Kracauer saw the young Adorno as derivative, driven by intellect rather than depth

Evidence

Lowenthal had once criticized Adorno to Horkheimer, saying that, unlike Horkheimer, Adorno showed a zealousness not far removed from a sense of resentment. But it was precisely this that appealed to Horkheimer. For him, all that mattered was that this zealous aggressiveness, which was able to detect concessions to the bourgeois academic system in the work of Lowenthal, Marcuse, Fromm, and even more so in the work of others, should be channelled along the right lines, namely those with significance for social theory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 657 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Everything came together to make Adorno into a precocious young man who had been spared the experiences of war, politics and the working life, a hothouse plant', as he later called himself in a self-critical aphorism in Minima Moralia. — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 265</cite> (#qualifies`, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Adorno’s sheltered youth shaped his later self-criticism as a hothouse plant — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 265; Adorno’s resentment-driven aggressiveness was deliberately cultivated as an intellectual asset — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 657

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s sheltered youth shaped his later self-criticism as a hothouse plant #qualifies (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 265
• Adorno’s resentment-driven aggressiveness was deliberately cultivated as an intellectual asset #complicates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 657