The Frankfurt School lives in the Third World
The Frankfurt School lives in the Third World
Critical social theory debunks decadent imperialism and pathological Cultural Marxism
I recently came across an interesting and insightful article by Dustin J. Byrd in Islamic Perspective: Journal of the Islamic Studies and Humanities. Byrd contrasts two polarizing ideological extremes, namely, an extremist Right ethnic nationalism and an authoritarian “heretic hunting” Left. He analyzes the pathological tendencies in both, and he seeks to cast aside both through critical social theory.1
The Extreme Right pathological current of thought and political action analyzed by Byrd does not have much influence, at least in its pathological form. Byrd is describing those who “call for de-diversification, that is, the removal of all that does not inherently belong to the Euro-American ethnosphere. They call for the periodic and forcible removal of all anatopists (those living in the wrong place). Non-Europeans, those with religions other than Christianity, and the foreign born must remigrate to their ancestral lands.” To be sure, after decades of sustained decline, extreme Right views of this type have enjoyed a revival recently, because of the absurdities and common-sense unintelligence of Cultural Marxism. But relatively few citizens openly embrace such extreme views.
While the Far Right has few adherents, mainstream American Conservatism is far more influential. But it is not pathological. Mainstream American Conservatism embraces the fundamental democratic principles of equality for all regardless of race or gender. It is concerned with uncontrolled immigration and the possibility of a future majority minority, but it calls, reasonably enough, for little more than the enforcement of migratory laws and the discouragement of illegal migration. It values individual effort, but it nonetheless recognizes the existence of unjust class inequalities. It rejects the unsound assumption, disseminated by Cultural Marxists, that existing racial inequities are caused by white racism rather than by other factors. It rejects the absurd claim that gender is a matter of identity; it sees gender classification in terms of biological characteristics gifted to individuals by nature and/or God at birth. It embraces the scientific claim that a unique human life begins at conception. These views, even if not universally held, are not unreasonable, and they cannot with fairness be portrayed as pathological.
Of course, mainstream American Conservatism is fundamentally mistaken with respect to international affairs. But this is due to ethnocentrism rather than pathology. For the last century and a quarter, the American elite has led the people toward a myopic view of the world, a view that sees America as the defender of democracy. This fundamentally false view has been disseminated by the elite because it distracts the attention of the people away from studying the sources of their limited socioeconomic possibilities, and because it has stimulated the expansion of industries related to war. The people have found it difficult to see through these false claims, not because they have pathological personalities, but because they have very limited personal experience of the realities of the world beyond U.S. borders.
The pathology of Cultural Marxism
Byrd rejects Cultural Marxism, maintaining that it is a “pathological critique” formulated by Leftist scholars, academics, and activists, which is characterized by “one-dimensional fanaticism,” that is “focused on negation, deconstructionism, and the tearing down of society for the sake of past sins.” This pathological critique fails “to separate the good from the bad and the true from the false. The mere presence of the bad and the false is justification for the destruction of the totality, no matter if the totality would in other ways be beneficial or truthful.” Pathological critique fails to distinguish that which is good and salvageable within the Western tradition and Western civilization from that which ought to be negated.
Pathological critique, therefore, fails to think dialectically, Byrd maintains. It is not aware of what I have called “the dialectic of domination and development,” in which the great advances in philosophy, science, technology, literature, and the arts are built on the foundation of the conquest and domination of other kingdoms and societies. Pathological critique is simplistic, not grasping the ironies and complexities of the human condition, which have inescapably expressed themselves in all historical periods since the agricultural revolution, including our own.
For the pathological critique, “the essence of politics is the identification of the enemy.” Byrd writes:
“This is especially the case for White pathological critics who deem themselves anti-racists. In their cases, the most effective psychological tool for the overcoming of their own hated ‘whiteness,’ is the aggressive identification of ‘whiteness’ within other Whites. Attacking the sinister White other allows the pathological critic to suppress, sublate, or even deny their own inherent whiteness. Their private guilt for their own overt whiteness is camouflaged by the public virtue of their anti-whiteness. . . . Pathological critics publicly engage in masochistic flagellations of the ethnos to which they belong, in an attempt to convince others that they have fully renounced their own whiteness.”
The pathological critique denounces Western Civilization, Byrd maintains.
“Those who engage in pathological critique see Western Civilization only through the prisms of that which ought to be negated, most often due to the West’s long history of racism, gender domination, worker exploitation, slavery, and the tendency for religious institutions to justify, legitimate, and sanctify the unjust status quo of the slave societies, the feudal system, and now neoliberal capitalism. Indeed, this ‘night side’ of Western history casts its darkness far and wide. Much of the world today has been determined by the darkness that emanated from the West’s treatment of the rest of the world.”
The pathological critique is the mirror image of white supremacy. Byrd writes that pathological critique is “a one-dimensional form of thought, the mirror opposite of White Supremacy, for it debases and demonizes all that is associated with European ethnoi as being inherently oppressive, tainted with racism and hate, and therefore worthy of a complete and total cancelation.” Accordingly, both leftist pathological critique and White Supremacy are characterized by “the authoritarian spirit, the will-to-dominance, and the desire to expunge the non-identical in the name of purity. They are both self-reverential, intolerant of dissent, and ready to ostracize anyone that fails to submit to their dogmas.”
Critical social theory as universal Marxist theory tied to political practice
Byrd maintains that critical social theory, most fully expressed, at least up to now, by the Frankfurt School, is characterized by the negation of concrete structures of oppression and ideological distortions, which must be distinguished from the pathological critique, which is characterized by “an irrational abstract negation.” Critical theory seeks to salvage from the past that which ought to be rescued and advanced, and to relegate to the dustbin of history through rational critique that which cannot be salvaged. Up to the present, Critical Theory has not been able to advance toward the construction of an alternative world order. However, in the current context of the emergence of worldwide cultural diversity, the possibility exists for Critical Theory to break from its impasse. To do so, however, “Critical Theory must go to school with scholars from the global South, with Muslim theologians, Hindu philosophers, Iranian sociologists, Chinese theorists, etc.” In this encounter with the Global South, “The goal of Critical Theory is not to cancel the culture from which Critical Theory is born, but rather to sharpen its consciousness, rescue that which ought to be rescued, negate what ought to be negated, and create the geography for a more reconciled global society, which does not denigrate nor deify the West, but rather provides a much-needed renovation of the Western tradition and intellectual inheritance.” In this process, Critical Theory will be rescuing the Western tradition from the irrationality of the pathological critique, and it will “make world emancipation its project.”
I would like to take Byrd’s comments on the Frankfurt School and the role of Critical Theory in our times as a point of departure for reflections on the possibilities for the emergence of a universal critical Marxist theory.
The Frankfurt School refers to scholars affiliated with the Institute for Social Research, which was established at the University of Frankfurt in 1924, with the intention of developing a Marxist scholarship that was independent from mainstream tendencies in the academic world as well as from the theoretical tendencies of Marxist political parties. It emerged to prominence in the Western intellectual world in the aftermath of the failure of the proletarian revolution in Western Europe, in the context of the reformist accommodation of the working-class movement to capitalism, and in the time of the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe.
Max Horkheimer, one of the three founders of the Institute, maintained that the seeds for the rise of fascism were planted by the secularism of the Enlightenment. He argued that if religious claims could not be verified through empirical observation, as Enlightenment thinkers maintained, then neither could the reasoned claims of the philosophers with respect to moral ends and goals. Accordingly, decisions concerning moral ends and goals are decided outside the realm of reason and in the domain of politics and power. Because of this “eclipse of reason,” there is no way to demonstrate that freedom and democracy are more reasonable than their negation; and there is no way to demonstrate that fascism is unreasonable. At a superficial level, fascism negates Enlightenment ideals; but at a more fundamental level, fascism is the culmination of the Enlightenment, because of the societal incapacity to negate fascism, rooted in Enlightenment epistemological assumptions.2
The epistemological problem is reinforced by advertising in advanced industrial society, according to Herbert Marcuse, who joined the Institute for Social Research during its first decade and emigrated to the USA during the rise of Naziism.3 Marcuse argued that false needs, beyond what was needed for the full and free development of the personality, are imposed on individuals by particular social interests with an economic stake in a consumer society. As a result, the private space and the inner freedom of the individual are invaded and whittled down, such that the critical power of reason is destroyed, and individuals are left without the capacity for critically challenging the assumptions of the status quo and the interests of the dominant class.
For Marcuse, advanced industrial society is a one-dimensional society without the capacity for dialectical thinking. Dialectical thinking, illustrated by Plato, grasps the essence as well as the appearance of social reality. The appearance pertains to current actual conditions, but the essence of social reality is the potential for human development from the existing conditions. To see the appearance is to see the present human condition; to grasp the essence is to discern a human life that is better than what is possible in existing conditions. The discerning of the essence hidden in the appearance implies being critical of existing conditions, and it is driven by the human desire for freedom, liberation, and emancipation.
Marcuse taught that discerning the essence of the current social reality is the mission and the work of critical social theory, a dialectical form of thinking that is grounded in the human desire for full freedom and emancipation. Critical theory believes in the possibility of the transformation of society, thus establishing the conditions that are the pillars of human happiness. Critical theory is imaginative, but not utopian. It has the capacity to envision real possibilities that can emerge from present conditions, but it is not a matter of phantasy. It is a question of discerning potentialities in the concrete social situation.
Critical social theory is a collective construction. It is rooted in collective courses of action that seek social transformation in accordance with the emerging discernment of the essence and the potential practical possibilities of society. For Marcuse, critical theory emerges in dialectical relation with the emerging new society of human freedom, which is a society that not only grounds free decision on the basis of reason and knowledge but also provides for the true needs of all. As the new society emerges, a form of philosophy that is divorced from the human struggle for emancipation becomes obsolete, and it is replaced by critical social theory.
The collective struggle for emancipation emerges from a society with a prevailing ideology, which functions to make the established order comprehensible. Critical social theory must debunk this established ideology on the basis of scientific knowledge and its own emerging and increasingly discerning understanding. Marcuse refers to the previous socially accepted way of viewing the world as the established historical project. Debunking the prevailing ideology requires political maturity and historical/social consciousness, because the established historical project has demonstrated its practical capacity to organize production and distribution and to forge ideological consensus. Whatever its contradictions, it must be taken seriously as a successful project that requires critical insight to effectively challenge.
Scientific, technological, economic, and social development create new human potentialities. When an established historical project fails to adapt its institutions to these new potentialities, its ideology is rendered outdated. Marcuse writes that “the established rationality becomes irrational when . . . the potentialities of the system have outgrown its institutions.” In this situation, new historical projects are proposed, which are “transcendent historical projects,” if they if they are consistent with the real possibilities contained in existing technical and social conditions, if they have “the prospect of preserving and improving the productive achievements of civilization,” and if they facilitate “the free development of human needs and faculties.”
Marcuse maintains that the task of critical social theory is to formulate transcendental historical projects. I take this to be an important point of departure for understanding today’s world. I maintain that this task of critical social theory has been assumed by the leaders and movements of the Third World during the last three-quarters of a century.
The transcendent historical project of the Third World
The European conquest and colonization of vast regions of the world from 1492 to 1914 provided the pillars for the capitalist world-economy and for unprecedented advances in technology and productivity. However, with the world-system under the political and economic control of the colonizers, these advances benefitted very few of the colonized, and in general they created the underdevelopment of the colonized regions. Driven by a desire for liberation from foreign domination, Third World movements of national liberation emerged, which were able to compel the conceding of political independence to the colonized peoples. However, although there were important exceptional cases (such as Vietnam, China, Korea, and Cuba), many of the leaders of Third World states were not able to mobilize the political will to confront the capacity of the world-system to economically, politically, and ideologically adapt to the demand for political independence. The Third World project, therefore, was still in the early stages in the formulation of a transcendent historical project.
At the same time, the reforms in the political-economy of the world-system were insufficient for the effective long-term containment of Third World needs and aspirations. In the neocolonial world order, the established core-peripheral economic structures were in essence preserved, confining the economies of the colonized to the exportation of cheap raw materials on a base of coerced labor. In response to this situation, some of the semi-peripheralized and peripheralized nations were able to politically mobilize a certain level of resources for the diversification of their economies. The four rebel countries were among them, empirically demonstrating the possibility of an independent road. At the same time, continuous scientific and technological development was increasing the productive potential of the capitalist world-economy, thus increasingly establishing the possibility for ecologically and economically sustainable production and for distribution in accordance with true needs, with attention to the fundamental human needs of the most vulnerable. The real possibility for the emergence of a more just world was expressing itself, discerned by the most insightful critical social thinkers.
However, the governing structures of the world-system, such as the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions, remained impervious to reform, and they, along with the policies of the world powers, increasingly became fetters on the productive capacity of the system. This has created a situation in which, in Marcuse’s terminology, “the potentialities of the system have outgrown its institutions.” In addition, the world powers have turned to increasingly aggressive imperialism, in the form of neoliberal economic policies, endless wars, and unconventional wars, thereby making evident their decadence. In the terminology of Marcuse, the rationality of imperialism has become irrational.
The Third World project emerged with the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. It established itself as an organized collective process, in which leaders in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe (such as Sukarno, Nkrumah, Nasser, and Tito) played a central role; and which critically reflected on the structures of neocolonial domination and the possibilities for liberation in the context of the neocolonial situation. In those early years, the Third World project spoke on behalf of a significant part of the neocolonized peoples of the world, and its reach was further expanded with the UN approval in 1974 of the declaration for a New International Economic Order. The implementation of neoliberal economic policies following 1980 initially provoked confusion and division, but a boomerang effect was visible by the dawn of the twenty-first century, since neoliberalism had deeply negative consequences for the peoples, and it made evident the decadence of imperialism. During the 1980s and 1990s, Fidel played a leading role, explaining to the peoples the alternative real possibilities, not only possible but necessary, inherent in the world-economy. During the first two decades of the current century, a new generation of Latin American and Caribbean leaders have forged a new anti-imperialist political reality, making alliance with China and Xi Jinping. These dynamics were soon followed by BRICS and its evolution to BRICS 11 and by the emergence of anti-imperialist regional integration projects in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Today, the Non-Aligned Movement, embracing its historic principles, has arrived to include 120 members. The G77 has arrive to include 134 member nations, with 116 of them recently reaffirming anti-imperialist principles at its September 15-16, 2023, Summit in Havana.
Third World anti-imperialist practice is the culmination of the collective critical reflection envisioned as a human potentiality by Marcuse. This reality must today be brought to critical self-consciousness, such that intellectuals of the advanced industrial societies see the need to experience personal encounter and critically engage the intellectuals and leaders of the Third World project, which is today attaining greater force than ever, a phenomenon that is occurring as the neocolonial world-system and imperialism make increasingly evident their decadence, which ought to further drive the human quest for collective emancipation.
In bringing Western Critical Social Theory to a stage of encounter with the leaders and movements of the Third World, intellectuals of the advanced industrial societies would be participating in the construction, in the context of political struggle, of a critical social theory that transcends the boundaries of any particular culture or civilization. Thus, we are imagining the possibility of a universal critical theory.
A universal critical theory that emerges through personal encounter with the Third World plus China is a continuation of the project of Marx. Because like Marx, it would seek insight on the basis of the political struggle of those that have been reduced to marginality by the political-economic system. And because, like Marx, it would discern meaning in human history, unfolding through the dynamics of conflict among nations and classes and their corresponding political practice, and culminating in human emancipation. And because like Marx, it would seek the nullification of philosophy, and the attainment of human emancipation through critical social theory. We are imagining, therefore, a universal critical social theory that is Marxist.
The emerging universal Marxist critical social theory must avoid the error of idealism, because the established historical project has proven its practicality. A collective process seeking social transformation must demonstrate to individuals—existing as a mass with limited social organization in advanced industrial society and with repressed understanding of the possibilities for their own emancipation—that it has the correct understanding of the real possibilities that are contained in the existing society.
Unfortunately, idealism, and even worse, an in-your-face idealism that deliberately seeks to shock, is standard fare among activists who carry the banner of Cultural Marxism, thus undermining the possibility for the advance of true Marxist critique. The emerging universal Marxist critical social theory has nothing in common with pathological Cultural Marxism. Universal Marxist critical social theory must reduce Cultural Marxism to irrelevance, through the truth and power of its critique.
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Dustin J. Byrd. 2021. “Between Ethnonationalism and Pathological Critique: Critical Theory as Critique and Defense of the Western Tradition,” Islamic Perspective: Journal of the Islamic Studies and Humanities, Volume 25, Pp. 1-17.
Horkheimer, Max. 1972 (1937). “Traditional and Critical Theory” in Critical Theory. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell and others. New York: Herder and Herder.
Horkheimer, Max. 1974 (1947). Eclipse of Reason. New York: Seabury Press.
The paragraphs on Marcuse are based on:
Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press.
Marcuse, Herbert. 1968 (1937). “Philosophy and Critical Theory” in Negations. Boston: Beacon Press.
great article.