Full Description
This book aims to extract a kind of Critical Humanism from the works of prominent members of the Frankfurt School. Oliver Kozlarek argues that what is compelling about this kind of restitution of humanism is the fact that it sought to be understood not as a conceptual-theoretical construction, but as a practice of critical social and cultural research. This means that it does not orient itself to an ideal image of the human being, but to making inhuman conditions of our current societies visible. It is above all in this sense that humanism is no longer understood in a Humboldtian, educational sense. Rather, it is about using critical social research as a political practice.
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Why "Critical Humanism"?
The Anti-humanism That is None
Pseudohumanism - The Contradictions of Neoliberal Modernity
Humanism as a Practice of Social Critique - The legacy of Critical Theory
References
Part I The Neoliberal "Abolition of Man" and Society
Chapter 1: The "Abolition of Man"
Toward a Critique of "Neoliberal Modernity"
From McDonaldization to Star Cult - The Corporate Culture of Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism and the Abolition of Democracy
The "Cultural Revolution" of Neoliberalism - A Perfect Ideology
"Hyperculture" and "Cultural Essentialism" as Varieties of "Affirmative Culturalism"
Culture Criticism as the Sign of the Totalization of Culture
Culture Criticism as Social Criticism
Neoliberalism and the Academic Storm Against Enlightenment and Humanism
Postmodernism: The "Cultural Logic" of Neoliberal Capitalism
Postcolonialism versus Society
Posthumanism: Simulating Humanity
The "Anthropocene": From the Abolition to the Perversion of "Man"
The Humanistic Mask of Neoliberalism
The End of Neoliberalism?
References
Part II The Claim for a Humane Society and the Priority of Critical Social Research
Chapter 2: Max Horkheimer: Humanism as Critical Social Research
Critical Social Research Against "Philosophical Anthropology"
Cosmopolitan Humanism as Reconciliation
Horkheimer's Critical Theory as "Active Humanism"
References
Chapter 3: Herbert Marcuse: Humanism and the Primacy of Critical Social Theory
Marcuse's "New Foundations of Historical Materialism"
"Philosophy and Critical Theory"
Humanization through Culture
From Philosophy to Critical Social Theory
Critical Humanism and Critical Social Theory
References
Chapter 4: Erich Fromm's "Normative Humanism" as Intellectual Minimalism
Erich Fromm's "Normative Humanism"
The "Social Character" between "Having" and "Being"
The Social and Cultural Scientific Tasks of "Normative Humanism"
References
Chapter 5: Theodor W. Adorno: Critique of the "New Type of Man" and the Search for "Real Humanity"
What does "Real Humanity" Mean?
Adorno's Anthropology of the "New Type of Man"
Adorno's Anthropology of the "New Type of Man" as Critical Social Research
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Authoritarian Personality
Minima Moralia
Adorno's Humanism: From the Loss of "Real Humanity" to Critical Humanism
Education in the Sense of a Humanistic Culture
The Public Sphere and Sociology at the Service of Humanity
From Mastery Over Nature to a Humane Society
References
Chapter 6: Walter Benjamin: The Critique of Violence as a Critique of Power
Remarks on the History of Publication and Reception
Capitalism as a Religion and the Cunning of Instrumental Rationality
The Critique of Violence as a Critique of Unbalanced Power
"Critique of Violence" Today: The pProblem of the Disempowered
References
Chapter 7: Bolívar Echeverría: "Critical Discourse", Modernity and the Search for "Real Humanity"
"Critical Discourse" and Revolution
"Critical Discourse" after 1989
The Theory of Modernity as Critique of Modernity
"Real Modernity" in the Shadow of Capitalism
"Real Humanity" and the Resistance of Life Forms
"The Revolution will not be Televised" (Gil Scott Heron)
References
Conclusions: Where do We Go from Here? From Critical Humanism to a Necessary Debate about Society
References
