as inspiration to Frankfurt School, 2–4, 3–4, 20–21, 26, 36, 104
on revolutionary bourgeoisie, 28, 52
on socialism, 2, 21, 48–49
and theology, 30–31
utopian visions, 2, 35, 48–49
See also Western Marxism
Marx, Karl
biography, 23
The Communist Manifesto, 28
Das Kapital, 40–41, 60
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, 35, 45, 48–49
grave site, 104
smuggled writings, 35, 42
mass culture
Frankfurt School investigation of, 4, 7, 26, 80–81
impact on subjectivity, 7, 77–79
Massing, Paul, 11
mass media, 79, 83, 85–86, 113
mass movements
civil rights, 83, 91, 109
critical theory as influence on, 7, 15, 89
Frankfurt School opinions on, 6–7, 12, 14, 17, 84, 89–91
labor, 9, 26, 109
left-wing, 111
modern, 90–91
right-wing, 111
role of public sphere in, 82–83
student, 18, 83, 84, 89
women’s liberation, 83, 109
mass society
education, 5, 7, 22, 103, 111
loss of individuality in, 5, 27, 49
power imbalances in, 8, 102, 108
technology, 3, 37, 72, 86, 114
See also mass culture
materialism, 24, 34, 99, 100
metaphysics
in critical theory, 51–52, 60–61, 64, 99, 102
shortcomings of, 8, 24, 33, 104–5
metapsychology, 29, 73–74
Mills, C. Wright, 115–16
Minima Moralia (Adorno), 29, 74, 82, 88, 93
modernity, 52–53, 60
More, Thomas, 74
Munzer, Thomas, 64
music critique, 16–17, 80, 88, 93
Mussolini, Benito, 21
Naptha (fictional character), 66
nature, 55, 63, 67, 71, 107–8
Nazis/Nazism, 5, 27, 45, 52, 60–61, 93–94
negative dialectics, 3–4, 7–8, 17, 54, 74, 84, 112
non-identity between individual and society, 7, 17, 97–99, 100
Negt, Oskar, 82
Neumann, Franz, 101, 108
New Left, 84, 85, 91, 100
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 4, 29–30, 54, 59, 71, 80–81
Nobel, Nehemiah, 13
Odyssey (Homer), 53, 60–61
Ortega y Gasset, José, 80
Orwell, George, 74
Pachter, Henry, 49
performance principle, 70, 71
performative contradiction, 102
phenomenology, 4, 24, 33, 46
philosophy
critical theory as alternative to, 1, 4, 23, 100
as expression of inexpressible, 93, 98, 116
as the highest incarnation of reason, 38
ontology of false conditions, 33, 96, 100, 103, 104–5, 112
traditional forms of, 1, 4, 23–24, 46, 100
Piccone, Paul, 87
Plato, 1
play impulse, 63, 70, 71
poetry, 17, 27, 72, 93
Pollock, Friedrich, 9, 10, 101
Popper, Karl, 59, 106–7
positivism, 4, 24, 46, 59, 107–8
progress
and barbarism, 5, 62, 72
illusion of, 5, 54–56, 97
material, 71
meaningful, 77
proletariat/working class
alienation and reification of, 39–42
and class consciousness, 20–21, 25–26, 28, 44–45, 60
as commodity, 40–42
effect of culture industry on, 86, 89–90
Marx on, 39–40, 52
political consciousness, 86–87
as revolutionary agent, 3, 22, 23, 28, 42, 44, 48, 89–90, 105
role in capitalism, 28, 39–42, 86
See also Russian Revolution
Prometheus, 36
Proust, Marcel, 4, 16, 17
psychology. See Fromm, Erich
public sphere, 8, 82–83
See also mass movements
Rabinkow, Salman Baruch, 13
radical action
Frankfurt School on, 6–7, 15, 24, 65, 85
Marx on, 36, 42, 49, 52
reality principle, 70, 74
redemption
in art, 93, 96
in everyday life, 30–31
new forms of, 30, 116
utopian visions of, 32, 36, 67–68, 75
Rehearsal for Destruction (Massing), 11
Reichenbach, Hans, 59
Reichmann, Frieda, 12
reification
causes of, 5, 35–43, 51–53, 61–62
critical theory on, 2–3, 4–5, 46–48, 51–52, 55–56, 61–62
defined, 4, 40
erosion of selfhood in, 5, 39–43, 53
religion, 2, 93
See also theology
repression, 70–71
repressive tolerance, 85–86
resistance
as animating ideal of critical theory, 4, 7, 8, 88, 98–99, 100, 116
existential form of, 100
integration by mass society, 5
revolutions
in capitalist society, 28, 36, 48–49, 52, 66
and Lenin, 28, 44
and Marx, 48–49
modern catalysts for, 90
Rickert, Heinrich, 43
right-wing movements, 111
Robespierre, Maximilien, 63
Romania, 60
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 37
Russian Revolution, 3, 11, 20, 22, 44, 56, 60
Ryazanov, David, 35
Sade, Marquis de, 55, 59
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 72, 95
Schiller, Friedrich, 63, 70
Scholem, Gershom, 16, 30
Schönberg, Arnold, 80
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 4, 59
scientific inquiry, 3, 43, 54, 55, 106–7, 109–10
Simmel, Georg, 43
social democratic labor movement, 83
socialism
and critical theory, 8, 21, 48–49, 110
inevitability of, 2, 16, 21
utopian visions of, 48–49, 67–68
The Sociological Imagination (Mills), 115–16
Socrates, 1
solidarity, 99, 102, 105
as animating ideal of critical theory, 98–99, 116
Soviet Union, 60
See also Russian Revolution
Spartacus Revolt of 1919 11, 14
Stalinism, 61, 65, 69
Stalin, Joseph, 11–12, 38, 69
Sternberg, Fritz, 9
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn), 107
student movements, 18, 83, 84, 89
See also mass movements
Studies in Prejudice (research project), 11
subjectivity
in alienation and reification, 5, 39–43, 53
enmeshed in what it resists, 7
Telos (journal), 87, 89
theology
“longing for the totally other,” 7, 92–93, 96, 98
protecting scientific inquiry from, 54
reframing Marxism through, 30–31
Tiller Girls, 26–27, 26
tolerance
repressive, 85–86
utopian visions of, 54, 69, 111
Tolstoy, Leo, 66
totalitarianism, 7, 11, 29, 59, 74, 97
totally administered society
and culture industry, 80, 88, 94
individuality eradicated by, 32, 62, 94, 95
and instrumental rationality, 54, 62
and repressive tolerance, 85–86
resisting, 51–52, 64, 84, 92–93, 104–5
standardization in, 32
Trotsky, Leon, 60
United States
conservatism, 14, 91
critical theory introduced to, 14, 89, 100–101
and fascism, 59
Frankfurt School exiled to, 11, 20
“paranoid” politics in, 5, 109
universal pragmatics, 102
universal reciprocity, 38
utopia
and alienation, 36–37, 105
as always incomplete, 68–69, 75–76, 92
in art, 14, 63–64, 66–67, 79, 80, 93
in Eros and Civilization, 69–72
everyday life as material for, 6, 31
and Frankfurt School, 4, 7
Garden of Eden as, 36, 67, 67
and the individual, 76
literary treatments of, 74–75
longing for, 64–69
as pastoral, 36–37
redemption as key to, 32, 36
and science, 106, 107, 108
and socialism, 48–49, 67–68
as transcendence, 92
Vico, Giambattista, 21
Wagner, Richard, 81
Weber, Max, 33, 42–43, 54
Weil, Felix, 9
Weil, Hermann, 9
Weimar Republic, 25, 27, 45, 57
Western Marxism
condemnation by Communist International, 21, 22, 45, 66
critical theory origins in, 2–3, 20–22
and Karl Marx, 35–36
and liberalism, 56
studies of alienation and reification, 4
Wittfogel, Karl August, 9
workers’ councils, 9, 21, 22, 44
World War II, 1, 28
Zamyatin, Yevgeny, 74