Horkheimer’s perfectionism made directorship unsustainable, shrinking the Institute

Evidence

His dual role as a scholar and as director of the Institute of Social Research' was too much for Horkheimer, who, as he had complained in his Notes from Beach Bluff’, did everything with exactly the same degree of libido', and for whom dictating a letter … involved the same amount of effort as writing a scholarly paper’. Alice Maier, his secretary in New York, recalled that `Mr Horkheimer thought very carefully about each and every word, and in two hours had sometimes not dictated a single word … Mr Horkheimer dictated to shorthand and then changed everything ten times.’ From now on, Horkheimer’s scholarly work was to take precedence. For this he would need only one or two principal assistants or collaborators. The institute was to be reduced in size to the extent that, although to outward appearances it would continue to exist, internally it would involve hardly any expense or energy. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1098

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how did the Institute’s formal survival as a shell actually function in the 1940s and 50s, legally and financially?
• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer’s perfectionism over even a dictated letter made the directorship unsustainable — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1098; Horkheimer’s contempt for systematic empirical analysis undermined collaboration with Kirchheimer — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 976; Horkheimer prized political aggressiveness over intellectual amiability in his associates — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 654

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer’s contempt for systematic empirical analysis undermined collaboration with Kirchheimer #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 976
• Horkheimer prized political aggressiveness over intellectual amiability in his associates #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 654