Adorno’s sheltered youth shaped his later self-criticism as a hothouse plant

Evidence

Everything came together to make Adorno into a precocious young man who had been spared the experiences of war, politics and the working life, a `hothouse plant’, as he later called himself in a self-critical aphorism in Minima Moralia. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 265

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘hothouse plant’ self-description resonates with criticisms that Frankfurt School theory was detached from lived working-class experience. — connects to: Kracauer saw the young Adorno as derivative, driven by intellect rather than depth