Horkheimer saw individual love as permanently colliding with societal demands

Evidence

Even more retrospective in tone, and marked by a bourgeois form of anti-bourgeois romanticism, were the examples which Horkheimer chose to illustrate the revolutionary character (although he did not openly refer to it as such). These were Romeo and Juliet and Don Juan, figures symbolic of an area of conflict which in Horkheimer’s eyes would always remain relevant, even in authoritarian societiesthe area in which the demands of single individuals for happiness and love collided with the demands of society. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 621

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broad critical-theory corpus: Horkheimer’s romanticism-in-revolution borrows from the individual-versus-society tension also found in the culture-industry critique and in later Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization. — connects to: Modern love attaches to unanalyzable individuality rather than to any specific attribute — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 580; The ideal of involuntary love serves society’s domination as its alibi.

Broader Connections

• The ideal of involuntary love serves society’s domination as its alibi. #corroborates (0.78)
• Modern love attaches to unanalyzable individuality rather than to any specific attribute #qualifies (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 580