Research On The Romantic Thought Of The Frankfurt School

In the family of Marxism abroad,the Frankfurt school,famous for its social criticism,has always been the research object fevored by the academic circle.And the research has achieved fruitful research results.But if we look at the subjects and interests of scholars,we can find that few people pay attention to the romanticism of the Frankfurt School,and even if it is involved,it is at most a superficial taste,not a deep study.As a matter of fact,the critical social theory of the Frankfurt School has its own romantic temperament,and the romantic thought is an indispensable part of its theory.Romanticism,as the largest and recognized movement with permanent practical significance in modern history,is not only the result of a long-term evolution of a series of spirits and thoughts,but also connected with a specific historical background.It reflects the connotation that under the condition of rationality occupying a dominant position,science and technology alienating into a controlling force and human nature increasingly distorted,romanticism criticizes the traditional rationality,opposes the oppression of human in industrial society,promotes the subjectivity of human beings,expresses the respect for nature and advocates awakening people’s inner suppressed emotions and nature,returning to nature,restoring the obliterated human nature and rediscovering or constructing a meaningful world.With the aim of rebelling against the reality and exploring the human nature that has been obliterated by modern technology,romanticism plays an important role in the criticism of modern society and creates the prelude to the criticism of modernity.Through Marx,many of its ideas are emerged in the critical social theory of the Frankfurt School.Under the influence of voluntarism,existentialism,psychoanalysis and so on,the Frankfurt school,based on the reflection of social reality,inherits the deep romantic tradition of Germany.Thus it carries on the romantic connotations of rebelling against the reality and criticizing rationality,actively pays attention to the reality of human beings and deeply criticizes the capitalist society.The Frankfurt School believes that the advanced industrial society,from the science and technology to the individual mind,from the social field to the natural ecology,are all alienated and in a general crisis,and the root of which lies in the abuse of the scientific and technological rationality.So they put forward a series of salvation plans,including Bloch’s philosophy of hope,Adorno’s negative dialectics,the consciousness revolution of Marcuse’s path of human liberation,Benjamin’s theory of Messianic.redemption,Habermas’s theory of communicative behavior and so on,and finally settles on the salvation of art which seeing art and aesthetics as the best way to eliminate human alienation and realize the return of human nature.This kind of prescription that combines art,aesthetics and philosophy to heal society shows strong romantic feelings.Among them,Adorno,Marcuse and Benjamin,as the early representatives of the Frankfurt School,respectively discuss the criticism of scientific and technological rationality from different angles and pay attention to the irrational factors such as sensibility,imagination and memory,which made the romantic thoughts shining brightly and extremely representative.Compared with other theorists,Adorno’s thoughts have stronger philosophical meaning and speculativeness.The Dialectics of Enlightenment and the Dialectics of Negation have sharp and profound critiques of scientific and technological rationality and identity,which establish the direction and philosophical basis of the critical social theory of the Frankfurt School,lead the development of the thoughts of the whole school from the height of philosophy and lay the basic tone of romanticism for the critical social theory of the Frankfurt School.From the realistic level,Marcuse specifically criticizes the one-dimensional human and society caused by the alienation of science-and technology.He points out that the alienation of capitalism have pervading all corners of society and functions of people,the transformation of society begins with the transformation of individuals,and advocates transforming and restoring the critical,negative and creative dimensions of one-dimensional man by paying attention to people’s psychology,consciousness,sensibility and other irrational aspects,overcoming alienation and realizing the liberation of human,so as to achieve the purpose of transforming society and highlight the distinctive romantic characteristics.Benjamin focuses his research on literature and art,and grasps realistic problems with poetic thinking.He believes that the philosophy and reality constructed by human rationality are all marked with people’s subjective intentions and cannot provide a true picture which needs to be searched from historical facts.Benjamin pays great attention to the present and the past,trying to find the secret to save modernity in the ruins of history through his depiction of the capitalist metropolis in the 19th century,which showing strong romantic feelings.Although the romantic ideas of the Frankfurt School inevitably have theoretical limitations and become a utopian vision,it still represents a way of awakening freedom,the negation and transcendence of reality,a new attempt to transform the subjects of revolution,shows the great efforts made to explore the liberation of human beings and embodies the distinctive criticism and strong concern for human nature.In the modern era of increasing the rationality of science and technology,the exploration of the Frankfurt School’s romanticism has become an important premise for us to deeply understand the Frankfurt School’s critical social theory,aesthetics and other theories,as well as to grasp the school’s thoughts as a whole.Moreover,it is of great significance for us to solve various practical problems,overcome the crisis of modernity,and promote the all-round development of human beings.