A rotting social system can still sustain humanity’s existence at a cost of suffering

Evidence

Horkheimer apparently did not want to risk even a provisional answer to this question, because `Conditions are highly complex. An obsolete social system, which has begun to rot, still fulfils the functions of maintaining humanity’s existence at a certain level and renewing italthough at the cost of unnecessary suffering.’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 473

Categorization

• DEFINE: Provides Horkheimer’s own articulation of why revolutionary optimism was unwarranted even amid a decaying system.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how did this admitting-the-system-works framing evolve into later Frankfurt School accounts of social reproduction, e.g. Marcuse’s one-dimensional society?
• XREF: connects to: A crisis-free state capitalism would trap humanity in permanent hopelessness — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1171; Suffering does not diminish as means to abolish it grow; Suffering becomes unbearable only once a better alternative is conceivable — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1068 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• A crisis-free state capitalism would trap humanity in permanent hopelessness #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1171
• A comfortable, willing population can still be enslaved by its instrumentality #expands (0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 187
• Suffering does not diminish as means to abolish it grow #qualifies (0.75)
• Suffering becomes unbearable only once a better alternative is conceivable #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1068
• A system can be inhuman with no sadistic individuals running it #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2831