Critical Theory: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #263

by Stephen Eric Bronner

Critical Theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose-and, if at all possible, cure-the ills of society, particularly fascism and capitalism. In this book, Stephen Eric Bronner provides sketches of leading
representatives of the critical tradition (such as George Lukács and Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas) as well as many of its seminal texts and empirical investigations. This Very Short Introduction sheds light on the cluster of concepts and themes
that set critical theory apart from its more traditional philosophical competitors. Bronner explains and discusses concepts such as method and agency, alienation and reification, the culture industry and repressive tolerance, non-identity and utopia. He argues for the introduction of new categories
and perspectives for illuminating the obstacles to progressive change and focusing upon hidden transformative possibilities. Only a critique of critical theory can render it salient for a new age. That is precisely what this very short introduction provides.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Politics, History, Sociology, Criticism

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2011

About the author

Stephen Eric Bronner is an American political scientist and philosopher, Board of Governors Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States, and is the Director of Global Relations for the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights.

Reviews

[Johannes Bertus · Rating 2 out of 5]

This might be a good book on some level, but as an introduction it fails completely. I wish the editor of the series would remind authors of the difference between academic and popular writing - avoid esoteric jargon, explain references to lesser known thinkers, etc. This book assumes far too much prior knowledge to qualify as an introduction.

[Leona · Rating 1 out of 5]

A good book for people informed enough not to need it.

[Turbulent_Architect · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a terrible book but not a good one either. Bronner's overview of the key concepts, figures of the Frankfurt School is competent enough, as is his discussion of its Kantian, Hegelian, and Marxist influences. I also appreciated his defense of Enlightenment against Adorno and Horkheimer's irrationalism. At the same time, though, this really doesn't work as a general introduction. The structure is all over the place, there are numerous factual errors, and the writing is painfully abstruse. Best start somewhere else if you're interested in Critical Theory (or better yet, find a different interest).

[Andrew Ringsmuth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would you like to learn about an intellectual field so full of verbose waffle and flourishing vagaries that you can see whatever meaning you like in it? Would you like to suffer through page after page of untestable claims about the nature of the world and marvel at the gargantuan self indulgence of their authors? Yes?! Then this may well be the book for you! To be fair, the author seems to have done a good job of summarising the history of these bizarre cognitive contortions; he’s just the messenger. But why exactly these messages deserve to be propagated, I’ll never understand.

‘You can’t polish a turd.’ ~ Australian proverb.

[Abner Rosenweig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Teaching requires the ability to empathize with the student, to remember what it was like to be a beginner, and to explain from a clear yet unpatronizing perspective.

Bronner seems incapable of seeing things from the perspective of a novice. He writes as if he's speaking to an audience who is already well-versed in critical theory, assuming a great deal of technical expertise -- hardly appropriate for an introductory text!

Bronner also wastes a great deal of space on tangents, interjecting personal editorials into the text (e.g. his criticism of Lukacs Dialectic of the Enlightenment [61] or his musing on the idea of Utopia [75]). There are so many opinions here that they come to dominate the book.

Bronner betrays the reader, betrays the mission of the book, in his infusions of jargon and opinions. He lures the reader in with the false idea of an introduction merely so he can assert his ego and stain the voices of the canonical authors with his own tawdry views.

The book's real title should be "My Personal Review of the Major Works of Critical Theory".

Very disappointing.

[Will · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book should be rewritten. I'm generally interested in philosophy and sociology, but I find the presentation in this book very unclear. The author jumps around from figure to figure, making brief comments on each. He almost assumes we are already familiar with their ideas when we're not, as this is an introductory book. I was thoroughly confused and couldn't continue with the book after one-third of it.

[Stephen Bedard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hear many people speaking of critical theory but with very little explanation (or understanding) of what it is. For some, it is enough to know that it is linked to Marxism. I found this introduction to critical theory to be helpful to at least situate the discussion for me. More reading is needed but this is a good first start.

[Skye · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incomprehensibly organized. Useful only perhaps as a source for a reading list of the Frankfurt School. The writing was so contrived, there were some sentences I was sure were grammatically incorrect. Overall an unsuccessful book if intended to be a true introduction.

[Allyson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely boring. And when it wasn't boring, I didn't understand any of it. A very short introduction for experts is more like it.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great as an introduction, assumes you already know a lot about the topic and uses a lot of jargon.

[Amine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sympathize with the criticism this book received in terms of not doing much to hold the reader's hand. I certainly would not recommend this as an introduction to anyone who does not have at least some familiarization with the ideas already.
However, I also sympathize with the author, i cannot imagine an easy way to construct a "very short" introduction to critical theory to someone completely uninitiated in theory, social, or cultural ideas like the ones discussed here, or in the historical context between the bolshevik revolution and the 1960's.
As to me, I think this read was very interesting, I learned a thing or two about critical theory and the figures most central to it. I have not had a chance to get such a spanning image of the ideas of the Frankfurt school and their evolution through time before. I also cannot help but appreciate how this book showcases the stark differences between figures often lumped together casually.
All in all, I find this an interesting even if lacking introduction to critical theory.

[Amr helmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

لست أدري على التحقيق أين يكمن الخطأ أو مم انبعث ذلك العسر في القراءة ...صدئ عقلي أم اضطراب الترجمة أم وعورة الأفكار المتضمنة في الكتاب وجدتها علي أم استغلاق الفلسفة وما يتصل بها على ذهني الكليل ...أنا لا أحب العلمويين والوضعيين ...ربما لا أحقق مذهبهم وأكتنه حقائقه لكني أبغض من رأيت منهم وقدر لي التعامل معه ولاسيما في بلادنا البائسة حيث يستنسر البغاث ويستطيل الخلق على بعضهم بحصائد عقول كدت وتعبت في بلاد بعيدة بعيدة عنا ...ثم انتهى إلينا ذلك ..لا لنصل ما ابتدأوه أو نستشعر الغيرة فنغتلي لندفع بأنفسنا في تلك الميادين .....بل لنختار أهون السبل وأشدها انحطاطا ..كي نتباغى ونتحاسد ونقتتل ونزيد الهوى الفاغرة أفواهها فيما بيننا اتساعا وكأننا لم نكتف بما لدينا من حظوظ الفتن وإرث الخلافات حتى نزيدها ضراما بما اجتلبناه ...المهم وانطلاقا من تلك الكراهية القائمة شرعت في الميل إلى تلك المذاهب القائمة على الطرف الآخر ..اهتممت حينا بالوجودية ..وحططت رحالي مؤخرا عند مدرسة فرانكفورت ...ثيودور أدورنو وماركوزه وهوركهايمر وبنيامين هؤلاء الرهط الثائرين ...المنادين بتحرير الإنسان من التنميط والاغتراب والتشيؤ ..حيث تنحط قيمة الإنسان ليصير سلعة في سوق السلع القاسية الكالحة حيث لا رحمة ولا صوت يعلو على صوت المال ...انضم لهؤلاء الرهط إرنست بلوخ ..في الحقيقة هؤلاء الألمان قوم يستحقون الدراسة بشكل مستفيض ...نزعاتهم لغزو أوروبا من داخلها ..فلاسفتهم وشعراؤهم ومجابهاتهم لسائر الفلسفة الأوروبية حسب ما انتهى إليه علمي ..تقييد كانط للعقل ..نقد النظرية النقدية للرأسمالية وصناعة الثقافة ..الرومانسيون الألمان ..شيلر وهامان ..الفرنسيون مزعجون ومتعجرفون ...الألمان برأيي أرق حاشية وأقرب لنا ..أعود لإرنست بلوخ ..له كتاب من ثلاث مجلدات اسمه "مبدأ الأمل" ....لم أطلع على الكتاب لكن أن تقتطع في ذلك الوقت الرهيب من القرن الفائت حيث كل شئ يبعث على التشاؤم والخوف والقلق من وقتك لتكتب تلك الصفحات عن الأمل ..فهذا قدر ولا شك عظيم من الجهاد والنضال على هذه الأرض والتي تغري حوادثها بالكف والإقلاع عن كل عمل ......"ليس بالخبز وحده يحيا الإنسان ولاسيما إذا لم يكن لديه ثمنه " قالها إرنست ولكن ما معناها ؟ ....أليس فيما حولنا من قسوة وبؤس وجشع وفقر ما يعضد تلك الحكمة ..أليس في تلك الظروف القاسية التي تحوطنا من كل جهة ما يدفعنا بعيدا عن التراب ..كيف ينحطون إلى التراب ويتكالبون عليه وهناك فيما بيننا من لا يكاد يجد قوت يومه...ثم هم أحياء ..ولربما كانوا أشد منا حياة !! ..أفضل فصول الكتاب برأيي ..فصل المعمل اليوتوبي ...اليوتوبيا ..الجنة الموعودة ..الخلاص ..الكمال ..لا يمكن أن تكون على الأرض ..لكنها بالطبع هناك قائمة تستحثنا لنبلغها وندأب إليها ..لكننا أبدا لا نبلغها ونموت وفي حلوقنا ظمأ إليها ..لكنا نحن المسلمين نبلغها فيما أوقن وأتمنى هناك ...عند مليك مقتدر...لكننا لا نُحرمها تماما فما تزال هناك لحظات يوتويوبية تمر بنا ..ثم تنقضي سريعا فلا نتلبث عندها إلا بعد مفارقتها ...مررت بلحظة كتلك مذ بضعة أيام ..دعوت الله بعدها ..كثيرا ..أن يمنحني من جنته تلك أياما وأياما وأياما ...وألا يحرمني أيامها هنا ..ولا دوامها هناك ...
لم يرقها ما يقدم عليه بعضهم من التصريح علنا وبين جموع حاشدة بما يضطرب بالصدور من حب ورغبة في الارتباط ..ترى في ذلك ابتذالا ...وددت لو أخبرتها بما يراه الألمان من رأي ..."التنميط" ...قاتل الذاتية وفرادة التجارب البشرية ..ليس هناك من بأس في أن يغتلي الحب بصدر أحدهم فلا يكاد يجد متنفسا إلا من خلال بوحه على الملأ ..لكن سرعان ما تتشكل عناصر المأساة الهزلية ..حين يصير ذلك عادة متبعة وتقليدا مستنا ..حينها يفقد كل بريق له وكل حسن ..إذ فقد الباعث الحقيقي عليه..
ما أرقها وأحلاها ....وأحبها وتحبني !!..آه ..كيف وصلت إلى هنا ..لماذا يقودني كل حديث نحوها ..بدا لي مؤخرا أن كل أحاديثي تنعطف نحوها مهما كانت درجة بعدها عنها ..النظرية النقدية ..الفلسفة ..ثم لا ألبث حتى أجد نفسي أتحدث عنها وعن رقتها
هناك الكثير مما يمكن الحديث عنه في الكتاب ..التضامن والمقاومة والحرية تلك الأسس التي حاولت إبرازها والدفاع عنها مدرسة فرانكفورت ...السعادة الزائفة والوعي المخدر والحاجات الزائفة ..ابتلاع المنظمات والبيروقراطية لكل رغبة ثورية ...وأمور أخرى كثيرة
ولكن كيف أمضي أيامي من دونك وأنت سري المكنون ؟؟

[Agora . · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب النظرية النقدية مليء بالمصطلحات لا يمكن فهمه تماما لمن ليس ملم في العلوم الاجتماعيه والانسانيه وهذا المصطلح يشير الى تقيم ونقد فكري وثقافي وسياسي للمجتمع .
الكتاب يشمل دراسات وتحليل وتقييم لأبحاث ومقالات علماء في الشؤؤون السياسية والاجتماعية والاقتصادية
يرى هيجل ان الوعي هو محرك التاريخ ، كذلك النقد يحرك التاريخ ويعمل على التغيير ، وهناك وعي سعيد وهو وعي القطيع ووعي شقي وهو الذي يدعم التقدم ، إن الظروف الاجتماعية الجديدة تنتج أفكارا ووعيا جديدا للتطبيق الراديكالي مما تضع مشكلات جديدة في طريقها ، و عند عجز المجتمعات المنغلقة عن التعامل مع الشعور بالذنب وايجاد حلول جذرية للمشاكل الناشئة وتقصيرها بتطبيق القيم السائدة ، ينتج عن ذلك قيما قمعية .
تشكلت النظريه النقديه في بوتقه الفكر الماركسي الا ان اتباعها رفضوا الحتميه الاقتصاديه ، اهتمت بالاغتراب والتشيؤ ؛ يمثل الاغتراب بالاثار النفسيه واستغلال العمال وتقسيم العمل ، اما التشيؤ فهو الكيفيه التي يعمل بها الاشخاص فعليا باعتبارهم اشياء وآلات ، واستغلال طبقات اجتماعية بواسطة طبقات او دول ، وتحويل الحياة الى حياة ميكانيكية بالكامل ، فبما أن الطبقة العاملة او البروليتاريا واقعة تحت شرك الرأس مالية ، فإن الشقاء يقزّم وعيها للحد الادنى .
ترى مدرسه فرانكفورت ان صناعه الثقافه ظلمت التجربه الجماليه و الاعمال الفنيه لا تعامل تعامل مختلفا عن السلع الاخرى من خلال صناعه الثقافه التي تعمل على زياده الارباح الى الحد الاقصى
تعتبر صناعه الثقافه فرعا من انتاج السلع الذي يمكن ان يثبت انه نفسه ينتقد الانتاج الصناعي ، وهناك ثقافة النخبة وثقافة شعبية التي تعمل على تنظيم المجتمع وتوجيهها لما يتلاءم مع متطلباتها .

ترجع الاهمية الاجتماعية والسياسية لعصر التنوير ان اتباعه في مقدمه من يحاربون ممارسة السلطه التعسفيه من قبل مؤسسات لا تخضع للمساءله الا انهم كذلك قد ساهموا في تحول المجتمع المدني من خلال هجومهم على الاشكال الاساسيه من القسوه والتعصب الديني والاميه والخرافه وكراهيه الغرباء .
كتاب بسيط يعطي نظرة شاملة ، باختصار عن النقد للفلسفة الاجتماعية والسياسية والاقتصادية .

[Simona B]

I agree with the reviews that say the book is definitely not written for a beginner -- as one would indeed expect from a Very Short Introduction. The organization lacks any rationale that I can discern, or rather, the different themes advertised by the chapter titles seem to make sense, but the actual distribution of information among the chapters baffles me, being quite repetitive and often jumping from one idea to the next following a rationale that, while certainly clear to the author, remains obscure to the reader. I also agree with one review saying that Bronner is at his best when he offers his criticism on certain missteps of critical theory and its theorists (I'm thinking especially of their view of the Enlightenment). Being engaged in a sort of critique of critique in my own work, I particularly appreciated chapters 9 and 10, which expand on how critical theory can better adapt itself to contemporaneity -- a type of reflection which I didn't expect in this short book but which is, even in its necessary partiality, very welcome.

[Ben Hourigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I was hoping for, which was a plain-language guide to critical theory. Once near-nonsense terms like “the ontology of false conditions” are introduced, Bronner happily relies on them for the rest of the book. It’s a shame, because plenty of interesting ideas came out of the Frankfurt School, but incomprehensible writing style is often a major flaw. Critical theory deserves a guide that clearly communicates what it has to offer, but this is not it.

[Muhamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author does a great job of introducing critical theory and its key figures. He provides abundant quotes - something quite rare in the VSI series - and this makes the contact with the thinkers of the group more concrete. I am not sure what to make of the author's own opinions at the very end of the book, but imho he did a good job of presenting ideas even when he disagreed with them. Overall, one of the best books in VSI series.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful in providing context to a class on critical theory, but without the knowledge from that class this book would be incomprehensible as an introduction. The author frequently neglects to define specialized terms and the reader is left to infer what they mean.

[Jason Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bronner packs a great deal of information on the Frankfurt School and its antecedents in a very few pages. Dense stuff, but very much worth the effort

[Siavash Mazdapour · Rating 3 out of 5]

متن مقدماتی‌ای نبود!

[Katrina Sark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction: What is Critical Theory?

p.1 – Critical theory was generated between World War I and World War II, and its most important representatives would wage an unrelenting assault on the exploitation, repression, and alienation embedded within Western civilization.

p.2 – Both Kant and Hegel incarnated the cosmopolitan and universal assumption deriving from the European Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They relied upon reason to combat superstition, prejudice, cruelty, and the arbitrary exercise of institutional authority.
Critical theory was conceived within the intellectual crucible of Western Marxism. Karl Korsch and Georg Lukasz provided the framework for the critical project that later became identified with the Institute for Social Research – of the Frankfurt School.

p.3 – The Frankfurt School initially believed that its intellectual work would aid the practical prospects for revolutionary action by the proletariat. As the 1930s wore on, however, the revolution denigrated in the Soviet Union, and its prospects in Europe faded. Fascism had audaciously entered political life, and the humane hopes originally associated with modernity appeared increasingly naïve. The Frankfurt School registered this historical shift by subjecting long-standing leftist beliefs in the inherently progressive character of science and technology, popular education, and mass politics to withering interrogation.
Alienation and reification are the two ideas most commonly associated wit critical theory. the former is usually identified with the psychological effects of exploitation and the division of labour, and the latter with how people are treated instrumentally, as “things,” through concepts that have been ripped from their historical context. Pioneering studies of alienation and reification had already been undertaken by Western Marxists during the 1920s, but the Frankfurt School provided a unique sense of how these complex categories impacted upon individuals in advanced industrial society.

p.4 – They investigated the ways I which thinking was being reduced to mechanical notions of what is operative and profitable, ethical reflection was tending to vanish, and aesthetic enjoyment was becoming more standardized. Critical theorists with alarm how interpreting modern society was becoming ever more difficult. Alienation and reification were thus analyzed in terms of how they imperiled the exercise of subjectivity, robbed the world of meaning and purpose, and turned the individual into a cog in the machine.
Auschwitz was seen as incarnating the most radical implications of alienation and reification.
All members of the Frankfurt School agreed on the need for increased education to counteract authoritarian trends. But it remained unclear how effective such education might prove to be in a totally administered society. A new “culture industry” – arguably the most famous concept associated with critical theory – was constantly striving to lower the lowest common denominator in order to maximize sales. Authentic individual experience and class consciousness were being threatened by the consumerism of advanced capitalism. All this led Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse to claim that the extent to which a work becomes popular – regardless of its political message – is the extent to which its radical impulse will be integrated into the system.

1 – The Frankfurt School

p.7 – The Institute for Social Research was founded in 1923. Growing out of a Marxist study group, which sought to deal with the practical problems facing the labour movement in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, this first Marxist think tank was funded by Hermann Weil. He was an enlightened businessman, who made his fortune on the grain market in Argentina. The money was given at the urging of his son Felix, who considered himself a “salon Bolshevik.”

2 – A Matter of Method

p.18 – Human emancipation became the aim of Marxism, and its critical implications were now applicable both to capitalist societies and increasingly to authoritarian states like the Soviet Union. Western Marxists were intent upon contesting hegemony – using the term made famous by Antonio Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks (published posthumously in 1971) in all its forms.

p.22 – “The Mass Ornament” (1927) by Siegfried Krakauer noted how the geometric patterns and highly orchestrated movements of a dance troupe reflected the regulation of audiences and the loss of individuality in mass society.

p.28 – Critical theory shifted its focus: its aim was to awaken the individual from the intellectual slumber into which he or she has been socialized. Subjectivity was no longer considered identical with or capable of being defined b any category.
Divorcing experience from critical reflection creates an opening for ideology and compromises the ability to resist what Adorno termed the “ontology of false conditions.”

3 – Critical Theory and Modernism

p.31 – The Frankfurt School never idealized classical art, let alone the “good old days,” which were never good anyway. The aesthetic outlook of its members was far less conservative than experimental, and they admired modernism for its varied attempts to express the inexpressible along with new ways of hearing, seeing, and employing language. This made the avant-garde controversial: not only the general public was skeptical that its works were “art,” and, as in the case of the Armory Show of 1913 in New York, it was subject to (often violent) attacks by right-wing nationalist groups.

5 – Enlightened Illusions

p.54 – The illusion of progress – With the triumph of fascism, the degeneration of communism, and the integration of social democracy, these ideals were seen as having lost their cachet and, as a consequence, political critique as having lost its appeal. Auschwitz had punctured the aura associated with progress and modernity. Old-fashioned criteria for making judgments, constructing narratives, and understanding reality thus become anachronistic. Enlightenment and modernity find their fulfillment in a concentration camp universe run by an unaccountable bureaucracy, fueled by an instrumental rationality run amok, and expressed in the unleashing of an unimaginable rage.

p.57 – Humanity pays for an increase in power over nature with the loss of subjectivity. Blind to the domination in which it was engaged, equally blind to the reaction it was nurturing, Enlightenment humanism was incapable of understanding that in its “innermost recesses there rages a frantic prisoner who, as a fascist, turns the world into a prison.” Such is the real (if unacknowledged) legacy of the Enlightenment. It extends from Kant over the Marquis de Sade to Nietzsche. Where Kant created an epistemological barricade to protect science from the intrusion of metaphysics and religion, and Sade took the instrumental treatment of individuals to the extreme, Nietzsche ultimately rendered reason and conscience subordinate to the will to power.

p.58 – Enlightenment political thought is seen by Horkheimer and Adorno as having brought into the illusion of progress – at great cost. Western Marxists had never been enthralled with liberal republicanism, and in 1933, following the triumph of Adolf Hitler, the Frankfurt School felt the same way. Even Marcuse, perhaps the most politically savvy of its inner circle, noted in 1934 that a deep affinity existed between liberalism and totalitarianism not merely in terms of their commitment to private property but in their political views.
Dialectic of Enlightenment drove home that point. Its authors considered liberalism, while fine as an idea, an apologia for existing conditions. Its blindness to inhumanity and the irrational made liberalism and its humanist impulses, at best, incapable of effectively challenging its enemies and, at worst, complicit with them. They put the matter bluntly: “Enlightenment behaves towards things as a dictator towards men, He knows them insofar as he can manipulate them.” Goethe’s beloved oak tree sitting in the middle of the Buchenwald concentration camp provides a poignant and symbolic case in point for the fate of Enlightenment.

p.62 – Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg not only predicted the emergence of a terror apparatus in the Soviet Union as early as 1918, but analyzed it as the product of economic underdevelopment. Other scholars would not that in Germany the bourgeoisie had not yet ideologically come to terms with feudalism when fear of the proletariat led to its alignment with the reaction.
European fascism was not the product of some prefabricated philosophical dialectic but rather the self-conscious ideological response to liberalism and social democracy. Its mass base everywhere lay primarily in pre-capitalist classes – the peasantry, the underclass, and the petite-bourgeoisie – whose existential and material interests seemed threatened by the capitalist production processes and its two dominant classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Classes identified with modernity mostly supported political parties embracing a continental form of liberalism or a social democratic party still formally embracing orthodox Marxism and its communist rival. All these parties except the communists were supporters of the Weimar Republic, and all were enemies of the Nazis who made war on them in word and deed.

6 – The Utopian Laboratory

p.65 – In 1765, Friedrich Schiller published his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. His aim was to preserve the utopian promises that the French Revolution had destroyed in the terror and the subsequent conservative swing – or Thermidor – that followed the execution of Robespierre in 1793. Schiller introduced aesthetics as a utopian response to reality. His classic work describes a new life-worlds in which the play impulse with its sensuous and form-giving qualities transforms existence and, implicitly, redefines the character of labor and science. The aesthetic realm incarnates the “inner truth” of humanity. Obliterating differences of status and power, it projects new forms of solidarity, freedom, and a non-instrumental treatment of nature. Utopia inheres within the “beautiful illusion” generated by art. But this illusion also serves as a regulative ideal. It shapes reality in accord with its own liberating standards and purposes: it embodies the promise of happiness that history has betrayed.

p.72 – After Auschwitz and the Gulag, and the prospect of nuclear annihilation in a new cold war, Marcuse saw the need for a new vantage point from which critique might be launched. The beautiful illusion, the play impulse, and the idea of sustained happiness provided the fitting basis for an anthropological break with the reality principle and, its capitalist variant, the performance principle.

Marcuse suggested that the modern world of scarcity was being artificially maintained.
Imperialism, militarism, economic exploitation, patriarchal family structures, religious dogmatism, and the false needs generated by consumerism all render it irrational. Only a kind of primal guilt maintains the identification with its values and institutions. Punishment is sought and employed to quell the desire for liberation and archetypical thoughts of rebellion by the sons against the unequal distribution of work and satisfaction imposed by the primal father. Deadened by the culture industry, bereft of alternatives, lacking in reflexivity, caught within the whirl of a fast-paced yet ultimately meaningless existence, individuals thus lose control of their history.

p.76 – Adorno, Minima Moralia: “Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.”

7 – The Happy Consciousness

p.80 – According to the Frankfurt School, the culture industry integrates all opposition by its very nature. The importance of a work is a direct function of its popularity.

p.81 – The Frankfurt School believed that the culture industry is an essential feature of the totally administered society. Marxists had always viewed culture as a prop for the ruling class, and Louis Althusser later wrote about an “ideological-state-apparatus.” But the Frankfurt School took this like of argument in a different direction. Assumptions made by the inner circle concerning the character of mass culture, its ongoing assault on intellectual standards, involve the integration of concerns that were first raised by conservatives.

8 – The Great Refusal

p.90 – Critical theory was an important intellectual impetus for the European student movement of the 1960s. in the United States, however, most seminal works of critical theory were translated only during the 1970s.
The identification of culture with the happy consciousness is never quite as absolute.

p.93 – The culture industry thrives on happiness. Its is standardized and prepackaged. But real happiness contests a miserable reality. It speaks only to the experience of the particular individual.

9 – From Resignation to Renewal

p.104 – Karl Marx grave site in London: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it!”

p.108 – The Frankfurt School was profoundly mistaken in thinking that the Enlightenment – or better, its scientific rationality – should be interpreted as triumphant or in isolation from the theory and practice of its rivals. Enlightenment thinking has always been on the defensive. That remains the case. From the “know-nothings,” “America firsters” to the “Tea Party” of our own time, indeed the United States has suffered from what Richard Hofstadter called a “paranoid” strain in politics. the most cursory look at world events further justifies this assessment. Human rights, tolerance, cosmopolitan ideals (and even science) are most everywhere under siege – or, at least, contested – by forces of religious fanaticism, cultural provincialism, and authoritarian reaction.

p.111 – Culture has always been used to maintain the rule of the powerful and the submission of the powerless.

Saturday Night Live and the comedienne Tina Fey helped demolish Governor Sarah Palin – the notorious vice-presidential choice of Senator John McCain and the Republicans in 2008 – at least for that campaign. Mass media has, of course, been employed by right-wing demagogues. But the culture industry is best conceived as “contested terrain” in which battles are constantly taking place between unequal combatants with opposed ideological visions and values. Or put another way, the culture industry is a branch of commodity production that can prove critical of its context.

p.114 – Agency has not disappeared from the world. Radical social movements still exist. But they are divided by deep and abiding differences. There is competition for recourses, loyalty, and publicity. Incentives exist for organized interest groups to engage in the moral economy of the separate ideal – so that the whole of the Left becomes less than the sum of its parts. Critical theory can help in coordinating interests with new categories and new principles.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting summary of some key ideas within Critical Theory but also assumes the reader has a working knowledge of concepts such as ontology—which has taken me approx. 18 months of doctoral study to (mostly) understand—so ultimately fails at its stated task of being 'introductory'. I would suggest for any future editions that the author consider the power dynamics he is perpetuating through the gatekeeping of knowledge.

[☾⋆｡ A °✩.⟡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much more argumentative than I expected it to be (and far more than it needed to be…) but good!

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be an odd mix between a history of the Frankfurt school, and the author’s own interpretation of the present and future direction critical theory should take. Thus it was a little difficult to tell where he was critiquing his own heritage, and where he was merely describing historical developments.

[Illiterate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bronner focuses on political theory - alienation, fascism, utopia. His own dull politics intrude far too often.

[Gnuehc Ecnerwal · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Second Edition)
This book provides a thumbnail summary of the very wide scope that the ambitious Frankfurt School tried to conquer with their critical analysis. Needless to say, it is lacking in details. It does an adequate job in covering the key figures and their contributions to the movement. The author went beyond retracing the interactions between the ideas that came out of the Frankfurt School and the greater political and cultural environments that they reached, he chose to add some of his own critique and evaluation, which I felt is not harmful but unnecessary. It is not an easy book to read if you don't already have a few of the puzzles pieces, e.g., background knowledge of the socio-historical development in Europe, some basic familiarity with Marxism, etc. This book essentially helped to connect this piece of the Frankfurt School critical theory with the other concurrent developments in philosophy, art/culture, and geopolitics. as well as how it is linked to prior and subsequent socio-politico conditions.

On a side note, despite the impressive brain power that gravitated towards the Frankfurt School, especially in its inner circle, this bunch of blokes must have been a grinding bore to be around. I wouldn't want to be in a dinner party with Adorno, stuck in an elevator with Benjamin, go fishing with Marcuse. The only exception would be Fromm, he's alright with me. Perhaps that why he distanced himself from the Frankfurt School in later years.

[Daniel Cunningham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm going to second what a number of other reviewers have written, namely that for the uninitiated the lack of definitions or introductions of a number of terms is confusing, to say the least. It is odd because the author notes early on that excessive jargon and a certain amount of obscurantism was built into the writing of the critical theorists more or less on purpose. Having pointed that out he, or his editors, leave out the extra signposts and definitions that would combat this.

That said, I liked this introduction. I think I find Bronner's flavor of Crit much more... sane... than I was prepared for having had less than... enlightened... encounters with a handful of people who loudly declare themselves a practitioner of this or that critical theory. And to be honest, on Bronner's take, I'm something like a crit-theorist-lite. So maybe his is a minority take? I don't know.

With another 10 or 15 pages (overall) devoted to terminology, this would have been 4 stars for me.

[David Berry · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read Peter Singer's outstanding introduction to Hegel from the same series. This book is two leagues down. It superficially treats the intellectual concerns of the Frankfurt School and turns glib in its contemporary politics.

[عامر شافع · Rating 1 out of 5]

مجرد سرد لتاريخ النظرية النقدية
الكتاب لم يعجبني ، فهوا سيء في طرحه للافكار ، ربما السبب في الترجمة لكن لا ارشح هذا فمؤسسة هنداوي معروف عنها الدقة في الطرح.
لم يتكلم عن النظرية النقدية بل اكتفى بالجانب التاريخي.

[l · Rating 2 out of 5]

books like this are why my engagement with theory over the last six years of university has been incredibly piecemeal.

[Yngve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lettlest, men småtørr. Helt grei oppsummering med noen litt malplasserte betraktninger om veien videre for feltet helt på slutten.