Review: Neal Harris, ‘Critical theory and social pathology. The Frankfurt School beyond recognition’
Review of Neal Harris’ Critical Theory and social pathology. The Frankfurt School beyond recognition, (Manchester University Press, 2022) 200 pages
Abstract
In Critical Theory and Social Pathology, Neal Harris examines the contemporary state of critical theory in the face of global challenges like global warming, social inequalities, and right-wing populism. Harris criticises the shift of critical theory from its original materialist and anti-capitalist roots to a more neo-idealist and conservative perspective, as evident in the work of Axel Honneth. He advocates for a revitalisation of the analysis of ‘social pathologies’ as the foundational aspect of critical theory, tracing its origins to Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx. By drawing inspiration from Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, Harris aims to realign critical theory with its initial emancipatory goals and proposes an alternative social research agenda. The book emphasizes the need to move beyond ‘recognition’ theory and its limitations in addressing crucial societal issues, to finally reconnect critical theory with transformative praxis and social movements.
Reviewed by Luca Richiardi
How does contemporary critical theory respond to global warming, international war, increasing social inequalities, insurgent right-wing populism, and the devastating effects of neoliberalism? Apparently, it has nothing to say. That’s why books by a leading author such as Axel Honneth are largely ignored by radical activists. Once clearly materialist and anti-capitalist, with a robust psychoanalytical inflection, critical theory has become neo-idealist and conservative (10), no more concerned by emancipatory trajectories. Neal Harris thus tries to revive the ‘explosive charge’ (19) of Frankfurt School scholarship, drawing from works by Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse.
Harris argues that it is time to fight the ‘degeneration’ of contemporary critical theory and to elaborate ‘alternative foundations for a renaissance in normative social research’ (1). This shall be done by revitalising ‘pathology diagnosing social criticism’, which has been ‘distorted’ (39) by Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition elaborated since his The Struggle for Recognition (1996) (Part I). Harris’ analysis explicitly addresses the ‘underlying social theoretical foundations of critical theory’ (3), which are traced back to Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx (Part II), as a way to realign Frankfurt School research ‘with its original emancipatory ambitions’ (147). Insights by Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse are identified as one possible route ‘to advance a framing of social pathology apposite to the challenges of the day’ (121) (Part III).
In order to counter the ‘domestication’ (Thompson, 2016) of critical theory neglecting its Freudian and Marxian origins, Harris engages deeply with Axel Honneth’s work. Given that ‘social pathologies’ – that is, social processes interpretable as normative deviations, disturbances, or dysfunctions which cannot be simply framed as ‘injustices’, as liberal social theory does – are the ‘conceptual foundation of critical theory’ (1), their analysis is at the centre of both Harris and Honneth’s analyses. What the former stands up against is the ‘neo-Idealist’ and neoliberal pivot embraced by Habermas first and Honneth later. Their focus on intersubjectivity drove critical theory toward a non-metaphysical path not abandoned since. In one of the most theoretically dense parts of the book, Harris contends that analysing every social problem through the framing of ‘recognition’ – i.e., a positive but subjectifying interpersonal status attribution – is ‘patently absurd’ (IX).
Several flaws are identified in Honneth’s ‘perspectival monism’ (47). Harris agrees with Nancy Fraser’s (Fraser and Honneth, 2003) convincing claim that mechanisms of wealth and its distribution in a capitalist society, for instance, fall outside the explanatory lens of recognition. Moreover, as Michael J. Thompson (2016) and Lois McNay (2008) have shown, Honneth’s account is ‘predicated on a deficient understanding of power’ (48): subjects involved in social dynamics of (lacking) ‘love’, ‘respect’ and ‘esteem’ – the three categories of recognition distinguished by Honneth, referring to the family, the marketplace, and the legal system accordingly (45) – seem not to be affected by socialisation processes and power structures shaping individual consciousness and cognition. Furthermore, the intersubjective relation assumed by recognition theory does not apply to colonial subjects, to whom it has no emancipatory potential. Finally, from a political point of view, the recognition approach not only dismisses any qualitative transformation of the capitalist system, but compromises with market logics, as these are considered able to ‘produce healthy recognition relationships’ (56) in a recent contribution by Honneth (2014). Harris severely concludes that all this makes recognition theory ‘intellectually unsound, politically problematic, and increasingly divorced from the defining insights of the Frankfurt School tradition’ (60). This critique is addressed also to other recognition scholars, from Finland to Essex, as well as to the cognitivist approach developed by Cristopher Zurn and lately by Honneth himself in his Freedom’s Right, where the core tenets of critical theory were definitively ‘abandoned’ (76).
What are then the steps we should take to formulate an account of social pathology in step with the times? How to elaborate a ‘post-liberal form of social critique […] capable of integrating Marxian and psychoanalytic insights in an interdisciplinary social research endeavour’ (83)? Harris suggests starting from the ‘original social-theoretical foundations of critical theory’ (87), by exploring its intellectual sources. He thus makes a vivid and informative exploration of Rousseau’s oeuvre as well as a rapid analysis of Frankfurt School’s Hegelian and Marxian roots. The impact of Lukács and Weber on concepts fundamental to early Horkheimer and Adorno, such as ‘reification’ and ‘instrumental reason’, and the influence of Freud’s psychoanalysis are also taken into account, to counter the neo-idealist and Kantian turn of Habermas and Honneth. Particularly captivating is the list of theoretical references useful for an analysis of social pathologies, from Krishnamurti to Allen Ginsberg.
In the third part, Harris points at a different direction for critical sociology, which will retain its Hegelian-Marxian heritage. A ‘Fromm-Marcuse synthesis’ is intended to both offer an amended account of contemporary social pathologies and ‘operationalisable avenues for applied social research’ (126). Distant in life and ideas, but united by the fact of being on the margins of Frankfurt School’s intellectual history, Fromm and Marcuse constitute an interesting theoretical ideal that finds development in Critical Theory and Social Pathology and makes it a book to read.
Erich Fromm’s critical theory makes abundant use of medical language and claims that neuroses have a social origin: ‘it is the insane society which produces insane subjects’ (129). This is due to what he calls the ‘pathological normalcy’ of capitalism. As the market system is ‘diagnosed as pathological on the basis of the alienation it induces in the subject’ (132), a qualitative social change is required. However, ‘consensual validation’ impedes subjects to make such a change, as they believe ‘the routine behaviour of the multitude is valid and rational’ (133). To this framework are added two concepts by Herbert Marcuse: ‘technical a priori’ and ‘repressive desublimation’. The former describes the pathological ‘conditions through which the subject engaged with, and lived, their social lives’ (153) deformed by advanced industrial society. The way people think reflects the instrumental rationality of ‘modern science, technology, and domination’ (153). ‘Repressive desublimation’ is instead the expression Marcuse uses to describe a ‘system in which the subject engages in an action which serves to protect, stabilise, and embolden an irrational and destructive logic’ (156), what explains – along with false needs fuelled by consumerism – the lack of revolutionary social transformation.
Harris’ work is readable, accessible, and very well-structured. The criticism of contemporary critical theory does not stop at the negative moment but is followed by an alternative positive referent to be pursued. Through Fromm and Marcuse, Harris provides a very remarkable and fruitful research pathway to social thinkers, in desperate need of a ‘more structuralist and social-systemic analysis’ (160). Although the book succeeds in this, some might turn up their noses at Harris’ harsh attacks on Honneth and his followers. It must be said, however, that in his ‘love-hate’ (13) relationship with recognition theory, Harris acknowledges the ‘largesse of its purported explanatory and critical capacity’ (44), as well as the quality of the normative framework of Honneth’s theory of justice outlined in Freedom’s Right as a ‘positive referent for critical theory’ (70). Harris also praises Honneth’s proposal of a ‘weak formal anthropology’ as a normative foundation for social research (35), even though this has been revised later by Honneth himself, as highlighted by Freyenhagen (2015). Yet, Harris seems closer to Frederick Neuhouser when the latter contends that critical theory, as conceived by Horkheimer, is explicitly normative, and one shall just ‘deal with it’ (35).
This position is praiseworthy in the face of the excessive methodologism of contemporary Frankfurt School scholarship or academic post-structuralist ‘hyper-relativism’ (34), but could also seem too simplistic, in comparison to other valuable perspectives, such as the one elaborated by Fraser and Jaeggi (2018), i.e. a criticism based on the narratives of social agents. Honneth’s refusal of any political-economic analysis of capitalism makes his commitment to the goals of critical theory questioned, and his theoretical stance idealist. Nonetheless, this may not hit the target correctly. As Emmanuel Renault (2019: 116) argues, ‘it is clear that, on its own, a theory of recognition is incapable of producing a theory of capitalism, but it never intended to do that anyway’. In any case, it would be interesting to see how Harris would read other contributions by Honneth – such as those on Adorno – or even those by Hartmut Rosa, among others, as noticed at the end of the book by Harris himself (172).
In conclusion, Critical Theory and Social Pathology provides a promising theoretical framework for critical sociology through the reconceptualisation of ‘social pathologies’. Faithful to the dialectical method, Harris contrasts the negative criticism of Honneth’s theory with a positive proposal to build on for future research able to answer to the most pressing issues of our times. In this sense, as suggested by Kouvélakis (2019), thinkers such as Lukács and Gramsci could be fundamental in strengthening the radicality of criticism and in proposing again the question of transformative praxis and political agency, to finally reconnect critical theory to social movements.
References
Fraser N and Honneth A (2003) Redistribution Or Recognition?: A Political-Philosophical Exchange. London/New York: Verso Books.
Fraser N and Jaeggi R (2018) Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory. Cambridge, UK/Medford, MA: Polity Press.
Freyenhagen F (2015) Honneth on Social Pathologies: A Critique. Critical Horizons 16(2). 2: 131–152. DOI: 10.1179/1440991715Z.00000000044.
Honneth A (1996) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (tran. J Anderson). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Honneth A (2014) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kouvélakis S (2019) La critique défaite: émergence et domestication de la Théorie critique: Horkheimer, Habermas, Honneth. Paris: Éditions Amsterdam.
McNay L (2008) Against Recognition. Cambridge, UK/Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Renault E (2019) The Experience of Injustice: A Theory of Recognition. New York: Columbia University Press.
Thompson MJ (2016) The Domestication of Critical Theory. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
Luca Richiardi’s research connects critical theory, political philosophy and development studies. He holds a master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Pavia (Italy) and has studied in Frankfurt (Goethe University) and Paris (ENS, EHESS).
Email: luca.richiardi01@gmail.com
