is the confidence that is present in everyday behavior, in the ability of human beings to approach or confront nature in purely mundane

Bolívar Echeverría

169

terms and to achieve, through programmed and calculated action based on mathematized knowledge, effects more favorable to them than those that could be guaranteed by the traditional approach to the Other, which was of a magical order; in the confidence in an immediate (“earthly”) efficient technique that renounces any mediate (“celestial”) implication that remains unintelligible in terms of rational mathematical causality (ibid., 118).

However, the emergence of modernity also led to some still unresolved problems. One of these is the formation of “individualism,” which holds that the individual must be understood as the center of “human reality” (ibid., 120). This thematic plexus connects to a problem that Echeverría emphasizes time and again—namely, modernity’s failure to develop a satisfactory answer to the question of identity. Echeverría further notes, with great concern, the political consequences that have ensued. While the trend toward secularization leads to a kind of “political materialism,” it also imitates the logic of efficiency-oriented production (cf. ibid., 119). It is precisely this type of politics that ignores the “identitary reproduction of society” (ibid.). “Political materialism, the secularization of politics, would then imply the conversion of the institution of the state into a ‘superstructure’ of that ‘bourgeois’ or ‘material’ base in which society functions as a struggle among private owners, each one defending the interests of her/his respective economic enterprise” (ibid., 119). However, we must emphasize, once more, that none of these problems ever motivated Echeverría to renounce modernity. Rather, he thinks that these problems could be solved by overcoming the capitalist domination of current—“really existing”—modernity. “REAL MODERNITY” IN THE SHADOW OF CAPITALISM Modernity remains, then, an “unfinished project,” one that has been hijacked by capitalism. For Echeverría, “modernity” and “capitalism” are not the same thing. He describes the relation between the two in the following words: “Between modernity and capitalism there exists the relation that is proper between a complete and independent totalization and one part of it, dependent on the other, but in a position to impose a special bias on its work of totalization” (Echeverría 1997b, 138). Here, modernity would be the “complete totalization”—the “civilizational project” as a whole—while capitalism is only one part of this design, though one that is dominant in our present world and has had no real alternative for the last thirty years. In this conceptualization, capitalism is not to be confused with the “end of history.” Modernity, rather, “self-sabotages” itself by sticking to capitalism,

170

Chapter 7

since under this form of domination all capacity to evolve is suspended (Echeverría, 2011a, 131). It is possible that this paralysis is not even perceived because—as Marx knew back in the nineteenth century—through their experiences in their everyday lives people perceive an incessant, vertiginous dynamism that Marx and Engels expressed with their famous phrase: “All that is solid melts into air.” But in company with Echeverría we can say that in spite of this apparent dynamism, the historical process is frozen, for it only reproduces and reaffirms, over and over, that same logic that determines both social relations and the relation of people to nature.5 The logic I am referring to here is the one Marx describes in Capital— namely, one that converts the “natural form” oriented in “use-value” into an orientation based on “exchange-value.” The consequence is an existence increasingly subordinated exclusively to the imperative of capital accumulation. Echeverría sums up what this means for modernity as follows: capitalist modernity generates just the opposite of what was announced by neotechnics. Capitalist accumulation uses it, not to establish the world of relative abundance or scarcity, but to artificially reproduce absolute scarcity, the condition of that ‘law of capitalist accumulation’ according to which the growth of the mass of the exploited and marginalized is conditio sine qua non of the creation of wealth and of the dazzling achievements of progress (Echeverría, 2011a, 131).

“REAL HUMANITY” AND THE RESISTANCE OF LIFE FORMS A life oriented not by the “natural form” and relations with things and, hence, with nature, that serves in the first instance to guarantee humans more carefree lives, reduce existential anxieties, and brings us closer to happiness and freedom, sounds like the absolute negation of reality in our “societies of fear” (Bude 2014) where the imperative of growth for growth’s sake, artificial scarcity, and the perpetuation of war—not only against nature (see chapter 1)—seem to have acquired a status of normality. Moreover, as we have seen, the most important attempts to build truly different societies have failed. Where, then, does Echeverría find the conviction that allows him to insist that human destiny could, even should, be distinct from what our capitalist reality has achieved? It seems to me that the answer to this question is found in his interest in the daily life of people living in modern capitalist societies. Echeverría devotes much of his work to the study of these everyday realities where he searches,

Bolívar Echeverría

171

meticulously, for indications that reveal the desire for something different. It is in this sense that one can understand, for example, the importance for Echeverría of the work of Walter Benjamin. Echeverría must have seen in Benjamin a master of the sophisticated deciphering of everyday life that he himself wished to use in order to detect the ambivalences and contradictions inherent in our societies. This is revealed, for example, in a short text on the Flâneur where he explains: “Surprised and fascinated by all that in the modern world is the promise of abundance and freedom, Benjamin is also the great disenchanted of capitalist modernity; one who is able to read the utopian will that the price tag seeks to silence in the use value of commodities” (Echeverría 1998, 60). This is the program that Echeverría sets out to follow, seeking to complement his philosophical reflections with social and cultural scientific inquiries that aim to shed light on the “forms of life” that have been established in capitalist societies. The concept of “forms of life” has enjoyed something of a boom since the 1990s. It refers to the “orders of human coexistence” (Liebsch 2011, 190) “[m]oreover to macro political social and cultural orders” (ibid., 191)—that is, to routine forms of social action that differ spatially even though they respond to the same, or similar, institutional conditions. The study of forms of life is revealing because it focuses on a non-reflective gray zone of social action that allows us to understand those non-explicit motivations that may go against institutionally prescribed norms. Echeverría welcomes these possibilities and explores the question of how people in different parts of the world install themselves within capitalist modernity through their respective forms of life. While doing so, however, he does not use the concept of forms of life, but that of “ethos,” recalling Max Weber and his use of the term “Protestant ethic” to describe a form of life especially akin to capitalism. Unlike Weber, Echeverría thinks that four different forms of life or “ethe” have been established in today’s capitalist world. But it does not suffice just to grasp and describe them, rather Echeverría bases his critique of capitalist modernity on his studies of them as they have emerged in capitalist societies. The starting point for establishing criteria for differentiating ethe is, once again, the Marxian idea of the “natural form” of “social reproduction,” which Echeverría interprets anthropologically by assuming it to be “transhistorical” or characteristic of all human society (cf. Echeverría 1997b). In this way, he endows this “natural form” with a normative character: it is a matter of structuring the “life world in relation to a qualitatively defined telos [. . .] that operates from the use value of things, from the dynamics of their practical nature” (Echeverría 2002, 5). This principle, however, can best be understood in current capitalist modernity as a sort of negative ideal since capitalist reality systematically contradicts it. What prevails there is a “principle that

172

Chapter 7

is alien to the concrete realization of human life and to the qualitative consistency of things,” one also oriented toward a completely different telos— namely, growth for growth’s sake. For Echeverría, this translates not only into the realization that “really existing” modernity is marked by an existential contradiction, but also that subordination to the “will of capital” gives rise to an “unlivable” world (ibid.). For this reason, in the capitalist world, different life forms, or ethe, have developed, through which humans seek to come to terms with the reality of the capitalist world but without, while doing so, losing their humanity that capitalism systematically undermines. Echeverría marks the first ethos with the signature of the “realist ethos.” It attempts to overcome the contradiction between the “natural form” and the capitalist logic of accumulation by radically and aggressively embracing the latter. Echeverría calls this ethos “realist” because it unconditionally surrenders to capitalist reality. He sees in the United States the ideal of this absolute subordination of a way of life fixated on consumption (cf. ibid., 12). But it is not limited to this country, since the successful expansion of “American modernity” in the second half of the twentieth century has allowed this way of life to take hold in many societies worldwide or, at least, capture important social sectors in them by, simultaneously, radicalizing the destructive and devastating tendencies of capitalist modernity (cf. Echeverría 2011c). The second ethos that Echeverría observes in the existing modern world he calls the “romantic ethos.” Here, too, he notes an affirmative attitude toward capitalist modernity; however, this form of life is characterized by a “romanticized” understanding of this reality which holds that the management and control of the processes of capital accumulation are made possible through the power of the “subject.” He affirms, moreover, that “for the romantic ethos, modern life and its world are creations of the human subject” (2002, 9). An example of this phenomenon would be the “modern nation.” “Modern nations have the function of delivering ‘human faces’” (ibid.). Nations appear as collective subjects, in other words as “humanized” institutional formations that hide their purely functional character behind a human mask. In this perspective, the negative effects of capitalist modernity appear as sacrifices that are deemed necessary to ensure the well-being of the nation. What is interesting here is that the loss of humanity in capitalist modernity is replaced by a kind of pseudo-humanity, though the idea of the subject that capitalist reality constantly undermines endures. While the capitalist life forms mentioned to this point were concerned with concealing the contradiction of capitalist modernity between the “natural form” and the “mercantile form” of social reproduction, the third ethos, which Echeverría calls “classical,” is concerned with thematizing this contradiction. Here, the problem is recognized, but it is understood as something

Bolívar Echeverría

173

too powerful to act against. In the end, there is a kind of resigned submission (cf. ibid., 10). If, as has been said, Echeverría’s “critical discourse” maintains a commitment to qualitative social change, one might wonder at this point whether he abandons this claim in his work on the life forms that exist within capitalist modernity, since all the ethe mentioned so far ultimately submit to the imperatives of capitalist modernity in one way or the other. But this is not precisely true of the fourth, or “baroque” ethos. The baroque ethos promotes the vindication of the social-natural form of life and its world of use-values, and does so even in the midst of the sacrifice to which they are subjected at the hands of capital and its accumulation. It promotes resistance to this sacrifice; a rescue of the concrete that reaffirms it in a second degree, on an imaginary plane, in the midst of its own devastation (Echeverría 2002, 11).

He thus sees in the “baroque” ethos, to the degree to which it has developed—in his opinion, especially in Latin America—an example of immanent resistance to capitalist modernity. Now, Echeverría seems to perceive a concrete possibility for change in this daily “art of resistance” (Scott 1992), and he writes: Perhaps the revolution no longer has to be thought of in a romantic way but, for example, in a baroque way. Not as a transfiguring assault on the Winter Palace, but as a rhizomatic invasion, hidden and prolonged, but omnipresent, unstoppable, and without military force, of those other places, sometimes far removed from the pretentious political stage, where the political—the re-founding of the forms of sociality—also finds its continuation and is present in everyday life (Echeverría 2002, 11).

Echeverría’s “critical discourse” is not, then, a theory that anticipates practice, but a “discourse” or narrative fused to concrete social practices in such a way that it is made more modest. But, above all, it is a discourse that does not seem to have abandoned either its commitment to “real humanity”6 or to the power that emanates from it. It is precisely in this conviction that Echeverría’s humanism lies. This humanism, communicated in, and through, his critical discourse, is one that rises and falls with this “real humanity” toward which people’s actions always seem to surge. Even if the great revolution is not foreseeable in the near future, this vision holds out a final hope for truly humane forms of social life that cannot be underestimated.

174

Chapter 7

“THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED” (GIL SCOTT HERON) It is possible, then, that capitalism is the same destiny for humanism as for modernity, while subverting both. In fact, Echeverría’s writings can be read not only as an attempt to rescue modernity in the face of post- or anti-modernist discourses, but also as a rehabilitation of humanism, which has been put on the defensive in the face of current anti- or post-humanist discourses (see chapter 1). Although he has not devoted as much space in his work to the discussion of humanism as to that of modernity, a couple of references can be found. For example, in a text from 2006 where he discusses Jean-Paul Sartre’s defense of humanism (Echeverría 2011d [2006], 747), recovering there the idea of the primacy of freedom, he wrote: “that what matters in a human being is the fact that he exercises the freedom to which ‘he is condemned’” (ibid., 750). But, in the context of Sartre’s existentialism, “freedom” does not mean imagining human beings as detached from the world but, rather, as exercising their freedom in, and through, their “responsible,” “engaged” acting in the world. And there is something else that Echeverría rescues from Sartre’s humanism: the recognition that, through their actions in the world, human beings also change and transform that world without following any plan of a great revolution or subordinating themselves to the supposed imperatives of some “plan of history.” This humanism is certainly not the arrogant humanism of capitalist modernity, which: “affirms an order and imposes a civilization that have their origin in the apparently definitive triumph of rationalized technology” that serves only to suppress nature as well as human beings (Echeverría 1997b, 150). It is, rather, a humanism that manifests itself in, and through, the forms of life that resist, to a greater or lesser degree, those inhuman impositions of capitalist modernity. It is in this sense that I understand the quotation that Echeverría included as an epigraph to his text on Sartre, taken from Marcuse’s essay on Sartre’s existentialism: “In the philosophy that has become politics,” wrote Marcuse, “the fundamental conception of existentialism is rescued by a consciousness that has declared war on the reality of the destruction of the human, in the knowledge that this reality continues to triumph”7 (Echeverría, 2011d [2006], 745). Significantly, through the political act of calling attention to the life forms that resist the reproduction of the inhuman, Critical Theory here returns to its commitment to social change that Echeverría shelters in the form of “critical discourse.” What Bolívar Echeverría’s “critical discourse” truly manifests, then, is the urgent need to assume the commitment to the critique of current societies, accompanied by the fact that this critique must be nourished by this

Bolívar Echeverría

175

“real humanity” that is outlined in that place where nature begins to become human, which is, at the same time, the place of nature’s resistance and that of human beings’ struggle for freedom. Contrary to postmodern theories, Echeverría’s ideas refresh the hopes placed in modernity as an ally in this struggle. And against trans-, anti-, and posthumanist currents, he invites us to rethink the human beyond the deconfigurations of capitalism. Echeverría, finally, stresses the conviction that this struggle is not lost when one observes the daily lives of people in today’s modern societies, for one can also observe there those small but significant acts of resistance that can accumulate to form an unspectacular revolution; one that “critical discourse” can make visible. NOTES 1. It should be mentioned here that positivism was able to become the predominant philosophy of science in many Latin American countries at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth century. Moreover, it is above all the central idea of positivism’s order, as well as the possibility of justifying the given through it, that had become a powerful political ideology, invoked by authoritarian political systems unwilling to change. The Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea published a pioneering analysis of positivism in Mexico as early as the 1940s (see: Zea 1968 [1943]). 2. Clara Ruvituso (2020) has recently shown that this Latin American theoretical contribution to social theory has also been noted by debates in political and social thought in West Germany. 3. This centrality of concerns about modernity in intellectual and political debates in Latin America throughout the twentieth century has been thematized in some important works (see: Larraín 2000, Miller 2008). 4. This point has also been made by Nicola Miller (2008). 5. Echeverría recalls time and again the intrinsic linkage between ‘human-nature’ relations and social relations: “Producing and consuming transformations of nature turns out to be simultaneously and, above all, ratifying or modifying the concrete figure of sociality” (cf. Echeverría, 2011b [1984], 476). 6. The terminology of “real humanity” appears in some texts by Theodor W. Adorno (see the chapter on Adorno in this book; also: Kozlarek 2020). 7. “In philosophy that has become political, the basic existentialist conception is saved by the consciousness that declares war on this reality [of inhumanity]—in the knowledge that reality remains the victor” (Marcuse 1968, 84).

REFERENCES Albrecht, Monika. 2019. “Introduction: Postcolonialism Cross-Examined: Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the Neo-colonial

176

Chapter 7

Present.” In Postcolonialism Cross-Examined. Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the Neocolonial Present, edited by Monika Albrecht, 1–47. London: Routledge. Bude, Heinz. 2014. Gesellschaft der Angst. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition. Costa, Sérgio. 2019. “The research on modernity in Latin America: Lineages and dilemmas.” In Current Sociology, Vol. 67(6): 838–55. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​ /0011392118807523. Echeverría, Bolívar. 1997. Las ilusiones de la modernidad. Mexico City: UNAM/El Equilibrista. Echeverría, Bolívar. 1997a. “1989.” In: Las ilusiones de la modernidad, 13–23. Mexico City: UNAM/El Equilibrista. Echeverría, Bolívar. 1997b. “Modernidad y capitalismo (15 tesis).” In Las ilusiones de la Modernidad, 133–97, Mexico City: UNAM/El equilibrista. Echeverría, Bolívar. 1998. “Deambular: El ‘Flâneur’ y el ‘valor de uso.’” In Valor de uso y utopía, 49–60. Mexico City: Siglo XXI. Echeverría, Bolívar. 2002. “La clave barroca de América Latina.” Accessed May 25, 2021. http:​//​bolivare​.unam​.mx​/ensayos​/la​_clave​_barroca​_en​_america​_latina. Echeverría, Bolívar. 2011a. “Un concepto de modernidad.” In Crítica de la modernidad capitalista. Antología, 117–32. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado plurinacional de Bolivia. Echeverría, Bolívar. 2011b [1984]. “La ‘forma natural’ de la reproducción social.” In Crítica de la modernidad capitalista. Antología, 471–92. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado plurinacional de Bolivia. Echeverría, Bolívar. 2011c. “Modernidad ‘americana’ (claves para su comprensión).” In Crítica de la modernidad capitalista. Antología, 259–84. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado plurinacional de Bolivia. Echeverría, Bolívar. 2011d [2006]. “El humanismo del existencialismo.” In Crítica de la modernidad capitalista. Antología, 745–53. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado plurinacional de Bolivia. Echeverría, Bolívar. 2017 [1986]. El discurso crítico de Marx. Mexico City: Ítaca/ Fondo de Cultura Económica. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000. “Multiple modernities.” In Daedalus, 129(1): 1–29. Henning, Christoph. 2020. „Marx als kritischer Theoretiker: Eine dreistufige Neuinterpretation von Kritik.“ In Vielfalt und Einheit der Kritischen Theorie Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, edited by Oliver Kozlarek, 35–55. Wiesbaden: Springer. Horkheimer, Max. 1985 [1959]. „Philosophie als Kulturkritik.“ In Gesammelte Schriften, Band 7: Vorträge und Aufzeichnungen 1949–1973, 81–103. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Kozlarek, Oliver. 2020. „Vom Verlust der realen Humanität zum Kritischen Humanismus.“ In Vielfalt und Einheit der Kritischen Theorie—Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, edited by Oliver Kozlarek, 231–47. Wiesbaden: Springer. Larraín, Jorge. 2000. Identity and Modernity in Latin America. Oxford/Malden: Polity Press.

Bolívar Echeverría

177

Liebsch, Burkhard. 2011. „Kulturelle Lebensformen—zwischen Widerstreit und Gewalt.“ In Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften Grundlagen und Schlüsselbegriffe Band 1, 190–206, edited by Friedrich Jäger/Burkhard Liebsch. Stuttgart: Metzler. Marcuse, Herbert. 1968. „Existentialismus.“ In Kultur und Gesellschaft2, 49–84. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Miller, Nicola. 2008. Reinventing Modernity in Latin America Intellectuals Imagine the Future, 1900–1930. New York: Palgrave McMillan. Roniger, Luis. 2009. “Latin American Modernities: Global, Transnational, Multiple, Open Ended.” In Protosociology. An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, Vol. 26: 71–99. Ruvituso, Clara I. 2020. “From the South to the North: The circulation of Latin American dependency theories in the Federal Republic of Germany.” In Current Sociology, Vol. 68(1): 22–40. https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/0011392119885170. Scott, James C. 1992. Domination and the Arts of Resistance. Hidden Transcripts. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Streeck, Wolfgang. 2015. Gekaufte Zeit: Die vertagte Krise des demokratischen Kapitalismus. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Thompson, Michael J. 2016. The Domestication of Critical Theory. London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Zea, Leopoldo. 1968 [1943]. El positivismo en México. Nacimiento, apogeo y decadencia. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Conclusion Where Do We Go from Here? From Critical Humanism to a Necessary Debate about Society

So, in what does the critical humanism of the early Frankfurt School consist? We have seen in these chapters that there is no unanimous answer to this question. Nevertheless, it should be clear that there are very similar aspirations fed, above all, by the realization that we exist in increasingly inhumane societies. For the authors of the “first generation” of the Frankfurt School, the industrial extermination of human life in the Nazi death camps represented a culmination of this tendency. However, they were under no illusion that the situation after the end of the Second World War had become fundamentally different, or that the tendency toward radical forms of dehumanization had remained limited to one geographical area. The representatives of Critical Theory found the standards for their criticism in the toolbox of a humanistic culture that culminated in the humanism of the Enlightenment. But they came to the conclusion that abstract ideas must be traced back to their social origins. In terms of a history of ideas, they embarked on a journey that moved from Wilhelm von Humboldt’s academicized and cultural humanism back to Kant—in whose work the principle against any kind of instrumentalization of human beings found expression— and, finally, via Hegel to Marx, where humanism became a measure of relentless social criticism. The fact that humanism arises from the awareness of the loss of humanity in modern capitalist societies is thus the first meaning of “critical humanism” that I attribute to the early Frankfurt School in this book. But for the first generation of the Frankfurt School it was also clear that the humanist culture rooted in the Enlightenment in post-liberal societies had to be made visible amidst distortions and ideology. This kind of self-criticism 179

180

Conclusion

of humanist culture is the justification for a second meaning that should be given to the term “critical humanism,” for it is precisely about understanding a changing culture that mimes the hardening social conditions and visibly undermines Enlightenment humanism, even if it still loudly relates to this tradition. The third meaning of “critical humanism” emerges from the first two. It consists, above all, in the practical claim to update humanism as a program of critical social and cultural research. It is in this sense that humanism is no longer understood as a Humboldtian educational program that should give every individual access to a humanistic culture with which they should develop their own individual humanity. Rather, it is about using critical social research to show that humanistic values deposited in culture are not automatically transformed into “real” humanity, that is: humanity that defines social and political realities. The humanism of the Frankfurt School thus fulfills the demands that Ken Plummer also places on what he calls “critical humanism” (see Introduction). It is “embedded” in the social conditions of human beings in capitalist societies, it does not set out to create an ideal of human development, but it also does not lose itself in a kind of polytheism of images of the human being that advocates the kind of cultural relativism that can be observed in theory and activism today, guided by identity-political premises. However, the critical humanism of the Frankfurt School also goes beyond Plummer’s ideas in that it cannot be understood as lip service to humanistic ideas, which, however, remain toothless in political and scientific terms. On the contrary, critical humanism of the Frankfurt School follows a practical-political claim, which consists of using the means of critical social and cultural research to point out the grievances and the contradictions in our societies. As should have become clear in this book, Max Horkheimer was responsible for this research-pragmatic updating of humanism. However, the other authors discussed also contributed to this project with different emphases. In retrospect, Herbert Marcuse can be credited, specifically, with having advocated a humanist critical social theory. Erich Fromm’s work sets normative accents in his humanistic psychology, which is particularly notable for its universalist claims, and provides welcome guidance through the thicket of the relativism of today’s identity politics. Theodor Adorno, meanwhile, saw himself as an intellectual active in the public sphere, and focused on his “interventions” (Eingriffe) as a humanistic practice. Finally, both Walter Benjamin and Bolívar Echeverría have endeavored to track down possibilities for a “real humanity” as well as its opponents within the framework of very ambitious research on capitalist modernity.

Conclusion

181

The question that should follow now concerns society itself. For as we have seen in this book, in neoliberal modernity not only the “abolition of Man” is progressing, but also that of society. What should a society be like that could call itself “humane”? The authors discussed in this book have not given a positive answer to this question. There are good reasons for this, because in modern history particularly ambitious attempts to build a better society have often turned into quite the opposite. Another reason, however, is of a theoretical nature: society, and above all capitalist society, is a form of “total integration” in which the Other is to be systematically destroyed (Benzer 2011, Frumer 2022). The “abolition of Man” (Tenbruck), which we have explored from the perspective of criticism of “neoliberal modernity” (chapter 1), would therefore not be a mistake to be remedied, but an incurable disease built into the system. May be this is why, in recent times, the question of alternative forms of “conviviality” has become more prominent (Centre for Global Cooperation Research 2014, 24). But here, too, it becomes clear how much effort the authors who come together in this discussion make to avoid the question of society. This often gives the impression that the problems that we have to resolve are obvious and that the possibilities for overcoming them are just as obvious, and that all we need is a guidance of social theory to lead us in the right direction. The reference to humanism also corresponds to this logic: “A new humanism, broader and more radical, is what we need to invent, and this implies developing new forms of humanity as well” (ibid., 29). But the insight from this book is a different one: humanism is always already a reaction of a lack of humane social conditions. Contrasting these is not enough. Therefore, what is needed is not more humanism or a new kind of humanism, but humane forms of society. Perhaps this lack of thinking society is also a reason why attempts are being made to revive the discussion about socialism from the ranks of those who still see themselves in the tradition of Critical Theory (Fraser 2022; Honneth 2015). If we remember the history of this discussion and realize that it did not begin with Marx, it becomes clear that “socialism” has been, first and foremost, a debate about a normative concept of society. Socialism is, therefore, not a specific model of social and political organization, but a rather free and experimental debate about alternative forms of society. It is obvious that these discussions dried out with the end of “real existing socialism.” Probably earlier, because “real existing socialism” also froze this discussion (see Bahro 1980). Some thirty years ago, however, many started to believe in the “end of history,” which also put an end to curiosity about alternative forms of social and political organization. But there are other reasons that could explain the abrupt end of discussions about socialism and society; for example, Margret Thatcher’s apodictic assertion that “There is

182

Conclusion

no such thing as society” not only belongs in the poison cabinet of neoliberal ideology but, in the late 1970s, likely struck a chord even with left-wing movements, which turned to issues for which the question of social organization was no longer central. This refers not only to ecological movements, but also to what Richard Rorty identified already in the 1990s as a “cultural left” (Rorty 1998). Today, we see clearly that the new guiding concept of culture is increasingly replacing the concept of society altogether, with important consequences for social and political imaginaries (Touraine 2007; Dubet 2021), one of which is the fragmentation of the political and social tissues. As these chapters should show, interest in humanism cannot be detached from the question of the state of our societies. This applies not only in an analytical, but also in a normative sense. That is to say that the possibilities to live humanely dignified lives is directly related to the question of what kind of society we form. Therefore, in the view of a Critical Theory that is normatively oriented toward critical humanism, a discussion about the society we want is absolutely necessary again today, and should be returned to the research agenda of this academic endeavor. REFERENCES Bahro, Rudolf. 1980. Die Alternative. Zur Kritik des real existierenden Sozialismus. Hamburg: Rowohlt. Benzer, Matthias. 2011. The Sociology of Theodor Adorno. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press. Centre for Global Cooperation Research. 2014. Convivialist Manifesto—A declaration of interdependence. Duisburg: Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research. Dubet, François. 2021. “The Return of Society.” In European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 24, Issue 1: 3–21. Fraser, Nancy. 2022. Cannibal Capitalism. How Our System Is Devouring Democracy, Care and the Planet—and What We Can Do about It. London/New York: Verso. Frumer, Naveh. 2022. “‘A False Classless Society’: Adorno’s social theory revisited.” In Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. 0(0): 1–20. doi: 10.1177/01914537221093720. Honneth, Axel. 2015. Die Idee des Sozialismus. Versuch einer Aktualisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Rorty, Richard. 1998. Achieving Our Country. Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. Touraine, Alain. 2007. A New Paradigm for Understanding Today’s World. Cambridge/ Malden: Polity Press.

Index

abolition of Man, 6, 9, 15–18, 78, 99, 108, 180; academic culture advancing the, 19; neoliberalism, 83 Abromeit, John, 70, 73, 129 abstract: humanism, 70; universalism, 108 academia, education and, 8, 24, 37–45, 89; humanistic education and, 21, 25, 51, 64; student movements and, 78 accumulation, capitalist, 23, 170, 172–73 active humanism, 70–73, 78 activism, political, 26, 163 Adorno, Theodor W., 73, 124, 137–44, 151, 175n6, 180; anthropology of the new type of man by, 121–22, 125–35; critical humanism of, 122– 23; Minima Moralia, 8, 121, 129, 132–35; on real humanity, 8, 122–23, 125–26, 135–36, 143–44, 175n6. See also Dialectic of Enlightenment “Adorno, a Philosopher of Real Humanism” (Schmidt), 121 aesthetics, 91, 98 affirmative culture, 27–30, 33, 88–90, 93 affluent society, 90, 94 Albrecht, Monika, 40–41

alienation, 4, 65, 117, 132–33; from affirmative culture, 93; in bourgeois society, 82; sociology and, 15 Althusser, Louis, 5, 77 ambivalence, 6–7, 48, 50, 71, 74n2, 90, 171 An Atheism That Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought (Geroulanos), 5–6 Anderson, Perry, 38 Angelus Novus, 148, 152 animism, 143–44 the Anthropocene, 42–45, 97–98, 111–12 anthropocentrism, 107, 147–48 anthropology, 109–11; of the bourgeois age, 70, 129–30; negative, 122; new, 121–22, 125–33; philosophical, 5, 59–66, 95, 121; scientific, 78 anthropomorphism, 144 anti-humanism, 2, 5–6, 8, 34, 98, 161; of Escalante, 48; of Lévi Strauss, 147; theoretical, 77–78 anti-Semitism, 131 architecture, 31 Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (journal), 151 Arendt, Hannah, 66–68 Aristotle, 88 183

184

Index

Árnason, Jóhann Páll, 80 artificial: intelligence, 32, 41, 52n1; scarcity, 170 “Aspects of the New Right-Wing Radicalism” (Aspektedes neuen Rechtsradikalismus) (Adorno), 132 atheism, 5 augmented humanity, 144, 154–55, 161 Auschwitz, 135 authoritarian, 132, 167, 175n1 The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno, et al), 129, 132 autonomy, 16, 30, 33, 35, 43, 89, 126, 134 axial civilizations, 17, 168 Bajohr, Hannes, 122 barbarism, 73, 130–31, 135–36 baroque ethos, 173 Bataille, George, 5 Baudrillard, Jean, 38 Behrens, Roger, 4 being (mode of existence), 104, 111–17 Bell, Daniel, 38, 64 Benjamin, Walter, 8–9, 73, 148–52, 155–57, 159–61, 161n2, 180; on the divine, 153–54, 158; Echeverría and, 171 Berlin Wall, fall of the, 166 Bernstein, Richard J., 151, 159 Beyond the Chains of Illusions (Fromm), 105 Bhabha, Homi, 39 Bhambra, Gurminder, 40 the Bible, 113 biology, 108, 110–11 Blair, Tony, 24 Blei, Franz, 150–51 Bock, Wolfgang, 160 Bolshevism, 167 Bonaventura Hotel, 21 bourgeois, 70, 129–30; society, 22, 34, 64–65, 71–72, 82, 88–89, 124, 132, 142; type of man, 71, 125, 128 brotherhood, 67–68

Brown, Wendy, 22, 24–25 California, 31 Capital (Marx Capital), 170 capitalism, 18, 93, 137, 165; accumulation and, 23, 170, 172–73; Adorno on, 126; Benjamin on, 150, 153; cultural, 27–28; dehumanization and, 66; Echeverría on, 166–69; exploitation by, 97; global, 103, 166; modernity and, 9, 72, 74n2, 154–55, 160, 167, 169–74, 180; neoliberal, 19–20, 38–39, 98; as a pseudoreligion, 150, 152–54; radicalized, 25; as a religion, 152–54; society and, 66, 106, 110–11, 114–15, 121–22, 143, 164, 179–80. See also modern capitalist society catastrophe, 6, 97 childhood, 34–35, 47 civilizations, 16, 88–89, 96; axial, 17, 168 civil rights, 79 Clash of Civilizations (Huntington), 28 class, 34, 51–52, 74n2; consciousness, 116, 132; middle, 27–28; struggle, 93, 110, 116 classical: ethos, 172–73; humanism, 89 climate crisis, 94 Clinton, Bill, 24 Club of Rome reports, 111 Cold War ideology, 69–70 collective, 88; identity, 28, 168; subjects, 126, 172 colonialism, 17–18, 40, 68, 168 commodity: character, 81; fetishism, 96, 127 communication, 156–57 communism, 40, 164–65; positive, 83 concept of Man (Begriff vom Menschen), 4, 61–63, 65–66, 72 conflict resolution, nonviolent, 156, 158 conformism, 62, 67–68 conformity, conformism and, 62, 64, 67–68, 108, 125, 134

Index

consciousness, 10, 32, 36, 86, 93, 105; class, 116, 132; double, 95; false, 103, 137 “Contributions to a Phenomenology of Historical Materialism” (Beiträge zu einer Phänomenologie des Historischen Materialismus) (Marcuse), 80 control, 16; forms of, 7, 130; social, 45, 97 Coomann, Nicholas, 121, 128 corporate culture, corporations and, 18, 20–23, 88, 116 cosmopolitan humanism, 66–70 Costa, Sérgio, 167 counter-power, 155, 159–60 COVID pandemic, 26, 47 crisis, crises and, 1; of capitalism, 165; climate, 94; of democracy, 26, 150; environmental, 98; financial, 17, 103 critical discourse, 3, 18, 168; of Echeverría, 163–67, 173–75; revolution and, 164–65 critical humanism, 1–9, 52, 104, 149, 179–80; of Adorno, 122–23; critical social theory and, 98–99; of Horkheimer, 8, 37, 70–73; of Marcuse, 79–80 critical social research, 7, 9, 70, 73, 79–80, 99, 122; of Adorno, 126, 129–35; anthropology of the new type of man as, 129–35; philosophical anthropology and, 60–66 critical social theory, 92–97, 180; critical humanism and, 98–99; real humanity and, 6–7 critical theory, 3–4, 7–9, 104, 163–65, 181; of Fromm, 105; of Horkheimer, 59, 78, 129; of Marcuse, 78–79, 84–87, 92–98; philosophy and, 84–87 critique of critique, 85, 164 “The Critique of Violence” (Benjamin), 8–9, 149–52, 154–59

185

Crouch, Colin, 25 Cuban Revolution of 1959, 165–66 cultural, 168–69; capitalism, 27–28; diversity, 3, 28–29; essentialism, 26–30; function, 153–54; hegemony, 32; immanence, 32–33; left, 25–26, 182; logics, 27, 38–39; relativism, 37, 180; revolution, 26–30; values, 91 culturalization, 19, 22–23, 26–28, 30–32, 39 culture, 26, 30; academic, 19; Adorno on, 123–25, 128; affirmative, 27–30, 33, 88–90, 93; bourgeois, 70, 133; conformity in, 134; corporate, 18, 20–23, 116; de-spiritualization of, 64–65; European, 124–25; Horkheimer on, 64–65; humanistic, 73, 89–92, 107–8, 117, 123, 136–38, 179–80; humanization through, 88–92; media, 29, 34; political consciousness and, 10; postmodern, 31–32; signs of the totalization of, 30–34; totalization of, 30–31 culture criticism, 149–50; as the sign of the totalization of culture, 30–34; social criticism as, 34–37 culture industry (Kulturindustrie), 34, 64, 137 cybernetic religion, 115 Davies, William, 52 death penalty, 156 decentralization, 116 decolonization, 40, 167 dehumanization, 4, 66, 90, 108, 122 Delanty, Gerard, 38, 67 democracy, 23–25, 85, 116, 159–60; crises of, 26, 150; neoliberalism and the abolition of, 23–26 democratization, third wave, 167 dependency theory, 40, 165 Derrida, Jacques, 5, 39 de-spiritualization of culture, 64–65 Dewey, John, 68

186

Index

dialectic, 4, 71; of Enlightenment, 129– 31; of the individual, 121, 131 Dialectic of Enlightenment (Horkheimer, Adorno), 8, 60, 121, 123–24, 129–30, 135, 143–44; barbarism addressed in, 73; industrialization of culture addressed in, 64–65 dichotomies, 108–10 digitalization, 20, 23 diplomacy, 68, 156 El discurso crítico de Marx (Marx’s Critical Discourse) (Echeverría), 164 disempowerment, 159–61 diversity, 103, 109; cultural, 3, 28–29 the divine, 153–54, 158 Domańska, Ewa, 44–45 double consciousness, 95 early Frankfurt School, 3–4, 7, 9, 52, 179 Echeverría, Bolívar, 9, 10n4, 130, 163– 68, 170–75, 175n5, 180 Eclipse of Reason (Zur Kritik der instrumentellen Vernunft) (Horkheimer), 59–60 economic, 82–83, 94; power, 3, 39, 48, 51, 97, 140, 148 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (Marx), 80–82, 105 education. see academia, education and ego, 34, 72, 106, 113, 126, 143 “Egoism and the Freedom Movement” (Egoismus und Freiheitsbewegung) (Horkheimer), 60, 70, 73, 132 Eisenstadt, Shmuel N., 17, 168 emancipation, 25, 79, 85, 89, 91, 93, 104, 154 Emerson, Ralph, 67, 87 empathy, 1, 25 empirical science, 15, 106 end of history, 30, 159, 169–79, 181 Engels, Friedrich, 144n1, 170 the Enlightenment, 1, 37–45, 105; Adorno on, 128; dialectic of, 4,

121, 129–31; Habermas on, 37–38; humanism, 4, 7, 9, 43, 46–47, 52, 179–80 eotechnics, 168 epistemology, 25, 38–39 Eros and Civilization (Marcuse), 96 Escalante, Fernando, 18, 48 Escape from Freedom (Fromm), 112 essentialism, 122; cultural, 26–30 ethe, 171–73 ethos, 171–73 Eurocentrism, 39 Europe, 9, 39–40, 124–25; Horkheimer on, 163; Western, 80 exile, 67, 90, 123, 129–30, 141 existentialism, 111, 174, 175n7; phenomenological, 80 exploitation, 38, 83, 87, 91, 97, 121 false: consciousness, 103, 137; humanism, 122, 134 families, 47, 63–64 The Family of Man (exhibition), 67–69 fascism, 8, 140 Fassin, Didier, 48–49 fate of human beings, 129, 135 fathers, 64 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 77 financial crisis of 2008/2009, 17, 103 first generation of the Frankfurt School, 67, 179 Flâneur (Benjamin), 171 For Marx (Althusser), 77 Foucault, Michel, 5, 39 France, 5–6 Frank, Anne, 68 Frankfurt, Germany, 67–68, 129 Frankfurt School. See specific topics Fraser, Nancy, 23–24, 47 Freud, Sigmund, 79, 96, 105–6, 108–9 Frisby, David, 149 Fromm, Erich, 8, 112–13, 116–18, 121, 180; on capitalist society, 114–15; normative humanism of, 104–11 Fuchs, Thomas, 41

Index

Fukuyama, Francis, 41 functionalism, 16, 124 Gane, Nicholas, 52 gender, 47 general strikes, 155, 157 geology, 45 Gerhardt, Volker, 136 The German Ideology (Marx, Engels), 164 Germany, 50, 64, 123–24, 132; failed revolution in, 80; Frankfurt, 67–68, 129; populism in, 23 Geroulanos, Stefanos, 5–6 Gertenbach, Lars, 44 Gesellschaft (journal), 81 global capitalism, 103, 166 globalization, 52, 66–67 Global South, 47 Grey, Edward, 134 Grossman, Henryk, 73 Grosz, George, 150 Habermas, Jürgen, 10n2, 37–38, 131 Hannah Arendt, Hannah, 66 happiness, 32, 34, 41–42, 72, 86–88, 90, 109–10, 170 having (mode of existence), 104, 110–17 Hayek, Friedrich von, 19, 47–48 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 92, 124–25, 179 hegemony, 32–33, 39, 103 Heidegger, Martin, 5, 79–80 Henning, Christoph, 164 Herder, Johann, 89 Heron, Gil Scot, 174–75 hierarchy, 28, 70, 110 historical materialism, 80–84 history, retrospective view of, 149, 152 History and Class Consciousness (Lukács), 80 Hobbes, Thomas, 161n2 Homer, 131 Honneth, Axel, 10n2, 99n3, 152–53

187

hope, 66 Horkheimer, Max, 63–64, 68–73, 123, 130–31, 180; critical humanism of, 8, 37, 70–73; critical theory of, 59, 78, 129; humanism of, 59–60, 74n2; on human nature, 59–62, 65; as IfS director, 34–35, 59, 62, 84, 129; Marcuse and, 85–86; on mechanization, 135. See also Dialectic of Enlightenment human: development, 2, 114, 180; intelligence, 41; reality, 82–83, 86, 169 Humane (Moyn), 49 humane society, 1, 4, 9, 42, 50, 66, 73, 93, 117, 142–44 humanism, 1–2, 5, 8, 37–45, 125, 173–74, 181; active, 70–73, 78; of Adorno, 121–23, 135–36; classical, 89; cosmopolitan, 66–70; critique of, 3–4, 6, 63, 147, 161; Enlightenment, 4, 7, 9, 43, 46–47, 52, 147, 179–80; false, 122, 134; of Fromm, 104–8, 111; of Horkheimer, 59–60, 74n2; of Marcuse, 78, 83–84, 91–92, 99; of Marx, 105–6; negative, 99–100; neoliberalism and, 46–51; normative, 8, 104–11, 115–18; pseudohumanism, 6–7, 47, 50–51, 172; real humanity and, 135; science of man and, 115. See also antihumanism; critical humanism humanistic: culture, 73, 89–92, 107–8, 117, 123, 136–38, 179–80; education, 21, 25, 51, 64; mask, 46–51 humanitarian reason, 7, 19, 48–50 humanity, 2–3; Adorno on, 134–35; augmented, 144, 154–55, 161; increased, 9, 144, 153, 155, 159, 161; loss of, 82, 108, 125, 131, 153, 172, 179; non-augmented, 151, 154, 159; pure, 89–90; realized, 137, 143. See also Man; real humanity humanization, 49–50, 88–92

188

Index

human nature, 5, 48, 83–84, 96, 107–8, 114, 121, 143; Escalante on, 18; Horkheimer on, 59–62, 65 human turn, 42–43 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 179 Huntington, Samuel, 28 hyperculture, 26–30 idealism: German, 64; philosophical, 43, 87 identity, 1, 29, 74n2, 127; collective, 28, 168; Horkheimer on, 68–69; Tenbruck on, 16 identity politics, 1, 3, 28, 103–4, 148, 163, 180; relativism and, 25 ideology, 5, 71, 73, 82, 140–41; Anthropocene, 43; Cold War, 69–70; culture and, 88; for Freud, 105; German, 164; humanist, 147; neoliberal, 18–19, 21, 25–37, 182; political, 165, 175; postliberal capitalist, 137; postwar, 67; Western, 46 IfS. See Institute for Social Research Las ilusiones de la modernidad (The Illusions of Modernity) (Echeverría), 166 imaginaries, 66; of the Latin American left, 166; political, 20, 159, 182; social, 9, 28–30 imperialism, 26, 46 increased humanity, 9, 144, 153, 155, 159, 161. See also augmented humanity indigenism, 168 individual-society-nature constellation, 61–62 industrial: democracy, 116; production, 24, 110, 131; society, 90, 94, 113–14 industrialization, 34–37, 64 inequality, 7, 49, 148–50, 160 Institute for Social Research (IfS), 8, 34–35, 59, 62, 84, 105–6, 129, 139 instrumental rationality, 149–50, 152– 54, 161

intellectual minimalism, 8, 26, 104, 117 intelligence, 110–11; artificial, 32, 41, 52n1 intersubjectivity, 2–3 Iraq, 49–50 Italy, 71 Jaeggi, Rahel, 132–33 James, William, 68 Jameson, Frederik, 29, 31–32, 34, 36 Jay, Martin, 67, 69 Das jüdische Gesetz (Jewish Law) (Fromm), 112 Kant, Emmanuel, 4, 43, 66, 147–48, 179; Horkheimer on, 68–70 Das Kapital (Marx), 85 Kaufmann, Franz-Xaver, 15 Klee, Paul, 148, 152 Kojève, Alexandre, 5 Konersmann, Ralf, 32–34, 36 Korsch, Karl, 79–81 Koyré, Alexandre, 5 “Kulturand Culture” (Kultur und Culture) (Adorno), 123 Kurzweil, Ray, 41 labor, 24, 38, 64, 81, 83–84, 87; alienated, 82, 93; division of, 86 language, 15, 36, 112, 123–24, 156–57 Latin America, 40, 164–67, 175nn1–2; resistance to capitalist modernity of, 173 Latour, Bruno, 44–45 Laux, Thomas, 44 Lechner, Norbert, 79 Lefebvre, Henri, 77 left, cultural, 25–26, 182 leftist identity politics, 104 left-wing parties, 24, 51, 182 Le Pen, Marie, 23 Letter on Humanism (Heidegger), 5 Lévinas, Emmanuel, 5 Lévi Strauss, Claude, 147 liberalism, 19, 47, 164

Index

liberalization, 47 liberation, 7, 32, 89–90, 93, 95–96, 104 Lind, Michael, 51 logics, 111; of Adorno, 144; capitalist, 143, 172; corporate, 20; cultural, 27, 38–39; entrepreneurial, 20–21; of neoliberalism, 27; paternalistic, 7 longue durée, 166 Los Angeles, California, 31 love, human, 89 Lukács, Georg, 79–81 Malik, Kenan, 29–30 Man: bourgeois type of, 71, 125, 128; concept of, 4, 61–63, 65–66, 72; new type of, 98–99, 121–22, 126–28, 133; Science of, 82–83, 104, 115, 117; subjugation of, 59, 91. See also abolition of Man Man and Nature, relation between, 96, 98, 123–24, 128, 143–44, 167, 170, 175n5; exploitation in, 83 Man for Himself (Fromm), 106, 111, 114 Marcuse, Herbert, 8, 73, 78, 80–82, 105, 151, 174; on affirmative cultures, 30; critical theory of, 78–79, 84–87, 92–98; on culture, 88–92; influenced by Marx, 79–84, 96, 98; on nature, 83–84, 94–98; on utopia, 93–94, 97 marriage, 134 Marx, Karl, 105–6, 144nn1–2, 164–65, 168, 170, 181; on labor, 38, 93; Marcuse influenced by, 79–84, 96, 98; theoretical anti-humanism of, 77–78 Marxism and Philosophy (Korsch), 79–80 mass: consumption, 47; media, 39, 49, 94 materialism, 95, 105; historical, 80–84, 164–65; of Horkheimer, 62; modernity, 168 material scarcity, 97, 124 McDonaldization, 20–23

189

The McDonaldization of Society (Ritzer), 20 Mead, George Herbert, 2 means-ends rationality, 149–50, 152–58 measure of all things, man as the, 42, 107, 147 mechanization, 64–65, 135 media: culture, 29, 34; mass, 39, 49, 94 mercantile form of social reproduction, 172 metanarratives, 2, 39 metaphysics, 65, 83, 168–69 middle class, 27–28 Mignolo, Walter, 17–18, 40 Minima Moralia (Adorno), 8, 121, 129, 132–35 modern capitalist society, 152–54, 164, 170–71, 179; criticism by Benjamin of, 148–49; Fromm on, 109–10 modernity: Benjamin on, 149–50, 154; capitalist, 9, 72, 74n2, 154–55, 160, 167, 169–74, 180; Echeverría on, 167–69; Heidegger on, 79; materialist, 168; neoliberal, 6–7, 9, 17–20, 46, 104, 181; real, 169–70; theory of, 167–69; Wagner on, 74n2. See also capitalist modernity; neoliberal modernity modernization, 39–40, 149 modes of existence, 44, 104, 109, 112–17 “Montaigne and the Function of Skepticism” (Montaigne und die Funktion der Skepsis) (Horkheimer), 60 mothers, 63–64 Moyn, Samuel, 49–50 multiculturalism, 26, 29, 47 multiple modernities, 17–18, 167 Mumford, Lewis, 168 Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 67–69 mythical violence, 157–58

190

Index

natural form of social reproduction, 170–72 natural law, 128, 142 nature, 96, 144n1, 167, 170, 175n5; Marcuse on, 83–84, 94–98; mastery over, 142–44. See also Man and Nature, relation between Nazism, Nazi regime and, 6, 128, 160 Neckel, Sighard, 43, 45 negative: anthropology, 122; humanism, 99–100 Negative Dialectics (Adorno), 135 neocolonialism, 168 neoliberalism, 37–45, 51–52, 96, 182; abolition of democracy and, 23–26; abolition of man and, 83; capitalism and, 19–20, 38–39, 98; corporate culture of, 20–23; critique, 17–19, 103; cultural revolution of, 26–30; humanism and, 46–51; humanistic mask of, 46–51; modernity and, 6–7, 9, 17–20, 46, 104, 181; progressive, 24, 47 neotechnics, 168, 170 new: anthropology, 121–22, 125–33; individualism, 68; society, 9, 111–12, 114, 116; type of man, 98–99, 121– 22, 126–28, 133 “New Foundations of Historical Materialism” (Marcuse), 81 New York City, 67–68 Nicaragua, 166 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 131, 161 non-augmented humanity, 151, 154, 159 non-identity, 68 nonviolent conflict resolution, 156, 158 normative: humanism, 8, 104–11, 115– 18; universalism, 3, 26, 104 “Notes on the new anthropology” (Notizen zur neuen Anthropologie) (Adorno), 122 Obama, Barack, 24 obedience, 64, 71–72 objectification, 84, 139–40

Odysseus (character), 131 One-Dimensional Man (Marcuse), 8, 92–98 “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man” (Benjamin), 156–57 “On Technology and Humanism” (Über Technik und Humanismus) (Adorno), 136 “On the Affirmative Character of Culture” (Marcuse), 88 the Other, 84, 169, 181 Our Posthuman Future (Fukuyama), 41 overclass, 51–52 pacifism, 98, 150, 156 parliamentarianism, 155, 159–60 paternalism, 7, 43, 49, 79, 139 permissive societies, 91 phenomenology, 36, 79–80; of neoliberalization, 22 philosophical anthropology, 5, 59–66, 95, 121 philosophy, 79–81, 133, 174, 175n7; critical social theory and, 92–98; critical theory and, 84–87; idealist, 43, 87; negative, 130 “Philosophy and Critical Theory” (“Philosophie undkritische Theorie”) (Marcuse), 78, 84 “Philosophy as Culture Criticism” (Philosophie als Kulturkritik) (Horkheimer), 35, 163 Plummer, Ken, 1–3, 10, 180 plurality, 103 political: decision-making, 140, 166–67; economy, 38, 103; imaginaries, 20, 159, 182; theory, 9, 152 populism, 23–24, 52n4 positivism, 165, 175n1; sociology and, 164 postcolonialism, 17–18, 38–42 posthumanism, 3, 6, 38, 41–45, 147 postindustrial production, 20 postliberal capitalist society, 137

Index

post-liberal society, 65, 179 post-metaphysical orientation, 43–44 postmodernism, 2–3, 31–32, 38–41, 167, 175 postwar period, 6, 67, 94 power, 69; concentration of, 46, 51–52, 91, 115, 148–49, 152, 155, 159; counter, 155, 159–60; “Critique of Violence” addressing, 154–59; economic, 3, 39, 48, 51, 97, 140, 148; political, 91, 103, 117, 148– 50, 154–55, 161; social, 25, 96; structures, 49, 51, 103, 111; unequal distribution of, 4, 9 powerlessness, 96, 160 precarity, 24, 35, 49, 51, 97, 99 private property, 82, 113 “Problem of the new type of man” (Problem des neuen Menschentypus) (Adorno), 122 profit, 20, 89, 113 progressive neoliberalism, 24–26, 47 proletariat, proletarian and, 1, 93; general strikes, 155, 157 Protestant ethic, 171 pseudo-humanism, 6–7, 47, 50–51, 172 pseudo-religion, capitalism as a, 150, 152–54 psyche, 104–5, 107–9, 112, 114 psychoanalysis, 96 psychology, 106, 114–16 Ptak, Ralf, 48 the public sphere, 138–42 pure: humanity, 89–90; means, 157 quality of human life, 92, 95, 117 Querido publishing house, 129–30 racism, 68 radical pluralization, 39 Raffnsøe, Sverre, 42 rationality, 131; instrumental, 149–50, 152–54, 161 rationalization, 22, 27, 136 Reading Capital (Althusser), 77

191

Reagan, Ronald, 24 real: modernity, 169–70; socialism, 166–67 real humanity, 4, 6–7, 95, 121, 124, 135–42, 170–73, 180; Adorno on, 8, 122–23, 125–26, 135–36, 143–44, 175n6; Echeverría pursuing, 163, 174–75 realist ethos, 172 Reason and Revolution (Marcuse), 92 Reckwitz, Andreas, 26–29, 39 reconciliation, 66–70 relationality, 109–10 relativism, 8, 25, 37, 104, 115, 180 religions, 114–15, 117; substitute, 5, 16, 153–54 “Remarks on a Redefinition of Culture” (Marcuse), 88 Renaissance, 47, 62 renunciation, 25, 71–72, 90, 131, 153 repression, 96–97, 106, 126 reproduction, 20, 49; social, 168, 171–72 retrospective view of history, 149, 152 revolution, revolutionary movements and, 157, 164–66, 173–75; cultural, 26–27; failed, 80; peaceful, 159; violence and, 158 Rienzo, Cola di, 71 right-wing, 23–24; radicalism, 132, 135 Ritzer, George, 20 romantic ethos, 172 Romero, José Manuel, 79 Rorty, Richard, 182 Rüsen, Jörn, 42 Ruvituso, Clara, 175n2 sacralization, 149–50, 153 Said, Edward, 39 Sandinistas, 166 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 5, 174 Savonarola, Girolamo, 71 scarcity, 168, 170; material, 97, 124 Scheler, Max, 61–62, 69 Schickele, René, 150

192

Schmidt, Alfred, 121 Schmidt, Werner, 77–78 Scholem, Gershom, 151 Schreiner, Patrick, 21 Schweppenhäuser, Gerhard, 99 Science of Man, 82–83, 104, 115, 117 scientific: anthropology, 78; socialism, 81; theory, 164–65 scientificization, 16 secularization, 5–6, 153, 159, 169 self-criticism, 4–5, 179–80 Sève, Lucien, 77 sexual: drive, 105, 109; orientation, 47, 51 singularity, 34–35, 103–4, 127, 159 singularization, 22, 27, 39 social: character, 114–15; imaginaries, 9, 28–30 social criticism, 1, 7–9, 35–37; radical, 34, 116 socialism, 40, 99n3, 132, 181–82; Marcuse on, 98; real, 166–67; scientific, 81 social life of human beings, 85, 129 social reproduction, 168, 171–72 society: affluent, 90, 94; bourgeois, 22, 34, 64–65, 71–72, 82, 88–89, 124, 132, 142; capitalist, 66, 106, 110–11, 114–15, 121–22, 143, 164, 179–80; critical theory of, 84–86, 92; Horkheimer on, 63–64; humane, 1, 4, 9, 42, 50, 66, 73, 93, 117, 142–44; industrial, 90, 94, 113–14; materialistic theory of, 62; modern, 4, 6–7, 17, 28, 39, 66, 74, 137, 153, 159; postcolonialism vs, 39–41; post-industrial, 38, 64; post-liberal, 65, 179; rational, 86; socialism and, 181–82; Thatcher on, 37; theory of, 65, 105. See also modern capitalist society Society and Class Consciousness (Lukács), 79 sociology, 49, 65, 138–42; positivist, 164; of Tenbruck, 15–17

Index

Sociology of Modernity (Wagner), 74n3 solidarity, 144; empathy and, 1, 25 Sorel, George, 157–58, 160 species, 83–84 Der Spiegel (magazine), 59 spirituality, 35, 99 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 39 Stalinism, 6 star cult (cult of stardom), 20–23, 74 status quo, 69, 90, 154, 164 Steichen, Edward, 67–69 Steiner, Uwe, 155, 157 Stevenson, Nick, 92, 97 Strauss, Lévi, 147 student movements, 78 Studien über Authorität und Familie (Studies on Authority and Family) (IfS), 105–6 subconscious, 105 subjectivity, 25, 131, 134 subjugation of Man, 59, 91 subordination, 7, 16, 45, 153, 157, 172 Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, 40 suffering, 5, 41–42, 63, 143 surveillance, 16, 19, 43, 50 survival, 95, 110, 143, 154 technocracy, 52 technologies, 127–28, 136–37, 168, 174; climate crisis and, 94; posthumanism and, 41–42 telos, 2, 69–70, 171–72 Tenbruck, Friedrich, 6, 15 Thatcher, Margaret, 24, 37, 181–82 Theses on the Philosophy of History (Benjamin), 148, 152 third wave democratization, 167 Thompson, Edward P., 77 Thompson, Michael J., 105 Todorov, Tzvetan, 147 To Have or to Be? (Fromm), 111–12 totalitarianism, 25, 65, 90, 153 totalization, 19, 30–31, 169 Touraine, Alain, 30

Index

“Traditionale und kritische Theorie” (“Traditional and Critical Theory”) (Horkheimer), 78, 84 transhumanism, 6, 41 Trump, Donald, 23, 51, 167 “Übermenschen” (superman), 161 Ukraine, 26, 47, 50, 161n3 underclass, 27, 51 United Nations, 43 United States, 49–50, 67–68, 123–26, 172; Horkheimer on, 34, 69; identity politics in, 28; Marcuse on, 90, 94; progressive neoliberalism in, 24; state violence in, 160; Trump in, 23, 51 universalism, 8; abstract, 108; normative, 3, 26, 104 University of California–San Diego, 78 use value, 114–15, 170–71 utilitarianism, 153 utopia, 40, 79, 124, 134, 163, 166; Horkheimer on, 37; humanist, 69–70; Marcuse on, 93–94, 97 values, 19, 25; cultural, 91

193

violence, 9, 34, 65, 97, 130, 150, 152; mythical, 157–58; of Nazism, 128; State, 155–60; of wars, 49–50, 131 “Von dem Charakter der kommenden Literatur” (“On the Character of Coming Literature”) (Blei), 150–51 Wagner, Peter, 74n3 Walzer, Michael, 133 war, 7, 49–50, 131, 161n3, 170. See also specific wars Weber, Alfred, 113 Weber, Max, 113, 151, 171 Die weissen Blätter (journal), 150– 51, 156 Western Europe, 80 Wittfogel, Karl, 73 World War I, 6, 156; Marcuse during, 80 World War II, 5–6, 135, 151; anti-humanism following, 77; Horkheimer following, 68; Marcuse following, 94 Zea, Leopoldo, 175n1 Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (journal), 78, 88 “Zum Begriff des Menschen” (Horkheimer), 60–61

About the Author

Oliver Kozlarek has been a full professor at the Facultad de Filosofía “Samuel Ramos” at Universidad Michoacana in Morelia, Mexico, for twenty-two years. He received a Ph.D. (Dr.Phil.) from the Free University of Berlin and a second one (Dr. en Humanidades) from Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) in Mexico City. Kozlarek has been a visiting professor and visiting fellow at the New School for Social Research, Stanford University, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Institut Essen, Free University Berlin, Columbia University, Australian National University, and University of Vechta. His research and teaching focusses on social theory, critical theory, political and social thought in Latin America. Some of his recent books (authored and edited) include: Vielfalt und Einheit der Kritischen Theorie—Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, Springer: 2020; Postcolonial Reconstruction. A Sociological Reading of Octavio Paz, Springer: 2016; Moderne als Weltbewusstsein. Ideen für eine humanistische Sozialtheorie der globalen Moderne, Transcript: 2011.

195