Thread by @GabrielRockhill

The #FrankfurtSchool rose to fame—backed by the ruling class, imperialist states & CIA—by promoting Eurocentric social chauvinism, anti-communism & “cultural” Marxism sans praxis. 🧵 1/16
@Philosoph_Salon @LAReviewofBooks
#Adorno #Horkheimer #CIA #Marxism
thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-the-fr…

Frankfurt School critical theory has been—w #FrenchTheory—one of the hottest commodities of the global theory industry. They are the political & ideological source for so many trend-setting academic discourses: #pomo #poco #DecolonialTheory #QueerTheory #Afropessimism etc. 2/16

Adorno & Horkheimer directly contributed to the CIA’s imperial project of reinforcing the non-communist Left. Horkheimer participated in its junkets while Adorno published in CIA journals, corresponded w their operatives & liaised about expanding their activities in Germany. 3/16

During the Nazi rise to power, “the constant policy of the Institute 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.” 4/16

When the Frankfurt School moved to the U.S., Horkheimer had words like Marxism, revolution and communism expunged from its publications in order to avoid offending its U.S. sponsors. Meanwhile, he hired a PR firm to promote their work in the emerging theory industry. 5/16

Despising the influence of Brecht's revolutionary Marxism on Benjamin’s work, the leaders of the Frankfurt School were—according to U. Fries—unwilling to assist him financially for his flight from the Nazis (though they presented themselves as his benevolent benefactors). 6/16

They undertook anti-worker research projects backed—directly or indirectly—by the US gov, the capitalist ruling class, the CIA & even the Mannesmann corporation, which “had been a founding member of the Anti-Bolshevik League & had financed the Nazi Party.” 7/16

The Frankfurt School’s return to *West* Germany after WWII was amply financed by the US gov. CIA collaborators like Shepard Stone argued the Institute was doing the kind of ideological work that the U.S. state and capitalist ruling class should—and did—support. 8/16

Horkheimer openly expressed his fulsome support for the U.S.’s anti-communist puppet government in West Germany, whose intelligence services had been stocked with former Nazis, as well as its imperial project in Vietnam (which he judged necessary to stop the Chinese). 9/16

Adorno & Horkheimer supported the 1956 imperialist invasion of Egypt by Israel, Britain & France, which aimed at seizing the Suez Canal & overthrowing Nasser. They called this anti-colonial leader “a fascist chieftain […] who conspires with Moscow.” 10/16

They proclaimed the superiority of the West, while repeatedly disparaging the Soviet Union & China by invoking stock racist descriptions of the “barbarians” in the East, whom they described as “beasts” & “fascists” who had chosen “slavery.” 11/16

Horkheimer explained to a receptive Adorno: “I believe that Europe & America are prob the best civilizations that history has produced as far as prosperity & justice are concerned. The key point now is to ensure the preservation of these gains.” 12/16
williamblum.org/essays/read/ov…

Adorno & Horkheimer: “Our philosophy stands in the sharpest opposition to the politics & doctrine that emanates from the USSR. We are unable to see anything in the practice of the military dictatorships disguised as people’s democracies other than a new form of repression.” 13/16

Adorno & Horkheimer repeated the ideological mantra that there is a “totalitarian” equivalence between fascism & communism, if it manifests itself in socialist state-building projects, anticolonial movements of the “Third World,” or even the New Left. 14/16

Adorno agreed with Habermas—who had himself been a member of the Hitler Youth & studied for four years under the “Nazi philosopher” (his description of Heidegger)—that anti-imperialist student activism amounted to “Left fascism.” 15/16

The leaders of the Frankfurt School, amply supported by the capitalist ruling class & imperialist states, were global spokesmen for an anti-communist politics of capitalist accommodation. They aggressively advocated for ABS Theory: Anything But Socialism. 16/16

For all of those serious scholars interested in actually engaging with the evidence, please read this article for additional facts that support the case I make (and extend it to include #Habermas #Honneth #Fraser): academia.edu/73739017/Criti…
#FrankfurtSchool