German exiles viewed America as a place where intellectuals were subordinated to practical utility

Evidence

Adorno saw Germany as a colony, in which intellectual life was something unreal, a substitute. But at least it was valued as a substitute, and not despised as something valueless, as it was in the United States. Horkheimer shared Adorno’s assessment of the German situation. But if one was successful in that colony, if one counted for something, it might be possible to exercise some influence on a small scale. In the United States, intellectuals and thinkers, even in the best case, were virtually submerged. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1745

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader Critical Theory interest — the Frankfurt School’s American exile and its ambivalence about US intellectual culture vs. Germany’s. — connects to: European intellectuals saw postwar Germany as preferable to America for intellectual life; Exiles saw postwar Germany as the decisive site for preserving intellectual life — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 424; Exile intellectuals judged homeland and America by where influence was purchasable — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 431 (+1 more)