Postwar German sociology’s doyen imagined a technocratic ‘secular Vatican’ that would replace Marxism

Evidence

Marcuse’s open defence of Marxist theory caused Horkheimer to become hesitant and cautious. And he reacted similarly to the behaviour of a pioneer of Critical Theory in Germany. From 19 to 21 September 1946 the proceedings of the Eighth Conference of German Sociologiststhe first to be held since the Weimar periodtook place in Frankfurt. … In his introductory address in Frankfurt, Wiese pilloried collective egoism and lust for power as being the great stupidities of the age. He saw the ideal future for sociology as lying in a secular Vatican': in a central structure in which the practice and theory of general administration were visibly united, there would stand, raised on a high stage, the granite tables of the general system of social processes, the details of which will from time to time be corrected’. In Wiese’s eyes, this vision would supersede outdated `isms’, among which he mentioned Marxism in particular. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1679

Categorization

• XREF: Wiese’s ‘secular Vatican’ of social administration echoes the technocratic/scientistic critiques running through Adorno and Horkheimer’s own work, and connects to the broader Frankfurt School critique of instrumental reason you’ve been reading.
• SEED: A short essay contrasting Wiese’s ‘granite tables’ vision of a centralized sociology with Adorno’s insistence that society cannot be reduced to administrative data — a vivid episode in the history of sociology as a discipline.