Talk:Frankfurt School

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[edit] Older comments

Moved Frankfurt-School-related material from critical theory page to this one, expanded that material, and added photographs. Jeremy J. Shapiro 05:10, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Moved stuff specifically having to do with the Institute for Social Research as an institution, as opposed to with the Frankfurt School as an body of intellectual work, to a new article on the Institute for Social Research, which is also linked to already by some other articles. Jeremy J. Shapiro 05:36, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Sorry Hershell but no one in the real world of academe considers LaRouche to be a serious critic of the Frankfurt school. If you disagree please point to one academic text or journal that says otherwise. (books etc put out by the LaRouche movement do not count)AndyL 01:12, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

While many people blame the Frankfurt school for all sorts of things, including probably emergence of what you call counterculture, I am hard pressed to see the founder of dianetics to be the leading representant of such a view. I agree with AndyL Refdoc 22:05, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Refdoc, you are entirely correct in presuming that L. Ron Hubbard is not widely known as a critic of the Frankfurt School. --Herschelkrustofsky 02:49, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately Refdoc got his cult leaders confused. Hershel, I'm still waiting for a reference to any academic writing the refers to LaRouche as a serious critic of the Frankfurt School. AndyL 04:49, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, You are both right. There should be rule against editing past bed time... Anyway, that man is indeed even less known as someone to be taken seriously...Refdoc 07:14, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Andy, you are not a serious participant in this discussion. The only reason that you wish to edit this page, is that you are carrying out an obsessive vendetta against my work at Wikipedia, which has been amply documented at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche/Evidence. In your feverish pursuit of this vendetta, you recently violated procedure by reverting this page while it was protected.
But for the benefit of anyone who does wish to seriously discuss the Frankfurt School, I would make the following points: the reason that we need critics of the Frankfurt School, is precisely because its Weltanschauung has become so insidiously hegemonic in Andy's beloved academia. Some of the assumptions associated with people like Arendt (the lover of unrepentant Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger) and Adorno are downright horrifying, but they commonly go unchallenged. It were difficult to quantify it, but I would suspect that the majority of laymen who know about the Frankfurt School do so because of the very wide circulation of LaRouche publications on that topic. Likewise, I would defy you to find an "academic" benediction of the sort you are demanding, for the other listed criticisms of the Frankfurt School:
  • The first is that the intellectual perspective of the Frankfurt School is really a romantic, elitist critique of mass culture dressed-up in neo-Marxist clothing: what really bothers the critical theorists in this view is not social oppression, but that the masses like Ian Fleming and The Beatles instead of Samuel Beckett and Webern.
  • The second, originating on the Left, is that critical theory is a form of bourgeois idealism that has no inherent relation to political practice and is totally isolated from any ongoing revolutionary movement.
I don't wish to defend these criticisms; I think they're incompetent. But my point is, your professed interest in this topic is insincere and hypocritical. Your professed desire to dispute this article should be settled within the larger context of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche/Evidence. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:47, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hershell, it is regrettable that you are failing in your responsibilities as an editor by refusing to defend your position or provide any evidence justifying it. Instead you deride your critics as "incompetent" and "insincere" and make false assumptions about their political knowledge. You falsely assumed elsewhere that I was a neo-conservative. In fact, if you check my edit history , it will become obvious to you that I have spent a lot of my editing time working on articles related to Marxism and socialism and particularly Trotskyism. You are wrong in your anti-intellectual assumption that I am a supporter of the Frankfurt School because I insist you provide reference to academic sources. In fact I reject the Frankfurt School because of its Stalinism and negativity of the potential of the working class in industrialised nations. I think it had a very dilatory effect, for instance, on France 1968 as those influenced by its teachings basically assumed that the rebellion that was happening could not spread to the working class and therefore worked to suppress or undermine it. Now please either provide some sort of reference to any serious scholars who regard LaRouche as a serious critic of the Frankfurt School or stand down. AndyL 16:07, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Despite my gaffe wrt Ron Hubbard and Lyndon LaRouche, I still agree with AndyL. the man is not taken seriosuly by anyone. He is certainly not as widely read as you Herschell suggest "very wide circulation of LaRouche publications". "Frieden schaffen mit Strahlenwaffen", his slogan in the late 80s in Germany at the height of our Peace movement and CND easter marches, was a laughing stock, I remember it well. So I do think some backing up of your theory is required - unless of course you would like to have a separate section "criticism by cranks" and we can then include anyone from the KuKluxKlan to German neonazis - who all did not like the school and produced material with "very wide circulation". I somehow doubt that this would satisfy you. Refdoc 14:30, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I actually happened upon LaRouche's most recent tirade against the Frankfurt school, with the very professional and scholarly title of "Children of Satan III: The Sexual Congress for Cultural Fascism", and the articles within make one wonder if he or his cronies have actually even read Adorno, et al (Adorno is criticized as promoting, rather than lamenting, the decline of culture into Top 40 kitsch). No scholars take LaRouche's criticism seriously -- I doubt they even know he criticizes the Frankfurt school. --Fastfission 19:53, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
LaRouche's views on everything seem to be ignored by everybody except his small but fanatical group of followers, none of whom are inside academia. --Robert Merkel 00:16, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps not in your little corner of the globe, but LaRouche seems to be very warmly received by the Russian scientific community. --Herschelkrustofsky 00:35, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
And the Russian scientific community is so very relevent to a bunch of philosophers... Snowspinner 01:40, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)
Not to mention that the Schiller Institute, the site that article is on, is run by LaRouche's wife... --Robert Merkel 03:30, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Instead of carping about the source being the Schiller Institute, I wonder why you don't ask the more obvious question: why would such a thing go unreported in the more "mainstream" media? Suppose that, say, Howard Dean were invited to address the Central Mathematical Economics Institute (CEMI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences-- is it at all possible, that you might see a bit of press coverage? This is, of course, a highly hypothetical proposition.

I also wonder why some of you youngsters are so preoccupied with the question of whether LaRouche's views are "popular," when the far more interesting question were whether they are correct. But nowadays, with the nearly-hegemonic influence of the Frankfurt School in your revered academia, the search for truth is not an option; in fact, it is regarded with great suspicion. This stuff (the Frankfurter ideology) is just Friedrich Nietzsche cross-dressing as a leftist, just as Leo Strauss is Nietzsche with a ridiculous fig-leaf of fake Platonism.

Has it occurred to you that "the Beatles vs Webern" is a false dichotomy, because both are trivial and banal? Likewise Ian Fleming and Samuel Beckett. Brahms and Cervantes are ruled out of the debate -- and if Leo Strauss invokes them, it is for deceptive and perverse reasons.

I had hoped that Wikipedia were a more honest institution than the commercial print and web-based media, but it seems to be more of the same -- the difference being that some of the editors I have encountered are merely asskisser-trainees, who have yet to get paid for it. When AndyL writes of "the real world of academe," I have to chuckle at a first-class oxymoron.

Bertrand Russell wrote that "The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will be arrived at. First, that the influence of the home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity." The writings of Lyndon LaRouche must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. --Herschelkrustofsky 07:33, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well that's all very nice, but Wikipedia isn't the place to try to start a revolution in academia. If LaRouche starts being taken seriously, he'll be worth discussing at any length. Until then, at best, he deserves one or two sentences, and definitely not in major criticism. Because it's our job to report how things are - not how we want them to be. Snowspinner 12:28, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Chart of interrelationships

Whilst the huge graphic is very interesting, it is also very un-Wiki, as it cannot be edited using the Wikipedia interface. Can this be fixed? -- Anon.

It's also got a little vanity tag on it... Our texts and pictures don't usually have copyright or authorship tags on them, at least not on the image/text itself (i.e. of course that's fine in the history, or the picture page)... Pteron 23:33, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

At some point soon I will make a version of this graphic that does not have my name on it. I don't know how to make an editable version of it. I supposed it could be redone as a table, although that would lose the graphic structure. Does anyone have any suggestions or preferences? Is there a way to make an editable graphic? Should I just copy into a table? In that case I might need some help with the formatting. Jeremy J. Shapiro 07:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I went ahead and edited to remove the authorship blurb. I think it's a worthwhile picture, and obviously took considerable work. I don't know how it was originally created, but an SVG or PDF version might be worthwhile, if that's an option. Some of the text is a bit small, and a vector format would be better. But the article itself would only contain a link to the vector version, since most browsers wouldn't inline it. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:31, 2005 August 31 (UTC)


[edit] What the hell is that?

What are you doing, reverting a protected page? Sam [Spade] 01:26, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User:AndyL
Sam [Spade] 02:06, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Why are you complaining about something a full half hour after it's been settled? AndyL 02:16, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] LaRouche movement's criticism of the Frankfurt school

If you, who took down the LaRouche's criticism points, were at least a bit genuine and not relying on authority (isn't this a bit risky in this case when Frankfurt school's philosophy has become a norm of most modern societies?), but instead considered the point made by LaRouche and his collaborators, you could see that it is a perfectly valid (and event insightful) criticism.

I think it is a lie to say that nobody knows that the LaRouche-affilated organizations are opponents to the Frankfurt school. From my own experience I say that I have seen know other criticism (or even public mention) of the school except the LaRouche-initated publications. The very reason I read the Wikepedia article was because of the LaRouche Youth Movement briefing me.

Also, based on the amount of historical and philosophical research that the world-wide LaRouche intelligence does, I am inclined to consider its publications scientific sources.

Fastfisson: Could you, please, inform me of how you came to the conclusion that Theodor Adorno laments the decline of culture?

I imagine he came to it by actually reading Adorno. Snowspinner 02:25, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry anonymous user but in the real world few people have heard of LaRouche and no one outside of the LaRouche movement who is familiar with the Frankfurt School would be familiar with LaRouchian criticism. It is simply outside of the intellectual debate and not part of serious dialogue. That you only know of the Franfurt School *through* LaRouche and never heard of it outside of the LaRouche movement only suggests the level of your immersion within the LaRouche movement rather than anything that a member of the general public or a member of academe or the intellectual community would be familiar with.AndyL 02:28, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This is way after the real discussion. But I stumbled across it, and figured I'd chime in (here in discussion, not in the actual article). I happen to have written a Ph.D. in philosophy, a good chunk of which was about the Frankfurt school. And I read about a half dozen of my friends/colleague's dissertations that were even more in this area. Naturally, I read a good number of those later books one tends to cite about Critical Theory.

Despite that course of work, this discussion is the first time I ever even heard of LaRouche's "critique" of the Frankfurt School. Not that I ever had much reason to think about LaRouche as anything other than a nutsy fringe candidate for US President, one way or the other. But it would certainly never have occurred to me that he would be a source of commentary on Adorno and friends. All of that does not even mean per se that LaRouche is wrong, just that he is so far from a recognized authority in this that you can easily spend many years reading commntary on Critical Theory without his name ever coming up. --Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:04, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Or, to put the whole matter another way, there are basically two contexts in which the Frankfurt school ever comes up. The first is academic debates. The second is LaRouche's writings. Academic debates never mention LaRouche. He does not play into the academic world at all.

Now, let's be honest here. LaRouche is, shall we say, a bit cultish. He does not have a great deal of what could be called mainstream respect. Academia, on the other hand, while criticized and questioned a fair amount, is still fairly respected on the whole. I mean, we still generally send our kids to college.

At best, LaRouche merits a sentence mention. He's simply not an important critic of the Frankfurt school outside of his own context. (Whereas the academic context of the Frankfurt school connects with a whole lot of current research in the humanities.) It would be reasonable to discuss LaRouche's criticism of the Frankfurt School on a page related to LaRouche. But it's just not relevent to the Frankfurt School beyond an off-handed mention somewhere buried in the article. It's certainly not a major objection in any comparable way to Lukacs. The two exist in such different spheres that they should virtually never end up on the same list. Snowspinner 02:39, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

> :I imagine he came to it by actually reading Adorno. Snowspinner 02:25, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

Not to be sarcastic, but I could figure that much myself.

> I'm sorry anonymous user but in the real world few people have heard of LaRouche and no one outside of the LaRouche movement who is familiar with the Frankfurt School would be familiar with LaRouchian criticism. It is simply outside of the intellectual debate and not part of serious dialogue. That you only know of the Franfurt School *through* LaRouche and never heard of it outside of the LaRouche movement only suggests the level of your immersion within the LaRouche movement rather than anything that a member of the general public or a member of academe or the intellectual community would be familiar with.AndyL 02:28, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I still don't see what you base your claims about nobody's familiarity with LaRouche's criticism on. Indeed the fact that we are discussing it right now seems to corroborate the opposite.

I am afraid that saying LaRouche's collaborators are not part of a serious debate has even less ground. If you only tried acting not upon prejudices, but on knowable reality, and read Children of Satan III or an EIR article on subject, you might find that even thought you seem to claim some authority in the area, you yourself did not know some of the historico-philosophical background. And if you don't believe what LaRouche's researchers say, you can try looking at the sources they have used yourself. There also phone numbers, e-mail addresses and probably other means by which you could discuss why those people claim what they do. But that, of course, supposes that you indeed seek to know the truth, instead of relying upon popular opinion and “authorities”.

> Or, to put the whole matter another way, there are basically two contexts in which the Frankfurt school ever comes up. The first is academic debates. The second is LaRouche's writings. Academic debates never mention LaRouche. He does not play into the academic world at all.

Unfortunately, I don't see how your statement corroborates anything about the validity of LaRouche organization's criticism on the Frankfurt school. You may try basing your arguments on demonstrable truths instead of on authority.

> Now, let's be honest here. LaRouche is, shall we say, a bit cultish. He does not have a great deal of what could be called mainstream respect. Academia, on the other hand, while criticized and questioned a fair amount, is still fairly respected on the whole. I mean, we still generally send our kids to college.

It seems that you have a very limited knowledge about LaRouche apart from the black literature that has been promoted. If you want to find some of LaRouche's intentions why don't you read his views on economics (which entail physical economy), his political platform, or anything else you think might give you insight and then question why would this man posit what he has. It seems ridiculous that a millonare would spend decades on philosophical fight with sophistry (some of which he finds coming from the Frankfurt school), create in international youth movement in which the youth is reading the thinkers of all time, an international intelligence agency, would have all these projects for the development of the society (like Eurasian landbridge, Mars mission, certian water systems, development of fusion energy, etc.) if all that the man is trying to do is become a president (as popular black literature claims). Would it not have been easier to be a meek populist (as we could see in presidency)? He is also not the youngest person. Do you maybe think he just wants to ensure himself a comfortable grave or what?

I wold also note that I don't see how you could use the fact the common opinion today is that one should send one's children to college in the present discussion.

> At best, LaRouche merits a sentence mention. He's simply not an important critic of the Frankfurt school outside of his own context. (Whereas the academic context of the Frankfurt school connects with a whole lot of current research in the humanities.) It would be reasonable to discuss LaRouche's criticism of the Frankfurt School on a page related to LaRouche. But it's just not relevent to the Frankfurt School beyond an off-handed mention somewhere buried in the article. It's certainly not a major objection in any comparable way to Lukacs. The two exist in such different spheres that they should virtually never end up on the same list. Snowspinner 02:39, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

I don't like rehashing. I think if we resolve the questions raised earlier we would have little trouble with agreeing on what you address in this paragraph.

This has already been resolved by the Arbitration Committee. AndyL 16:59, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Kevin MacDonald

Well, I see you already had LaRouche here. Now comes Kevin MacDonald. Sheesh... Just see [1] (MacDonald testified in favour of the convicted holocaust denier David Irving), and also [2]. Or just search Google for +"Kevin MacDonald" +"neo-nazi"... I just hate it when people misuse Wikipedia for their own propaganda. Lupo 10:53, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You're probably addressing someone else's addition of a paragraph on the main sorts of critics. I'm the one who simply added MacDonald's name to the list of "notable critics." I don't know how "notable" he is, but he seems to be one of the leading living critics. I know of MacDonald because of other work of his, and was improving his biography here. His inclusion here passes the 'Google test', as his name + frankfurt generates many meaningful mentions. I'm not sure what his alleged neo-nazi connections have to do with his criticism of the frankfurt school. He is noted for his anti-semitic views, though he denies that his scholarship is anti-semitic. Either way, it seems besides the point. MacDonald at least merits inclusion on the list of frankfurt school critics in some manner. (we could drop the word "notable" from the list and then it could include critics of questionable notability).Will McW 13:51, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I was talking about this edit, which has since been reverted. Lupo 15:39, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Frankfurt_School#Critics of the Frankfurt School has flopped several times between having either two or three camps of criticism. Could editors please settle the question of whether MacDonald and his followers constitute a third camp or, alternatively, re-write the section into a less contentious form? -Willmcw 23:40, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Since K.B. MacDonald makes a criticsm not otherwise mentioned in the article, it is worth including in some form, so I added User:Jacquerie27's text as an annotation to KBMacD's existing entry. I also made some other edits to put sections in a logical order and move away from the two/three camp focus. -Willmcw 08:31, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think this merits more discussion. I've removed the following:

  • Kevin B. MacDonald, who has written that the Frankfurt School has at least partly contributed to a Jewish "strategy" of demoralization and manipulation aimed at the white majority population of Europe and America. This theory has failed to gain acceptance in academia because of its self-deception and self-censoring (according to MacDonald,2002).

What evidence is there that MacDonald is considered a "notable critic"? Is he cited at all in scholarly articles or books on the Frankfurt School? Is there any evidence that his criticisms have been taken seriously or addressed at all by anyone or that indeed, there are scholars of the Frankfurt School that accept his criticisms? MacDonald is not a scholar of political theory or philosophy but of pscyhology. AndyL 16:39, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What test are you using? The simple Google test, as I mentioned in a November 1 post above, shows that MacDonald's crticism of the Frankfurt School is frequently referenced. Maybe not by scholars, maybe by yahoos. The bottom line is that MacDonald is a critic, he is notable, and his criticism is often referenced. We have agreed that he not influenced other scholars enough to form a 'camp', but if you set the threshold too high, we'll have to delete the other 'notable critics' as well. Grossman gets only 330 hits [3], while MacDonald gets 976 [4]. -Willmcw 21:16, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What does notability mean? I don't think its determined by google but by references in the literature. AndyL 22:23, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Back to my original question, why isn't MacDonald notable, while Grossman is? Maybe we ought to drop the notable descriptor. Gosh, Fritz Belleville is apparently so non-notable that no one has even written an article about him. It is worth noting that MacDonald is a critic, one way or another, and that his criticism is based on theories of Jewish ethnocentrism, in my opinion. -Willmcw 22:37, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Grossman. Perhaps he isnt' notable. My impression of MacDonald is that no one in political theory takes his criticisms seriously (if they are aware of him at all). That's why I say he isn't notable - he's not on the radar as far as debate on the Frankfurt School is concerned. AndyL 22:47, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Remember, we removed Lyndon LaRouche as well since the only people who took him seriously were his followers. The only people who seem to take MacDonald seriously are white supremacists. AndyL 22:49, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, and the unfortunate fact is that there are a lot of white supremacists/anti-semites. A thousand references by yahoos becomes as notable one or two mentions by scholars. The right way to mention MacDonald in this context may be in a graf on modern views of Frankfurt, with a sentence on how it has become a touchstone of intellecutal anti-semitism due to MacDonald's writing. Something like that may make sense than just tacking him on a list of contemporary critics, or stuffing him down in 'see also'. -Willmcw 00:36, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Grossman, at least, was a contemporary of the Frankfurt School actually teaching with them at the ISR in Frankfurt and seems to have been in a similar milieu. Of course, one doesn't have to have been at the Frankfurt School to be a critic of them but this does, at least, make him "of note" even if he isn't widely followed outside of Trotskyist circles. If we use google hits as a determinant of notability perhaps we should list some porn sites ;)AndyL 22:53, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Now that's the best idea I've seen all day. -Willmcw 00:36, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] RfC

I found this on RfC, and was rather suprised there could be any question as to Kevin B. MacDonald being an important critic of the Frankfurt School. "Notable" is a worthess POV term, and should be completely discounted. Rather Kevin B. MacDonald is a well known expert critic of the Frankfurt School.[5] Example (talk • contribs) 07:29, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Isn't "expert" pov? Particularly as he doesn't have any expertise in political theory? Also, if "notable" is POV then why do we use "notability" and "non-notability" as standards in Wikipedia?AndyL 11:59, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
We shouldn't. Is the term sanctioned by policy anywhere? Example (talk • contribs) 12:50, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I haven't checked but if you look at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion you'll see "non-notable" as a frequent justification given for deletion.AndyL 14:44, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I know. That particularly irks me since I am a extremist inclusionist. Anyhow, can we agree that Kevin B. MacDonald is signifigantly well known enough as a critic of the Frankfurt School to deserve at least passing mention? He is refered to as such in that link I cited, from MSN news no less! Example (talk • contribs) 16:52, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The article you link to does not mention the Frankfurt School. MacDonald is well known enough to merit an article on him in wikipedia (as is LaRouche) but that does not make him an acknowledged "expert" or "notable critic" of the Frankfurt School. For all I know he might also say something in his books about Picasso but that wouldn't make him an art expert or a notable Picasso critic AndyL 17:05, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In his third book, MacDonald takes on what he calls the "Jewish" intellectual movements of the 20th century, from psychoanalysis to Marxism to "Boasian anthropology" and "the Frankfurt School of social research."
Sixth paragraph from the top.
MacDonald is an expert on evolutionary psychology. He feels the Frankfurt School is evidence of Jewish attempts to diminish the abilities of non-jews to thrive, and defend themselves against Judaism. He feels this is the result of Jewish Evolutionary psychology. MacDonald is an expert critc of the Frankfurt School. Picasso is a false analogy. Cheers, Example (talk • contribs) 19:08, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Being an expert on evolutionary psychology doesn't make him an expert in the Frankfurt School. Picasso is not a false analogy (though it would be better if I picked a Jewish painter, couldn't think of any) because he uses the Frankfurt School as an example just like he might use degenerative art as an example of Jewish efforts to undermine western civilization. If he did this wouldn't make him an art expert just as using the Frankfurt School as an example doesn't make him an expert on political theory. AndyL 22:22, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I voted to keep Jewish ethnocentrism on vfd. And to be honest, I don't really like Jews all that much. But I don't think MacDonald deserves a mention. His field is ev.bio., not political theory. He says that Frankfurt School is part of a Jewish evolutionary strategy. Maybe it is. But he's not engaging them on the field of political theory; nor is he qualified to. Sociobiological explanation is not criticism in any academically meaningful sense. Therefore, by all means say, "K. MacDonald has argued that the Frankfurt School is part of a Jewish evolutionary strategy", but listing him as an "expert critic" does not make sense. Remember kids, Judaism is an objection to people, not to ideas. — Bacchiad 09:51, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

MacDonald's ideas aren't even accepted in the evolutionary psychology field, let alone in the field of literary criticism. And his argument is generic - everything from Relativity to Psychoanalysis. Maybe it is better to leave him in - since having an anti-semite like MacDonald might even add to the credibility of the topic. With enemies like MacDonald, who needs friends? Stirling Newberry 02:28, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MacDonald or not MacDonald

Gee, just two months ago I asked if we could find a consensus on the repeated addition/deletion of MacDonald, and here we are again. I do not want to assert that MacDonald is a major critic of the Frankfurt School but, as a practical matter, he is one of the best known living criticizers. We've tried placing him in various places in the article. (I think he was a "See also" for a while). Can't we find some pigeon-hole to put him in so that this back and forth stops? It's strange that virtually the only part of this article which is edited anymore is the list of critics. Even if we have to add him only to say that he is not a major critic and is not taken seriously, that might settle the back and forth. -Willmcw 21:36, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when you have added a few references to the article. - Taxman 17:27, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright-related question

Copyright examination has been requested for the material described below. If you are confident that the material is free of copyright concerns based on Fair Use or other considerations, feel free to add it directly to the article. If you do so, or alternatively if you believe it cannot legally be added, please post your analysis below.

I can't figure out any other place to ask this question, so I'm putting it here. In my contribution to this article, I used some material from an article I published in The Times Literary Supplement in 1974. I am the copyright owner, so there's not problem about that. But the Times Literay Supplement would ideally like it to say someplace that it was originally published there. Is there any way to do that that is compatible with Wikipedia? Jeremy J. Shapiro 07:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I just thought of a possible solution, but I don't know if it's in keeping with Wikipedia norms. In the References section I could add a reference to that article, called "The Critical Theory of Frankfurt", from a 1974 TLS and then say something like "portions of that article have been used or adapted in this Wikipedia article." Would that work? Jeremy J. Shapiro
I don't see a problem with that as long as it is clearly, but unobtrusively, labelled. One small point- we try to avoid self reference so it might be better if you omitted "wikipedia" from your citation. Thanks for contributing. -Willmcw 20:15, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Akin to anarchism

I just noticed the parenthetical in the first sentence that Frankfurt School is "more akin to anarchism than to communism". That phrase seems contentious to me, and it hides more than it reveals. I'm not saying I exactly disagree, but exactly what it might mean is ambiguous. A discussion in the article body of "relations to anarchism" might be nice, but the general comment not so much. Moreover, the choice of "anarchism" and "communism" seems to be missing some conceptual possibilities. Maybe FS is more similar to "utopian socialism" (I could make a plausible argument to that effect). Maybe it's more akin to social-democratic reformism. Maybe it's really just ivory-tower capitalism. There are more choices than the two. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

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