Adorno, theory & praxis & the FBI

[matthew piscioneri]

Ralph,

very useful perspective on H/A's marxism circa _DoE_:

>FBI surveillance affected the work of Adorno and Horkheimer, inducing a 
>rewrite of DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT to conceal its Marxism.  The word 
>"capitalism" for example was changed to "existing conditions".

[snip]

>The implication I see here is that the work might have become much more 
>abstract due to the marxophobia of American conditions.  Hence it seems to 
>me there could have been no question of A & H being too soft on Marxism if 
>they had harbored strong anti-Marxist sentiments; the pressure would have 
>been entirely in the opposite direction.

My feeling is that H & A's position on Marxism in-the -world, as it were, 
Soviet Union/China became progressively more critical as the 1950s/1960s 
rolled on. The following quote from Horkheimer would seem to suggest this:

"In this century it was socialism itself that orchestrated the supreme farce 
of perverting the pledge to humanity into an intransigent cult of 
state...What Lenin and the majority of his comrades aspired to before 
assuming power was a free and just society. In reality they prepared the way 
for a totalitarian bureaucracy under whose sway there was no more freedom 
than in the tsarist empire. That the new China is entering on a phase of 
barbarism is plain to see." (Horkheimer quoted in Habermas, _Justification 
and Application_, Polity Press,1993: 139).

Regards,

MattP.

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