Whether it’s about the conflict of goals between economy and ecology or the trench warfare over the gender asterisk – in the 100th year of its existence, the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (IfS) wants to continue to help society understand itself better. The institute will celebrate its birthday in 2023 with events for various target groups. A big ceremony with celebrities from science and politics is scheduled for January 23rd.
Past directors have set the bar high for the Institute’s work. The house opposite the Senckenberg Museum is inextricably linked to the names of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, but Jürgen Habermas was also associated with the institute. For research work today, this is “capital and mortgage at the same time,” says the current director, Stephan Lessenich: “As far as intellectual equity is concerned, we have good reserves.” The task, however, is to maintain the attitude of critical theory without looking back and obstructing the view of the new: “We will have to find other answers.”
When it was founded with private funds in 1923, the IfS was “clearly a Marxist research institute,” as Lessenich explains. Central concepts of enlightened Marxism are still important for the work of the institute today. “Terms such as crisis, resistance, ideology or criticism are still relevant today for a critical analysis of society.”
In 1933 the institute was closed by the Gestapo
Under Horkheimer, the institute formed what came to be known as Critical Theory, also referred to in the foreign description as the Frankfurt School. Marxism gave way to what the IfS describes as a “social philosophical critique”. In 1933 the Gestapo closed the institute – because of “anti-state efforts”. In Geneva and New York, exiles continued the work. In 1949 the researchers returned to Frankfurt, and in 1950 the institute was reestablished as a private foundation with public funds.
In the post-war period, the focus was on how the Nazis seized power, how democracy can be promoted and what endangers it. During the student movement, Adorno got caught between the fronts. In 1969 female students provoked him in the lecture hall with bare breasts. The rumor that the “bosom assassination” led to his death shortly afterwards was one of the most popular anecdotes among Frankfurt ex-students. After Adorno, Ludwig von Friedeburg shaped the IfS, from 2001 Axel Honneth was at the helm.
The concept of contradiction comes into focus
His main topic was the “paradoxes of modernity”, but after 20 years this leitmotif is to be replaced in the anniversary year by a new research program that is currently being worked out. Lessenich announces that the concept of contradiction will play an important role in this. On the one hand, he means “the tough contradictions” of our society, such as the conflict of goals between ecology and economy. On the other hand, he also means the contradiction in society that they can trigger. “The clearer the contradictions underlying our model of society become, the more likely it is that people will disagree.”
Conversely, one can look at the contradictions of individual population groups and try to uncover the social contradictions in which they are rooted. As an example, Lessenich cites the dispute over Indian costumes, the protest against the gender asterisk or the rejection of refugees. Science can help to “get away from the surface phenomenon” and “shed light on underlying structural developments”.
“Critical theory was never for the ivory tower, but always a social project,” emphasizes Lessenich. He considers sociology alone as an internal communication in the scientific community to be a “misguided development”. Adorno has given radio lectures – Lessenich is thinking about podcasts and blogs. After all, the institute, which is funded with public money, also has an obligation to the public. In 2021, the state of Hesse increased its co-financing by 250,000 euros to almost 900,000 euros a year.
“The state has decided to significantly increase the basic funding of the institute because it needs the critical social science that operates the IfS, which is unique in Germany, right now,” said Science Minister Angela Dorn (Greens) of the dpa. “We need sophisticated social science, humanities, philosophical thinking that helps us to reflect critically.”
