Traditional and Critical Theory Max Horkheimer
Outline by Philip Turetzky, turetzky@colostate.edu
Traditional Theory & Natural Science:
1) Theory is the sum of propositions linked in a system (basic and derived), where derived propositions are consonant with the facts. Theory consists of useful hypotheses – stores of knowledge (library analogy).
2) This view of theory descends from modern philosophy (Descartes – Rules), analysis – simples – order – deduction.
3) Simples can be universal propositions or experiential judgments or inductive or evident insights.
Husserl: Theory is systematic linked whole of propositions [NB: i.e., theory in natural sciences] Weyl: harmony and economy are necessary for theoretical system.
4) Theory formation and fundamentals have tended toward mathematical symbolism [& Formal logic as a model of Reason].
Traditional Theory’s view of the Social Sciences
5) The human sciences have tried to mimic the natural sciences. Some concentrating on facts, others on principles. Both share the same concept of theory. The activities of fact gathering operate “much like the rest of life in a society dominated by industrial production techniques.” The human sciences’ market value has depended on their imitation of the natural sciences and their methods.
6) This conception of theory remains the same in various schools. Empirically oriented social theorists (since Spencer & Whewell) hold that society is too complex to justify seeking general principles right away. Therefore assemble facts first then do comparisons to achieve a complete induction rather than do armchair theory. Classical distinctions (p. 191 Tonnies: community/society – Durkheim: mechanical/organic solidarity – Alfred Weber: culture/civilization) seem questionable re: application to concrete problems.
7) Principle (Durkheim) (as against complete inductions which can’t be had) can abridge the inductive process, and allow carefully chosen classifications.
8) The origin of principles is independent of their function in ideal theoretical system. In all cases there is conceptually formulated knowledge and the facts to be subsumed under it = theoretical explanation [context of discover vs. justification].
9) E.g. traditional theory and historical explanation: Meyer: causal Qs unanswerable. Max Weber: establish connections between those elements of an event which are significant and particular events (causal nexus – cause necessitates effect), different causes –> different effects (e.g., decisions, natural events, or social structures [e.g., train time tables] re: wars). Conditional connections of economic, sociological, and psychological reconstruct and so explain probable course of events.
Social Practice: Traditional theory’s view of theory and practice
10) The essence of traditional theory corresponds to the immediate tasks of manipulation physical and social. Practical applications of science are essentially linked to technical advance in the bourgeois era. BUT, the concept of theory was absolutized as if it were the essence of knowledge as such and so became a reified ideological category.
11) The fruitfulness of scientific discoveries derive not from pure logical nor methodological procedures, but must be understood in the context of social processes. If theory responded only to evidence, the theory could be saved from any possible recalcitrant experience by adding ad hoc hypotheses [NB: Quine]. But, what wins out is due to concrete social historical circumstances.
12) E.g. Copernican astronomy [D. 1543] neglected until 17th C. when it became politically and religiously useful (e.g. mechanics, reformation, English revolution).
13) Logic and methodology alone will not occasion changes in classification [pragmatism]. New definitions will depend also on, e.g., directions and goals of research which are not self-explanatory nor a matter of insight (“theological”).
14) Application of theory to subject matter is also social – which hypotheses are used to explain facts are a matter of industry (not in the savant’s head), e.g. gun powder.
15) Positivists and pragmatists seek prediction and control (thereby social value: but this is a private insight, as is the belief in detached knowledge). BUT, such insights do not influence real activity of those scholars. This activity conserves the status quo and reproduces it. Results must conform to traditional theory. As laborer, savants integrate facts into conceptual frameworks to master factual material. But, the subject matter comes from outside from social circumstances where it is to be used. (Theory’s self-understanding dogmatically presupposes the dualism of thought & being = understanding & perception [NB: Kant’s epistemology]).
Traditional theory’s view of the Knowing Subject: Independent vs. Social:
16) Traditional theory is then carried on within the division of labor. Its connection with other activities is not clear, nor its real social function.
Since social life results from all vectors of production, science does not act independently. Theory is an instance of society dealing with nature and conserving its own form. Theories are moments in social production, even though not obviously or immediately productive. Theories emerge from the modes of production of particular [types of] societies.
Scientific self-sufficiency is modeled on free economic individual actors, as if autonomous. BUT, this model really exemplifies social mechanisms of capital.
17) The savant’s false consciousness is found in diverse philosophical schools. E.g., Neo-Kantians, who erect theoretical activities of the savant to the rank of universal categories. Elements of social life are reduced to the activity of savant, e.g., creative thought (production) – power of knowledge [technology].
The Ideal is an all powerful science for which nothing is stable and material, and everything can be reduced to conceptual determinations (production of unity – unifying, ordering, determining facts – production of production) (p.198 – Hegel) (Conscious science as independent of and controlling of history – a camouflaged utopia). BUT, science is really just one more element in the historical mix. Present self-knowledge of humanity is not eternal BUT IS a critical theory dominated by concern for reasonable conditions of life.
18) The isolation of particular activities (such as science) must be overcome by awareness of their limitations. The usual practice of assuming unproblematic in one field what is problematic in another [e.g. what is a problem for chemistry is taken for granted in biology] has not gone far enough to bring the traditional conception of theory itself into question. So a radical reconstruction of this conception and with it of the knowing subject is needed.
Social Determination of the Perception of Objects
19) The traditional world view is that the world is the sum total of facts, which are there and must be accepted. But individual classifications are a means of social functioning. Instead, the world given to each individual is a social product, as is perception as well. Both perceiving organ and perceived object are historically pre-formed, not simply natural and not passive (active & passive apply to the individual whose self is passive in the receptivity [Kant] of perception, but not to the social subject – society is an active non-conscious quasi-subject, p. 200) but shaped by human activity [Kant/Hegel/Marx pp. 200-205]. This difference between individual and social existence has actually been an historical product of oppression and conflict, not a conscious product of free individuals. Bourgeois economy [social] is concrete activity and individual action in it is conscious but abstract.
20) Perceived facts are co-determined by social-historical human conceptions [hence already implicitly rational!] before theoretical elaboration by the knowing subject [model of work–activity vs. a knowing subject]. There is a mediation of the factual through social activity as a whole. This is not merely interference of measuring instruments with observations. Human reflection connects, separates, emphasizes, and suppresses aspects of reality as a consequence of modern modes of production (in contrast with, e.g., hunters who have different emphases & selections, e.g. Derzu Uzala). [I/other divide is historically variable]
21) The sensible world of industrial people appears as the result of deliberate work (organs extend tools as much as tools extend organs). The social/natural product distinction cannot be clearly drawn, even naturalness is determined by contrast with the social world. [Forests & wolves vs. National Parks (Tasaday, e.g.)]
22) Individuals receive sensible reality as a simple sequences of facts ordered by concepts. There is unanimity in a society in the ordering of reality under concepts, and judgments are forgone conclusions (common sense, for which there are no mysteries – ideology, false Cs). This harmony is not a metaphysical accident but the result of a world of objects already largely produced by the activities that also produce the concepts by which that world is grasped.
23) Kant gave the idealist form of this point: the understanding derives its assurance that sensation will always obey the rules of the understanding because we make the rules ourselves [not a pre-established harmony]: the activity of reason – the transcendental subject – forms sensible appearances (behind the back of consciousness, according to the categories, & pre-formed according to the a priori forms of space & time [deduction & schematism]).
24) For Kant the transcendental subject is a purely intellectual source – he does not see its social origins. For Kant, the social as a whole is chaotic, while the individual is purposive. For Hegel, Reason is worldly and historical.
25) Kant saw that the unity of general subjectivity conditions individual knowledge. The activity of society, then, appears to be a transcendental power. Kant’s noumenal self, as obscure and irrational, reflects the bourgeois economy which is not planned as a whole but proceeds with excessive friction [Marx contra Hegel]. Kant’s purposive rational unity in conjunction with its obscure impenetrability mirrors the contradictions of modern human activity. Rationality confirms human collaboration, while work and its products are alienated, and all its waste, wars, and wretchedness seem like unalterable forces of nature.
26) The unresolved problems of relating activity (a priori) to passivity (sense) are an objective necessity. Hegel avoids the unknowable subject by postulating the Absolute spirit (identical w/all that happens) developing self-consciousness in history. The supposed rationality of this reality, however, seems like a private peace with the contradictions of history and human impotence.
Critical Theory:
27) Theoretical structures should be related differently to the different classes to which their authors belong [Marx], e.g., pure science arose when bourgeois class took over from feudal society, this was taken over by liberalism (individual & formal freedom) as descriptive, and today it is managed by command levels in international economic hierarchies. Interest in theory has lessened as it fails to support war and industry. Thought is less developed as it is less related to its application. [NB: similar to Husserl’s critique in the Crisis]
Traditional Theory:
28) The positive social function of traditional theory operates as a more differentiated and harmoniously organized element of the contemporary cultural totality [needs, goals, experience, skills, & custom operate as tools of production & represent the potential for a just society]. To the extent it concentrates on (technical) problems (concerning means) it justifies its own value.
29) Traditional theory’s hypothetical uncertainty is no greater than needed for its intellectual and technical usefulness. Moreover, that these hypotheses be elaborated is itself a social necessity & is not hypothetical. Where theory is really useful, it is in demand. That its labor is underpaid and neglected is the same as other work (e.g. metaphysics & other ideologies, housework) that gets lost in the present economy. Productivity in creating theory is supported and honored but does not further the interests of any one class, but does help make the present order possible (productive of profit) as a “whole”& yet presupposes that (economic) order. Critical Theory Criticizes Ends:
30) One activity, critical activity, studies (the whole of) society itself (not aiming at resolving particular problems) & so differs re: the subject not the object. It is suspicious of the categories of the useful, appropriate, productive, and valuable and the rules of conduct as understood in the present order, and refuses to take them as extra-scientific presuppositions that it is powerless to change. It relativizes the separation between individual and society (which individuals accept as natural limits) to conditions of interaction of human activities & distrusts that separation, treating the overall structure of society [including I/other] as itself produced by human actions & so subject to rational determination re: its goals.
31) The critical attitude [dialectical] conceives the totality (including the subject) of present economy and culture to be will and Reason [Hegel] – the product of human work [Marx]. This dialectic contrasts with the experience of pure mechanisms of society created by war and oppression as a world totalized by capital.
32) History is irrational and individual activity is largely mechanical and (irrational =) alienated. Critical theory lives in the dialectic tension between accepting the economic categories of the existing order (not idealist – Where does it stand w/o being idealist?) and condemning them. This caused the obscurity in Kant’s critique: Reason cannot become transparent as if in an irrational social organism [the organism is not a good model of society]. An emancipatory attitude may be useful, but it does not have the pragmatic character of traditional theory, nor the socially useful forms of professional activity.
The Problem of the Social Position of the Theorist:
33) The pragmatic force of conceptual systems grasping facts are taken as external to theory itself. This alienation of research with its train of [positivist] dichotomies [theory/practice :: fact/value :: theory/observation :: context of discovery/context of justification] protect savants from dialectical tensions. Moreover, any theory rejecting this framework can only seem an intellectual game or impotent conceptual poetry. So, critical theory gets displaced by sociology of knowledge and ideologies in the traditional mode (which reinforce the status quo).
34) Critical theory is not connected to such studies merely of the social status of intellectual positions (e.g., sociology of knowledge). For critical theory the facts emerging from work of society are not as extrinsic [economic parallel – externalities] as they are portrayed by the savants (and little savant professionals). The potentiality for human control over objective realities given in perception, & conceived as produced, undermines their characterization as purely factual.
35) Scholars as scientists regard society as extrinsic to themselves, & as citizens they act interestedly through explicitly political channels, but isolate this activity from their scholarly studies. Critical theory seeks to transcend the tension and abolish the opposition between rationality and irrational work processes [humanity in conflict w/itself]. While unmastered nature [= unmastered elements which society must confront] will always be extrinsic to human work, it is “contemptible weakness” to treat situations which depend only on humanity’s power to change (relations of production) as extrinsic suprahistorical nature [as merely descriptive].
The Thinking Subject:
36) Bourgeois thought must logically recognize the thinking subject, but imagines it to be autonomous (Cartesian). It thinks its essentially abstract thought is the ground of the world or = the world = individual isolated from events. In contrast, nationalist ideology (from liberalism to fascism) thinks the individual an unproblematic expression of an already constituted society [conformity] w/the rhetorical “we” as the voice of the community – sees nonexistent agreements. 37) In contrast to both, critical theory’s subject stands in [& is partly defined by] definite real relations to other individuals and groups, class conflicts, and in relation to the totality of society and nature. Knowledge and object do not coincide in the thinking (contra Cartesian) subject, their identity lies in the future [NB Marx/Kant: ≠ Hegel]. Genuine thought is both a logical and an historical process in which social structure and the place of theory are altered. The free autonomous Cartesian subject is an illusion of idealism, ideology in the strict sense [The ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas – Sut Jhally].
Objection to Utopian Fantasies, due to experience & value:
38) How is critical thought related to experience – so it doesn’t fall into utopian fantasy or formalistic fake battles – by determining the goals of classification? Determination of practical goals (& images of utopian content) by thinking are doomed to failure. Traditional theory seems needed to avoid such illusions.
39) These problems arise from detached (spiritualist) compartmentalized thinking. BUT, thought cannot be divorced from history and the work process [division of labor] that proceeds through conflicting movements. Each form of material class organization has been inadequate (slavery, vassalage, citizenship). It has been possible to become aware of the path of social work processes as a result of disparate forces interacting and via the despair of the masses. Thought functions only to recognize these contradictions [Marx], it does not make such possibilities of awareness. The present dynamic is one of work keeping in existence the reality which enslaves the workers [Spinoza fight as bravely for their servitude…].
40) The goals critical theory derives from historical analysis are immanent in human work [rationality, Habermas: language], but are not correctly grasped by ordinary individuals. Present misery is not due to lack of technology, but to the circumstances of production and the interests that control them. According to Marx, the proletariat experiences conflict between work & present social organization. The inevitable result of the principle that it is enough for individuals to look out for themselves [liberalism] is that production is organized for powerful interests rather than for the whole society.
41) [Obj to Marx] The situation of the proletariat, however, does not guarantee correct knowledge. Its awareness of meaninglessness and injustice does not become a social forces because of the differentiated social structure imposed from above. The proletariat’s attitude depends on [& reproduces] the status quo [against its own interests]. Traditional theory reinforces this impotence. Thinkers get happy feelings from identifying with the masses, and fall into pessimism and nihilism when critical thought is [unavoidably] isolated by & from the very class it is addressed to.
42) BUT, if critical theory were merely the formulations of a single class, then it would be merely a social psychology in the traditional mold. The very conceptions of the bourgeois order [free exchange, free competition, harmony of interests] manifest the contradictions in that order. Systematic presentation of these or of proletarian conceptions distort the picture of interests & class situations. If limited to a vanguard group [e.g., party], thought and theory classifying facts would merely help the traditional theoretician’s goal of prediction & control with the proletariat as its object.
43) The real function of critical theory emerges in a dynamic unity with the oppressed classes as a force to stimulate change. This dynamic interaction and tension between theoretician and the oppressed classes promotes awareness and requires discipline. It exists only as conflict, which continually threatens the subjects in conflict (e.g., between theoretician and both conscious and unconscious defenders of the status quo, distractions, conformists, and utopians).
44) Traditional theory – expressed in the (formal) logic existing in the production process – must be as fully developed as possible. But, critical theory is an element in action, and not a component in an intellectual technology. It is not self-sufficient: separable from the struggle to overcome social ills (or its own distortions).
Future & Present Communities:
45) Critical thought calls into question traditional theory’s positive role in functioning society, its relation to satisfaction of general needs, and its participation in reproduction of life (which confirm the social position of the savant). Critical theory does not serve existing reality, and is not supported by understanding and custom, but its end is the rational state of society forced by present (& not merely a means of relief of particular) distress.
46) There are no examples of the future community possible through present technical means. But it does have a content, viz. eliminating the irrationalities [Habermas: systematically distorted communication] & fragmentation of present society
(traditional theory, even when detached from its subject matter, is still geared to its consumer groups). Such a future state of affairs (a community of free people made possible by technical means) is brought about by present subjects seeking to harmonize thought and being, understanding and perception, needs and satisfactions. The present struggling community is already conscious of this, obscurely, in constructing theory and practice.
47) Since present modes of thought & work (categories – division of objects – division of specialized areas of knowledge) belong to real present conditions, and critical theory, while not arbitrary, is critical of the present, critical theory seems, to show that certain modes of thought are subjective, speculative, one-sided, and useless.
47a) Mostly critical theory has no material accomplishments. It seeks a radical holistic, not a gradual, change, and results only in an intensification of struggle. Even present apparent progress may turn out to have been mistaken.
48) Even material improvements due to resistance of certain groups do not count as successes for critical theory. That mistakes fragmented hegemonic societies, operating via material & ideological power, for associations of free people, which is not merely an abstract utopia – its possibility is already present in current productive forces [Habermas – language]. But, the progress towards realization of various particular struggles can only be assessed when a free society is realized. 49) This vision of theoreticians is as obstinately held as fantasy – albeit grounded in an understanding of the present – in the face of contrary events, & the theoreticians role is never fixed and finished. Whether theoretical work is justified depends on people coming to speak & act in accord with it.
Theorists as a Group: Against the Abstract Intellectual:
50) Critical theory preserves the traditional theory’s (long inculcated) matching of means to ends through experience & the need for acts of thought as a means to achieving self-preservation. BUT, for critical theory what is thought can only be perceived concretely in the future.
51) Critical theory requires construction more than empirical verification. Savants, then, may not be good at this. People who “think too much” have always been considered dangerous.
52) Theorists may be at odds with the views of society, even the views of the proletariat, hence the need for theory. The theorist’s own class is irrelevant. The intelligentsia, as forming a special stratum of society marked by formal education, constitutes the abstract awareness of the savant [the intelligentsia is not a source of Reason, nor a social class].
53) Critical theorists must reduce tension between their own insights and the oppressed. The supposed detachment from all classes, and interests, claimed by contemporary sociology seeks neutrality, but instead effects a division of labor – savant/politician, theory/practice, as different functions.
54) Critical theory objects, against this detachment, that all theory of society contains political motives & the supposed neutrality & the values of honesty and logic embedded in one particular theory-practice abstract from the decisive questions [systematically, i.e., ideological blindness]. The concept of an intelligentsia transcending political differences hides from crucial Qs.
55) The tendency toward autonomy in individuals – which is seen in history – seems neutral, but this tendency cannot be recognized for what it is, absent concern for the oppressed, recognized or made general independent of struggle. Intellectual works, for all their formal correctness, can serve some historical-political tendency and be led astray. An abstract intelligentsia is merely an hypostatization of specialized science.
Method: time – historical change & relation to facts:
56) Traditional theory brings facts under universal concepts in a hierarchical order. There are no temporal [i.e., historical] differences in these unities, e.g., the class “wolf” does not precede or succeed wolves.
57) Social sciences are unclear re: forces hidden in concrete facts – it hypostatizes them (unlike physics which functionalizes facts), since they think the same object, e.g., person, class, geography, changes over time. Positivism denies the identity of these objects over time, treating them merely as different clusters of facts.
58) Critical theory also begins with abstractions, e.g., an economy operating via exchange, but does not only tie such concepts (as commodity, value, money) to reality as hypotheses, but in addition seeks a radical analysis of historical processes with concern for the future. Relation to facts, in critical theory, is not relation of classifications to instances, but is an inner dynamism of the present leading to the future, e.g., Marxist analysis of the breakdown of feudal regulation (vassalage, etc.) followed by bourgeois society regulated by forces of exchange.
59) The inclusion of more specific elements in critical theory is not a deduction from theory. Instead details of how people react are drawn from a store of science and historical experiences, e.g., more children in lower classes prepares a reserve army of workers. Traditional theory gives merely psychological explanations.
Central Problem of Critical Theory:
60) Critical theory starts with analysis of exchange of commodities defined by relatively universal concepts derived from traditional economics, and then shows, using all available knowledge, how that leads to heightened tensions, wars, and revolutions, etc.
61) Both traditional and critical theory deduce factual conditions from general definitions (hypotheses and deductions). BUT, critical theory does not stress the causal generalizations, but stresses the fact that existing capitalist society derives from exchange. Critical theory considers specific existential claims (as opposed to hypotheses, & not just as description, examples, or technical applications). “Critical theory is the unfolding of a single existential judgment,” viz., that the conflicts and tensions of the modern era are contained in the historically given commodity economy, which both develops human power and freedom and brings about its frustration and a new barbarism [read text p. 227]. [NB: cf. ftn: Classificatory judgments enforce the idea (ideology) that this is how things are and nothing can be done about it. Critical theory denies this ideology.]
62) Parts of critical theory can be applied just like traditional theory as hypotheses & generalities. The problem for critical theory applied to specific events is not the problem of the truth of particular claims, but the problem of the suitability of the theory for increasingly extended goals.
63) Critical and tradition theory are alike regarding logical necessity, but critical theory differs regarding real necessity in factual sequences, e.g., accounts of the biological causes of plant diseases find consideration of the question whether actually to take such measures irrelevant. Traditional theory of society considers social development only as a series of events to be subjected to the special sciences, but considers actually changing things as purely extrinsic to the theory’s goals [a matter of technology & reformist politics].
Subject and Object: necessity
64) The decisive difference from critical theory is that traditional theory keeps subject and object strictly apart. The object of traditional theoretical science is not affected by scientific theory. Even if a theory does influence its object (society), this is just another fact for traditional science. However, a conscious critical attitude is part of social development. Critical theory’s construal of society, as a necessary product of an economic mechanism, contains a protest generated by the order itself and the idea of self determination [read text p. 229]. To think the object separate from the theory falsifies it, leading to quietism and conformism. 65) Substituting function for the idea of cause is OK in physics where we merely register series of phenomena, but results in statistical and merely descriptive not critical social theory.
66) In traditional science – all is necessity (= independent of observer: & subject to absolutely certain prediction) or nothing is necessary. But, critical theorists can’t be independent observers, & for critical theory necessity is involvement in social struggle (necessity of will), both struggle against nature (which cannot be wholly mastered) & against social coercion – seeking future rational mastery over events.
67) Application and understanding in critical attitude demand activity and effort from knowing subjects. Necessity in critical theory is a critical concept which presupposes the possibility of future freedom, rather than the idealist interior freedom [Fichte – Descartes/Augustine] which leads to resignation in practice “I am free, so nothing need be achieved.”
68) The Cartesian dualism, unable to grasp the unity of theory and practice, limits the concept of necessity to inevitable events. Theory as a genuine [material] force is beyond dualism’s grasp, since dualism supposes a closed causal reality and isolated impotent rational beings, & has assumed an unchangeable social structure, and a spectator subject. It treats necessity as anticipating events as probable, over against critical theory’s notion of necessity as events mastered by people for their own purposes. Connections of thought and will only amount to added complexity for traditional sociology – treating the theorist as a spectator [& as object].
Hostility to Theory & Retreat from Critique:
69) Hostility to theory is really directed against critique and transformation. The masses fear that theory might disturb the value of the pain, experienced in adapting to present conditions, as unnecessary. Those who profit from the status quo are suspicious of intellectual independence. Critical theory is conceived as negative by traditional theory which pretends neutrality. Hence, theory as such falls into disrepute (“too theoretical” is an accusation even against traditional theory).
70) Ideology remains an important force (in addition to apparatuses of power). In the positivist urge to deal with facts and avoid illusions, there still lurks a reaction against the alliance of metaphysics and oppression.
70a) The 18th C Enlightenment needed to free (already existing) bourgeois economy from feudal constraints. Today, critical theory is needed to critique the ground removed from the hope of radical improvement of human existence by the sciences and traditional theory itself. Instead of indiscriminate hostility to theory, we need critical theory and practice to produce a conscious social subject. Time: Theory Change Due to Social Change:
71) The essential relation of theory to time does not reside (as Hegel & Marx agreed) in correspondence of parts and successive periods to the whole of society, but in the continuously changing existential judgment of theory as conditioned by conscious relations to historical practice of society.
72) Substantive changes in theory are due to changes of the state of society, not especially to changes of classification due to newly discovered facts. Theory remains stable so long as society doesn’t change radically, but theory changes as conditions change (existential judgments), which they continually do. While concepts may remain the same, as conflicts develop, adjustments need to be made in assigning relative importance to different aspects of the theory.
73) E.g. owners & managers: private ownership of means of production changed to large corporate management structures. Managerial groups become a new factor in production with capital concentration & centralization {see Braverman}.
74) Management now dominates production (not ownership), extending even to the State apparatus
75) Legal owners [of title] have lost influence and their right to their social positions becomes dubious. Ideologies of great personalities grow, productive/parasitic capitalists distinguished, the idea of rights w/fixed (“natural”) content becomes unimportant, industrial-political cliques develop, & ideologies become deliberately constructed [PR – Edward Bernays] so a double standard of truth (insiders/statements for public show) develops, and a cynicism about truth and thought increases [Sloterdijk].
76) Critical theory changes with these changes. It still recognizes the economy as determining [Gramci: hegemony – in the last instance] (e.g., juridical relations as masks of economic power), BUT (e.g.) it sees the loss of rights with fixed specific independent content as a loss of a positive cultural value.
77) Other concepts of critical theory change as well, e.g., dependence of culture on social relations. Relative independence of morality (loyalty, independent judgment) of individuals (produced as independent contracting individuals) as psychologically mediated in the liberal era disappears in monopoly capitalism. Individuals no longer have ideas of their own. The content of mass belief is an immediate product of political and economic bureaucracies; individuals (retaining the atomistic interests in a false consciousness – rights of corporate “persons”) then act as mere functions of the political-economic machine [marketing & the culture industry take over as “culture”].
78) Dependence of culture on economy has changed, because the economy is more (consciously e.g., in marketing) determining and has reduced (the classical) individual to a mere means, so more and more groups (including “advanced sectors of society) feel helpless. Resistance in the cultural spheres is disappearing.
79) In the 18th C. truth served bourgeois interests. Today claims to truth are the property of charlatans and real truth seekers find themselves isolated in more
harried groups. The intellectual level of the masses is declining [compare: factory readers – Paine’s Common Sense, Dickens novels – Now, Culture Industry – see Sut Jhally]. Summary: the historical form of Critical Theory (and its subject):
80) The change of social relations due to economic developments affects the way culture depends on the economy, and so the key ideas of critical theory. The influence of social relations on theory is part of its doctrine, so new doctrine is not just added to existing parts, the theory as a whole evolves, even though its foundations and object (comtemporary society) do not change. This explains certain logical difficulties.
81) The logical, conceptual, and historical aspects of the theory will contradict earlier versions, e.g., concepts of entrepreneur and enterprise. The representation of the entrepreneur (as owner-manufacturer in 19th C. to 20th C. monopolist – to 21st C. corporation [NB: “postmodern” David Harvey]) like the entrepreneur goes through a development.
82) The contradictions in the theory are, thus, not flaws, but accurate representations of a changing object going through historical change. The theory constructs an existential judgment of society with an historical dimension. The economic origins of the present situation are manifest in conflicts w/past forms, so the theoretician focuses on new aspects of the situation.
83) The sense of various dependencies becomes clear only in grasping the adaptation of the whole structure to new conditions. Critical theory is not sociology. Concepts used in critical theory, then, don’t have the status of classifications in traditional theories, that generally keep such classifications uniform, because,
84) strictly these are not changes in theory itself, that would treat critical theory as if it belonged to a suprahistorical subject, rather than belonging to a situated subject located in an historical moment. Talk of truth changing, or remaining the same, then, is polemical: used against supposing there are ahistorical subjects.
85) Hence, the claim that some elements have been added to the theory while it retains its essential content is a feature of the theory’s present form. Truth can accumulate and be passed on only in a form of knowledge that will continue to be necessary in the future, viz. a mastery of nature. That this knowledge last, however, is itself a form of the traditional view that knowing subjects are abstract & interchangeable.
Transmission and Reason:
86) Striving for emancipation from oppression and a self-aware universal subject does not bring these about. Critical theory, then, cannot be transmitted as an established practice, but only via concern for social transformation aroused anew by prevailing injustice. Such concern will be shaped by the theory itself.
87) Transmission of the critical tradition, then, is not achieved by appealing to biological or sociological laws, but by a knowledge that contains certain obligations, and that can guarantee only a present not a future community of critical thinkers, however small a group, but only a present one.
88) Concepts like fidelity and solidarity are only elements of correct theory/practice in context. What is acceptable behavior within a community may be inhuman in the larger whole. So, particular judgments about what counts as human only become meaningful in the proper context of theory/practice.
89) There are no general criteria for judging critical theory as a whole, since however good its fit with the best traditional theories, critical theory has no specific influence (nor does it belong to the ideas of one class, since all classes are subject to ideology) except its concern to abolish injustice – this negative formula = the materialist equivalent of the idealist concept of Reason.
90) At present, true theory of society is more critical than affirmative. Science has abandoned humanity by eschewing ends as outside its purview. Yet, active thought by its nature determines its ends as a totality, and so tries to change history and remove injustice. To see thought as a fixed activity insulated from its society betrays the essence of thought.