Adorno urged purging Institute colleagues to secure Horkheimer’s exclusive alliance.

Evidence

Again and again, he went into raptures about our real, common theoretical task, namely dialectical logic', as he put it in a letter to Horkheimer of 22 February 1935, and he dreamed of writing the book somewhere in the south of France, alone with Horkheimer. He assured Horkheimer: if I had been in your position, and you in mine, I should not have hesitated to throw anyone out at all if it meant being certain of you … Naturally, I am referring here in particular to the position of Marcuse.’ But for him Marcuse was only the weakest link; he equally disliked Lowenthal, Fromm and Pollock. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 180

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the later exclusion of Fromm from the Institute after the 1930s, and to Marcuse’s eventual marginalization. — connects to: Adorno’s attraction to exclusive coteries steered him toward Horkheimer’s circle. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 144; Adorno was emotionally fixated on Horkheimer and jealous of other circle members. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 644
• DEEPTHINKING: Raises the uncomfortable structural point that the Frankfurt School’s critical theory of domination was produced inside a court-like circle of personal dependency and expulsion.

Broader Connections

• Adorno was emotionally fixated on Horkheimer and jealous of other circle members. #corroborates (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 644
• Adorno’s attraction to exclusive coteries steered him toward Horkheimer’s circle. #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 144