Abstract
Although critical theory and the Frankfurt School of social thought have been largely disregarded by contemporary sociologists, the legacy of this school of thought still pervades many other realms of social science and humanities. However, as Volker Heins demonstrates, there are important implications for the role of critical theory in shaping new developments in political theory specifically.
Long since thought of as non-political, the work of the Frankfurt School (especially Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer) and later critical theorists (such as Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth), has been largely perceived as a series of social critiques, many of which were leveled at the very notion of the political. Critical theorists were not primarily proposing direct action against existing systems, but rather an alternative perspective through which to view society and to subvert it quietly. But by adapting a much broader view of politics as the process whereby individuals understand how collectivities are conceived and ordered, Heins argues that there is a greater focus on the political in critical theory than normally assumed. For Heins, it is the move beyond Carl Schmitt’s notion of the friend/foe binary into one of perpetrator/victim which is the most important contribution of the Frankfurt School to the development of political theory. Schmitt’s view of the political as being composed of friend/foe distinctions has helped shape the course of political and economic theory for decades. But, Heins argues that this approach circumvents the real idea of the political, whereas perspectives from critical theory allow us to engage in the political at its point of suppression. For according to Heins, politics is suppressed when injustices caused by the exercise of power do not yield political conflicts over the exercise of that power. This view, then, seeks to account for the ways in which the political is about suppression, or rather, about the dynamics between perpetrators and victims.
Heins’ book, Beyond Friend and Foe: The Politics of Critical Theory, is an interesting account of the development of critical theory and its importance to political theory. The book first starts by linking the general arguments of the text to the work of classic Frankfurt School theorists, and then proceeds to analyze the work of later critical theorists in order to expand Heins’ notion of the political beyond the old friend/foe distinction. Because the book is not strictly sociological and the subject matter requires substantial knowledge on the works being discussed, this book would not be suitable for undergraduate audiences. However, graduate courses in contemporary social theory, social thought, or political theory would benefit from the inclusion of this book, primarily for its excellent synthesis of critical and political theory.