The Frankfurt School and the Experience of Exile

While the Frankfurt School may have been a product of the Great War and the Council Movement that arose in its wake, Critical Theory was significantly reformulated in light of the experience of exile. Emigration enabled the members of the Institut für Sozialforschung to join the growing ranks of Germany's exiled, anti-fascist Left, but perhaps as importantly it enabled them to encounter American modernity, as well as Anglo-American empirical sociology. The experience of exile not only enabled them to begin bridging the gulf between quantitative and critical sociology, but also enabled them to discern the emerging “culture industry” and “totally administered society.”