Kmflett's Blog

The Times Obituary of Jurgen Habermas who has died at 95 is notable for several reason.

Habermas over the decades had a number of pieces in New Left Review and was the leading figure in the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, associated with Adorno, Marcuse and others. Normally The Times adds a line or two of snark to figures of the left but it doesn’t do that here.

Its view that Habermas stands comparison with Hegel seems questionable if only because it might be queried how such a comparison could be made. It is also noticeably silent about Habermas’s enthusiasm for the Israeli Government, although that is not an issue for The Times

Habermas is known for a range of theories and expositions some of which are covered in the obit. His work on the eighteenth century public sphere, where democratic discussion, as he saw it flourished, and its absence in recent times remains in my view of interest.

E P Thompson who saw the Frankfurt School as one with a broader Western Marxism and even Althusser was critical.

He noted in the Poverty of Theory an emphasis on ideological domination ‘which destroys every space for the initiative or creativity of the mass of the people- a domination from which only the enlightened minority of intellectuals can struggle free.

Thompson argued this led to the ‘intellectual’s disinclination to extend himself in practical political activity’

Habermas did make political interventions mostly until recent times on the left but was not associated with political organisation