Podcasts about Horkheimer

Max Horkheimer dachte in den 1930er- und 40er-Jahren intensiv über den Kapitalismus nach, aus dem sich der Faschismus entwickeln konnte. In seinem kurzen Text „Die Rackets und der Geist“, der eigentlich der Aufschlag für ein größeres Forschungsprogramm werden sollte, setzt er sich mit Banden- bzw. Clan-Strukturen auseinander, die so dominant werden können, dass sie alles beherrschen und letztlich sowohl den marktwirtschaftlichen Liberalismus wie auch das Recht außer Kraft setzen. Wenn wir heute die Herrschaftsstrukturen in Russland, Ungarn oder zunehmend auch in den USA betrachten, scheint Horkheimers Charakterisierung der Racket-Herrschaft wieder zuzutreffen. Allerdings birgt dieser Begriff auch Probleme, da er oftmals unscharf bleibt. Zugleich will Horkheimer die Herrschaft des Rackets als eine grundsätzliche Eigenschaft von Herrschaft betrachten, die nicht nur unter einem Monopolkapitalismus zum Vorschein tritt. In der neuen Folge von „Wohlstand für Alle“ sprechen Ole Nymoen und Wolfgang M. Schmitt über die Rackets der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Literatur: Bertolt Brecht: Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui, Suhrkamp. Thorsten Fuchshuber über den Racket-Begriff: https://www.ca-ira.net/thorsten-fuchshuber-ueber-rackets-als-struktur-in-der-neuen-iz3w/. Max Horkheimer: „Die Rackets und der Geist.“ In: Gesammelte Schriften, Band 12, S. Fischer, S. 287–291. „Handelsblatt“-Interview mit Katharina Pistor: https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/usa-fuer-trump-und-musk-sind-universitaeten-parasiten-die-auf-der-staatskasse-liegen/100123600.html Termine: Ole und Wolfgang sind am 18.05. in Trier: http://www.museumsstadt-trier.de/downloads/Museumstag_2025_Leporello.pdf Ole ist am 19. 05. in Trier, um über sein Kriegsbuch zu sprechen: https://www.instagram.com/p/DJn9D7Iqv5m/?hl=de Wolfgang ist am 20.05. in Bremen: https://www.uni-bremen.de/fileadmin/user_upload/fachbereiche/fb10/fb10/pdf/PlakatGastvortrag_Schmitt.pdf Wolfgang ist am 21.05. in Erlangen: https://www.gew-bayern.de/aktuelles/detailseite/durch-die-linse-des-profits-hollywoods-kapitalismuskritik Unsere Zusatzinhalte könnt ihr bei Apple Podcasts, Steady und Patreon hören. Vielen Dank! Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/wohlstand-f%C3%BCr-alle/id1476402723 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/oleundwolfgang Steady: https://steadyhq.com/de/oleundwolfgang/about

„Kultur heute schlägt alles mit Ähnlichkeit. Film, Radio, Magazine machen ein System aus. Jede Sparte ist einstimmig in sich und alle zusammen“, schreiben Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno im Kulturindustrie-Kapitel in der „Dialektik der Aufklärung“. Wo manche Pluralisierung und Buntheit erkennen wollen, sehen die Philosophen der Frankfurter Schule eine große Vereinheitlichung innerhalb des Monopolkapitalismus am Werk, die konformes Denken und Autoritätshörigkeit produziert. Die Freizeitgestaltung unterscheidet sich nicht mehr wesentlich von der Arbeitszeit. Im Akkord wird konsumiert und produziert. Auch der Unterschied zwischen einer Ware und Kulturerzeugnissen verschwimmt, wenn alles käuflich wird. Im Zeitalter von algorithmischer Sortierung, von Spotify-Playlisten und KI-generierter Kunst lohnt es sich, das Kapitel aus dem Klassiker der Kritischen Theorie noch einmal zu lesen. In der neuen Folge von „Wohlstand für Alle“ sprechen Ole Nymoen und Wolfgang M. Schmitt über die Kulturindustrie der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Literatur: Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno: Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente, S. Fischer. Liz Pelly: Mood Machine. The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, Hodder & Stoughton. Tim Wu: The Master Switch. The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, Vintage Reprint. Unsere Zusatzinhalte könnt ihr bei Apple Podcasts, Steady und Patreon hören. Vielen Dank! Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/wohlstand-f%C3%BCr-alle/id1476402723 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/oleundwolfgang Steady: https://steadyhq.com/de/oleundwolfgang/about Veranstaltungen: Wir sind am 3. Mai in Zürich: https://www.millers.ch/spielplan/detail/jean-philippe-kindler-2186 Wir sind am 5. Mai in Stuttgart: https://theaterhaus.reservix.de/p/reservix/event/2318654

So what, exactly, was “The Enlightenment”? According to the Princeton historian David A. Bell, it was an intellectual movement roughly spanning the early 18th century through to the French Revolution. In his Spring 2025 Liberties Quarterly piece “The Enlightenment, Then and Now”, Bell charts the Enlightenment as a complex intellectual movement centered in Paris but with hubs across Europe and America. He highlights key figures like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Kant, and Franklin, discussing their contributions to concepts of religious tolerance, free speech, and rationality. In our conversation, Bell addresses criticisms of the Enlightenment, including its complicated relationship with colonialism and slavery, while arguing that its principles of freedom and reason remain relevant today. 5 Key Takeaways* The Enlightenment emerged in the early 18th century (around 1720s) and was characterized by intellectual inquiry, skepticism toward religion, and a growing sense among thinkers that they were living in an "enlightened century."* While Paris was the central hub, the Enlightenment had multiple centers including Scotland, Germany, and America, with thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, and Franklin contributing to its development.* The Enlightenment introduced the concept of "society" as a sphere of human existence separate from religion and politics, forming the basis of modern social sciences.* The movement had a complex relationship with colonialism and slavery - many Enlightenment thinkers criticized slavery, but some of their ideas about human progress were later used to justify imperialism.* According to Bell, rather than trying to "return to the Enlightenment," modern society should selectively adopt and adapt its valuable principles of free speech, religious tolerance, and education to create our "own Enlightenment."David Avrom Bell is a historian of early modern and modern Europe at Princeton University. His most recent book, published in 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution. Described in the Journal of Modern History as an "instant classic," it is available in paperback from Picador, in French translation from Fayard, and in Italian translation from Viella. A study of how new forms of political charisma arose in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the book shows that charismatic authoritarianism is as modern a political form as liberal democracy, and shares many of the same origins. Based on exhaustive research in original sources, the book includes case studies of the careers of George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint Louverture and Simon Bolivar. The book's Introduction can be read here. An online conversation about the book with Annette Gordon-Reed, hosted by the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, can be viewed here. Links to material about the book, including reviews in The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Harper's, The New Republic, The Nation, Le Monde, The Los Angeles Review of Books and other venues can be found here. Bell is also the author of six previous books. He has published academic articles in both English and French and contributes regularly to general interest publications on a variety of subjects, ranging from modern warfare, to contemporary French politics, to the impact of digital technology on learning and scholarship, and of course French history. A list of his publications from 2023 and 2024 can be found here. His Substack newsletter can be found here. His writings have been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Hebrew, Swedish, Polish, Russian, German, Croatian, Italian, Turkish and Japanese. At the History Department at Princeton University, he holds the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Chair in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions, and offers courses on early modern Europe, on military history, and on the early modern French empire. Previously, he spent fourteen years at Johns Hopkins University, including three as Dean of Faculty in its School of Arts and Sciences. From 2020 to 2024 he served as Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy. Bell's new project is a history of the Enlightenment. A preliminary article from the project was published in early 2022 by Modern Intellectual History. Another is now out in French History.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, in these supposedly dark times, the E word comes up a lot, the Enlightenment. Are we at the end of the Enlightenment or the beginning? Was there even an Enlightenment? My guest today, David Bell, a professor of history, very distinguished professor of history at Princeton University, has an interesting piece in the spring issue of It is One of our, our favorite quarterlies here on Keen on America, Bell's piece is The Enlightenment Then and Now, and David is joining us from the home of the Enlightenment, perhaps Paris in France, where he's on sabbatical hard life. David being an academic these days, isn't it?David Bell: Very difficult. I'm having to suffer the Parisian bread and croissant. It's terrible.Andrew Keen: Yeah. Well, I won't keep you too long. Is Paris then, or France? Is it the home of the Enlightenment? I know there are many Enlightenments, the French, the Scottish, maybe even the English, perhaps even the American.David Bell: It's certainly one of the homes of the Enlightenment, and it's probably the closest that the Enlightened had to a center, absolutely. But as you say, there were Edinburgh, Glasgow, plenty of places in Germany, Philadelphia, all those places have good claims to being centers of the enlightenment as well.Andrew Keen: All the same David, is it like one of those sports games in California where everyone gets a medal?David Bell: Well, they're different metals, right, but I think certainly Paris is where everybody went. I mean, if you look at the figures from the German Enlightenment, from the Scottish Enlightenment from the American Enlightenment they all tended to congregate in Paris and the Parisians didn't tend to go anywhere else unless they were forced to. So that gives you a pretty good sense of where the most important center was.Andrew Keen: So David, before we get to specifics, map out for us, because everyone is perhaps as familiar or comfortable with the history of the Enlightenment, and certainly as you are. When did it happen? What years? And who are the leaders of this thing called the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, that's a big question. And I'm afraid, of course, that if you ask 10 historians, you'll get 10 different answers.Andrew Keen: Well, I'm only asking you, so I only want one answer.David Bell: So I would say that the Enlightenment really gets going around the first couple of decades of the 18th century. And that's when people really start to think that they are actually living in what they start to call an Enlightenment century. There are a lot of reasons for this. They are seeing what we now call the scientific revolution. They're looking at the progress that has been made with that. They are experiencing the changes in the religious sphere, including the end of religious wars, coming with a great deal of skepticism about religion. They are living in a relative period of peace where they're able to speculate much more broadly and daringly than before. But it's really in those first couple of decades that they start thinking of themselves as living in an enlightened century. They start defining themselves as something that would later be called the enlightenment. So I would say that it's, really, really there between maybe the end of the 17th century and 1720s that it really gets started.Andrew Keen: So let's have some names, David, of philosophers, I guess. I mean, if those are the right words. I know that there was a term in French. There is a term called philosoph. Were they the founders, the leaders of the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, there is a... Again, I don't want to descend into academic quibbling here, but there were lots of leaders. Let me give an example, though. So the year 1721 is a remarkable year. So in the year, 1721, two amazing events happened within a couple of months of each other. So in May, Montesquieu, one of the great philosophers by any definition, publishes his novel called Persian Letters. And this is an incredible novel. Still, I think one of greatest novels ever written, and it's very daring. It is the account, it is supposedly a an account written by two Persian travelers to Europe who are writing back to people in Isfahan about what they're seeing. And it is very critical of French society. It is very of religion. It is, as I said, very daring philosophically. It is a product in part of the increasing contact between Europe and the rest of the world that is also very central to the Enlightenment. So that novel comes out. So it's immediately, you know, the police try to suppress it. But they don't have much success because it's incredibly popular and Montesquieu doesn't suffer any particular problems because...Andrew Keen: And the French police have never been the most efficient police force in the world, have they?David Bell: Oh, they could be, but not in this case. And then two months later, after Montesquieu published this novel, there's a German philosopher much less well-known than Montesqiu, than Christian Bolz, who is a professor at the Universität Haller in Prussia, and he gives an oration in Latin, a very typical university oration for the time, about Chinese philosophy, in which he says that the Chinese have sort of proved to the world, particularly through the writings of Confucius and others, that you can have a virtuous society without religion. Obviously very controversial. Statement for the time it actually gets him fired from his job, he has to leave the Kingdom of Prussia within 48 hours on penalty of death, starts an enormous controversy. But here are two events, both of which involving non-European people, involving the way in which Europeans are starting to look out at the rest of the world and starting to imagine Europe as just one part of a larger humanity, and at the same time they are starting to speculate very daringly about whether you can have. You know, what it means to have a society, do you need to have religion in order to have morality in society? Do you need the proper, what kind of government do you need to to have virtuous conduct and a proper society? So all of these things get, you know, really crystallize, I think, around these two incidents as much as anything. So if I had to pick a single date for when the enlightenment starts, I'd probably pick that 1721.Andrew Keen: And when was, David, I thought you were going to tell me about the earthquake in Lisbon, when was that earthquake?David Bell: That earthquake comes quite a bit later. That comes, and now historians should be better with dates than I am. It's in the 1750s, I think it's the late 1750's. Again, this historian is proving he's getting a very bad grade for forgetting the exact date, but it's in 1750. So that's a different kind of event, which sparks off a great deal of commentary, because it's a terrible earthquake. It destroys most of the city of Lisbon, it destroys other cities throughout Portugal, and it leads a lot of the philosophy to philosophers at the time to be speculating very daringly again on whether there is any kind of real purpose to the universe and whether there's any kind divine purpose. Why would such a terrible thing happen? Why would God do such a thing to his followers? And certainly VoltaireAndrew Keen: Yeah, Votav, of course, comes to mind of questioning.David Bell: And Condit, Voltaire's novel Condit gives a very good description of the earthquake in Lisbon and uses that as a centerpiece. Voltair also read other things about the earthquake, a poem about Lisbon earthquake. But in Condit he gives a lasting, very scathing portrait of the Catholic Church in general and then of what happens in Portugal. And so the Lisbon Earthquake is certainly another one of the events, but it happens considerably later. Really in the middle of the end of life.Andrew Keen: So, David, you believe in this idea of the Enlightenment. I take your point that there are more than one Enlightenment in more than one center, but in broad historical terms, the 18th century could be defined at least in Western and Northern Europe as the period of the Enlightenment, would that be a fair generalization?David Bell: I think it's perfectly fair generalization. Of course, there are historians who say that it never happened. There's a conservative British historian, J.C.D. Clark, who published a book last summer, saying that the Enlightenment is a kind of myth, that there was a lot of intellectual activity in Europe, obviously, but that the idea that it formed a coherent Enlightenment was really invented in the 20th century by a bunch of progressive reformers who wanted to claim a kind of venerable and august pedigree for their own reform, liberal reform plans. I think that's an exaggeration. People in the 18th century defined very clearly what was going on, both people who were in favor of it and people who are against it. And while you can, if you look very closely at it, of course it gets a bit fuzzy. Of course it's gets, there's no single, you can't define a single enlightenment project or a single enlightened ideology. But then, I think people would be hard pressed to define any intellectual movement. You know, in perfect, incoherent terms. So the enlightenment is, you know by compared with almost any other intellectual movement certainly existed.Andrew Keen: In terms of a philosophy of the Enlightenment, the German thinker, Immanuel Kant, seems to be often, and when you describe him as the conscience or the brain or a mixture of the conscience and brain of the enlightenment, why is Kant and Kantian thinking so important in the development of the Enlightenment.David Bell: Well, that's a really interesting question. And one reason is because most of the Enlightenment was not very rigorously philosophical. A lot of the major figures of the enlightenment before Kant tended to be writing for a general public. And they often were writing with a very specific agenda. We look at Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau. Now you look at Adam Smith in Scotland. We look David Hume or Adam Ferguson. You look at Benjamin Franklin in the United States. These people wrote in all sorts of different genres. They wrote in, they wrote all sorts of different kinds of books. They have many different purposes and very few of them did a lot of what we would call rigorous academic philosophy. And Kant was different. Kant was very much an academic philosopher. Kant was nothing if not rigorous. He came at the end of the enlightenment by most people's measure. He wrote these very, very difficult, very rigorous, very brilliant works, such as The Creek of Pure Reason. And so, it's certainly been the case that people who wanted to describe the Enlightenment as a philosophy have tended to look to Kant. So for example, there's a great German philosopher and intellectual historian of the early 20th century named Ernst Kassirer, who had to leave Germany because of the Nazis. And he wrote a great book called The Philosophy of the Enlightened. And that leads directly to Immanuel Kant. And of course, Casir himself was a Kantian, identified with Kant. And so he wanted to make Kant, in a sense, the telos, the end point, the culmination, the fulfillment of the Enlightenment. But so I think that's why Kant has such a particularly important position. You're defining it both ways.Andrew Keen: I've always struggled to understand what Kant was trying to say. I'm certainly not alone there. Might it be fair to say that he was trying to transform the universe and certainly traditional Christian notions into the Enlightenment, so the entire universe, the world, God, whatever that means, that they were all somehow according to Kant enlightened.David Bell: Well, I think that I'm certainly no expert on Immanuel Kant. And I would say that he is trying to, I mean, his major philosophical works are trying to put together a system of philosophical thinking which will justify why people have to act morally, why people act rationally, without the need for Christian revelation to bolster them. That's a very, very crude and reductionist way of putting it, but that's essentially at the heart of it. At the same time, Kant was very much aware of his own place in history. So Kant didn't simply write these very difficult, thick, dense philosophical works. He also wrote things that were more like journalism or like tablets. He wrote a famous essay called What is Enlightenment? And in that, he said that the 18th century was the period in which humankind was simply beginning to. Reach a period of enlightenment. And he said, he starts the essay by saying, this is the period when humankind is being released from its self-imposed tutelage. And we are still, and he said we do not yet live in the midst of a completely enlightened century, but we are getting there. We are living in a century that is enlightening.Andrew Keen: So the seeds, the seeds of Hegel and maybe even Marx are incant in that German thinking, that historical thinking.David Bell: In some ways, in some ways of course Hegel very much reacts against Kant and so and then Marx reacts against Hegel. So it's not exactly.Andrew Keen: Well, that's the dialectic, isn't it, David?David Bell: A simple easy path from one to the other, no, but Hegel is unimaginable without Kant of course and Marx is unimagineable without Hegel.Andrew Keen: You note that Kant represents a shift in some ways into the university and the walls of the universities were going up, and that some of the other figures associated with the the Enlightenment and Scottish Enlightenment, human and Smith and the French Enlightenment Voltaire and the others, they were more generalist writers. Should we be nostalgic for the pre-university period in the Enlightenment, or? Did things start getting serious once the heavyweights, the academic heavyweighs like Emmanuel Kant got into this thing?David Bell: I think it depends on where we're talking about. I mean, Adam Smith was a professor at Glasgow in Edinburgh, so Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment was definitely at least partly in the universities. The German Enlightenment took place very heavily in universities. Christian Vodafoy I just mentioned was the most important German philosopher of the 18th century before Kant, and he had positions in university. Even the French university system, for a while, what's interesting about the French University system, particularly the Sorbonne, which was the theology faculty, It was that. Throughout the first half of the 18th century, there were very vigorous, very interesting philosophical debates going on there, in which the people there, particularly even Jesuits there, were very open to a lot of the ideas we now call enlightenment. They were reading John Locke, they were reading Mel Pench, they were read Dekalb. What happened though in the French universities was that as more daring stuff was getting published elsewhere. Church, the Catholic Church, started to say, all right, these philosophers, these philosophies, these are our enemies, these are people we have to get at. And so at that point, anybody who was in the university, who was still in dialog with these people was basically purged. And the universities became much less interesting after that. But to come back to your question, I do think that I am very nostalgic for that period. I think that the Enlightenment was an extraordinary period, because if you look between. In the 17th century, not all, but a great deal of the most interesting intellectual work is happening in the so-called Republic of Letters. It's happening in Latin language. It is happening on a very small circle of RUD, of scholars. By the 19th century following Kant and Hegel and then the birth of the research university in Germany, which is copied everywhere, philosophy and the most advanced thinking goes back into the university. And the 18th century, particularly in France, I will say, is a time when the most advanced thought is being written for a general public. It is being in the form of novels, of dialogs, of stories, of reference works, and it is very, very accessible. The most profound thought of the West has never been as accessible overall as in the 18 century.Andrew Keen: Again, excuse this question, it might seem a bit naive, but there's a lot of pre-Enlightenment work, books, thinking that we read now that's very accessible from Erasmus and Thomas More to Machiavelli. Why weren't characters like, or are characters like Erasmuus, More's Utopia, Machiavell's prints and discourses, why aren't they considered part of the Enlightenment? What's the difference between? Enlightened thinkers or the supposedly enlightened thinkers of the 18th century and thinkers and writers of the 16th and 17th centuries.David Bell: That's a good question, you know, I think you have to, you, you know, again, one has to draw a line somewhere. That's not a very good answer, of course. All these people that you just mentioned are, in one way or another, predecessors to the Enlightenment. And of course, there were lots of people. I don't mean to say that nobody wrote in an accessible way before 1700. Obviously, lots of the people you mentioned did. Although a lot of them originally wrote in Latin, Erasmus, also Thomas More. But I think what makes the Enlightened different is that you have, again, you have a sense. These people have have a sense that they are themselves engaged in a collective project, that it is a collective project of enlightenment, of enlightening the world. They believe that they live in a century of progress. And there are certain principles. They don't agree on everything by any means. The philosophy of enlightenment is like nothing more than ripping each other to shreds, like any decent group of intellectuals. But that said, they generally did believe That people needed to have freedom of speech. They believed that you needed to have toleration of different religions. They believed in education and the need for a broadly educated public that could be as broad as possible. They generally believed in keeping religion out of the public sphere as much as possible, so all those principles came together into a program that we can consider at least a kind of... You know, not that everybody read it at every moment by any means, but there is an identifiable enlightenment program there, and in this case an identifiable enlightenment mindset. One other thing, I think, which is crucial to the Enlightenment, is that it was the attention they started to pay to something that we now take almost entirely for granted, which is the idea of society. The word society is so entirely ubiquitous, we assume it's always been there, and in one sense it has, because the word societas is a Latin word. But until... The 18th century, the word society generally had a much narrower meaning. It referred to, you know, particular institution most often, like when we talk about the society of, you know, the American philosophical society or something like that. And the idea that there exists something called society, which is the general sphere of human existence that is separate from religion and is separate from the political sphere, that's actually something which only really emerged at the end of the 1600s. And it became really the focus of you know, much, if not most, of enlightenment thinking. When you look at someone like Montesquieu and you look something, somebody like Rousseau or Voltaire or Adam Smith, probably above all, they were concerned with understanding how society works, not how government works only, but how society, what social interactions are like beginning of what we would now call social science. So that's yet another thing that distinguishes the enlightened from people like Machiavelli, often people like Thomas More, and people like bonuses.Andrew Keen: You noted earlier that the idea of progress is somehow baked in, in part, and certainly when it comes to Kant, certainly the French Enlightenment, although, of course, Rousseau challenged that. I'm not sure whether Rousseaut, as always, is both in and out of the Enlightenment and he seems to be in and out of everything. How did the Enlightement, though, make sense of itself in the context of antiquity, as it was, of Terms, it was the Renaissance that supposedly discovered or rediscovered antiquity. How did many of the leading Enlightenment thinkers, writers, how did they think of their own society in the context of not just antiquity, but even the idea of a European or Western society?David Bell: Well, there was a great book, one of the great histories of the Enlightenment was written about more than 50 years ago by the Yale professor named Peter Gay, and the first part of that book was called The Modern Paganism. So it was about the, you know, it was very much about the relationship between the Enlightenment and the ancient Greek synonyms. And certainly the writers of the enlightenment felt a great deal of kinship with the ancient Greek synonymous. They felt a common bond, particularly in the posing. Christianity and opposing what they believed the Christian Church had wrought on Europe in suppressing freedom and suppressing free thought and suppassing free inquiry. And so they felt that they were both recovering but also going beyond antiquity at the same time. And of course they were all, I mean everybody at the time, every single major figure of the Enlightenment, their education consisted in large part of what we would now call classics, right? I mean, there was an educational reformer in France in the 1760s who said, you know, our educational system is great if the purpose is to train Roman centurions, if it's to train modern people who are not doing both so well. And it's true. I mean they would spend, certainly, you know in Germany, in much of Europe, in the Netherlands, even in France, I mean people were trained not simply to read Latin, but to write in Latin. In Germany, university courses took part in the Latin language. So there's an enormous, you know, so they're certainly very, very conversant with the Greek and Roman classics, and they identify with them to a very great extent. Someone like Rousseau, I mean, and many others, and what's his first reading? How did he learn to read by reading Plutarch? In translation, but he learns to read reading Plutach. He sees from the beginning by this enormous admiration for the ancients that we get from Bhutan.Andrew Keen: Was Socrates relevant here? Was the Enlightenment somehow replacing Aristotle with Socrates and making him and his spirit of Enlightenment, of asking questions rather than answering questions, the symbol of a new way of thinking?David Bell: I would say to a certain extent, so I mean, much of the Enlightenment criticizes scholasticism, medieval scholastic, very, very sharply, and medieval scholasticism is founded philosophically very heavily upon Aristotle, so to that extent. And the spirit of skepticism that Socrates embodied, the idea of taking nothing for granted and asking questions about everything, including questions of oneself, yes, absolutely. That said, while the great figures of the Red Plato, you know, Socrates was generally I mean, it was not all that present as they come. But certainly have people with people with red play-doh in the entire virus.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Benjamin Franklin earlier, David. Most of the Enlightenment, of course, seems to be centered in France and Scotland, Germany, England. But America, many Europeans went to America then as a, what some people would call a settler colonial society, or certainly an offshoot of the European world. Was the settling of America and the American Revolution Was it the quintessential Enlightenment project?David Bell: Another very good question, and again, it depends a bit on who you talk to. I just mentioned this book by Peter Gay, and the last part of his book is called The Science of Freedom, and it's all about the American Revolution. So certainly a lot of interpreters of the Enlightenment have said that, yes, the American revolution represents in a sense the best possible outcome of the American Revolution, it was the best, possible outcome of the enlightened. Certainly there you look at the founding fathers of the United States and there's a great deal that they took from me like Certainly, they took a great great number of political ideas from Obviously Madison was very much inspired and drafting the edifice of the Constitution by Montesquieu to see himself Was happy to admit in addition most of the founding Fathers of the united states were you know had kind of you know We still had we were still definitely Christians, but we're also but we were also very much influenced by deism were very much against the idea of making the United States a kind of confessional country where Christianity was dominant. They wanted to believe in the enlightenment principles of free speech, religious toleration and so on and so forth. So in all those senses and very much the gun was probably more inspired than Franklin was somebody who was very conversant with the European Enlightenment. He spent a large part of his life in London. Where he was in contact with figures of the Enlightenment. He also, during the American Revolution, of course, he was mostly in France, where he is vetted by some of the surviving fellows and were very much in contact for them as well. So yes, I would say the American revolution is certainly... And then the American revolutionary scene, of course by the Europeans, very much as a kind of offshoot of the enlightenment. So one of the great books of the late Enlightenment is by Condor Say, which he wrote while he was hiding actually in the future evolution of the chariot. It's called a historical sketch of the progress of the human spirit, or the human mind, and you know he writes about the American Revolution as being, basically owing its existence to being like...Andrew Keen: Franklin is of course an example of your pre-academic enlightenment, a generalist, inventor, scientist, entrepreneur, political thinker. What about the role of science and indeed economics in the Enlightenment? David, we're going to talk of course about the Marxist interpretation, perhaps the Marxist interpretation which sees The Enlightenment is just a euphemism, perhaps, for exploitative capitalism. How central was the growth and development of the market, of economics, and innovation, and capitalism in your reading of The Enlightened?David Bell: Well, in my reading, it was very important, but not in the way that the Marxists used to say. So Friedrich Engels once said that the Enlightenment was basically the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie, and there was whole strain of Marxist thinking that followed the assumption that, and then Karl Marx himself argued that the documents like the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which obviously were inspired by the Enlightment, were simply kind of the near, or kind of. Way that the bourgeoisie was able to advance itself ideologically, and I don't think that holds much water, which is very little indication that any particular economic class motivated the Enlightenment or was using the Enlightment in any way. That said, I think it's very difficult to imagine the Enlightement without the social and economic changes that come in with the 18th century. To begin with globalization. If you read the great works of the Enlightenment, it's remarkable just how open they are to talking about humanity in general. So one of Voltaire's largest works, one of his most important works, is something called Essay on Customs and the Spirit of Nations, which is actually History of the World, where he talks learnedly not simply about Europe, but about the Americas, about China, about Africa, about India. Montesquieu writes Persian letters. Christian Volpe writes about Chinese philosophy. You know, Rousseau writes about... You know, the earliest days of humankind talks about Africa. All the great figures of the Enlightenment are writing about the rest of the world, and this is a period in which contacts between Europe and the rest the world are exploding along with international trade. So by the end of the 18th century, there are 4,000 to 5,000 ships a year crossing the Atlantic. It's an enormous number. And that's one context in which the enlightenment takes place. Another is what we call the consumer revolution. So in the 18th century, certainly in the major cities of Western Europe, people of a wide range of social classes, including even artisans, sort of somewhat wealthy artisians, shopkeepers, are suddenly able to buy a much larger range of products than they were before. They're able to choose how to basically furnish their own lives, if you will, how they're gonna dress, what they're going to eat, what they gonna put on the walls of their apartments and so on and so forth. And so they become accustomed to exercising a great deal more personal choice than their ancestors have done. And the Enlightenment really develops in tandem with this. Most of the great works of the Enlightment, they're not really written to, they're treatises, they're like Kant, they're written to persuade you to think in a single way. Really written to make you ask questions yourself, to force you to ponder things. They're written in the form of puzzles and riddles. Voltaire had a great line there, he wrote that the best kind of books are the books that readers write half of themselves as they read, and that's sort of the quintessence of the Enlightenment as far as I'm concerned.Andrew Keen: Yeah, Voltaire might have been comfortable on YouTube or Facebook. David, you mentioned all those ships going from Europe across the Atlantic. Of course, many of those ships were filled with African slaves. You mentioned this in your piece. I mean, this is no secret, of course. You also mentioned a couple of times Montesquieu's Persian letters. To what extent is... The enlightenment then perhaps the birth of Western power, of Western colonialism, of going to Africa, seizing people, selling them in North America, the French, the English, Dutch colonization of the rest of the world. Of course, later more sophisticated Marxist thinkers from the Frankfurt School, you mentioned these in your essay, Odorno and Horkheimer in particular, See the Enlightenment as... A project, if you like, of Western domination. I remember reading many years ago when I was in graduate school, Edward Said, his analysis of books like The Persian Letters, which is a form of cultural Western power. How much of this is simply bound up in the profound, perhaps, injustice of the Western achievement? And of course, some of the justice as well. We haven't talked about Jefferson, but perhaps in Jefferson's life and his thinking and his enlightened principles and his... Life as a slave owner, these contradictions are most self-evident.David Bell: Well, there are certainly contradictions, and there's certainly... I think what's remarkable, if you think about it, is that if you read through works of the Enlightenment, you would be hard-pressed to find a justification for slavery. You do find a lot of critiques of slavery, and I think that's something very important to keep in mind. Obviously, the chattel slavery of Africans in the Americas began well before the Enlightment, it began in 1500. The Enlightenment doesn't have the credit for being the first movement to oppose slavery. That really goes back to various religious groups, especially the Fakers. But that said, you have in France, you had in Britain, in America even, you'd have a lot of figures associated with the Enlightenment who were pretty sure of becoming very forceful opponents of slavery very early. Now, when it comes to imperialism, that's a tricky issue. What I think you'd find in these light bulbs, you'd different sorts of tendencies and different sorts of writings. So there are certainly a lot of writers of the Enlightenment who are deeply opposed to European authorities. One of the most popular works of the late Enlightenment was a collective work edited by the man named the Abbe Rinal, which is called The History of the Two Indies. And that is a book which is deeply, deeply critical of European imperialism. At the same time, at the same of the enlightenment, a lot the works of history written during the Enlightment. Tended, such as Voltaire's essay on customs, which I just mentioned, tend to give a kind of very linear version of history. They suggest that all societies follow the same path, from sort of primitive savagery, hunter-gatherers, through early agriculture, feudal stages, and on into sort of modern commercial society and civilization. And so they're basically saying, okay, we, the Europeans, are the most advanced. People like the Africans and the Native Americans are the least advanced, and so perhaps we're justified in going and quote, bringing our civilization to them, what later generations would call the civilizing missions, or possibly just, you know, going over and exploiting them because we are stronger and we are more, and again, we are the best. And then there's another thing that the Enlightenment did. The Enlightenment tended to destroy an older Christian view of humankind, which in some ways militated against modern racism. Christians believed, of course, that everyone was the same from Adam and Eve, which meant that there was an essential similarity in the world. And the Enlightenment challenged this by challenging the biblical kind of creation. The Enlightenment challenges this. Voltaire, for instance, believed that there had actually been several different human species that had different origins, and that can very easily become a justification for racism. Buffon, one of the most Figures of the French Enlightenment, one of the early naturalists, was crucial for trying to show that in fact nature is not static, that nature is always changing, that species are changing, including human beings. And so again, that allowed people to think in terms of human beings at different stages of evolution, and perhaps this would be a justification for privileging the more advanced humans over the less advanced. In the 18th century itself, most of these things remain potential, rather than really being acted upon. But in the 19th century, figures of writers who would draw upon these things certainly went much further, and these became justifications for slavery, imperialism, and other things. So again, the Enlightenment is the source of a great deal of stuff here, and you can't simply put it into one box or more.Andrew Keen: You mentioned earlier, David, that Concorda wrote one of the later classics of the... Condorcet? Sorry, Condorcets, excuse my French. Condorcès wrote one the later Classics of the Enlightenment when he was hiding from the French Revolution. In your mind, was the revolution itself the natural conclusion, climax? Perhaps anti-climax of the Enlightenment. Certainly, it seems as if a lot of the critiques of the French Revolution, particularly the more conservative ones, Burke comes to mind, suggested that perhaps the principles of in the Enlightment inevitably led to the guillotine, or is that an unfair way of thinking of it?David Bell: Well, there are a lot of people who have thought like that. Edmund Burke already, writing in 1790, in his reflections on the revolution in France, he said that everything which was great in the old regime is being dissolved and, quoting, dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. And then he said about the French that in the groves of their academy at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing but the Gallows. So there, in 1780, he already seemed to be predicting the reign of terror and blaming it. A certain extent from the Enlightenment. That said, I think, you know, again, the French Revolution is incredibly complicated event. I mean, you certainly have, you know, an explosion of what we could call Enlightenment thinking all over the place. In France, it happened in France. What happened there was that you had a, you know, the collapse of an extraordinarily inefficient government and a very, you know, in a very antiquated, paralyzed system of government kind of collapsed, created a kind of political vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped a lot of figures who were definitely readers of the Enlightenment. Oh so um but again the Enlightment had I said I don't think you can call the Enlightement a single thing so to say that the Enlightiment inspired the French Revolution rather than the There you go.Andrew Keen: Although your essay on liberties is the Enlightenment then and now you probably didn't write is always these lazy editors who come up with inaccurate and inaccurate titles. So for you, there is no such thing as the Enlighten.David Bell: No, there is. There is. But still, it's a complex thing. It contains multitudes.Andrew Keen: So it's the Enlightenment rather than the United States.David Bell: Conflicting tendencies, it has contradictions within it. There's enough unity to refer to it as a singular noun, but it doesn't mean that it all went in one single direction.Andrew Keen: But in historical terms, did the failure of the French Revolution, its descent into Robespierre and then Bonaparte, did it mark the end in historical terms a kind of bookend of history? You began in 1720 by 1820. Was the age of the Enlightenment pretty much over?David Bell: I would say yes. I think that, again, one of the things about the French Revolution is that people who are reading these books and they're reading these ideas and they are discussing things really start to act on them in a very different way from what it did before the French revolution. You have a lot of absolute monarchs who are trying to bring certain enlightenment principles to bear in their form of government, but they're not. But it's difficult to talk about a full-fledged attempt to enact a kind of enlightenment program. Certainly a lot of the people in the French Revolution saw themselves as doing that. But as they did it, they ran into reality, I would say. I mean, now Tocqueville, when he writes his old regime in the revolution, talks about how the French philosophes were full of these abstract ideas that were divorced from reality. And while that's an exaggeration, there was a certain truth to them. And as soon as you start having the age of revolutions, as soon you start people having to devise systems of government that will actually last, and as you have people, democratic representative systems that will last, and as they start revising these systems under the pressure of actual events, then you're not simply talking about an intellectual movement anymore, you're talking about something very different. And so I would say that, well, obviously the ideas of the Enlightenment continue to inspire people, the books continue to be read, debated. They lead on to figures like Kant, and as we talked about earlier, Kant leads to Hegel, Hegel leads to Marx in a certain sense. Nonetheless, by the time you're getting into the 19th century, what you have, you know, has connections to the Enlightenment, but can we really still call it the Enlightment? I would sayAndrew Keen: And Tocqueville, of course, found democracy in America. Is democracy itself? I know it's a big question. But is it? Bound up in the Enlightenment. You've written extensively, David, both for liberties and elsewhere on liberalism. Is the promise of democracy, democratic systems, the one born in the American Revolution, promised in the French Revolution, not realized? Are they products of the Enlightment, or is the 19th century and the democratic systems that in the 19th century, is that just a separate historical track?David Bell: Again, I would say there are certain things in the Enlightenment that do lead in that direction. Certainly, I think most figures in the enlightenment in one general sense or another accepted the idea of a kind of general notion of popular sovereignty. It didn't mean that they always felt that this was going to be something that could necessarily be acted upon or implemented in their own day. And they didn't necessarily associate generalized popular sovereignty with what we would now call democracy with people being able to actually govern themselves. Would be certain figures, certainly Diderot and some of his essays, what we saw very much in the social contract, you know, were sketching out, you knows, models for possible democratic system. Condorcet, who actually lived into the French Revolution, wrote one of the most draft constitutions for France, that's one of most democratic documents ever proposed. But of course there were lots of figures in the Enlightenment, Voltaire, and others who actually believed much more in absolute monarchy, who believed that you just, you know, you should have. Freedom of speech and freedom of discussion, out of which the best ideas would emerge, but then you had to give those ideas to the prince who imposed them by poor sicknesses.Andrew Keen: And of course, Rousseau himself, his social contract, some historians have seen that as the foundations of totalitarian, modern totalitarianism. Finally, David, your wonderful essay in Liberties in the spring quarterly 2025 is The Enlightenment, Then and Now. What about now? You work at Princeton, your president has very bravely stood up to the new presidential regime in the United States, in defense of academic intellectual freedom. Does the word and the movement, does it have any relevance in the 2020s, particularly in an age of neo-authoritarianism around the world?David Bell: I think it does. I think we have to be careful about it. I always get a little nervous when people say, well, we should simply go back to the Enlightenment, because the Enlightenments is history. We don't go back the 18th century. I think what we need to do is to recover certain principles, certain ideals from the 18 century, the ones that matter to us, the ones we think are right, and make our own Enlightenment better. I don't think we need be governed by the 18 century. Thomas Paine once said that no generation should necessarily rule over every generation to come, and I think that's probably right. Unfortunately in the United States, we have a constitution which is now essentially unamendable, so we're doomed to live by a constitution largely from the 18th century. But are there many things in the Enlightenment that we should look back to, absolutely?Andrew Keen: Well, David, I am going to free you for your own French Enlightenment. You can go and have some croissant now in your local cafe in Paris. Thank you so much for a very, I excuse the pun, enlightening conversation on the Enlightenment then and now, Essential Essay in Liberties. I'd love to get you back on the show. Talk more history. Thank you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Spencer Leonard discusses the Frankfurt School's Marxism, how these Marxists are still relevant to us today, and explains Horkheimer's "Egoism and Freedom Movements: On the Anthropology of the Bourgeois Epoch." Support Sublation Media and Listen to the Second Half:https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Verleger Dr. Georg Hauptfeld, Edition Konturen aus Wien, im Gespräch mit Ralf Plenz, Folge 2 von 3

Eine Rede des neuen US-Vizepräsidenten auf der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz hat für ordentlich Aufsehen gesorgt. J.D. Vance will Brandmauern niederreißen und sieht die Redefreiheit in Europa gefährdet. Was der US-amerikanische Vizepräsident damit erreichen wollte, welche Wirkung das Ganze hatte und vor allem, warum er diese Rede gehalten hat – darum geht es in Folge 44 von Rechtsgerichtet. Außerdem: Was die Rackettheorie von Adorno und Horkheimer mit dem Auftreten der US-amerikanischen Administration zu tun hat und warum plötzlich eine neue Gang das Sagen hat.

Gerhard Amendt ist mit seinen Forschungen zu Geschlechterfragen ein „umstrittener“ Professor, der immer wieder „irritiert“, auch wenn er sich zunächst einen, wie es bei Wikipedia heißt, „guten Ruf“ in linken und linksliberalen Kreisen erworben hatte. Kein Wunder. Er gehörte zu den Studenten, die „mit Gewinn“ bei Adorno und Horkheimer studierten; er reiste als Journalist in die USA, besuchte Angela Davis im Gefängnis und veröffentlichte Studien über Rassismus und „Black Power“. Als Leiter von Pro Familia in Bremen bemühte er sich, zur Versachlichung der aktuell heiß laufenden Diskussion um Abtreibung beizutragen, stets mit dem Gedanken, dass Frauen dabei „respektiert“ und keinesfalls „entmündigt“ werden. Wo bleibt die Irritation? Davon wird im zweiten Teil die Rede sein. Gerhard Amendt hatte so viel zu erzählen, dass es für zwei Gespräche reichte.

From Adorno & Horkheimer's "The Dialectic of Enlightenment" (1947). Support the podcast! Links below.Support the showSupport the podcast:https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizonAcid Horizon on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcastJoin The Schizoanalysis Project: https://discord.gg/4WtaXG3QxnSubscribe to us on your favorite podcast: https://pod.link/1512615438Merch: http://www.crit-drip.comSubscribe to us on your favorite podcast: https://pod.link/1512615438 LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHANDHappy Hour at Hippel's (Adam's blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com​Revolting Bodies (Will's Blog): https://revoltingbodies.com​Split Infinities (Craig's Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

Daniel Tutt and Douglas Lain discuss Losurdo's Western Marxism and Postpone's critique of "Anti-Imperialism" in this special edition of Diet Soap. What is the substance of the new "anti-Imperialists"? What is cherry-picking? Was Losurdo charitable enough in his reading of the Frankfurt school?Support Sublation Media on Patreonhttps://patreon.com/dietsoap

Delve into the 'Dialectic of Enlightenment,' a cornerstone of critical theory that has influenced cultural thought across the 20th and 21st centuries. This episode covers themes from the rise of fascism and the interplay of myth and enlightenment to the development of a culture industry that shapes modern desires. Join us to simplify and explore this pivotal text. 0:00: Introduction to the episode.3:13: Discussion on Enlightenment as Myth.12:02: Analysis of The Culture Industry.23:28: Exploration of Elements of Anti-Semitism.26:26: Final message and wrap-up. #DialecticofEnlightenment #criticaltheory #cultureindustry #Adorno #Horkheimer #fascism #myth #enlightenment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To complete our series on Dialectic of Enlightenment, we take an extended look at the famous chapter on the culture industry. The function of the culture industry, or the sphere of production concerned with creating entertainment and art is to inure and train consumers to acquiesce to the dominant ideology expressed through its culture products. The tendency of this process, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, is to reproduce sameness, conformity, and eliminate the thought of rebellion against the status quo. The culture industry is a totalizing system that continuously creates desires by the management of consumer preference, while foreclosing the means of actually fulfilling these desires. Some have argued that this analysis is no longer applicable to a digital age characterized by a fragmentation of mass media and infinite streams of information. In this episode, we ask to what extent does the internet age continue to stifle authentic creativity and individuality and reproduce formulaic entertainment? Finally, we pose the question of whether rebellion is still possible within a system that anticipates and absorbs the gesture of rebellion. 

Wilhelm Reich lieferte mit dem Buch die erste psychologisch-gesellschaftskritische Analyse des Erfolgs der Nazis. Wie hängen autoritäre Triebunterdrückung und faschistische Ideologie zusammen? Anders als die meisten Vertreter der KPD war Reich überzeugt davon, dass der Faschismus 1933 einen dauerhaften Sieg errungen hatte. Er fragte sich, warum die Arbeiter*innen bereit waren, gegen ihre ökonomischen Interessen zu wählen. Sie sahen offensichtlich den Widerspruch nicht, dass Hitler allen alles versprach, also dem Proletariat auch die Revolution, aber am Ende nur die Politik des Großkapitals verfolgte. Seine Antwort rückte die Rolle der Ideologie in den Blick; ideologische Reproduktion von Ausbeutung und Herrschaft will er durch Psychoanalyse erklären. Die linke Praxis, propagandistisch auf das soziale Elend hinzuweisen, erschien ihm verkürzt. Er betonte, wie die Nazis durch ihre Propaganda das rationale Denken umgingen und Gefühle mobilisierten. Der kulturelle Kampf ging darum, wie die Arbeiter*innen ihre soziale Lage deuteten. Auf der Grundlage seiner kommunistischen Jugendarbeit und der Erfahrungen, die er mit der sexuellen Not der Jugendlichen und ihren alltäglichen Praktiken gemacht hatte, brachte Reich die Psychoanalyse Sigmund Freuds ins Spiel. Der kleinbürgerliche Alltag müsste geändert werden, die Macht der Familie, der Kirchen müsste kritisiert werden. Es wäre Aufklärung notwendig, mit der autoritären Sexualmoral müsste gebrochen werden. Reich argumentiert dafür, dass die Linke sich für Abtreibung, vorehelichen Geschlechtsverkehr, für sexuell befriedigende Beziehungen einsetzte, um den Autoritarismus zu überwinden. Im Gespräch mit Alex Demirović ist Prof. Helmut Dahmer, studierte bei Horkheimer und Adorno in Frankfurt am Main, war Professor für Soziologie in Darmstadt und lebt in Wien.

In this multi-part series, we examine the legacy of critical theory and the prospects of a recuperation of Marxist theory in the face of rising fascism by delving into the dense and fragmentary landmark text of the Frankfurt School, Dialectic of Enlightenment. In Part 2, we focus on the final completed fragment, "Elements of Anti-Semitism: The Limits of Enlightenment,' which analyzes the concept and instrumentalization of antisemitism in fascist political currents. Adorno and Horkheimer, over the course of seven theses, interweave insights from Freudan psychoanalysis, Marxist theories of reification and class struggle, and Nietzchean analyses of power to argue that antisemitism is a recurrent symbolic structure for the mobilisation of repressed violent urges.  This structure casts whomever is unassimilable to the dominant order in the role of scapegoat for the ills of the wrong society.  It is this shared feeling of impotence of a purportedly rational order to resolve the inherent contradictions of "the wrong society" that leads to the unleashing of irrational forces of destruction. The enlightenment is premised upon the promise of universal humanity and general emancipation, but the capitalist order keeps this nascent potential on the other side of the dialectic as a promise deferred. Is it possible to break the spell?

Das Ding ist... cringe ist ein wilder Mix aus Peinlichkeit, Schadenfreude und Fremdscham. Mal cringt man, als beobachtende Person, wenn man eine misslungene soziale Interaktion miterlebt oder im Reality TV gezeigt bekommt. Mal cringt man, weil man sich selber einen sozialen Fehltritt leistet. Welche Rolle spielen soziale Reparaturmechanismen? In welchen Kontexten empfinden wir Schadenfreude, und in welchen nicht? Haben wir alle einen geheimen Tyrannenappetit? Wir beziehen uns auf Nietzsche, Adorno und Horkheimer. Wer wenn nicht diese Philosophen aus dem 19. und 20. Jahrhundert sollen uns erklären, was das Jugendwort 2021 genau bedeutet? Außerdem sprechen Lensi und Anna über Trash TV, die Menschenwürde und Fußball. Und brauchen wir nicht alle mehr Mut zum Cringe? Ist cringe sein = frei sein? Hört doch gerne rein! Lasst eine Bewertung da, abonniert uns, empfehlt uns weiter! Quellen: Malicious Pleasure: Schadenfreude at the Suffering of Another Group https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 10751405_Malicious_Pleasure_Schadenfreude_at_the_Suffering_of_Another_Group https://www.spektrum.de/news/ cringe-warum-menschen-sich-gerne-fremdschaemen/1898632 Bezugnahme Folge: Patrick WÖHRLE

Das Thema der heutigen Episode ist mir, ebenso wie der Gast, ein besonderes Vergnügen: »Ist Gott tot?« Diese Frage verhandle ich mit Jan Juhani Steinmann. Jan, in Bern geboren, mütterlicherseits Finne, ist Philosoph, Dichter und Theologe. Er hat  in Zürich, Berlin, St. Andrews, Heidelberg und Rom studiert. Forschungsaufenthalte wurden in Kopenhagen, Helsinki und Oxford durchgeführt. Seit 2019 ist er externer Lektor in Philosophie an der Universität Wien und seit 2023 an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Unter der Betreuung von Prof. Konrad Paul Liessmann hat er 2021 an der Universität Wien in Philosophie promoviert. Zurzeit forscht er am Institut Catholique de Paris, an der Università di Roma LUMSA sowie an der Faculty of Divinity der University of Cambridge zur poetischen Phänomenologie im Kontext des Denkens von Kierkegaard, Nietzsche und Heidegger. Er ist ferner Begründer des Kollektivs Omnibus Omnia. Als persönliche Vorbemerkung zur Episode: Ich selbst bin Atheist / Agnostiker, aber stelle mir in den letzten Jahren immer häufiger die Frage, welche Rolle Religion beziehungsweise Glaube in der Strukturierung von Gesellschaften hat. Kann es sein, dass der Verlust von Religion oder Glaube in Summe für die Gesellschaft negative Folgen hat, die wir als »Aufklärer« nicht gerne sehen wollen? Stürzen wir gar ins Bodenlose? So beginnen wir die Episode mit der Frage nach der Aufklärung: Was ist passiert, welche Strukturen wurden entfernt und was hat diese Strukturen ersetzt? Folgt man der Dialektik der Aufklärung (nach Adorno und Horkheimer) gibt es einen Pfad, der von der Aufklärung in die Barbarei des 20. Jahrhunderts mündet. Was ist davon zu halten, von einem Weg, der gewissermaßen von Kant bis Auschwitz reicht? Wenn wir Nietzsche folgen: Ist Gott tot? Was hat er mit dieser Aussage eigentlich gemeint? Was oder wer ist dieser Gott, der nach Nietzsche tot sei? »Ist Autonomie etwas, das dem Menschen wesenhaft zukommt?« Schafft die Aufklärung nun Freiheit oder Unsicherheit oder gar beides? Das Projekt »des Westens« war eines, das stark mit dem Begriff der Freiheit verbunden (John Stuart Mill), aber haben wir die Kosten der Freiheit vergessen? »Freiheit bedeutet entscheiden zu können, aber auch entscheiden zu müssen.« Was hat es mit Freiheit und Verantwortung auf sich? »Wir können nicht so tun, als ob der Mensch nicht frei wäre« Ist dieser Begriff der Freiheit im Westen stärker ausgeprägt als in anderen Kulturen? »Das Christentum war immer auch ein Verfechter der Freiheit des Menschen.« Was ist das Zusammenspiel zwischen Gott und Religion? Gibt es Religion ohne Gott — denken wir etwa an die vielen parareligiösen aktivistischen Bewegungen der heutigen Zeit. Kann Religion (kultur)evolutionär betrachtet werden im Sinne, dass es Gesellschaften leistungsfähiger gemacht hat? Nutzen versus Wahrheit und wie erklärt sich die Sehnsucht vieler Menschen nach dem Göttlichen, dem Transzendenten? Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts war der Wiener Kreis und der Positivismus eine dominierende philosophische Schule als Gegenbewegung zu metaphysischen Ideen? Auch Bertrand Russell kann in diesem Zusammenhang genannt werden. Was ist der Bezug dieser Traditionen zu Big Data oder Künstlicher Intelligenz? »Selbst in einem materialistischen Weltbild treten Transzendenzen an allen Ecken und Enden auf.« Was sind Monaden im Sinne von Leibniz und was ist deren Relevanz in der Frage nach Gott? Neigen wir dazu, dort zu suchen, wo Licht ist und nicht unbedingt dort, wo wir die wichtigsten Dinge finden könnten? Bezwingt das Einfache das Relevante? Setzt das Göttliche den Vernünftigkeitsrahmen all unserer Fragen? Wo beginnt Leben, wo beginnt Bewusstsein? Benötigen wir Gott/Religion als Fundament menschlicher Moral? Ist eine Rückbindung an ein Absolutum notwendig? Welche Optionen haben wir für den Ausdruck von Moral? Religiöse Tradition / Überlieferung naturwissenschaftliche / philosophische Begründung Relativismus Nihilismus Ist Gott also selbst als Illusion oder Fiktion immer noch nützlich? »Wenn diese Religion (das Christentum) auch nicht wahr wäre, wäre sie doch moralisch das insgesamt fruchtbarste für ein globales Projekt der Koexistenz.« Was aber ist der Startpunkt für philosophische Begründungen? Ist diese willkürlich? Denn es gibt eine Pluralität an zunächst nicht vermittelten moralischen Systemen. Gäbe es eine Pathologie der Vernunft, wenn alles uniform wäre? Steht dann doch wieder ein Thema im Zentrum, auf das in diesem Podcast immer wieder Bezug genommen wird: der Dialog? »Wir sind auf unsere Selbstüberschreitung hin angelegt.« Was bedeutet Transzendenz? Ist es wichtig, Transzendenz in einer Gesellschaft zu haben, um diese Gesellschaft langfristig fruchtbar zu halten und auch Dinge wie Kunst zu ermöglichen, die über banalen und kurzfristigen Aktionismus hinausweist? »Der Mensch lebt ständig in Transzendenzen — wir haben an etwas größerem Teil, das mehr ist als ich, und das uns überschreiten muss.« Referenzen Andere Episoden Episode 88: Liberalismus und Freiheitsgrade, ein Gespräch mit Prof. Christoph Möllers Episode 85: Naturalismus — was weiß Wissenschaft? Episode 83: Robert Merton — Was ist Wissenschaft? Episode 74: Apocalype Always Episode 66: Selbstverbesserung — ein Gespräch mit Prof. Anna Schaffner Episode 61: Digitaler Humanismus, ein Gespräch mit Erich Prem Episode 56: Kunst und Zukunft Episode 55: Strukturen der Welt Episode 50: Die Geburt der Gegenwart und die Entdeckung der Zukunft — ein Gespräch mit Prof. Achim Landwehr Episode 44: Was ist Fortschritt? Ein Gespräch mit Philipp Blom Episode 28: Jochen Hörisch: Für eine (denk)anstössige Universität! Jan Juhani Steinmann Homepage Jan Juhani Steinmann Omnibus Omnia Jan Juhani Steinmann auf Youtube Fachliche Referenzen John Stuart Mill, On Liberty G.W.F. Hegel: Phänomenologie des Geistes Friedrich Nietzsche: Die fröhliche Wissenschaft Friedrich Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra Adorno/Horkheimer: Dialektik der Aufklärung Hans Urs von Balthasar: Glaubhaft ist nur Liebe Romano Guardini: Freiheit, Gnade, Schicksal Teilhard de Chardin: Der Mensch im Kosmos David Bentley Hart: The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss. Bernhard Waldenfels: Hyperphänomene Emmanuel Falque: Crossing the Rubicon Johannes Hoff: Verteidigung des Heiligen Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft Immanuel Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape Hilary Putnam, Vernunft, Wahrheit Geschichte Hans Küng, Weltethos Projekt

„Dokonale osvícená země září ve znamení triumfálního neštěstí.“ Tak zní jedna z nejslavnější vět z Dialektiky osvícenství. Jde o programový spis tzv. Frankfurtské školy, který sepsali Theodor Adorno a Max Horkheimer v americkém exilu poté, co z Evropy uprchli před nacisty. Kniha se stala inspiračním zdrojem pro každou novou generaci myslitelů hlásící se k této tradici. K té čtvrté se řadí i jedna z nejvýznamnějších německých myslitelek současnosti Eva von Redecker. Ta svou knihou Revoluce pro život sepsala cosi, co můžeme v nadsázce označit za Dialektiku osvícenství pro 21. století. Podobně jako Adorno a Horkheimer si všímá i Eva von Redecker, že žijeme v systému, který zvěcňuje člověka a oduševňuje věci. Německá filozofka odmítá stejně jako její ideoví předchůdci kapitalistický sklon proměnit vše existující v prostor těžby. Eva von Redecker v tom spatřuje dvojí problém. Jednak je člověk odcizen sám sobě i druhým. Těžíme sebe sama stejně jako těžíme půdu: mnohdy se živíme různými doplňky i medikamenty ne proto, že jsme nemocní, ale proto, že potřebujeme být výkonnější. Výsledkem je vysílení západního člověka patrný na nárůstu psychických poruch. Druhý problém tkví v tom, že důraz na konzum nás činí nesvobodnými. Když konzumujeme, vybíráme z předem daných možností, aniž bychom se my sami pojímali jako tvůrci těchto možností. Jenže jednání, jež je podstatou lidství, může vzejít jen z pocitu sounáležitosti. I to ze současné společnosti mizí. Neplatí „miluj bližního svého“, ale „eliminuj bližního svého“. Jenže bez druhého, bez jeho navazování na mé konání nelze jednat: jednání je určeno výchozí pluralitou. Co s tím? A jsme skutečně v takto bezvýchodné situaci? Eva von Redecker užila v titulu své knihy pojem revoluce. Nemíní tím přitom žádné světodějné gesto, hovoří o revoluci pro život, která „sází méně na zlom a více na opakování“. Hovoří o „nové rutině a nových vzorcích jednání“. Ale víme, jak by taková rutina nové vzorce chování mohly vypadat? Kapitoly I. Jaká revoluce? [Začátek až 14.10] II. „Kdo zná fyzikální zákony, tomu se bude lépe kydat.“ [14:10–21:40] III. Co je kritická teorie? [21:40–35:57] IV. V zajetí fantomové držby [35:57–44:44] V. Flexibilita! Pohotovost k akci! Odolnost! [44:44–55:30] VI. Co dál? Pandemie jako první střípek pozitivní utopie? [55:30–závěr]

Send us a Text Message.This week I dive back into some philosophical theory related to why we are so prone to struggle with anxiety, addiction and alienation in today's world. Guy Debord wrote The Society of the Spectacle more than 50 years ago, and in it he explained the current state of so-called "Western Cultures" as having moved from the importance of being  to a culture where the importance is on having, and eventually, on to the importance being placed on appearance only (to appear to own something by snapping a photo is good enough).As a culture, we are now completely preoccupied with and focused on the spectacle, not the real. It's more important to change your Facebook banner to an LGBTQ+ flag on the right day to show your support than it is to support LGBTQ+ people in your heart. It's more important to be seen as having the perfect family or the perfect life than it is to actually build the perfect family or the perfect life. Some people drive $60k cars and live in crumbling homes. In today's cultural setting, a reputation for success requires the complete abandonment of one's personal identity in exchange for the stock characteristics that the audience wants in a performer — whether Marylin Manson actually drinks blook or Ozzy Osborn actually worships the devil doesn't matter. Only the spectacle of performance is valued.I also cover Marx's theory of capitalism increasing alienation, the Frankfurt School's and the Situationists' (many of the same people) work on how Marx's world of commodity fetishism expanded to spectacle fetishism (the appearance came to be more important than the real), and Debord's (and re-Marx's) concept of magic properties bestowed upon commodities if producers can manage to hide the actual process of manufacturing from the public. Before you listen to this episode, you might want to take a moment to listen to Macklemore's "Wings." on YouTube here, or anywhere you stream music. Check out the Nike commercial from that song on YouTube for a great example of recuperation (pt 2), and check out the corporate logo US flag for a great example of détournement (pt 2). Support the Show.

In this multi-part series, we examine the legacy of critical theory and the prospects of a recuperation of Marxist theory in the face of rising fascism by delving into the dense and fragmentary landmark text of the Frankfurt School, Dialectic of Enlightenment. In Part 1, we discuss the meaning of Enlightenment as the advancement of thought and ask how we square the traditional narratives of historical progress and emancipatory potential with the pernicious effects of rationalised management, social alienation, and the homogenisation of political possibilities under the logic of Enlightenment. As argued by Adorno and Horkheimer, the destructive trajectory of the enlightenment project can only be understand by its purported point of departure—myth. By posing itself in opposition to myth it recapitulates the impulse of myth to subsume the multiplicity of the world under the dictates of unitary, abstracting logic. By detaching ourselves from the influence of nature and attempting to master it, we have enslaved ourselves more surely to the claims of the “natural” and “objective” and left ourselves exposed to the forces of irrationality that the Enlightenment supposedly had left behind. Is there a way to preserve the emancipatory potential of Enlightenment in the face of our radically circumscribed political present?

Send us a Text Message.This week I dive back into some philosophical theory related to why we are so prone to struggle with anxiety, addiction and alienation in today's world. Guy Debord wrote The Society of the Spectacle more than 50 years ago, and in it he explained the current state of so-called "Western Cultures" as having moved from the importance of being  to a culture where the importance is on having, and eventually, on to the importance being placed on appearance only (to appear to own something by snapping a photo is good enough). As a culture, we are now completely preoccupied with and focused on the spectacle, not the real. It's more important to change your Facebook banner to an LGBTQ+ flag on the right day to show your support than it is to support LGBTQ+ people in your heart. It's more important to be seen as having the perfect family or the perfect life than it is to actually build the perfect family or the perfect life. Some people drive $60k cars and live in crumbling homes. In today's cultural setting, a reputation for success requires the complete abandonment of one's personal identity in exchange for the stock characteristics that the audience wants in a performer — whether Marylin Manson actually drinks blook or Ozzy Osborn actually worships the devil doesn't matter. Only the spectacle of performance is valued. I also cover Marx's theory of capitalism increasing alienation, the Frankfurt School's and the Situationists' (many of the same people) work on how Marx's world of commodity fetishism expanded to spectacle fetishism (the appearance came to be more important than the real), and Debord's (and re-Marx's) concept of magic properties bestowed upon commodities if producers can manage to hide the actual process of manufacturing from the public.  Before you listen to this episode, you might want to take a moment to listen to Macklemore's "Wings." on YouTube here, or anywhere you stream music. Check out the Nike commercial from that song on YouTube for a great example of recuperation (pt 2), and check out the corporate logo US flag for a great example of détournement (pt 2). Support the Show.

Nesse episódio, Gabriel Carvalho e Hian Sousa recebem Pedro Pimenta Barbosa de Sousa para falar sobre o tema da dominação da natureza na obra A Dialética do Esclarecimento de Adorno e Horkheimer, além do contexto de escrita e a recepção da obra no campo das ciências sociais. Trilha sonora: slowerpace - Barbershop Simulator, macroblank flesh and soul, GUILT, The Great Escape e Dead Inside.

Przy okazji pierwszego podkastu wywołany został temat oświecenia i jego wpływu na Kościół (teologię katolicką). Rzecz warta jest pogłębienia o tyle, że dynamizmy ówczesnych przemian kulturowych bynajmniej nie wygasły i w różnych formach pulsują nadal, uwarunkowując także wielorako refleksję teologiczną. Zapraszamy do zmierzenia się z tym tematem!O Antonio Rosminim: https://www.rosmini.itWątki klasyków pojawiające się w podkaście:Kant, I., Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?, „Berlinische Monatsschrift“,12 (1784)."Oświecenie jest wyjściem człowieka z zawinionej przez niego niedojrzałości. Niedojrzałość jest niezdolnością posługiwania się rozumem bez prowadzenia przez kogoś innego. Ta niedojrzałość jest zawiniona, o ile jej przyczyna nie tkwi w niedostatku rozumu, lecz w braku determinacji i odwagi, by się nim posługiwać, nie będąc kierowanym przez drugiego. Sapere aude! Miej odwagę posłużyć się własnym rozumem! To jest zatem hasło oświecenia".Lessing, G.E., Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft, w: tenże, Werke, t. 8, Göpfert, H.G. (red.) München 1976.„Przypadkowe prawdy historyczne nigdy nie mogą stać się dowodem koniecznych prawd rozumu“.Lessing, G.E., Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts §1-4"Czym jest wychowanie dla pojedynczego człowieka, tym jest Objawienie dla całego rodzaju ludzkiego.Wychowanie jest objawieniem, które wydarza się pojedynczemu człowiekowi; Objawienie jest wychowaniem, które przydarzyło się całemu rodzajowi ludzkiemu i wciąż się dzieje. […]Wychowanie nie daje człowiekowi nic, czego nie mógłby on też mieć sam z siebie: ono daje mu to, co mógłby mieć sam z siebie, tylko szybciej i łatwiej. Zatem także Objawienie nie daje rodzajowi ludzkiemu niczego, do czego rozum ludzki, pozostawiony sam sobie, nie mógłby dojść: ono dało i daje mu te najważniejsze sprawy jedynie szybciej."Adorno, T., Horkheimer, M., Dialektik der Aufklärung, Amsterdam 1949, s. 8."Przyczyn upadku Oświecenia w mitologię nie należy szukać tak bardzo w obmyślonych w celu spowodowania tego upadku nowoczesnych mitologiach nacjonalistycznych, pogańskich i innych lecz w samym Oświeceniu, które zamiera w lęku przed prawdą" („…bei der in Furcht vor der Wahrheit erstarrenden Aufklärung selbst”).

Wir sind 99 ZU EINS! Ein Podcast mit Kommentaren zu aktuellen Geschehnissen, sowie Analysen und Interviews zu den wichtigsten politischen Aufgaben unserer Zeit.#leftisbest #linksbringts #machsmitlinks Wir brauchen eure Hilfe! So könnt ihr uns unterstützen: 1. Bitte abonniert unseren Kanal und liked unsere Videos. 2. Teil unseren content auf social media und folgt uns auch auf Twitter, Instagram und FB 3. Wenn ihr Zugang zu unserer Discord-Community, sowie exklusive After-Show Episoden und Einladungen in unsere Livestreams bekommen wollt, dann unterstützt uns doch bitte auf Patreon: www.patreon.com/99zueins 4. Wir empfangen auch Spenden unter: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hostedbuttonid=NSABEZ5567QZE

durée : 00:58:06 - Avec philosophie - par : Géraldine Muhlmann - "De même que la prohibition a de tout temps ouvert la voie aux produits plus toxiques, l'interdiction de l'imagination théorique ouvre la voie à la folie politique", écrivent Adorno et Horkheimer. Quelle place donner à l'imagination théorique en politique ? - invités : Jean-Baptiste Lajoux Préhistorien, archéologue à l'Inrap et chercheur à l'UMR Temps (Nanterre).; Benjamin Torterat Doctorant en sciences politiques à l'Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas; Michèle Cohen-Halimi Philosophe, professeure de philosophie à l'université Paris 8

História do Liberalismo - Completo! Para ajudar o canal escolha uma forma: *Pix: https://widget.livepix.gg/embed/e47d6b80-f832-4fc2-a6af-ee6fa4c9ad9a *Apoie o Canal: https://apoia.se/canaldosocran *Áudios Venda: -CONCEITO DE HISTÓRIA NA FILSOFIA EM ARENDT: https://go.hotmart.com/I73309280Y?dp=1 -O QUE É FASCISMO: https://go.hotmart.com/Y72077629D?dp=1 Referências do Artigo: AUT. VÁR.. The relevance of liberalism, ao cuidado de Z. BRZEZINSKI, Westview Press. Boulder 1978; Id., Il liberalismo in Italia e in Germania dalla rivoluzione del '48 alla prima guerra mondiale, ao cuidado de R. HILL e N. MATTEUCCI. Il Mulino, Bologna 1980; B. A. ACKERMAN. Social justice in the liberal State, Yale University Press. New Haven 1980; I BERLIN, Four essays on liberty, Oxford University Press. London 1969; P. COSTA, Il progetto giuridico. Giuffrè. Milano 1974; M. CRANSTON. Freedom — A new analysis. Basic Books, New York 1968; B. CROCE. Storia d'Europa nel secolo decimonono. Laterza, Bari, 1932; E. CUOMO. Profilo del liberalismo europeo. Edizioni Scientifiche iialiane. Napoli 1981; R. D. CUMMING, Human nature and history — A study of the development of liberal political thought. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago e London 1969; G. DE RUGGIERO, Storia del liberalismo europeo. Laterza. Ban 1925; M. DI LALLA, Storia del liberalismo italiano, Forni, Bologna 1976; M. DUVERGER. Giano: le due facce dell'Ocidente (1972). Comunità, Milano 1973; P. GENTILE. L'idea liberale, Garzanti. Milano 1958; H. K. GIRVETZ, From wealth to welfare: The evolution of liberalism, MacMillan. New York 1950; J. HABERMAS. Storia e critica dell'opinione pubblica (1962). Laterza, Bari 1971; J. H. HALLOWELL, The decline of liberalism as an ideology, University of California Publications, Berkeley-Los Angeles 1943; F. A. VON HAYEK, La società libera (1960), Vallecchi, Firenze 1969: M. HORKHEIMER. LO Stato autoritario (1942), in La società di transizione: Einaudi, Torino 1979; R. KOSELLECK, Critica illuministica e crisi della società borghese (1959). Il Mulino. Bologna 1972; R. KUHNL, Due forme di dominio borghese: liberalismo e fascismo (1971), Feltrinelli, Milano 1973; H. J. LASKI, Le origini del liberalismo europeo (1936). La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1962; C. B. MACPHERSON. Libertà e proprietà alle origini del pensiero borghese (1972), Isedi, Milano 1973; H. MARCUSE. La lotta contra il liberalismo nella concezione totalitaria dello Stato (1934), in Cultura e società. Einaudi, Torino 1969; N. MATTEUCCI, Il liberalismo in un mondo in trasformazione. Il Mulino, Bologna 1972; T. P. NEILL, The rise and decline of liberalism, Bruce Publishing Co., Milwaukee 1953; W. A. ORTON, The liberal tradition. Yale University Press. New Haven 1945; M. SALVADORI, L'eresia liberale, Forni, Bologna 1979; J. S. SCHAPIRO, Liberalism: its meaning and history, D. Van Nostrand, Princeton 1958; D. SPITZ. The liberal idea of freedom. University of Arizona Press. Tucson 1964; L. STAUSS, Liberalismo antico e moderno (1968), Giuffrè, Milano 1973; F. WATKINS, The political tradition of the west: a study in the development of modern liberalism. Harward University Press. Cambridge, Mass. 1948; R. P. WOLFF, The poverty of liberalism, Beacon Press. Boston 1969; V. ZANONE, Il liberalismo moderno, in Storia delle idee politiche economiche e sociali, ao cuidado de L. FIRPO, VI, UTET, Torino 1972. [NICOLA MATTEUCCI]

Today, we're excited to share with you Bishop Barron's keynote talk from the 2023 Acton University conference, hosted by The Acton Institute. “Wokeism” is arguably the most influential public philosophy in our country today. It has worked its way into the minds and hearts of our young people, into the world of entertainment, and into the boardrooms of powerful corporations. But what is it precisely, and where did it come from? Bishop Barron argues in his presentation that “wokeism” is a popularization of critical theory, a farrago of ideas coming out of the French and German academies in the mid-twentieth century. Until we understand its origins in the thinking of Adorno, Horkheimer, Derrida, Marcuse, and Foucault, we will not know how critically to engage this dangerous philosophy.   NOTE: Do you like this podcast? Become a patron and get some great perks for helping, like free books, bonus content, and more. Word on Fire is a non-profit ministry that depends on the support of our listeners…like you! So be part of this mission, and join us today!

In den neuen Folge setzen sich Tobias und Thorsten mit der berühmt berüchtigten "Frankfurter Schule" auseinander. Von ihren Gründungsvätern Adorno und Horkheimer über Marcuse und Habermas bis zu Jaeggi und Rosa heute. Für die einen steht die Frankfurter Schule für die einflussreichste neomarxistische Strömung des 20. Jahrhunderts, die den kulturellen Umbruch der 68er maßgeblich geprägt hat. Für die anderen stehen diese Namen für die eigentliche intellektuelle Gründung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland als eines Staates, für den Demokratisierung und kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Faschismus und Holocaust zur Staatsräson gehört. So oder so ist die Beschäftigung mit ihnen für jede aktuelle Ethik wesentlich - vor allem für eine Ethik zum Selberdenken.

Dr. Jerome Corsi digs deeply into Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno, who despised capitalism and the "enlightenment morality." The two men canonized the Marquis de Sade, celebrating him in their own collaborative works, and advocated the abandonment of objective classical values for a more self-centered inhibition-releasing cultural direction. Dr. Corsi takes a critical look at Horkheimer's and Adorno's worldview and influence on modern Neo-Marxist theory.Today's The Truth Central features commentary from Dr. Corsi's new book: The Truth About Neo-Marxism, Cultural Maoism and Anarchy. Pick up your copy today on Amazon: https://www.thetruthcentral.com/the-truth-about-neo-marxism-cultural-maoism-and-anarchy-exposing-woke-insanity-in-the-age-of-disinformation/Get your FREE copy of Dr. Corsi's new book with Swiss America CEO Dean Heskin, How the Coming Global Crash Will Create a Historic Gold Rush by calling: 800-519-6268Follow Dr. Jerome Corsi on Twitter: @corsijerome1Our website: https://www.thetruthcentral.comOur link to where to get the Marco Polo 650-Page Book on the Hunter Biden laptop & Biden family crimes free online: https://www.thetruthcentral.com/marco-polo-publishes-650-page-book-on-hunter-biden-laptop-biden-family-crimes-available-free-online/Our Sponsors:MyVital https://www.thetruthcentral.com/myvitalc-ess60-in-organic-olive-oil/ Swiss America: https://www.swissamerica.com/offer/CorsiRMP.php The MacMillan Agency: https://www.thetruthcentral.com/the-macmillan-agency/ Pro Rapid Review: https://prorrt.com/thetruthcentralmembers/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-truth-central-with-dr-jerome-corsi--5810661/support.

Derrick Varn and Douglas Lain discuss Horkheimer's book "The Eclipse of Reason," the technocracy, and the question of the PMC in this month's edition of Pop the Left!

Henrike Kohpeiß zu bürgerlicher Kälte als Selbstimmunisierung des Bürgertums.   Shownotes Henrike Kohpeiß (Freie Universität Berlin): https://www.sfb-affective-societies.de/teilprojekte/B/B05/team_b05/kohpeiss/index.html Henrike auf Twitter: https://twitter.com/H_Kohpeiss Kohpeiß, Henrike. 2023. Bürgerliche Kälte - Affekt und koloniale Subjektivität. Philosophie und Kritik. Frankfurt / New York: Campus Verlag.: https://www.campus.de/buecher-campus-verlag/wissenschaft/philosophie/buergerliche_kaelte-17482.html   Weitere Shownotes Theodor Adorno: https://monoskop.org/Theodor_Adorno Max Horkheimer: https://monoskop.org/Max_Horkheimer Adorno, Theodor W., und Max Horkheimer. 2022 [1947]. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Fischer Verlag, Berlin: https://www.fischerverlage.de/buch/max-horkheimer-theodor-w-adorno-dialektik-der-aufklaerung-9783103971521 Lemke, Thomas. 2021. The Government of Things - Foucault and the New Materialisms. New York: NYU Press.: https://nyupress.org/9781479829934/the-government-of-things/ Jonas Bens: https://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/ethnologie/personen/wiss_mitarb_u_koord_aus_drittmitteln/bens/index.html Letzte Generation –Bürger*innenrat: https://letztegeneration.org/gesellschaftsrat/ Hannah Arendt: https://monoskop.org/Hannah_Arendt Das neue Berlin – Podcast: https://dasneue.berlin/ „Rammstein-Vorwürfe: Lindemann und die Drübersteher“ - Özge İnan: https://www.freitag.de/autoren/oezge-inan/rammstein-vorwuerfe-lindemann-und-die-druebersteher Ruth Wilson Gilmore (City University of New York): https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/ruth-wilson-gilmore Helmut, Plessner. 2022. Grenzen der Gemeinschaft. Eine Kritik des sozialen Radikalismus. Suhrkamp Verlag, 8. Auflage.: https://www.suhrkamp.de/buch/helmuth-plessner-grenzen-der-gemeinschaft-t-9783518291405 van Dyk, Silke & Haubner, Tine. 2021. Community-Kapitalismus. Hamburger Edition: https://www.hamburger-edition.de/buecher-e-books/artikel-detail/community-kapitalismus/d/2649/ Denise Ferreira da Silva und Valentina Desideri (The Sensing Salon): https://www.thesensingsalon.org/about   Boltanski, Luc und Ève Chiapello. 2006. Der neue Geist des Kapitalismus. Köln: Huber von Halem Verlag: https://www.halem-verlag.de/der-neue-geist-des-kapitalismus/ Automatisierte Transkriptionen von allen Future Histories Episoden, erstellt duch ybaumy (danke!): https://github.com/autonompost/podcasts-transcriptions/tree/main/podcasts/futurehistories/transcripts Thematisch angrenzende Future Histories Episoden S02E51 | Silvia Federici on Progress, Reproduction and Commoning: https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e51-silvia-federici-on-progress-reproduction-and-commoning/ S02E39 | Daniel Loick zu Freiheit, Souveränität und Recht ohne Gewalt: https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e39-daniel-loick-zu-freiheit-souveraenitaet-und-recht-ohne-gewalt/ S02E36 | Thomas Lemke zum Regieren der Dinge: https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e36-thomas-lemke-zum-regieren-der-dinge/ S02E13 | Tine Haubner und Silke van Dyk zu Community-Kapitalismus: https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e13-tine-haubner-und-silke-van-dyk-zu-community-kapitalismus/   Wenn euch Future Histories gefällt, dann erwägt doch bitte eine Unterstützung auf Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/FutureHistories? Schreibt mir unter office@futurehistories.today  Diskutiert mit auf Twitter (#FutureHistories): https://twitter.com/FutureHpodcast auf Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@FutureHistories oder auf Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/FutureHistories/ www.futurehistories.today   Keywords: #HenrikeKohpeiss, #JanGroos, #FutureHistories, #Podcast, #Interview, #bürgerlicheKälte, #kolonialeSubjektivität, #kritischeTheorie, #Odysseus, #Horkheimer, #Adorno, #Subjekt, #Aufklärung, #gesellschaftlicheSubjektivität, #liberalesSubjekt, #Affekt, #affektiveGesellschaften, #Vernunft, #befreiteGesellschaft, #Selbstbestimmung, #Gemeinschaft   

This week, we're bringing you one of the plenary lectures from this year's Acton University, featuring Bishop Robert Barron speaking on “The Philosophical Roots of Wokeism.”"Wokeism” is arguably the most influential public philosophy in our country today. It has worked its way into the minds and hearts of our young people, into the world of entertainment, and into the boardrooms of powerful corporations. But what is it precisely, and where did it come from? I will argue in my presentation that “wokeism” is a popularization of critical theory, a farrago of ideas coming out of the French and German academies in the mid-twentieth century. Until we understand its origins in the thinking of Adorno, Horkheimer, Derrida, Marcuse, and Foucault, we will not know how critically to engage this dangerous philosophy.Subscribe to our podcasts Word on Fire Catholic Ministries Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Special Edition of Acton Vault featuring Acton Line This week, we're bringing you one of the plenary lectures from this year's Acton University, featuring Bishop Robert Barron speaking on “The Philosophical Roots of Wokeism.” "Wokeism” is arguably the most influential public philosophy in our country today. It has worked its way into the minds and hearts of our young people, into the world of entertainment, and into the boardrooms of powerful corporations. But what is it precisely, and where did it come from? I will argue in my presentation that “wokeism” is a popularization of critical theory, a farrago of ideas coming out of the French and German academies in the mid-twentieth century. Until we understand its origins in the thinking of Adorno, Horkheimer, Derrida, Marcuse, and Foucault, we will not know how critically to engage this dangerous philosophy. Subscribe to our podcasts  Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

Did you teach Audrey's Communication in Pop Culture Class? No? Than this version of this episode isn't for you. See those references on the bottom? They're there for exactly ONE person, and you know who you are. If you are not that person, go check out the directors cut version instead. We have FUN over there. Abad-Santos, A. (2017, June 9). How the Babadook became the LGBTQ icon we didn't know we needed. Vox. Retrieved April 25, 2023, from https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/6/9/15757964/gay-babadook-lgbtq Fiske, J. (2011). Understanding popular culture. Routledge. Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1944). Dialectic of Enlightenment. Jenkins, H. (2016). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York University Press.

Today I'm speaking with Mark LeVine, a professor, touring musician, and author of several books, including Heavy Metal Islam, a book on the metal scene in the Muslim world. Mark has traveled throughout the world to explore musical styles and scenes outside of the Western mainstream. He became a rock musician at a young age, and spent his twenties reading Nietzsche in graduate school during the day, and gigging in New York City at night. In the course of his career, he's set up concerts in Cairo and Baghdad, discovered artists from Indonesia and Togo, and brought musical acts from around the world to perform in the United States. Mark and I share many interests as we both have a deep connection with Nietzsche and heavy metal, and both see a connection between aggressive, challenging styles of musical expression and Nietzsche's philosophy. In the course of the conversation we venture into the Frankfurt School and Nietzsche's influence there, consider how the different generations of that tradition approached Nietzsche, and discuss how Nietzsche's project differed from that of Adorno, Horkheimer, or Fromm. In spite of their critiques of him, Nietzsche remains indispensable for understanding the social critique that came out of the Frankfurt School, both because of his attack on the Enlightenment, but also through his influence on Freud. Heavy Metal Islam on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Metal-Islam-Resistance-Struggle/dp/0307353397 Mark also offered some suggestions for Heavy Metal from the Muslim world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCZnQlkC-VQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNav2lzd-TQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iak5NDINSPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhQ-99Qqj_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P82dJIwi4Qc

Mere Simulacrity, Session 11 We are in the midst of transitioning from an objectively true, historically consistent, analogue world and into a world that is subjectively purposed, revolutionary, and digital in construct. In fact, more so than ever before, we are in a period of time where the “what is” is being demonized and the wizard's trick of “what it should be” is being lauded as a preferred pathway to the real. A hyperreal world of dreams, visions, technology and digital realization is in many ways attempting to take the place of what mankind has always called “reality.” In the late second century, the Christian Bishop, Irenaeus of Lyon, confronted the Gnostic parasitic cult of Valentinus which proposed that this physical world was a “prison” by which men and women needed to be liberated through Gnostic faith and practice. More specifically understood as “anticosmicism”, the Gnostics proclaimed the belief that the objectively knowable world is inherently evil and opposed to the divine. In the Gnostic formulation of their transformed Christianity, true divinity was not the essence of this real, natural world, but its negation and cancellation. Irenaeus of Lyon warned Christians that this parasitic religion of Gnosticism was a religion masquerading as the Gospel but in reality was a simulacrum of true Christianity: “Error, indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced more true than truth itself.” -Irenaeus of Lyons, AD 180 The Gnostics did not seek harmony with the natural world or with the normative Christian understanding of cultivation and dominion. Instead, the Gnostics attempted to parasitically transform the established Christian faith that sought harmony with God's creation and instead promoted the false concept of the mystical, otherworldly insight that our world must be seen as unnatural and even anti-natural. The natural, in the Gnostic sense, was only available to those that have embraced special knowledge or what can be described as a critical consciousness of the natural world. The way that things are in a natural sense to the Gnostics was “imprisonment” and the mystical otherness of what was not naturally attainable was “liberation.” If you were a woman in the natural and objectively knowable world, in the spiritually anti-natural world the woman's true self was actually that of a man who has been imprisoned by the Demiurgic forces of the natural world. This denial of the objectively real and knowable experienced a renaissance in the 18th and 19th centuries through the works of Swedenborg, Kant, Hegel and eventually Karl Marx. As Dr. James Lindsay has explained at Sovereign Nation's conferences in the past, Marxism is a Neo-Gnostic theology where Man is made to realize he is his own Creator, his own true Sun that revolves around itself. Marx sees himself as the light-bringer, Lucifer, the Morning Star, that awakens this Gnostic consciousness and rebels against God and order. It has continued to this day with further gain of function through Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and a host of other Neo-Marxists who have embraced unreality and rejected objective standards for truth, life, and human existence. In this powerful presentation from the Sovereign Nation's Mere Simulacrity Conference, Michael O'Fallon explains how the spectre of Gnosticism has been infused into our culture, our faith, and our world. https://sovereignnations.com Support Sovereign Nations: https://paypal.me/sovnations https://patreon.com/sovnations Follow Sovereign Nations: https://sovereignnations.com/subscribe/ © 2023 Sovereign Nations. All rights reserved. #sovereignnations #michaelofallon #4thindustrialrevolution

On this edition of Parallax Views, Ramon Glazov, whose articles have been featured in such publications as Jacobin and Overland Magazine, returns to the program to discuss the problematic elements of political philosophers Hannah Arendt's famous "Banality of Evil" hypothesis born out SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem after the Holocaust. Among the topics covered in this conversation: - Ramon's interest in the topic and the classic cinematic thriller Boys from Brazil - Virulent antisemitic politics vs. the "Banality of Evil" hypothesis as an explanation for Eichmann's actions - Heidegger's Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse by Richard Wolin; Arendt's relationship with the German philosopher and Nazi party member Maritn Heidegger; Arendt's identification with high German culture; her condescending views on Eastern European Jews; how did these things potentially inform Arendt's views on the Holocaust? - The question of deviance in understanding Eichmann; the concept of thoughtlessness in Arendt's "Banality of Evil" hypothesis ; the idea of the dark side of the Enlightenment; Horkheimer, Adorno, the Frankfurt School, and the Dialectic of the Enlightenment; the Enlightenment, modernity, and the Holocaust; - The question of whether or not Adolf Eichmann was a true believer or a functionary bureaucrat "desk murderer" who was "just following orders" - Bettina Stangneth's biography Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer - The myth and reality of Adolf Eichmann; Eichmann was in charge of logistics for the Holocaust and put on trial; did Eichmann seek to craft/present a specific image of himself at the trial?; - Eichmann, Immanuel Kant, and the Kant's categorical imperative; claims that Eichmann was "just doing his job" rather than a committed antisemite and political supporter of Nazism; the psychiatric examination of Eichmann and Eichmann as a fake or simulated neurotic - Eichmann's career in the SS as a flamboyant glory-hound who quickly rose up through the ranks; Eichmann's relationship with the Jewish people (specifically in Vienna, Austria) and his spying on Jewish communities as an SS officer; evidence of Eichmann's loyalty to the Nazi cause - Eichmann's study of Hebrew, his self-presentation as an expert in Hebrew, and his self-mythology claiming that he was born in Palestine (this is before the trial; he was actually a German Austrian); Eichmann's grandiose myth-making about himself - High-ranking Nazi official Herman Göring's comment at a trial that "This Wisliceny is just a little swine, who looks like a big one because Eichmann isn't here" in reference to SS officer Dieter Wisliceny and Eichmann's role in the Holocaust - Simon Wiesenthal and the rise of the Nazi hunters; false rumors about Eichmann being in the Middle East and stirring up Arab nationalists against Israel in the post-war period when he was really hiding out in Argentina - Eichmann's own myth making as indicative of someone who wasn't banal but cunning and knowing in his actions - While in Argentina Eichmann wrote a large amount of written materials justifying himself; examining Eichmann's Argentina papers and what they tell us about Eichmann before his trial; he attacks humanism and Kant in these papers despite later claiming to have been a Kantian led astray; Eichmann treats the Holocaust as being a justified military operation in these papers rather than a genocide - Eichmann wasn't non-philosophical; he was deeply interested in Heidegger; Eichmann's Black Notebooks and his views on "calculation" and modernity; Eichmann's view of modernity being a product of Jewish culture and the Holocaust as a "self-annihilation" - Eichmann, the Frankfurt School, Arendt, Romanticism, and the Enlightenment; differences and similarities between the left and right critiques of modernity, instrumentalization of reason, etc. - The consequences of the "Banality of Evil" hypothesis; the application of the "Banality of Evil" hypothesis to Colonialism; obfuscation of the deliberate actions taken by oppressors over oppressed group - Rwanda, Modernity, the "Banality of Evil", and the paradigms of evil and genocide - How Arendt's "Banality of Evil" hypothesis has impacted both Anglo-thinkers and Continental-thinkers in psychology and psychoanalysis; Stanley Milgram and the Milgram experiment; the problems with the Milgram experiment; - Slavoj Zizek and the Eichmann-ization of concept of the pervert in psychoanalytic thought; the Marquis de Sade and Lacan's essay "Kant With Sade" that appears after Eichmann's execution; the pervert as a functionary following directions from "the Big Other"; the pervert as the perfect conformist; pre-Eichmann trial views of the concept of the pervert and how they differ from the Eichmann-ized pervert; psycho-dynamics and the pervert as inherently conservative in the post-Eichmann trial period - A slight digression into the changing views about the Marquis de Sade over the years; the Marquis de Sade as the ancestor of 007 James Bond creator Ian Fleming - Hannah Arendt and her philosophical hero Socrates; Arendt's attempt to grapple with what constitutes thinking; Arendt and thought as the antidote to totalitarian atrocities; Socrates and the Thirty Tyrants; Socrates as a not particularly pro-democracy philosopher even in the narrower, ancient sense of the term; Socrates, Plato, and Xenophon; Socrates in Athens; The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone; the charge of impiety against Socrates and his execution - Are there real world consequences to examining the world and social phenomena through the lens of the "Banality of Evil" hypothesis; the "Banality of Evil" as downplaying the specific cultural racial bigotries/hatreds and their role in social phenomena; the "Banality of Evil" as an elitist hypothesis - The range of personalities that supported the Nazi cause; the movement was not just supported by philistine thugs but elements of the society's well-educated as well - And much, much more!

Carlo Altini"La storia della filosofia come filosofia politica""La filosofia politica di Hobbes"Edizioni ETShttps://edizioniets.com"La storia della filosofia come filosofia politica"Carl Schmitt e Leo Strauss lettori di Thomas HobbesNella Germania di Weimar l'interpretazione di Hobbes diventa l'occasione per una valutazione storica, politica e filosofica della vicenda dello Stato moderno, nell'epoca della sua crisi. Molti sono gli autori – da Tönnies a Dilthey, da Meinecke a Cassirer e Horkheimer – che si confrontano con la lezione del filosofo inglese, con lo scopo esplicito di comprendere la genesi, lo sviluppo e il destino della modernità filosofico-politica e del capitalismo all'interno di una più complessiva discussione critica dei processi di razionalizzazione nel mondo moderno. Tra le interpretazioni di Hobbes svolgono tuttavia un ruolo decisivo quelle offerte da Carl Schmitt e Leo Strauss negli anni Trenta, in piena temperie nazista, quando diventa discriminante, per l'interpretazione della politica moderna, la riflessione sulle categorie di individualismo, massificazione e totalitarismo."La filosofia politica di Hobbes"Il suo fondamento e la sua genesiQuesto volume presenta una nuova traduzione italiana di uno dei testi più celebri del filosofo tedesco Leo Strauss, che aprì una nuova strada agli studi su Hobbes. Pubblicato a Oxford nel 1936, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes è una compiuta analisi storico-filosofica sulla formazione del pensiero politico hobbesiano, e della sua cesura radicale con il pensiero premoderno, che prende le mosse da almeno due domande.Qual è il fondamento della filosofia politica di Hobbes? Si trova nella nuova scienza fisica di Galilei oppure in una preferenza morale di tipo individualistico?Da qui si snoda l'analisi complessa – che tiene insieme storia della filosofia, filologia e filosofia politica – sviluppata da Strauss intorno al pensiero di Hobbes, considerato il fondatore della modernità. L'esito di questa indagine, realizzata negli anni Trenta tra Parigi e Cambridge, in esilio dalla Germania nazista, costituisce un punto di riferimento per la letteratura hobbesiana, che ancora oggi considera l'opera di Strauss come un testo ineludibile per affrontare l'autore del Leviathan. Ma i motivi e i risultati di questa ricerca sono centrali soprattutto per comprendere alcune traiettorie della filosofia politica moderna che, nell'interpretazione straussiana, abbandona i modelli classici fondati sul bene e sulla virtù per creare un nuovo “continente morale” fondato sui diritti individuali, la cui deriva sarà visibile nel nichilismo e nel relativismo della contemporaneità.Leo Strauss (1899-1973) è stato uno dei maggiori filosofi politici del Novecento. Autore di opere su Platone e Senofonte, Maimonide e Machiavelli, Hobbes e Spinoza, nelle sue ricerche ha costruito un originale intreccio tra storia della filosofia e filosofia politica centrato sulla critica della modernità, alla luce di alcune questioni chiave per il pensiero filosofico: la riscoperta della scrittura reticente, il confronto con la filosofia greca classica e l'analisi del rapporto tra Atene e Gerusalemme.Carlo Altini è professore di Storia della filosofia nell'Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, direttore scientifico della Fondazione San Carlo di Modena e membro di direzione della rivista «Filosofia politica». Nelle sue ricerche ha indagato la nascita, lo sviluppo e la crisi della modernità filosofica e politica attraverso l'analisi storica e teorica di concetti quali progresso, potenza, utopia, sovranità, democrazia e autori quali Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt, Gershom Scholem, Karl Löwith. Tra le sue pubblicazioni recenti: Issues of Interpretation (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2018); Una filosofia in esilio. Vita e pensiero di Leo Strauss (Carocci, 2021); Philosophy as Stranger Wisdom. A Leo Strauss Intellectual Biography (State University of New York Press, 2022).IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEAscoltare fa Pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.itQuesto show fa parte del network Spreaker Prime. Se sei interessato a fare pubblicità in questo podcast, contattaci su https://www.spreaker.com/show/1487855/advertisement

Auf einer Karikatur von 1968 heißen Sie „Die Marx Brothers“: Adorno, Horkheimer und Habermas sind die Poster-Boys der „Frankfurter Schule“ in der Bonner Republik. Sie entfalteten eine neomarxistische, kritische Gesellschaftstheorie. Angefangen hat das schon Ende Januar 1923. Neuartig war ihre Verbindung von philosophischer Theorie, empirischer Sozialforschung und literarischem Stil. Was eint sie über 100 Jahre hinweg? Lebt der Gründungsgedanke der Herrschaftskritik und Utopie weiter? Gibt es „kein richtiges Leben im falschen“? Michael Köhler diskutiert mit Dr. Svenja Flasspöhler - Chefredakteurin Philosophie Magazin, Berlin, Prof. Dr. Martin Saar - Sozialphilosoph, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M., Dr. Jörg Später - Historiker, Freiburg

Barry and Mike wrap up their discussion on The Dialectic of Enlightenment by taking on the final section on antisemitism and then offering their takeaways from the book. It's a long discussion that covers a good bit of ground. Among other topics, they spend time talking about the dangers of partially understood ideologies, the role of access to public services (and how belonging to the to public creates impressions of authenticity), and the problems of conflating access with progress.

Von großen Namen wie Horkheimer und Adorno geprägt, geht das Institut für Sozialforschung auch nach hundert Jahren noch seinem Nachkriegsauftrag nach. Ein Gespräch mit Institutsleiter Stephan Lessenich zum Jubiläum.

Von großen Namen wie Horkheimer und Adorno geprägt, geht das Institut für Sozialforschung auch nach hundert Jahren noch seinem Nachkriegsauftrag nach. Ein Gespräch mit Institutsleiter Stephan Lessenich zum Jubiläum.

What do Taylor Swift, Beethoven, and Raidohead have in common?In the fourth part of their series on Horkheimer and Adorno's“Dialectic of Enlightenment” Barry and Mike talk about the “Culture Industry.” Among other topics, they discuss how money influences how art gets made and how capitalism impacts media. We hope you enjoy!

Horkheimer and Adorno – Juliette or Enlightenment and MoralityIn this episode, Barry and Mike discuss "Excursis two: Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality," from Horkheimer and Adorno's "The Dialectic of Enlightenment." Here Adprno and Horkheimer argue that, despite their many differences, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and the French libertine writer the Marquis de Sade shared one idea in common: they both believed that Enlightenment reason could be wholly separated from moral concerns. In doing so, they both made it intellectually respectable to subordinate morality to power and thus indirectly led to the rise of fascism. We had to leave a lot of ideas from this chapter on the table to keep the episode at a manageable length. There' s a lot more here to discuss: as always, we welcome your comments!

Barry and Mike take on Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment, the second chapter of Horkheimer and Adorno's “Dialectic of Enlightenment,” focusing on three key moments in the story of Odysseus' journey: the encounters with Circe, the Cyclops, and his return home. They explore the ways that Horkheimer and Adorno's understanding of Enlightenment thinking is manifest in Odysseus' actions, perhaps most evident in his uncanny ability to leverage myth in order to succeed in his endeavors. In Barry's words, “He's a problem solver, that Odysseus.”

The people have spoken! One of our listeners, Jessica, asked if we would do an episode on the Frankfurt school, preferably Horkheimer and Adorno. And when you folks ask, we oblige!In prepping for an episode on chapter two of the Dialectic of Enlightenment, Barry and Mike asked the age old question: Why just do one chapter of incredibly dense German philosophy when you can take on the book in its entirety? So that's what we're beginning here.Over the next five episodes we will be discussing the individual chapters of The Dialectic of Enlightenment. The goal for each is twofold: First, we want to explicate the central arguments of each chapter and then, secondly, we will be applying those arguments to the digital media as they exist now, at the end of 2022. This first episode attempts to lay out Horkheimer and Adorno's general argument about the Enlightenment and to sketch the direction for the books remaining episodes. We hope you enjoy and, as always, welcome your feedback, comments, and suggestions!

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To become a patron from just £3 a month, got to Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod In this patrons-only episode, Jeremy dons his professorial gown to deliver the first of two lectures on music and Marxism. What is historical materialism? What does it mean to apply historical materialist analysis to culture? Jeremy shows how Marxist theory can be - and has been - applied to music from Bach to Jazz, illustrating ways in which we can explain cultural and aesthetic changes with Marxian thinking. In this episode Jeremy gives a whistlestop refresher on Marxist thought, then introduces us to some of the writers whose work can be applied to analysing music: Lukács, Bakhtin, Voloshinov, and members of the Frankfurt School including Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer. Jeremy considers the main innovation of the interwar period - the development of recording technology - and introduces the idea of reification as both a positive and negative phenomenon. He also considers how various forms of music-making embody egalitarian or bourgeois subjectivities, and tees us up for the next episode, starting in the 1940s. Tracklist: JS Bach - Harpsichord Concerto No.1 in D Minor BWV 1052 Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 in E flat major Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 in C minor Igor Stravinsky - Firebird Arnold Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht Books and Articles: The SAGE Handbook of Marxism Jeremy Gilbert - A Brief History of Marxist Cultural Theory (https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/a-brief-history-of-marxist-cultural-theory/) György Lukács - History and Class Consciousness Valentin Voloshinov - Marxism and the Philosophy of Language Walter Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Adorno & Horkheimer - The Dialectic of Enlightenment

In this episode, I present Adorno and Horkheimer's notion of pseudo-individualism. If you want to support me, you can do that with these links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy paypal.me/theoryphilosophy Twitter: @DavidGuignion IG: @theory_and_philosophy

Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!Max Horkheimer, (born February 14, 1895, Stuttgart, Germany—died July 7, 1973, Nürnberg), was a German philosopher who, as director of the Institute for Social Research(1930–41; 1950–58), developed an original interdisciplinary movement, known as critical theory, that combined Marxist-oriented political philosophy with social and cultural analysis informed by empirical research.Horkheimer studied philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1922. In 1930, after four years as lecturer in social philosophy at Frankfurt, he was named director of the university's newly founded Institute for Social Research. Under his leadership, the institute attracted an extraordinarily talented array of philosophers and social scientists—including Theodor Adorno (1903–69), Eric Fromm (1900–80), Leo Löwenthal (1900–93), Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), and Franz Neumann (1900–54)—who (along with Horkheimer) came to be known collectively as the Frankfurt School. Horkheimer also served as editor of the institute's literary organ, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (“Journal for Social Research”), which published pathbreaking studies in political philosophy and cultural analysis from 1932 to 1941.The institute's first study in this vein, “Authority and the Family,” was still incomplete when the Nazi seizure of power forced most members of the institute to flee Germany in 1933. Horkheimer moved to New York City, where he reestablished the institute and its journal at Columbia University. Throughout the remainder of the decade, he sought to keep the flame of critical theory burning by writing a number of programmatic essays for the Zeitschrift. Among the most influential of these works was “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937), in which he contrasted what he considered the socially conformist orientation of traditional political philosophy and social science with the brand of critical Marxism favoured by the institute. According to Horkheimer, the traditional approaches are content to describe existing social institutions more or less as they are, and their analyses thus have the indirect effect of legitimating repressive and unjust social practices as natural or objective. By contrast, critical theory, through its detailed understanding of the larger historical and social context in which these institutions function, would expose the system's false claims to legitimacy, justice, and truth.In 1941 the institute, which had been beset by financial troubles, was effectively dissolved, and Horkheimer moved to Los Angeles. There he collaborated with Adorno on an influential study, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), which traced the rise of fascism and other forms of totalitarianism to the Enlightenment notion of “instrumental” reason. The work's pessimism reflects the defeats that progressive European social movements had suffered since the early 1930s. A more accessible version of the book's argument also appeared in 1947 under the title The Eclipse of Reason. In 1950 Horkheimer returned to Frankfurt, where he reestablished the institute and ultimately became rector of the university. His later work displays his enduring fascination with the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) and the philosophy of religion. Horkheimer felt that Schopenhauer's pessimistic social philosophy more faithfully reflected the lost prospects for utopia than did the more optimistic social theories of the postwar period.From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Horkheimer. For more information about Max Horkheimer:Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:Carolin Emcke about Horkheimer, at 25:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-060-carolin-emcke“Max Horkheimer”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/horkheimer/Towards a New Manifesto: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2679-towards-a-new-manifesto

This episode features a short talk by Matt Baker anticipating the recent seminar led by Petra Carlsson on the topic of 'Activist Art and Radical Theology' for the Radical Theology Seminar. For more details, go to: https://www.patreon.com/radicaltheology Sources: Crockett & Robbins, "Religion, Politics, and the Earth:The New Materialism". Horkheimer & Adorno, "Dialectic of Enlightenment." Grosz, "Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth".

In this episode we talk about Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, focusing on their notion of reason as abstractive domination and their understanding of the culture industry as a means of producing mass complicity with the machinations of capital. The good news is that we've got a much better sense of humor than either of them, so it's not as miserable as all that might sound. The bad news is we're not sure if they're wrong to be so pessimistic. We also drag a fair bit of popular culture, admit we still love it, and call out the podcast form itself. But you don't need to worry: your media consumption habits are good. You're fine. You're one of the ones who gets it, definitely.This is just a small clip from the full episode, which is available to patrons: patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).Theodor Adorno, "Free Time", in Critical Models (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005).Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

This episode is a recording of The Coming Tsunami live seminar, where Dr. Mark Turman and Dr. Jim Denison discussed the origins of Critical Race Theory and the “five lanes” of how Christians should respond. They closed by addressing questions from the audience.    First, Mark and Jim discuss the context and summary of Dr. Denison's new book, The Coming Tsunami (available to order now). They point out the need for Christians to understand the culture and the time we live in. Jim's designation of four earthquakes helps us understand the rising cultural backlash against Christianity.    As they narrow in their discussion to focus on Critical Race Theory (CRT), they consider the formation of Critical Theory by examining Max Horkheimer and Karl Marx. While Marx argued that oppressed and oppressor economic classes of people define society, Horkheimer expanded that vision by arguing that oppressed and oppressor distinctions exist in every area of life and in every institution. CRT comprises those ideas but is applied more narrowly to America and race.    After they establish a solid understanding of CRT, they consider the good and the bad in it. In regards to Marxism, Jim discusses his time in communist Cuba and the consequences that ideas have. Some of the principles of CRT are opposed to the Bible, and some are not.    We can consider CRT a box of ideas that we must sort through with discernment. For instance, contrary to the Bible, Marxism and CRT argue that there is no personal sin or individual responsibility. CRT is right to point out that racial inequalities still exist and are pervasive to this day. While many social issues persist in America, Christians are stepping up to improve people's lives and fight against inequities.    They then conclude by extrapolating the five lanes of personal application of CRT according to Dr. Denison:  Does systemic racism exist? Yes, and Jim discusses some evidence supporting this point.  Does racism (prejudice) exist in my life? We need to examine ourselves for the potential of this sin and include accountability partners if we can. Do I need to give personal reparations to those I've harmed? Certainly, just as Zaccheus gave reparations to all those he stole from. If we're convicted to right the wrongs of our personal prejudice, we absolutely should. Do I need to give cultural reparations for those being harmed? No. The Bible only holds individuals guilty for their own sins. Do I need to give cultural reparations to those who have been harmed? No, again for the same reasons as above.    After this, Jim answered three questions from the live, online audience.    “How Can Christians best work against the misapplication of CRT in current debates and in current public places?” Jim and Mark respond from various angles.  “Which earthquake does Dr. Denison consider the most imminent?” To which Jim responds by discussing the Equality Act and the ramifications of the second earthquake, that biblical morality is intolerant. “Is it important to share this coming tsunami with non-believing friends?” While Jim believes that this message is critical to changing the tide, the book is for Christians, first and foremost. It wasn't written to convince non-believers, but to warn believers.    Instead of being warriors in the culture, we need to be missionaries, speaking the truth in love, and using our influence to spread the good news. That will lead to revival and change the tide.    P.S. Jim's most pivotal book to date, The Coming Tsunami, is now available on Kindle, hardcover, and audible. As of writing these show notes, it has risen to #4 in Christian social issues on Amazon. Order yours today!   Resources and further reading: “Can We Still Reason Together?” – Robert P. George, “Continuing Change in U.S. Views on Sex and Marriage” – Gallup Polls “A Threat to Ministry in Canada” – The Gospel Coalition “Critical Race Theory: Plundering the Egyptians or Worshiping Ba'al?” – Bruce Ashford