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Splinters in Your Eye: Essays on the Frankfurt School
Although successive generations of the Frankfurt School have attempted to adapt Critical Theory to new circumstances, the work done by its founding members continues in the twenty-first century to unsettle conventional wisdom about culture, society and politics. Exploring unexamined episodes in the school’s history and reading its work in unexpected ways, these essays provide ample evidence of the abiding relevance of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Löwenthal, and Kracauer in our troubled times. Without forcing a unified argument, they range over a wide variety of topics, from the uncertain founding of the School to its mixed reception of psychoanalysis, from Benjamin’s ruminations on stamp collecting to the ironies in the reception of Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man, from Löwenthal’s role in Weimar’s Jewish Renaissance to Horkheimer’s involvement in the writing of the first history of the Frankfurt School. Of special note are their responses to visual issues such as the emancipation of colour in modern art, the Jewish prohibition on images, the relationship between cinema and the public sphere, and the implications of a celebrated Family of Man photographic exhibition. The collection ends with an essay tracing the still metastasising demonisation of the Frankfurt School by the so-called Alt Right as the source of “cultural Marxism” and “political correctness,” which has gained alarming international resonance and led to violence by radical right-wing fanatics.
237 pages, Paperback
Published July 14, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 10, 2020
This is a nice collection of essays, many focusing on previously overlooked or understudied aspects of the work of thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School. To take one example, Jay's treatment of Walter Benjamin’s philately does not lead to general thoughts on the act of collecting as is often the case, but is rather a meditation on stamp-collecting in particular. In this essay, and many others, Jay weaves personal reflections into the theoretical. We read about the role stamp collecting played in his youth and how Benjamin’s thought can give philosophical significance to what may otherwise be considered a simple childish preoccupation.
In other essays it becomes clear that Jay's life has crossed over with those of his subjects in other more concrete ways, and relations between them have not always been complimentary. He alludes to an unflattering reference to himself in a letter from Adorno to Horkheimer. This hostility can perhaps be explained by the role he occupied as a young graduate student, writing the first general history of the Frankfurt School in English and hence having a discernible influence on the reception of their work. Indeed, this is a theme that recurs throughout the essays. Many of the essays originated in conferences and symposiums prompted by precisely this problem of legacy. In addition, Jay finds himself in the unenviable position of facing down the spectre of ‘cultural Marxism’, an antisemitic conspiracy theory intent on misrepresenting the thought and influence of a group of mostly Jewish German refugees, and which has seeped its way into contemporary political discourse.
As with many such conspiracies, the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory is intent on reducing its subjects to ciphers, entirely characterless yet all-poweful, driven by a relentless impulse to crush the West. In reading this volume, however, the humanity of this group of intellectuals is abundantly clear, for better or worse. Indeed, Jay has said that his understandable decision to leave out such nuances and personal idiosyncrasies in his The Dialectical Imagination may have had the unintended effect of granting the book a limited usefulness in the hands of right-wing zealots. An imagined homegeneity is key to the conspiracy they have constructed. To the contrary, Frankfurt School theoreticians were as susceptible as anyone to heated disagreement and even self-contradiction.
The circumstances of the lives of these thinkers led to various shifts in viewpoint, in some cases a gradual tempering of a youthful radicalism, in others tactical concessions to pragmatic considerations. Indeed, critical theory was more open to change than the more dogmatic readings of Freud and Marx that they rejected. As Jay makes clear, the Frankfurt School looked not to an imagined past to be restored in order to justify their intellectual project. The power of critical theory persists in its ability to combine the apparently disparate in its constant search for openings for the free individual, that which escapes administration and through which visions of utopia can be glimpsed.
In other essays it becomes clear that Jay's life has crossed over with those of his subjects in other more concrete ways, and relations between them have not always been complimentary. He alludes to an unflattering reference to himself in a letter from Adorno to Horkheimer. This hostility can perhaps be explained by the role he occupied as a young graduate student, writing the first general history of the Frankfurt School in English and hence having a discernible influence on the reception of their work. Indeed, this is a theme that recurs throughout the essays. Many of the essays originated in conferences and symposiums prompted by precisely this problem of legacy. In addition, Jay finds himself in the unenviable position of facing down the spectre of ‘cultural Marxism’, an antisemitic conspiracy theory intent on misrepresenting the thought and influence of a group of mostly Jewish German refugees, and which has seeped its way into contemporary political discourse.
As with many such conspiracies, the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory is intent on reducing its subjects to ciphers, entirely characterless yet all-poweful, driven by a relentless impulse to crush the West. In reading this volume, however, the humanity of this group of intellectuals is abundantly clear, for better or worse. Indeed, Jay has said that his understandable decision to leave out such nuances and personal idiosyncrasies in his The Dialectical Imagination may have had the unintended effect of granting the book a limited usefulness in the hands of right-wing zealots. An imagined homegeneity is key to the conspiracy they have constructed. To the contrary, Frankfurt School theoreticians were as susceptible as anyone to heated disagreement and even self-contradiction.
The circumstances of the lives of these thinkers led to various shifts in viewpoint, in some cases a gradual tempering of a youthful radicalism, in others tactical concessions to pragmatic considerations. Indeed, critical theory was more open to change than the more dogmatic readings of Freud and Marx that they rejected. As Jay makes clear, the Frankfurt School looked not to an imagined past to be restored in order to justify their intellectual project. The power of critical theory persists in its ability to combine the apparently disparate in its constant search for openings for the free individual, that which escapes administration and through which visions of utopia can be glimpsed.
July 20, 2020
Splinters in Your Eye reminded me both of why I fell in love with intellectual history in the first place and galvanized me with a sense of political urgency. This book collects Jay's various explorations of fascinating eddies in the historiography of the Frankfurt School -- a literature he of course initiated, and which has now become a subfield unto itself.
On the later point, Jay's account of his own interactions with Horkheimer and Weil while writing his dissertation is especially fascinating: H & W both expressed intense leeriness about having their ideas or the Institute in general being associated with their Jewish backgrounds (though H conceded the School's unwillingness to discuss utopia was related to the Jewish Bilderverbot). ALong the same lines, Jay also offers a hair-raising account of the return of explicitly anti Semitic slurs about “cultural Marxism” that attributes various aspects of current left formations to the supposedly baleful influence of the Frankfurt School. Jay also has a couple of lovely little essays about Walter Benjamin, a scholar about whom he has had ambivalent feelings over the years.
On the later point, Jay's account of his own interactions with Horkheimer and Weil while writing his dissertation is especially fascinating: H & W both expressed intense leeriness about having their ideas or the Institute in general being associated with their Jewish backgrounds (though H conceded the School's unwillingness to discuss utopia was related to the Jewish Bilderverbot). ALong the same lines, Jay also offers a hair-raising account of the return of explicitly anti Semitic slurs about “cultural Marxism” that attributes various aspects of current left formations to the supposedly baleful influence of the Frankfurt School. Jay also has a couple of lovely little essays about Walter Benjamin, a scholar about whom he has had ambivalent feelings over the years.
November 18, 2020
really great essays from one of the foremost authorities on the Frankfurt School. Jay tumbles into the minutiae of each thinkers journey, as his usual projects are vaster and more theoretical, this collection is more about the ephemeral qualities of the School. Benjamin's obsession with stamps and colors, Adorno's negative dialectics in relation to metaphorology, Kracauer's legacy and more fill the book with the off cuts that are still interesting battles to be fought in the wake of the Frankfurt School
The most prescient essay is of course the last, which speaks to the vulgar appropriation of the Frankfurt School as the scapegoat for all social movements of the last 30 years. Jay clears through the fog and brings the cautious, sometimes hopeful, but always critical perspective of the school on all who deny it.
The most prescient essay is of course the last, which speaks to the vulgar appropriation of the Frankfurt School as the scapegoat for all social movements of the last 30 years. Jay clears through the fog and brings the cautious, sometimes hopeful, but always critical perspective of the school on all who deny it.
November 7, 2020
A great set of essays and an excellent 2019 addendum on the essay in the last chapter makes the book worth buying on its own.
April 11, 2021
Some chapters better than others, the last being my favorite.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews