On Fri, 18 Apr 2003 10:18:12 -0400 (EDT) "H. Curtiss Leung"
<hncl at panix.com> writes:
> Ow...I have to disagree on two points here. First, I can't
> think of a single polite mention of either the Frankfurt
> School or its individual members that are even polite, let
> alone respectful, in Bloom's awful books. He says that
> Marcuse's work was "trashy cultural criticism," calls Adorno
> a "psycho-sociologist", and writes off all their work as
> a wrong headed "Nietzscheanization of the Left."
Its a bit more complicated than that. What he said of Marcuse was "Marcuse began in Germany in the twenties by being something of a serious Hegel scholar. He ended up here writing trashy culture criticism with a heavy sex interest in *One Dimensional Man* and other well-known books." I think what he found objectionable about Marcuse was precisely that he attempted to pitch his ideas to a mass audience (consisting at least of university students). If only had Marcuse stuck to writing books on Hegel, presumably like *Reason and Revolution* then he would have been alright in Bloom's judgement.
For Bloom all that was interesting and/or worthwhile in the writings of the Frankfurters stemmed from either Nietzsche or Heidegger. It was Marx, that Bloom gave short shrift to, and basically dismissed out of hand. He could not be so dismissive of either Nietzsche or Heidegger since his own philosophical tendency, stems just as much from the work of those two Germans. Bloom makes a big song-and-dance over value relativism and the role of the Frankfurters and others in having popularized it. But a close reading of Bloom, (an esoteric reading, to use Straussian lingo), suggests that he did not really reject Nietzschean or Heideggerian relativism as such, but thought it dangerous to propagate such ideas beyond the "enlightened" few, who were capable of assimilating them without there becoming unsettled by them. What Bloom seems to have found objectionable about the Frankfurters was they contributed to the popularization, and hence, the vulgarization of philosophical nihilism.
>Second,
> Marcuse studied with Heidegger--I think he supervised Marcuse's
> dissertation--and Horkheimer attended some of his lectures,
> but Adorno from first to last hated him. Dennis R. can
> give more info.
>
> I don't think this is causual sloppiness either, but part of
> the Straussian strategy: polemicize against anything that might
> offer a antidote to the poison you're giving people. Misrepresent
> the real history and circumstances of debates and differences
> so that even the curious (potential apostates) can't quite get
> out of the magic circle you've drawn around them.
>
> >
> >
> > A comparitive analysis of the views of Hannah Arendt, Herbert
> > Marcuse, and Leo Strauss might be of interest, since all
> > of these former students of Heidegger seemed to have
> > incorporated vast chunks of the old man's vision into
> > their own work. I am reminded that when I first read
> > Allan Bloom's *The Closing of the American Mind*,
> > that he seemed rather unusually respectful when
> > he was discussing the Frankfurt School, perhaps
> > because he recognized that the Frankfurters and
> > the Straussians shared a common origin with
> > Heidegger.
> >
> > Jim F.
> >
> > On Fri, 18 Apr 2003 03:35:18 -0700 (PDT) Chuck Grimes
> <cgrimes at rawbw.com>
> > writes:
> > >
> > > If I recollect Young-Bruehl's biography of Arendt correctly,
> Strauss
> > > tried to woo Arendt in the 20s and she rejected him. Chris Doss
> > >
> > > ------------
> > >
> > > Yeah, you're right. I completely forgot that. I just looked it
> > > up. They knew each other through the Prussian state library
> where he
> > > was working(?) for Gadamer(?).
> > >
> > > `` When she criticized his conservative political views and
> dismissed
> > > his suit, he became bitterly angry. The bitterness lasted for
> > > decades,
> > > growing worse when the two joined the same American faculty at
> the
> > > University of Chicago in the 1960s. Strauss was haunted by the
> rather
> > > cruel way in which Hannah Arendt had judged his assessment of
> > > National
> > > Socialism: she pointed out the irony of the fact that a
> political
> > > party advocating views Strauss appreciated could have no place
> for a
> > > Jew like him...'' (98p, Young-Bruehl)
> > >
> > > So it might be worth looking into the detail of what Strauss had
> to
> > > say early in the German nationalism debates of the 20s, where
> people
> > > like Mann began to see the consequences of what he had orginally
> > > written, show up as literary trappings for the early nazi
> > > movements. Heidegger of course fits right in. And it was
> reflecting
> > > on
> > > this cultural phenomenon that later leads Cassirer to write the
> Myth
> > > of State.
> > >
> > > Anyway any link, no matter how obscure between the German nazis
> and
> > > the American Neoconservatives is fine by me. I always thought
> they
> > > were nazis anyway.
> > >
> > > Chuck Grimes
> > > ___________________________________
> > > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > >
> >
> >
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