Horkheimer privately despised his era yet publicly promoted bourgeois traditions

Evidence

Horkheimer was still living ambiguously, and he was still contemptuous of the society of his time, although more secretly than in earlier years. What he was doing above all, as a teacher and speechmaker, instigator and co-ordinator, was to advertise liberal-bourgeois cultural traditions which it was important to rescue and pass on into the administered world, no matter how faint and weak the traces of these traditions were becoming. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2112

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The Frankfurt School’s founder ends up as a custodian of the very liberal-bourgeois culture critical theory set out to dismantle - a dialectical fate worth sitting with.
• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer’s anti-bourgeois critique was itself infected by bourgeois values — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 438; Horkheimer’s fear of ruthless critique drove him to reactionary political positions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2016; Late Horkheimer embraced anti-Communist and pro-American rhetoric — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 1726 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Late Horkheimer embraced anti-Communist and pro-American rhetoric #exemplifies (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 1726