The Institute funded Benjamin’s study only after judging it defensible to dialectical materialism.
Evidence
I have come to be convinced that this work will contain nothing which could not be defended from the point of view of dialectical materialism. The character of metaphorical improvisation which it formerly had has completely disappeared. I don’t mean merely that this is something positive at long last (that would lead on to the discussion between us which has still to take place); but in any case it is something positive with regard to the applicability of the study within the Institute’s plan of work, to which it has adapted itself. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 181
Categorization
- XREF: Directly extends the earlier note that Horkheimer deemed Benjamin’s arcades project a failure for lacking dialectical rigor; here the funding bar is explicitly ideological conformity. — connects to: Institutional approval depended on a work’s defensibility as dialectical materialism.
- ADDENDUM: Supplies the institutional-funding mechanism that complements this reader’s essay on how avant-garde work gets certified and bankrolled.