Immigration insecurity shaped even the Institute’s published word choices
Evidence
This fear comes out clearly in the Lowenthal-Horkheimer correspondence. For example, on July 30, 1939, Lowenthal wrote to Horkheimer of a new deportation law being considered in the Senate, with a very broad scope. Accordingly, he advised Horkheimer to add “European” before “liberalism” in the article he was preparing. … And even as late as July 26, 1944, when the Institut was studying anti-Semitism in American labor, Horkheimer could still worry about the reaction of American right-wingers to “a bunch of foreign-born intellectuals sticking their noses into the private affairs of American workers.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 615
Categorization
- QUESTION: The tactical insertion of “European” before “liberalism” suggests the Institute hedged its critiques of liberalism to avoid deportation threat — worth tracing how much this qualifier softened their published arguments.
- XREF: connects to: Princeton and Stanford professors published racial hierarchies placing new immigrants above only African Americans; Exile and financial insecurity destabilized every Institute staff member — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1091; The Institute’s American relocation muted its Marxist revolutionary language for multiple reasons — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 192