Conservative academics branded Critical Theory the intellectual source of terrorism

Evidence

Since the publication in 1970 of his book The Poverty of Critical Theory, 3 Rohrmoser has promulgated, in constantly varying forms, the view that Marcuse, Adorno and Horkheimer were the terrorists’ intellectual foster-parents, who were using cultural revolution to destroy the traditions of the Christian West. Academics such as Ernst Topitsch and Kurt Sontheimer, who saw themselves as educators and liberal democrats, followed in Rohrmoser’s footsteps. In 1972 Topitsch, a critical rationalist who was Professor of Philosophy in Graz, had stated that behind the slogans of rational discussion' and dialogue free of domination’ there was being established at the universities `a distinct terrorism of political convictions such as has never existed before, even under Nazi tyranny’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 692

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the Frankfurt School’s own history of exile and its critics’ recurring charge of totalitarian tendencies, since the same mutual accusations of totalitarianism recurred in the positivist dispute. — connects to: Terrorism studies lacked disciplinary rigor, letting biased ideologues shape security policy; West German conservatives in the 1970s branded critical theorists as intellectual parents of terrorism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2755; Conservative rhetoric frames both terrorists and their explainers as threats to America — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 891 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Terrorism studies lacked disciplinary rigor, letting biased ideologues shape security policy; West German conservatives in the 1970s branded critical theorists as intellectual parents of terrorism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2755; Conservative rhetoric frames both terrorists and their explainers as threats to America — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 891 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• West German conservatives in the 1970s branded critical theorists as intellectual parents of terrorism. #expands (0.97) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2755
• Academic elites may romanticize terrorists out of bourgeois self-loathing #complicates (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4166