Adorno

Adorno’s Path to Social Research 255

In the Institute of Social Research on Morningside Heights

In view of the wearing conflicts that Adorno was forced to endure in
the Office of Radio Research, it was a particular satisfaction to him,
and also a genuine relief, to enjoy the support of the Institute of Social
Research. Admittedly, despite the solidarity that was shown to him, there
were also a few raised eyebrows, particularly on the part of Friedrich
Pollock, but also of Leo Löwenthal, neither of whom was willing to rule
out the possibility that Adorno had not been flexible enough in his
dealings with Lazarsfeld. For his part, Horkheimer treated the entire
matter with the maximum of diplomacy. As a proven critic of positivist
science,^66 he fully understood Adorno’s reservations about a narrowly
circumscribed notion of empirical science and could sympathize with
Adorno’s difficulties with the strategies of empirical media research.
But, given the financial straits in which the institute had found itself
since the middle of 1937, Horkheimer could not afford to abandon
the collaboration with Lazarsfeld and the Office of Radio Research,
which had just moved into new accommodation in Union Square and
which later became associated with Columbia University (as the Office
of Applied Social Research). The losses on the US Stock Exchange
that Pollock had incurred by a number of risky transactions forced
Horkheimer into cutting back sharply on expenditure. Walter Benjamin,
for example, who was living from hand to mouth in Paris, was made
aware of ‘the very serious economic situation’. ‘The major part of our
assets are held in property that cannot be sold until the market improves
in this sector.... The lesser portion is invested in securities and will be
exhausted in a foreseeable number of months.... I feel obliged to give
you this information because despite all our efforts the day may not be
too far away when we shall have to tell you that with the best will in the
world we shall be unable to extend your research grant.’^67
Ernst Bloch, who had approached Horkheimer to ask whether there
was any prospect of a temporary position in the institute’s research
programme, was told in a laconic statement in March 1938 that the
current state of the institute’s finances was deplorable and that it would
be irresponsible to take on further commitments. ‘We have been forced
to discontinue the majority of our grants in America and Europe’,
Horkheimer wrote, ‘and even dismiss permanent employees.’ This was
the effect, he wrote, of the general economic crisis.^68
Even Adorno was not immune. The letter Horkheimer wrote to
him on his thirty-fifth birthday, on 11 September of the same year,
again referred to the ‘catastrophic news from the Stock Exchange’, even
though he had long since known of the severe cutbacks in the institute.
Horkheimer did not hesitate to say that the future of the entire institute
was at stake since some of the assets had now to be written off com-
pletely. ‘We shall have to fight for the successful outcome of our work
harder than ever since external circumstances are bleaker than ever.’^69