ABSTRACT
Critical theory is the extraordinary intellectual product of despair and disappointment--despair over the frightening ascendancy of European fascism and Nazism; and disappointment with the excesses of Stalinist socialism and the cultural emptiness of prosperous high-consumption societies like the United States. Critical theory's institutional roots can be traced to the founding of the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt (more popularly known as the Frankfurt School) in 1923 (Wiggershaus, 1994). The highly reputed original members of the Frankfurt School, notably Max Horkheimer, Theodore Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse (among others), were primary architects in the development of a systematic critique of social conditions, with the wider goal of envisioning and implementing a better (i.e., a more just, meaningful, and worthwhile) world (Kincheloe & Mclaren, 1994; Steffy & Grimes, 1986). With the demise of the Institute, their ideas were given a fresh lease of life by German philosopher Jurgen Habermas who invigorated many of the Frankfurt School's major theoretical contributions by giving them a new foundation in communication theory (Murray & Ozanne, 1991).
