Horkheimer prized Adorno’s aggressive polemical edge precisely where he found Fromm lacking.

Evidence

From his writings alone it seems evident that Fromm’s sensibility was less ironic than that of the other members of the inner circle, his approach to life less colored by the aesthetic nuances shared by both Horkheimer and Adorno. Adorno’s full entry into Institut affairs at about the time Fromm was leaving signified a crucial shift in the tone of the Frankfurt School’s work. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 353 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Adorno’s 1934 return displaced Fromm as Horkheimer’s chief theoretical interlocutor.; Fromm’s marginalization intensified through competition with Adorno and Horkheimer’s preference for his theoretical line.; Horkheimer valued Adorno’s aggressive zeal as a tool for policing bourgeois academic concessions. (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer valued Adorno’s aggressive zeal as a tool for policing bourgeois academic concessions. #expands (0.90)
• Fromm’s marginalization intensified through competition with Adorno and Horkheimer’s preference for his theoretical line. #expands (0.85)
• Adorno’s arrival displaced Fromm and changed the Frankfurt School’s intellectual tone #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 353
• Horkheimer prized political aggressiveness over intellectual amiability in his associates #corroborates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 654