Changed historical conditions forced critical theory from immanent to transcendent critique

Evidence

But still more important, vital changes in social, economic, and political conditions between the two periods had unmistakable repercussions on the revived Critical Theory. Indeed, according to its own premises this was inevitable. The Left Hegelians wrote in a Germany just beginning to feel the effects of capitalist modernization. By the time of the Frankfurt School, Western capitalism, with Germany as one of its leading representatives, had entered a qualitatively new stage, dominated by growing monopolies and increasing governmental intervention in the economy. The only real examples of socialism available to the Left Hegelians had been a few isolated utopian communities. The Frankfurt School, on the other hand, had the ambiguous success of the Soviet Union to ponder. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, the first critical theorists had lived at a time when a new “negative” (that is, revolutionary) force in society — the proletariat — was stirring, a force that could be seen as the agent that would fulfill their philosophy. By the 1930’s. however, signs of the proletariat’s integration into society were becoming increasingly apparent; this was especially evident to the members of the Institut after their emigration to America. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 190

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘immanent vs. transcendent critique’ distinction that recurs in Frankfurt School scholarship and to Horkheimer’s own essays on traditional vs. critical theory. — connects to: Truth for critical theory is historically conditioned, not timeless.; The Institut’s alienation from all left factions drove its turn to pure theory — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 172; The proletariat’s integration forced critical theory into transcendent critique — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 190 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Critical theory itself has been captured by immediacy #expands (0.78) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 22
• Critical Theory arose from Marxism’s failure to explain workers’ passivity #expands (0.78) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 389
• Postmodernism discourse must be dated to its specific historical conjuncture #expands (0.75) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 597
• Critical Theory seeks the universal within the particular rather than above it #complicates (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 724
• Postmodernism’s presentism forecloses the historical understanding needed to explain it #expands (0.74) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 725
• Theory and art must depart from context rather than dissolve into immediacy #expands (0.74) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 325
• Ideology’s shift from science of ideas to system of ideas demands historical explanation #expands (0.72)