Will the Physical End of the Frankfurt School Be Followed by Ideological Demise?

By Nora Dimitrova Clinton | Legal Insurrection

On March 14, 2026, the German philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas died at the age of 96. He was the last surviving member of the German Institute for Social Research, a/k/a the Frankfurt School.

While the School has now reached its physical end, its influence in American academia and culture is far from over. Few schools of thought have proven as pernicious as the ideas of the Frankfurt School, which are largely responsible for the prevalence of critical theory and anti-Western ideology among American intellectuals.

Among the main culprits who made this ideology mainstream are Frankfurt School researchers Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse.

In a 1937 essay, Max Horkheimer formulated critical theory as a modified version of Karl Marx’s appeal for “ruthless criticism” of traditional society. Horkheimer subsequently argued that “based on the idea that one cannot determine what is good, what a good, a free society would look like from within the society which we live in,” we should emphasize “the negative aspects of this society, which we want to change.”

Herbert Marcuse further developed and popularized this approach in various works, notably his oft-cited paper with the oxymoronic title “Repressive Tolerance.”

In the preface to his monograph on critical theory, Michael Walsh remarked:

“In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world’s premier military power…. Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, the burgeoning transnational elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war’s refugees but many of their … ideas as well.”

“Few of these ideas have proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of “critical theory.” … When everything could be questioned, nothing could be real, and the muscular, confident empiricism that had just won the war gave way, in less than a generation, to a fashionable Central European nihilism that was celebrated on college campuses across the United States.”

Critical theory became prominent in American culture due to the efforts of post-World War II leftist intellectuals who inspired the counterculture of the 1960s.

They advanced cultural Marxism, better known as “political correctness,” which culminated in the recent hijacking of our institutions by CRT, DEI, and intersectionality.

Employing the principle of “immanent critique,” which is the essence of critical theory, the teaching of the humanities, social sciences, and even some STEM fields in numerous U.S. universities replaced academic rigor with political activism.

Critical theory became a conduit for widespread Marxist and anti-Western indoctrination. As early as October 1989, days after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, authors like Felicity Barringer diagnosed the “mainstreaming of Marxism in U.S. Colleges.”

At the time when Eastern Europe overthrew the shackles of communism, Western universities had already voluntarily adopted Marxist-based critical theory as their preferred dogma. Barringer further noted:

“As Karl Marx’s ideological heirs in Communist nations struggle to transform his political legacy, his intellectual heirs on American campuses have virtually completed their own transformation from brash, beleaguered outsiders to assimilated academic insiders.”

Mark Levin comments that “[i]n fact, Barringer unknowingly exposes what will become a central tenet of Critical Race Theory and other adaptations of Marxism to Americanism — that is, the assault on American history, institutions, and traditions or “the dominant white culture,” including by her own employer and publisher, the New York Times, in such schemes as the 1619 Project.” [Levin, American Marxism, pp. 137-38.]

Critical theory and intersectionality represent a modified version of Marxist and socialist ideology, in which the Marxist focus on the “working class” has been replaced by an ever-adapting victimology. This concept has substituted race, gender, sexuality, and other perceived marginalization factors in the original class-based oppression paradigm.

The notorious Komintern slogan “Workers of the World, Unite!” has been effectively rebranded as “Haters of the West, Unite!” — along the intersectional parameters of perceived oppression and marginalization.

Ted Cruz summarizes the metamorphoses of this ideology from “revolution of the proletariat” to infiltrating Western society from within via the “long march through the institutions” [Cruz, Unwoke, p. xxiv]:

“[T]he activists who had once planted bombs in buildings and torched cars to bring about revolution would now have to calm down, get jobs, and pretend to be productive members of society…. All the while, though, they would maintain their revolutionary ideas … and work to insert those ideas into the work they did, indoctrinating as many people as possible in the process.”

The “long march through the institutions” is now nearly complete, after decades of subversion and infiltration of our culture and society by anti-Western propaganda. The radical ideologues who brought anti-Americanism to our campuses benefited from the liberal leniency toward dissenting opinions, and their dogma became the norm at the end of the 20^th century.

Nevertheless, Cruz remarks, “for most of the twentieth century, college professors at least understood that the objective of education was to well … educate.” [Unwoke, p. 19.] In the 21^st century, however, the intolerance toward any disagreement with the woke dogma had already replaced academic curiosity and good-faith debates.

“[H]ow did the major universities of this country,” writes Cruz, “descend into left-wing mob rule, right there in plain sight, while we were watching? How did it become impossible for speakers and professors who lean even slightly to the right to express their ideas without fear that they’ll be shouted down, canceled, or even physically harmed?” [Unwoke, p. 19.]

The tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk revealed the extremist terrorist mentality of the revolutionaries who carried out “the long march through the institutions.” Intersectionality is their latest front, which has led to the imposition of new hierarchies in preparation for dismantling the West.

In its socialist characteristics and emphasis on group identity, intersectionality is antithetical to the foundational American values that emphasize individual worth and people’s equal, inalienable, God-given rights.

Recognizing the historical roots of CRT, DEI, and intersectionality is the first step toward abandoning this deceptive terminology and abolishing its practical manifestations.

Exposing and reversing the toxic anti-Western indoctrination that has invaded our institutions would facilitate its broader public repudiation and usher in a golden-age revival of core American ideals.

It is high time the Frankfurt School’s physical end was followed by the demise of its destructive ideology.

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Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.

First published on Legal Insurrection

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