Horkheimer sought applied topics that could present his theory as expert social knowledge

Evidence

It is true that at least during the first months I will have to cut the work on our main philosophical problems down to one or two hours a day and often to nothing, but you will remember that in the beginning [sic] of our stay here you and I tried to find a topic which would fulfill the two requirements of first, encountering a somewhat broader interest than our ideas in their abstract form and second, offering an opportunity to develop some of those ideas in a more concrete material. I wanted to have an occasion for expressing our theoretical thoughts and at the same time presenting ourselves as experts in particular social problems. At that time you suggested democracy as a desirable topic but, for certain reasons, we dismissed that possibility. However, my wish not to stay too distant from pertinent questions was so strong that Teddie and I had already prepared a great deal of material and even written a part of the new memorandum on German Chauvinism which we had thought should have become a book. Instead of the book on Germany we shall now write on Anti-Semitism and instead of devoting half of our time we shall devote most of it to that purpose. I am very doubtful whether the Committee will like the part which we do in Los Angeles. But I know that our endeavours will not prove quite worthless to our common theoretical development. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1338

Categorization

• XREF: Horkheimer’s strategy of using applied topics to smuggle in abstract theory parallels how the Institute’s interdisciplinary program worked—a direct institutional-history data point supporting the reader’s synthesis. — connects to: Horkheimer positioned the Institute as universal social analysis to avoid threatening specialist sociology. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 461; Horkheimer endorsed analyzing trivial phenomena to reveal society’s contradictions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 663; Horkheimer tailored the Institute’s intellectual self-presentation to each audience. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1049 (+5 more)
• DEFINE: The two requirements for a research topic—broad public interest plus concreteness for abstract ideas—effectively define the Institute’s interdisciplinary research method.

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer’s critical theory aimed to combine factual knowledge with normative urgency #expands (0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 199