The Institute suppressed overt politics in favor of indirect critical presentation

Evidence

Even after more than six months of exile, Horkheimer ruled out direct references to current emergencies or to political events just as strictly as he had done in his inaugural lecture. This attitude was the sociological equivalent of what Adorno, referring to music, described in his contribution to the first issue of the journal as follows: `It is of no avail to it to gape at society with helpless horror. It serves its purpose for society far more accurately by offering, within the boundaries of its own material and its own formal laws, a presentation of social problems which it already contains within itself, right down to the innermost cells of its technique.’ The constant policy of the Institute under Horkheimer’s direction continued to be abstinence, not only from every activity which was even remotely political, but also from any collective or organized effort to publicize the situation in Germany or to support émigrés. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 539

Categorization

• DEFINE: Adorno’s doctrine here defines the Institute’s ‘abstinence’ principle: mimesis of social problems through a work’s own internal formal laws rather than direct reference.
• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s aesthetics of autonomy and the artwork as socially engaged precisely by refusing direct engagement — echoes later Adorno/Horkheimer Dialectic writing. — connects to: The workers’ inquiry findings were suppressed partly for their politically damaging implications — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 475; Institutionalizing a critical field can strip it of political meaning; Ongoing self-censorship risked systematically distorting the Institute’s research priorities — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1722 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Institutionalizing a critical intellectual project can strip it of its political force. #expands (0.78)
• Ongoing self-censorship risked systematically distorting the Institute’s research priorities #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1722
• Institutionalizing a critical field can strip it of political meaning #expands (0.72)
• Antithetical scholars replace methodological silence with politicized explicitness #responds-to (0.72) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 341
• Suppressing unpopular speech also silences the unconventional ideas society needs #qualifies (0.70) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1067