464 Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional
Marcuse had reappeared, he wrote: ‘Everything is topsy-turvy here at
the moment. Quite a few of the lecture rooms are occupied. Many
seminars cannot take place, including some of the most progressive
ones. Valid student claims and dubious actions are all so mixed up
together that all productive work and even sensible thought are scarcely
possible any more.’^79
When Adorno reported to Marcuse about the occupation of univer-
sity rooms, he was writing under the influence of the sense of shock he
undoubtedly felt. At the beginning of December a largish group of
students had ‘refunctioned’ the sociology seminar, as they then termed
it, in order to discuss the reform of their course of studies and the exam-
ination system, as well as broader political activities. Day and night,
ever-changing strike committees occupied the seminar rooms that Frank-
furt University had rented. Moreover, the words ‘Spartakus Seminar’
had been painted on the façade of the building in large letters. ‘Critical
theory has been organized in such an authoritarian manner’, it said in
the leaflet that had been distributed in connection with the occupation,
‘that its approach to sociology allows no space for the students toorganize
their own studies.. ..We are fed up with letting ourselves be trained in
Frankfurt to become dubious [halbseiden] members of the political left
who, once their studies are finished, can serve as the integrated alibis
of the authoritarian state.’^80 A few days after the distribution of this
pamphlet, and following the occupation, there was an open discussion
with the professors, including Adorno and Habermas. In the presence
of the majority of the students studying sociology, the professors were
called upon to renounce their institutional rights while continuing to
carry out their professorial duties. The discussion culminated in the
proclamation of the slogan about smashing the bourgeois academic
machine, and Adorno and Habermas were subjected to a good deal of
verbal pressure, whereupon the two men left the hall without a word.
Shortly afterwards, they distributed a statement of their own saying that
cooperation with groups who had inscribed ‘smash science’ on their
banners was quite out of the question. Nevertheless, the professors sought
to continue the dialogue with the striking students and were willing to
accept publicly demands that were concerned with specific concrete
reforms in the university, such as the equal representation of professors,
lecturers and students (Drittelparität) and the recognition of working
parties as an institutionalized part of the activities of the academic
departments.
Adorno wrote to Marcuse after these events, scarcely able to disguise
his doubts and anxieties about this escalation of the protest move-
ment. Irrationalism was on the increase, the university of the future
was in danger of losing the freedom without which speculative thought
was impossible. In the hope that Marcuse might command the atten-
tion of the students and could contribute to a rapprochement between
hostile and increasingly irreconcilable fronts, he once again tried to