The Institute’s turn to Freud’s pessimism grew from deepening political despair.

Evidence

It was no accident that increased pessimism about the possibility of revolution went hand in hand with an intensified appreciation of Freud’s relevance. In a society in which social contradictions seemed unbridgeable and yet paradoxically were becoming more obscured, the antinomies of Freud’s thought appeared as a necessary bulwark against the harmonistic illusions of the revisionists. … In Minima Moralia Adorno expressed this when he wrote in one of his most celebrated phrases, “in psychoanalysis nothing is true except the exaggerations.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 363

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that Freud’s extreme, even outrageous, aspects were most useful because social contradictions were becoming more obscured — an antinomian reading of psychoanalysis as bulwark against harmonistic illusion — is dense and paradigm-bearing for understanding critical theory’s whole relation to psychology.
• XREF: connects to: The Institute’s de-politicized language reflected fear, anti-Soviet sentiment, and lost faith in the proletariat. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 192; Political crises pushed Marcuse toward Freud and a utopian radicalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 367

Broader Connections

• Political crises pushed Marcuse toward Freud and a utopian radicalism #corroborates (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 367