Exploring a Critical Theory of politics

The question of the contemporary political relevance of Critical Theory points to a deeper problem: the fundamental relationship between Critical Theory and politics. Their relationship status has to be regarded as complicated. Politics, so a widespread judgement goes, has no place in the cosmos of Critical Theory: where the place for a theoretically reflected analysis of politics could or should be, so the repeatedly heard reproach (for example, Howard 2000), there is a gap in the center of the historical “Frankfurt School” (Wiggershaus 1995, Jay 1973) around Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. In the following, we do not merely want to attest another “politics deficit” to “classical” Critical Theory, but rather, on the one hand, to measure the exact relationship to the object of politics, and on the other hand, to take a look at the current state of theory, which proves to be quite diverse. To ask whether and how a Critical Theory of politics is possible today does not, however, mean merely reflecting on current developments. This important task, we are convinced, first needs a theoretical foundation in order to be able to exploit the full potential of the approach. Accordingly, it is necessary to explore how, under current circumstances, the classical programmatic of Critical Theory can be linked to politics. In order to shed light on the problems with which contemporary thinking about the possibility and form of a Critical Theory of politics is confronted, we will begin by addressing the question of the place of politics in Critical Theory and the politics of critical theorists in some detail, and outline five theoretical levels (theoricity, aspiration, programmatic, theoretical methodology, temporal core) and three major paths (deepening, reorientation and return) on the basis of current approaches subsequently.


The place of politics in Critical Theory 3
The world is mad and it will remain so. -Max Horkheimer in Adorno and Horkheimer 2019, 26 If you want to see a demonstration of what is meant by dialectic, by social dialectic, in a very simple model, then such a definition of the nature of the political is probably the best paradigm one could find - Adorno 2019, 39 As is well known, the label Critical Theory was first and significantly coined by Max Horkheimer 3 This article develops further the thoughts we originally laid out in the introduction to our volume Kritische Theorie der Politik published in German (Bohmann and Sörensen 2019). However, while there we focus primarily on the collected contributions, here we generalize our basic perspective and refer to a wider array of English-language publications. 4 To our knowledge, the famous first preface of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung is still not translated into English.
in his essay Traditional and critical theory published in 1937 (Horkheimer 1972). This essay is to be understood as a continuation of his 1931 inaugural lecture as director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, in which he developed an interdisciplinary and empirically-socially informed program of a social philosophy inspired by Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.
Horkheimer defined the subject matter of this philosophy quite broadly: Its ultimate aim is the philosophical interpretation of the vicissitudes of human fate -the fate of humans not as mere individuals, however, but as members of a community. It is thus above all concerned with phenomena that can only be understood in the context of human social life: with the state, law, economy, religion -in short, with the entire material and intellectual culture of humanity. (Horkheimer 1993, 425

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been diagnosed many times and is noticeable in the lack of an independent subject of "politics" in overview works (Gordon, Hammer and Honneth 2020). Such assessments were flanked by accusations of political abstinence against the representatives of the so-called first generation of Critical Theory, which found their most prominent expression in Georg Lukács' aperçu of the "Grand Hotel Abyss", to which the left-wing intelligentsia had retreated and from which the decline of the world could be analysed, but not fought politically or even averted (Jeffries 2016 (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, xi). At the latest with the appearance of the Dialectic of Enlightenment, such a pessimism seems to unfold that all politics seems impossible or hopelessly corrupted. Adorno formulates this later in an aphorism of the Minima Moralia in the following way: "Society is integral, before it ever becomes ruled as totalitarian. Its organization encompasses even those who feud against it, and normalizes their consciousness." (Adorno 2005, 206). In view of this, the radical detachment from political events seems consistent. The re- is discredited to such an extent that no part of it can be extracted which is not contaminated." (Marcuse 1969, 63). The "Great Refusal" he had already propagated the year before (Marcuse 1964, see also Lamas et al. 2017 (Löwenthal in Dubiel 1981, 146). Unlike with regard to politics and political action in the everyday language sense, however, refusal in the context of theorizing does not stand for cutting one's ties to the world. To see oneself as "collaborators of the negative phase of the dialectical process" (ibid.) does not mean to understand one's own theory production as apolitical or to commit oneself to aversion from the world. Rather, Critical Theory is based on an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, according to which not only "practice is a source of power for theory," but also "theory becomes a transformative and practical productive force." (Adorno 1998b, 278 and 264). In this respect, the theoretical work of the circle around Horkheimer and Adorno was always understood by the participants themselves -even in the most pessimistic moments -also as a political intervention with an emancipatory concern. The goal was the continuation of Marx's categorical imperative, "to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence" (Marx and Engels 1975, 182).
Critical Theory is thus always political theory insofar as it is partisan, borne by a "concern for the abolition of social injustice" (Horkheimer 1972, 242), and thus claims to be "the kind of theory which is an element in action leading to new social forms" (ibid., 216). However, it only becomes politically effective if an appropriate addressee can be found who allows the theory to prove itself in reality, to demonstrate its historical validity. The ambivalence thus does not exist with regard to the (claimed) politicity of Critical Theory, but with regard to the (possible) search for and dealing with potential addressees of the theory. On the one hand, the rather resigned variant of the "message in a bottle" is conceivable, which corresponds to the theoretical assumptions of a totally administered world and passively awaits possible future addressees.
On the other hand, the rather activist-offensive variant can be considered, which Horkheimer formulates somewhat shirt-sleevedly but quite pointedly in a conversation with Adorno: "It is our cursed duty to marry thinking with right practice." (Adorno and Horkheimer 2019, 49). Adorno's willingness to change his own style during his American exile in order to reach a broader democratic public could be interpreted as a step in this direction (Mariotti 2016).

Critical Theory of politics
Politics is both ideology and genuine reality. -Theodor W. Adorno in Adorno and Horkheimer 2019, 26 But what about a systematic reflection on politics, what about a Critical Theory of politics itself?
If one embarks on a search, the above-mentioned diagnoses of deficits seem to be quickly Adorno's reflection from his philosophical fragments on the connection between politics and ideology points in this direction: On the one hand, the entire sphere of politics is certainly an aspect of ideology, that is to say, it seems as if the power struggles take place in the political sphere proper -the sphere of government, the sphere of legislation, the sphere of elections, in all these elements of political institutions -as if they were the matter itself, whereas they are epiphenomena over the real social process that carries them. It is especially difficult to see through this [...] because the things with which people are first confronted, apart from persons, are really political institutions that represent the social, and because it already demands a substantial and analytical process of abstraction to perceive the underlying play of social forces. [...] But, on the other hand, the sphere of politics as the sphere of seizing power, where it is quite possible for the entire fundamental conditions of life, especially the economic ones, to be decided, is after all a sphere, an ideology, that holds within it the potential to become something more, something different from mere ideology. (Adorno 2019, 39).
Interestingly, such a dialectical understanding of politics also seems to reflect some of the central areas of tension in the self-understanding of Critical Theory (or the respective discourse).
Thus, in a certain sense, it corresponds to the uncertainty regarding the so-called "prohibition While Adorno initially argues for "the prohibition of casting a picture of utopia actually for the sake of utopia" (Adorno in Bloch 1988, 11), only a few pages later he recognizes something "very intricate" in the prohibition of pictures: [T]his matter also has a very confounding aspect, for something terrible happens due to the fact that we are forbidden to cast a picture.
To be precise, among that which should be definite, one imagines it to begin with as less definite the more it is stated only as something negative. But then -and this is probably even more frightening -the commandment against a concrete expression of utopia tends to defame the utopian consciousness and to engulf it. What is really important, however, is the will that it is different. (Adorno in Bloch 1988, 12).
Equally related to politics -or the concept of

Critical Theory of politics today: a panorama
Is the political question still relevant at a time when you cannot act politically? -Max Horkheimer in Adorno and Horkheimer 2019, 25 Seen in this light, the project of a Critical Theory 7 See also the recent special section Rethinking Progress in Constellations 28, n. 1 (2021).  "in a hand-to-hand fight", and deliberately gets its hands dirty. Whether "beautiful purity" or "down in the dirt" -this question arises not only in political practice but also at the theoretical level itself, above all in the confrontation between "ideal theory" and "realism", which has recently been much discussed in political theory (currently, for example, in Ferrara 2020). In the field of interest here, a particularly sharp critique of ideal theory can be found in Geuss (2008). Conversely, realism itself is hardly attacked, but rather the meaningfulness of the distinction itself (e.g. Forst 2020).
(b) As those remarks refer to the use of theorizing, which typically tends to lead away from a theory as an end in itself, nothing is said about its claim, about its formal scope. Löwenthal already admonished: Critical Theory is "a perspective, a common critical basic attitude toward all cultural phenomena without ever claiming to be a system" A constructive approach is advocated by Forst (2011), for example, who builds a right to justification as a critical standard, theorizing morality, reason, justice, and autonomy in particular. In a similar vein, Lafont (2020) argues for a robust deliberative democracy. A reconstructive approach is strongly advocated by Honneth (2015). He argues that normative standards would need to be recovered from our already lived-in legitimate laws and institutionally established practices.
In this case, he is concerned with the value of freedom. The reconstructive tradition, strongly advanced by Habermas (1975Habermas ( , 1996, is found throughout Honneth's work, especially in his influential and widely advanced theory of recognition (Honneth 1996). A deconstructive approach is typically propagated either where common interests are seen with an overall philosophy of deconstructionism as represented by Jacques Derrida and fellow campaigners (Zima 2002), or where the uncovering of unexpected effects of power and subordination is sought (Allen 2007).
Beyond these broad approaches, there is also a more frequent addressing of "crises" in terms of theoretical methodology (esp. Fraser 2013; 2017), as well as references to more precise methodologies such as "ideology critique" (Geuss 1981) Fraser (1985), for instance, fundamentally recurs to Marx's 1843 dictum of the "self-clarification [...] of the struggles and wishes of the age" (Marx 1975, 209) in order to fathom what is critical about Critical Theory. "Theory" thus becomes precisely not an entity that is as universalist as possible, but a historically embedded instance that reflects on its own conditions and applications. The presen-

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t-day relevance of a Critical Theory of politics is thus not a matter of course, but must be seen as a constant, demanding and always fallible task. It must prove itself in particular by addressing both

Constellations: confidants, elective affinities, adversaries
Simply to utter the words 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is to form an alliance with [...] Mao Zedong. -Max Horkheimer in Adorno and Horkheimer 2019, 39 How can, should or must the rich tradition of Frankfurt Critical Theory be dealt with in view of today's political challenges -despite or because of its original constellation of political ambivalence? If one looks at relevant works that can plausibly be counted among the field of a Critical Theory of politics, the impression is that there can hardly be any question of a gap, as was perhaps the case historically. At the same time, however, there is not one answer that has prevailed, or one systematic theory that takes up all the relevant questions, or even one clearly identifiable academic discipline. Rather, we are dealing with a multifaceted diversity of contributions that is not always easy to keep track of. In order to sort out this field in a simplifying way and to make rough lines recognizable, we propose to identify three major paths of a contemporary Critical Theory of politics: (1) A deepening of the direction taken by the second generation of the Frankfurt School in the second half of the twentieth century; this means following up on the great philosopher Jürgen Habermas (esp. 1996;1999) (a) With regard to the "canon", a double caveat seems immediately appropriate: First, even a seemingly clear and comparatively overseeable canon is not exactly a self-evident object. In this section we refer only to the "Frankfurters" of the first generation, i.e. those researchers who worked at the Institute for Social Research in its founding years, and in its immediate environment.
Historical predecessors -who certainly constitute a substantive "essence" of the Frankfurt 10/14 Civitas 22: 1-14, 2022 School -will be addressed in the next section.
Secondly, the majority of works on the (politics of the) Frankfurt School consist of works about it, rather than directly following it.
If one now turns one's gaze resolutely to Frankfurt, it becomes apparent that Horkheimer's definition of the essence and programmatic orien- Neumann (Scheuerman 1997) or Walter Benjamin (Loick 2018

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only externally. However, it is far too diverse, too ambiguous, and too heterogeneous to do without considerable internal disagreement. In our opinion, however, the controversies are by no means a deficit, as they ultimately make the debate with the tradition and between the protagonists all the more spirited, which is beneficial for the level of the theoretical debate.
The main disputes over direction lie between the three paths of deepening, reorientation and return mentioned above. There seems to be fierce competition between the camp of deepening (1), which in the recent past has probably been most prominent in political theory, and the camp of reorientation (2), which urges theoretical readjustment and seeks to expose and repel the supposed heresies. The reorientation camp is dominated by a somewhat diffuse current which, on the basis of major overlaps, could probably best be described cum grano salis as the Habermas, which was also conducted elsewhere.
Most recently, the critical encounter between the paradigms of recognition and disagreement  is one of the more prominent cases in this regard. 8 Overall, however, the debates, disputes, and controversies remain lively and unabatedly productive.

Final considerations
In this article, we have, on the one hand, elaborated in detail the fundamental constellation of ambivalence of the early Frankfurt School on politics. On the other hand, we wanted to show that there are a variety of promising approaches to a Critical Theory of politics today. To this end, we have listed selected elements of theorization, proposed a rough sorting on the basis of the three paths of deepening, reorientation and return, and tentatively named current reference authors. In doing so, we had relied on English-language literature, and moved very much within an "occidental" discourse of theory, especially US-American and German. Critical Theory, however, is not without time and place; it must, with Marx, strive for a self-understanding of the struggles and desires of the present and in the respective melees, in order to be able to contribute to more emancipation -in the field of politics this seems to be particularly called for. If these lines are published in a Brazilian journal, there is of course a need to say something about Brazil's political conditions from the perspective of a Critical Theory. However, we do not want to presume to be able to do this adequately, being (self-)critically conscious though of the hegemonies beneath such apologies. It only remains for us to point out that the foundations are laid in the contributions in this special issue (or the bridges that can be crossed, e.g. the contribution of Ina Kerner). There are more than enough occasions, and it is not surprising that analyses of the current political situation begin with an invocation of Adorno (for example, Bittar 2021). We look forward to a lively and fruitful debate, and hope for corresponding political actions.