Marcuse sought collective liberation while Adorno sought freedom from fear for the nonconformist intellectual.

Evidence

It made it clear once again why Horkheimer and Adorno wanted to keep their distance from Marcuse, for objective and theoretical reasons apart from the financial ones. Marcuse spoke of liberation from exploitation and oppression, meaning the liberation of those who were exploited and oppressed. Adorno, when he spoke of emancipation, was thinking more of a form of emancipation suggested by his view of his own situation, an emancipation from fear, from violence, from the humiliation of conformism; he characterized a better condition' as one in which one can be different without fear’. Marcuse was attempting to rescue orthodox Marxism by utopian methods; Adorno was attempting to justify the existence of the distanced, lonely critic of society. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 418

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes two rival senses of ‘emancipation’ within Critical Theory: liberation of the exploited versus emancipation from fear and conformism.
• XREF: Connects to earlier chapters on Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization and his turn to utopian rescue of orthodox Marxism.