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The Unfinished Project of Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory in Weimar’s Twilight
Abstract: This article examines the emergence of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (1923-1933) as the most sophisticated theoretical response to the crises of Weimar Germany, arguing that the early Frankfurt School developed “Critical Theory” as both a diagnosis of civilizational collapse and a desperate attempt to rescue the emancipatory potential of modernity from its own self-destructive tendencies. Through analysis of the Institute’s foundational texts, interdisciplinary methodology, and key figures—particularly Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Walter Benjamin—this article demonstrates how their unique synthesis of Marx, Freud, and Weber generated a radical critique of both capitalism and Soviet communism…
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This article examines the powerful conservative and völkisch (ethno-nationalist) currents that developed in opposition to Weimar Germany’s cosmopolitan modernity, arguing that this “Other Germany” constituted not merely a political opposition but a comprehensive counter-culture with its own distinct aesthetics, intellectual traditions, and social practices. It demonstrates how the “conservative revolution”—a term describing thinkers who sought revolutionary means for reactionary ends—provided the ideological underpinnings for the rejection of parliamentary democracy, liberalism, and the perceived cultural decay of urban civilization. Through analysis of philosophical texts, youth movements, veteran organizations, and popular literature, this article traces how figures like Oswald Spengler, Ernst Jünger,…