On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Dennis R Redmond wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Softel wrote:
>
> > So ask yourself which "leftist",
> > "socialist" or "Marxist" analysis explained the fall of the Soviet
> > Union?
>
> The Frankfurt School did. Adorno pointed out as early as the Fifties that
> the East was but the pale ontological shadow of the West, right down to
> hideous industrialism and exchange-value-mad elites lording it over their
> serf-workers. One set worshipped at the altar of Diamat, the other at
> Daimler-Benz, but the content was drearily similar.
>
But Adorno, especially later on, had very little conviction that either version of Dreary was headed for a fall--did he? The Frankfurters, because they tended to see the problem as technology and the kind of thinking that it produces, became increasingly pessimistic about the possibilities for change, and increasingly utopian.