The (in)Actuality of the Frankfurt School's Critique
In the Frankfurt School's tradition of critical theory, understanding and changing society are constitutively linked, but the aim is not to develop a kind of “instruction manual” for overcoming society in crisis. Not only is this impossible, because subjects can only liberate themselves; it's also a perverse project, because “imposed freedom” would be a new form of oppression.
Critical theory is based on “Reflections from Damaged Life”, as the subtitle of Adorno's Minima Moralia indicates. It consciously situates itself in a concrete society that “spoils life”, i.e. a society that produces the suffering and lacks that can be experienced, when these should not and could not exist (the “non-identical”, Adorno). Critical theory seeks not only to explain the reasons why these situations of suffering arise and, consequently, the state of society and the people who make up that society, and vice versa. It also looks for the potential to overcome this situation and explain what is happening.
We must ask ourselves, however, whether this concept has become anachronistic because subjectivities have been formed under the barrage of the cultural industry that are exclusively shaped by the logic and fetishism of the commodity and the culture.