Critical theory

The Frankfurt School began in Germany in 1923 following a seminar given at Hotel Geraberg near Weimar in Germany (Schecter 2010: 85). It was based at the Institute for Social Research, which was set up with the specific aim of giving support to the workers movement in Germany after World War I.

Horkheimer called for a ‘continuous, dialectical penetration and development of philosophical theory and specialized scientific praxis' (Horkheimer 1993). The institute would set up at least on a very small scale, ‘planned work in place of the mere juxtaposition of philosophical construction and empirical research in social inquiry' (Horkheimer 1993) and therefore a project of ‘organizing inquiries on the basis of current philosophical questions, in which philosophers, sociologists, economists, historians, and psychologists can unite in lasting co-operation' (Wiggershaus 1994: 39).

Critical theory was developed in reaction to the Marxism of the Social Democratic movement before World War I. There was immense industrial and technical development of capitalism during the first 30 years of the twentieth century in Germany and Russia - particularly technological and organizational developments. Following the devastation of World War I, the failure of German revolution (1918-20) and a period of unrest, politics and culture were in constant upheaval. This included the Stalinization of the revolution in Russia, the rise of Fascism in Germany and Italy, and the various artistic, cultural and literary responses to these events, including movements like Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism, Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), ProLit Cult and others. Today, we understand these as ‘modernism', but at the time they were seen as disparate movements based on different theories of the relationship between art and society. For the critical theorists, the ‘crucible of the whole “critical Marxist” or “Western Marxist" or “Hegelian Marxist” enterprise was the failure of the German Revolution (1918-21) and the success of the Russian Revolution (1917)' (Arato and Gebhardt 2005: 4). As no sophisticated theory was available to elaborate the implications of this for the advanced countries of the West, a task of theoretical reconstruction of Marxism was initiated.

The most active time in the institute was marked by the rise of Nazism and Fascism (from 1930-44), and in the 1930s the institute moved first to Switzerland and then to New York.

When Horkheimer became the director of the Institute in 1931, he gave an inaugural lecture, ‘The present situation of social philosophy and the tasks of an Institute of Social Research'. In it, he outlined the research agenda of the institute, calling for an interdisciplinary approach to research including juridical, cultural, historical, economic, political, aesthetic and social questions (Schecter 2010: 86). Philosophers, he argued, ‘have all too often treated these questions [about individual and society, the meaning of culture, and the basis of social life] in the abstract, divorced from history and social context' (Held 1997: 32). At the same time ‘artistic and cultural production could not be written off as spheres of secondary importance to social theory' (Jarvis 1998: 9). Thus researchers should ask what relations existed between particular social groups, in specific times in history, in particular nations, ‘between the position of the group in the economy, changes in the psychic structures of its membership and other relevant factors which condition and affect the group's thoughts and practices' (Held 1997: 32). That is, the historical conditions that lead to different forms of culture succeeding each other and the way in which history, social context and the mode of production are linked with historically situated cultural moments.

The concept of different forms of culture succeeding each other in history was drawn from the work of the philosopher G. W. Hegel, who was a major influence on Marx.

One of the key intellectual founders of critical theory, Lukacs, and other Marxists like Karl Korsch, therefore believed that traditional Marxism had become established, passive, deterministic and orthodox. They suggested re­storing the emphasis on praxis and human subjectivity so Marxism could again become a theory of revolution. For them, social analysis revealed that if the revolutionary subject was defeated, or not emerging, then there would need to be constant critique of these new forms of domination: economic, political and cultural (as the cultural had become political). Critical theory had to be resolutely opposed to Marxism as a science. Indeed, Marxism had to subject itself to criticism to prevent it from becoming passive and orthodox. This critical reflexivity is crucial to understanding critical theory, but also its relation to emancipatory reason and its opposition to instrumental rationality. This work fed directly into and greatly influenced the Frankfurt School theorists, as Horkheimer outlined in his three main themes for the work of the Institute,

The first... the necessity of re-specifying “the great philosophical ques­tions” in an interdisciplinary research programme. The second theme, is a call for a rejection of orthodox Marxism and its substitution by a reconstructed understanding of Marx's project.

In order to correct orthodox Marxism's determinism, the Frankfurt School reverted to a dynamic distinction between social processes and resultant social forms by taking as a model of culture and ideology, not base/superstructure but Marx's theory of commodity fetishism. Marx explains that commodity fetishism in a capitalist society requires that commodities are produced for a wage. The surplus value is realized, then the product is sold by the employer/ entrepreneur for a profit. This is contrasted with a non-capitalist society, where the worker would sell the product of the labour themselves, therefore realizing directly the value incorporated in the product. Thus a commodity (produced under capitalism) has a use value (its value in use), its specific qualities like the warmth of a coat, and its exchange value, what a commodity is equivalent to as a unit is usually mediated through money. As a result of this separation of use and exchange, people start to think that value inheres in the product itself, rather than it being an expression of social relations and activities between people. As Marx explained,

a commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses.... This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.

Marx called treating something as a relation between things, when in fact it is a set of determinate social relations, a fetish.The Frankfurt School believed that real social relations between people are transformed into and misunderstood as relations between things, providing a model of the relationship between social processes, social institutions and consciousness. Rather than the base/ superstructure, which reduces institutional and ideological formations to mere epiphenomena or to simple reflections of an economic base; this model provides a sociological explanation for the social determination yet relative autonomy of other social forms, such as culture. Thus such formations can be both socially determined and partially autonomous. Marx is not saying that the illusions that arise from commodity fetishism are wrong, rather that they are necessary and real, and that they nevertheless remain as illusions. Since Lukacs, this has been called reification, although this was not used in this way by Marx himself. The Frankfurt School argued that,

We live in a society dominated by the capitalist mode of production... a society based on exchange.... The particular constellation of social relations which ensures the unity of the capitalist social process also ensures it fetishization and reification. The products of human labour are viewed as independent, “having a life of their own”... Capitalism is... based on contradictions. Contradictions between socially generated illu­sions (ideology) and actuality (performance, effects) leads to crisis.... A general tendency exists towards capital intensive industries and increased concentration of capital. The free market is progressively replaced by the oligopolistic and monopolistic mass production of stand­ardized goods... (Held 1997: 41)

From the beginning the Frankfurt School also opposed phenomenology and existentialism, as they were thought to lack a historical, political and social awareness (and thus tended to focus on the centrality of alienation). Instead, the Frankfurt School used Marx to develop a theory of culture which analysed the changes in the objective features of capitalism. They called attention to the increase in reification - in effect capitalism's ability to transform social labour into a relation between things. Frankfurt School members not only drew on Marx, but also on Weber, Nietzsche and Freud as major critiques of culture and used these insights to understand social and cultural change in the first half of the twentieth century. They also drew upon Nietzsche and Freud to criticize the traditional ideas of the subject or the individual in philosophical idealism and earlier Marxist theory, and they developed a theory of literary production and reception on the basis of Marxism. According to Horkheimer,

Direct and violent translation of economic domination to political power (“domination” in Gramsci) is only one and not the best source of the stability of a mode of production. To be genuinely effective power must be translated into authority based on (explicit, implicit, or introjected) consent that is mediated by cultural institutions (family, school, religion, workplace, etc.). To use Max Weber's language, power must become legitimate domination (for Gramsci, hegemony). The actual dynamics of society, the rate of social change, cannot therefore be derived from the economy alone, but depends rather on the specificity of cultural institutions and even specific effects of these on personality structure. (Arato and Gebhardt 2005: 7)

Although there were understandable differences between the work of the members of the Institute, they shared common interests in the relationships between domination, myth, nature, the enlightenment and the structure of reason and technique. The two basic concerns of the Frankfurt School were therefore social philosophy and social psychology (Held 1997: 40). Nonetheless, familiar concerns with traditional Marxists' themes are clear in their work, including the notion that we live in a society dominated by the capitalist mode of production and exchange value, together with a concern over the relationship between exchange and abstract labour time. Particularly in relation to both the objective form and the subjective aspect of the production process, and the character of social relations within capitalist society, which are organized into a constellation of interdependencies which ensure the unity and the resultant fetishization and reification of the products of human labour. These issues together with the production of commodities and its ideological form are subject to contradictions which the Frankfurt School argue can result in antagonisms and conflict within society generating a general tendency towards the concentration of capital and the replacement of the ‘free market' with oligopolistic and monopolistic practices and the production of standardized mass goods and services. Thus resulting in an increase in the organic composition of capital, such that the amount of fixed capital per worker causes further instabilities in the accumulation process, thus requiring imperialism, expansion and war. As Horkheimer wrote,

The critical theory of society is, in its totality, the unfolding of a single existential judgment. To put it in broad terms, the theory states that the basic form of the historically given commodity economy on which modern history rests contains in itself the internal and external tensions of the modern era; it generates these tensions over and again in an increasingly heightened form... [that] finally hinders further development and drives humanity into a new barbarism. (Horkheimer 1972: 227)

The increased domination of nature and the control produced through science and technology resulted not in human emancipation, but, on the contrary, in greater oppression. The expansion of production has failed to produce greater liberation for humanity from necessity, as orthodox Marxists expected, rather ‘the division of control and the execution of tasks, between mental and repetitive mundane labour along with the effects of the culture industry... signalled the eclipse of reason' (Held 1997: 156). To address these issues the Frankfurt School developed five elements from Nietzsche's work. First, Nietzsche rejected a philosophy of history based on the Hegelian idea of an ultimate goal of history, a teleology, ideal society or a reconciliation of all contradictions. Rather, he applied contradiction to the optimistic philosophy of history itself, so that the process of historical change might turn into the opposite of all the ideals - what Adorno and Horkheimer call the Dialectic of Enlightenment (Horkheimer and Adorno 2006). Secondly, Nietzsche criticized the traditional philosophical idea of the subject; this concept argued that the unity of consciousness is the basis of all reality. The Frankfurt School, on the contrary, argued that social reality could not be reduced to the ‘facts of consciousness', thus social reality cannot be reduced to individuals' consciousness of it. But an analysis of social determinations of subjectivity is essential; in other words, subjectivity is a social category. Thirdly, Nietzsche's thought is based on the idea of Will to Power, and the Frankfurt School were interested in analyzing new forms of anonymous and universal political and cultural domination which affects everyone equally and prevents the emergence or formation of class consciousness. Fourthly, Nietzsche launched an attack on the bourgeois culture of his day, which he called bourgeois philistinism, and the Frankfurt School wanted to demonstrate the re-emergence of social contradictions in popular and serious culture, and were critical too of the distinction between high and low culture itself. Lastly, Nietzsche produced an analysis of the Birth of Tragedy in Greek society which was radically sociological but did not idealize these Greek societies. This provided a model for the Frankfurt School's analysis of literary genre, putting their emphasis on literary forms, rather than content.

In order to replace the traditional notion of the subject used in traditional philosophical and Marxism, the Frankfurt School also used Freudian theory to explicate the social formation of subjectivity and its contradictions in advanced capitalist society. They thought Freud's psychoanalytic theories could help explain the connection between economic and political processes and resultant cultural forms. Interestingly, they did not use Freud's more obviously sociological works, like Civilisation and its Discontents, rather they relied on Freud's central psychoanalytic concepts. For example, they were interested in the idea that individuality was a formation, an achievement, not an absolute or given, as they wanted to develop a theory of the loss of autonomy in advanced capitalist society which would not idealize what counted as individuality in the first place. They used Freudian theory in the acceptance and reproduction of authority in late capitalist society, in their examination of the success of fascism and in their development of the concept of the culture industry. They also used Freud to understand the influence of mass communications on people's consciousness and unconsciousness, and finally into their general inquiry into the possibility or impossibility of cultural experience in late capitalist society.

One of the most famous individuals associated with the Frankfurt School was Walter Benjamin, although technically not a member of the institute despite being associated with it. Nonetheless, his ideas were very influential and he argued that fascism introduces aesthetics into political life as a way of giving the masses a chance to ‘express themselves', instead of a chance to claim the masses' right to change property relations. Benjamin argued that by contrast, communism responds by politicizing art, by demystifying the production, the distribution, the form and the content of art, in an attempt to make art serve the cause of the masses and not vice versa. His writings were very influential on the Frankfurt School, particularly on Adorno. Indeed, he contributed to many of the themes that the Frankfurt School explored, including theories of capitalism, the structure of the state and of the rise of instrumental reason. These further included innovative analyses of science, technology and technique, of individual development, and the susceptibility of people to ideology, as well as consideration of the ‘dialectic of enlightenment' and of positivism as a dominant mode of cognition (Held 1997: 38).

Members of the Frankfurt School applied these theorists to the work of contemporary culture (e.g. Jazz, the mass media, Kafka, Mann and Beckett) and capitalism. Many members were artists as well as Marxist theorists and critics: Bloch was a composer, Benjamin wrote short stories, Brecht wrote poems and plays, and Adorno was a composer. Although the members were deeply influenced by Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, they also developed a Marxist aesthetic through polemics against Mann, Beckett and Kafka. The members of the institute believed that they faced the same dilemma as artists as they did as Marxists. They believed that art must 'modernize' itself in the face of colossal change otherwise it would have no importance or relevance. They naturally differed in how this modernization should be achieved, but what is interesting is that they applied their principles of innovation in both theoretical and artistic work. Horkheimer who had undergone psychoanalysis was keen to explore Freud's work in relation to a materialist theory of society, Erich Fromm worked on psychoanalysis to develop its insights in terms of social theory, Herbert Marcuse developed philosophical issues in confrontation with social theory, Leo Lowenthal developed literary-critical studies, while Friedrich Pollock and Henryk Grossman worked on political economy (Jarvis 1998: 9). This was to be an interdisciplinary project to develop a materialism that contributed towards a unification of philosophy and science.

Critical theory is concerned with understanding the particular historical conditions that give rise to the present. In undertaking this analysis, the political project of extending or augmenting the possibilities and space of freedom is a key theme - that is, extending emancipatory reason. As part of this, critical theorists seek to examine human reality as a self-unfolding, self-structured and, importantly, a contradictory whole. Some ways of approaching this include: (i) an examination of the frameworks and constitution of ideas in consciousness and human interaction - what they would call the dialectics of experience; (ii) analysis of the creation, maintenance and change of people's historical, intersubjective concepts; (iii) looking to explicate and identify contradictions; (iv) to leave open the possibility of a critically reflexive understanding of history and tradition.

However, there are clearly no general criteria for critical theory, as it is itself caught within a historical frame which is constantly unfolding. This, of course, leaves critical theory radically open to correction, re-articulation and a mobility of thought. In other words, humans are of a definite historical epoch, as is the rationality and knowledge that is located within them. Nonetheless, many of the members of the Frankfurt School were committed to an abolition of the economic structure which underlays contemporary social change so that a self-fulfilling praxis could emerge. Horkheimer wrote,

Unemployment, economic crises, militarization, terrorist regimes - in a word, the whole condition of the masses - are not due, for example, to limited technological possibilities, as might have been the case in earlier periods, but to the circumstances of production.................................................. Production is

not geared to the life of the community [to the common interest] while heeding also the claims of individuals; it is geared to the power-backed claims of individuals while being hardly concerned with the life of the community. This is the inevitable result, under the present property order, of the principle that it is sufficient for individuals to look out for themselves. (Horkheimer 1972: 213)

Thus for Horkheimer, the political task of critical theory is to create the possibilities for the individual to be set free, or to free themselves, from these material conditions. The Frankfurt School explore this in relation to research on the changing relations between techniques, the economy and the state in western economies (Held 1997: 52). Thus, as capitalism became integrative colonizing more and more aspects of social life into market relations, the Frankfurt School aimed to critique it. This could be seen in, for examples: (i) central control over individual decision-making, (ii) bureaucratic deliberation over local initiative, (iii) planning of resources instead of the use of market allocation of resources, (iv) technical considerations of general efficiency and rationality over traditional single-minded concern for an individual unit's profitability (from Held 1997: 64). This was understood in relation to the rise of instrumental reason, most notably in rationalization and bureaucratization.

Today, the rise of computational technology in our everyday lives has become a constant theme of modern understandings of our present situation. However, the salient features identified by the Frankfurt School are also reminiscent of another side to the increasing technological mediation of our lives, namely the interpenetration of computer code and algorithms into our private and public relationships with each other; more so when the code is privately or state owned or controlled, without us having access to the contents of these mediating technologies, what I call code-objects or computal objects. These objects contain the logic of behaviour, processing, or merely act as gatekeepers and enforcers of a particular form of rationalization. Similarly, the Frankfurt School sought to map calculative rationalities that emerged in their historical juncture, particularly, instrumental rationality and a tendency towards means-end thinking.

It is, however, important to note that the Frankfurt School members did not think that the rise of instrumental reason of itself was to blame for the ‘chaotic, frightening and evil aspects of technological civilisation' (Frankfurt Institute 1972: 94-5). Rather, it is the mode in which the process of rationalization is itself organized that accounts for the ‘irrationality of this rationalization'. In advanced capitalist societies, economic anarchy is interwoven with rationalization and technology to create fewer chances for mental and reflective labour. These include the rationalization and standardization of production and consumption; the mechanization of labour; the development of mass transportation and communication; the extension of training; and the dissemination of knowledge about the execution of jobs (Held 1997: 68). This creates the conditions for a decline in critical thinking, and the increase in the susceptibility of a society towards authoritarian politics and extreme or populist movements, such as Nazism. In these societies,

The individual has to adapt, follow orders, pull levers and “be ready to perform ever different things which are ever the same” The term “reason” becomes synonymous with the process of coordinating means to ends, or else it appears as a meaningless word... [Thus] “thinking objectifies itself... to become an automatic, self-activating process; an impersonation of the machine that it produces itself so that ultimately the machine can replace it” The values of instrumental reason are accorded a privileged status since they are embodied in the concept of rationality itself. The confounding of calculatory with rational thinking implies that whatever cannot be reduced to number is illusion or metaphysics. (Held 1997: 69)

This also implies an internalization of the logic of capitalism and technological rationality which sustains and reinforces ways of acting that are ‘adaptive, passive, and acquiescent' and through the ‘mechanisms of social control are strengthened' (Held 1997: 69). With this, we also see the co-option of forces of opposition and means by which it is rendered ineffective with a consequent dilution of their critical function. Nonetheless, behind this process lies ‘the domination of men over men. This remains the basic fact' (Adorno 1969: 149).This is a world where capital becomes highly centralized and the economy and political system become increasingly intertwined, leading to a world caught up in administration. Thus, market and bureaucratic practices increasingly become part of everyday life and are targeted by economic and corporate actors who seek to manage and control these activities. Therefore ‘as individual consciousness and unconsciousness were encroached upon by agencies which organize free time - for example radio, television... - the Frankfurt theorists stressed the urgency of developing a sociology of mass culture' (Held 1997: 77). For Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse,

Sociology and culture are inseparable: to analyse a work of art, or a particular cultural artefact, is to analyse and assess the way in which it is interpreted. This entails an inquiry into its formation and reception. Such an inquiry seeks to understand given works in terms of their social origins, form, content and function - in terms of the social totality. The conditions of labour, production, and distribution must be examined, for society expresses itself through its cultural life and cultural phenomenon contain within themselves reference to the socio-economic whole.... It must explore in detail the internal structure of cultural forms (the way in which the organization of society is crystallised in cultural phenomenon) and the mechanisms which determine their reception. (Held 1997: 77-8)

Thus, we can now turn to connecting these strands drawn from critical theory to the problem raised by the digital, and how critical theory can confront the digital today, particularly when viewed through the lens of software and computer code.