Frankfurt School, 1936: Christian humanism

Jacques Maritain (1882-1973)

Max Horkheimer's "Zur Theodor Haecker. Der Christ und die Geschichte" appeared in the 3/1936 number of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. It is a discussion of Haecker's book Der Christ und die Geschichte [The Christian and History] (1935) The translations from the article below are mine.

Theodore Haecker wrote from a Catholic viewpoint. Jakob Knab describes in Theodor Haecker (1879 - 1945). Ein Mentor der "Weißen Rose" Geschichte Quer 12/2004 that Haecker and his work would soon become a major inspiration to the White Rose group of anti-Nazi Christians whose most famous member was Sophie Scholl.

Horkheimer gives him credit for carity and a good focus on the essentials. Haecker's book, he says, shows "the liveliness of Catholic thought."

Haecker criticizes the racist, "völkisch", nationalistic ideologies of the day and opposes them to his own "inner longing for universal justice." (Horkheimer) Horkheimer writes that Haeckel's work shows "the tension between present events and the [Christian] faith". He goes on to explain that Haeckel understands the dilemma of the ordinary person in the totalitarian state.

It's worth noting that the concept of "totalitarian", which has an interesting history both as serious analysis and propaganda, was one the Frankfurt School used at this time with particular reference to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

But Horkheimer argues that Haecker also minimizes the ability of people to change their social and political situations, because Haecker assumes that God and the Devil are the main drivers of history. He puts Haeckel along with the French Christian philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) in the tradition of Catholic humanism, which Horkheimer credits with support "the fight against the ideologies of race, nation and [the] Leadership [cult] (Führertum)".

Then Horkheimer basically argues that the religious component of Haeckels' thinking is as useless as Horkheimer at that time regarded all religion, judging by this article. He calls Haecker's religious beliefs "childish faith".

But for all their specific advocacy of materialist thought, the Frankfurt School was significantly influenced by religious thought, if not always in obvious ways.

In the same issue of ZdS, Herbert Marcuse reviews Maritain’s book Humanisme Intégral [Integral Humanism] (1936). The review is notable in that it in some ways previews Marcuse's own later intellectual position, or at least how that position was often perceived in the popular press and also by some of his supporters.

Marcuse in the 1960s and 1970s became known for looking to what were considered marginalized groups in the wealthy countries – racial minorities, student protesters, antiwar activists, hippies – to provide the kind of fundamental criticism of the existing social order that he believed was necessary. To simplify a complex set of arguments, he believed that some fundamental changes such as demilitarization were plainly rationally necessary. But that there was no immediate prospect for the development of an organized opposition comparable to the working-class movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that would be capable for forcing those changes. And that therefore it was effectively impossible to describe in concrete terms what more humane, alternative forms of society should look like, though he clearly thought it would be some sort of socialism. And because of the lack of a concrete alternative that could be clearly articulated, the necessary rational criticism of existing conditions necessarily took on am abstract, utopian appearance. The Great Refusal, he sometimes called it.

In his review, Marcuse praises Maritain’s vision, whose Marcuse summarizes as looking to "build up the true Christian organization of society, meaning such a form of living relationships which would truly guarantee the overall development of human capabilities and the overall fulfillment of human needs". Since Marcuse was both Jewish and secular, presumably the humanistic aspects of this vision were more appealing to him than the specifically Christian aspects.

In Marcuse's summary, Maritain's Christian vision sounds like an earlier version of what in the 1970s was called liberation theology: "The spiritual freedom of the Christian demands his factual liberation from an inhuman social system; the complete liquidation of capitalism is its implication." And he writes:

M. wendet sich ausführlich und gleichermassen gegen Faschismus und Kommunismus und will die Herbeiführung des neuen Reiches kleinen unabhangigen Gruppen anvertrauen, deren politischer Kampf doch im wesentlichen ein geistiger sei. Die Worte, mit denen er eine Konkretisierung ihrer politischen Aktion ablehnt, sind wenig erhellend. Doch der übrige Inhalt seines Buches scheint uns zu beweisen, dass solche Abstraktheit nicht einer Überheblichkeit gegenüber dem heute sich entscheidenden Schicksal der Menschheit entspringt - um das M.s Denken vielmehr ernsthaft und fortwährend bekümmert ist -, sondern einer ehrlichen Hilflosigkeit.

[Maritain argues explicitly and in the same degree against Fascism and Communism and wants to entrust the bringing into being of the New Kingdom to small, independent groups whose political battle is really in essence a spiritual/intellectual one. The words with which he declines to concretize their political action are not very informative. Yet the remaining content of his book appears to us to provide evidence that such abstractness does not spring from arrogance toward the fate of humanity which is being decided today – about which Maritain's thought is much more seriously and persistently troubled – but rather an honorable helplessness.]

"Honorable helplessness" isn't a rousing or macho slogan. But sometimes that's all that's available to someone. And in the case of groups like the White Rose, the genuine honor in their desperate actions in defiance of their factual helplessness becomes itself a factor of hope for humanity.

Tags: christian humanism, frankfurt school, frankfurter schule, herbert marcuse, jacques maritain, max horkheimer