Da Freud to Fromm
(1975)
The single most valuable contribution of the Frankfurt School is >critical theory<. Typical and peculiar to this group was that the synthesis of the contributions of so many great minds (Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas, Mitscherlich, Lukács, Korsch, Reich, FROMM, Marcuse, and even Freud) was not to be found in elaborations of the individual masters in their life time, but was found in the radical subjectivity of the generation that followed them. The more problematic aspects of the Frankfurt heritage are characterized by the contemporary work of Negt in his treatment of the relationship between >operational subjectivity< and social science. The thesis of social subjectivity in all its complex articulation continues to elude integration with method and analysis.
The Frankfurt school is inferior to mainline Marxism because it confines itself to theorizing instead of engendering political action. This failure was made evident by the incapacity to inspire any sort of anti-Nazi movement. Nevertheless, the school has made important theoretical contributions in the areas of human personality and consciousness formation. In pedagogy, its notable contribution has been E. FROMM's Authoritarian Personality, where it is argued that the ultimate origins of racial and economic prejudices are rooted in the authoritarian personality, ie, in the submission of authority and authoritarianism toward one's inferiors. J. Habermas, in his study of the political attitudes of German students (Studenten und Poiltik. Eine sociologische Untersuchung zum politischen Bewusstsein Frankfurter Studenten, Students and Politics. A Sociological Examination of the Political Consciousness of Frankfurt Students, Neuwied und Berlin, 1961) contended that political participation is a functional element of democratic society. O. Negt advocated new syndicalist organizations to promote new models of workers' education which would supercede the archaic methods of action and class struggle.