Horkheimer’s drive for social recognition repeatedly overrode the Institute’s commitment to nonconformist research.

Evidence

At moments like this, Horkheimer’s ambition to achieve social recognition even at the cost of abandoning nonconformist research, teaching and action and his confidence in his ability to reach the top and produce extraordinary achievements once again won out. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 485

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Frames the founding director of Critical Theory as trading his school’s nonconformist mission for academic prestige — a tension at the heart of the Institute’s history.
• XREF: Recalls earlier chapters on the Institute’s postwar accommodation and self-censorship for funders and the academy.