Horkheimer defended egoism but insisted gratification flows through communal interaction

Evidence

In contrast to the bourgeois ethic of self-abnegation, Horkheimer upheld the dignity of egoism. During the Enlightenment, Helvetius and de Sade had expressed a protest, however distorted, against asceticism in the name of a higher morality. Even more forcefully, Nietzsche had exposed the connection between self-denial and resentment that is implicit in most of Western culture. Where Horkheimer differed from them was in his stress on the social component in human happiness. His egoistic individual, unlike the utilitarians’ or even Nietzsche’s, always realized his greatest gratification through communal interaction. In fact, Horkheimer constantly challenged the reification of individual and society as polar opposites, just as he denied the mutual exclusivity of subject and object in philosophy. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 233

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer’s Kant studies taught him individuality’s value and the unity of knowledge and ethics — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 198; Horkheimer saw a hedonist philosophical lineage vindicating egoism as true enjoyment, not abstract fiction. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 742; Horkheimer grounded ethics in desire as a fact needing no justification — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1464 (+1 more)