Talk:Frankfurt School

Lede too verbose

The lede seems very long and difficult to navigate. Are there good guides about how long is too long? The paragraphs are very chonky. 96.238.41.91 (talk) 19:03, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I fully agree. Indeed, the whole article needs serious organizational attention. The sources cited are of a high quality, but the presentation of the material could surely be improved a great deal.

I might be able to draft up a better lead, in which event I will post it here for comments. Pretty sure, though, that someone else is going to have to step up for the actual body of the article.

Oh, and to your actual question, @user:96.238.41.91, yes. You can find the relevant guidelines at WP:LEAD.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:06, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

"Frankfurt School" is a loose label for an eclectic group of people and ideas. I'm not sure it could be summarized much more concisely. Sennalen (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Well! The fact that someone who – to all appearances[1] – is actively editing the article in support of the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory would certainly help to explain its at times disjointed character. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

You appear to have a limited editing history, but you should be familiar by now with the policy against casting aspersions. I stand by my edits, so if there's anything in particular you want to discuss, be specific. Sennalen (talk) 23:33, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Fair point. I apologize. I can only offer that I was still too much in polemical mode from debate carried out at Talk:Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory#Topic_sentence_is_unencyclopedic_and_should_be_changed. This explanation, however, obviously does not constitute an excuse.

Best regards, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:09, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

A few brief comments to test the waters before doing anything more:

1) It could be more clearly expressed – and probably belongs in the first paragraph – that what unites these in many ways disparate figures is (i) a commitment to the project of human emancipation (ii) theoretically pursued by way of an attempted synthesis of the Marxist tradition, psychoanalysis, and empirical research.

My concern is that (i) is not sufficiently emphasized (though it at least included in the last sentence), and that (ii) is expressed in terms of references that will be obscure and confusing to most readers.

If something along these lines seems to others a good idea, let's discuss the best formulation and how how best to include it.

2) With reference to the preceding, is there any reason not to just completely delete the second paragraph? I'm pretty sure that "applied existentialist methodology" is outright nonsense. And – "The School's sociologic works derived from syntheses of the thematically pertinent works of Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx, of Sigmund Freud and Max Weber, and of Georg Simmel and György Lukács." – is so theoretically overloaded as to be nearly impossible to parse.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:16, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

There is a lot of excess verbiage that ends up not saying much. I suggest boldness. As far as how to define the group, it's however sources define it of course - but that could be all over the map. Degrees of Kevin Bacon seems just as important as intellectual content in determining who's in the Frankfurt School. Sennalen (talk) 23:48, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response!

I am going to nix the second paragraph.

Both [2] and [3] strongly support highlighting the goal of emancipation (the meaning of which, of course, the article can only to attempt to unpack). But I am going to mull it over a little more and try to check a few other standard sources before fiddling with the opening paragraph, which we now at least have the happy option of splitting into two without running afoul lead best practices.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:36, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks for addressing my earlier request on the Talk section for your December 11 edits. Bustamove1 (talk) 18:51, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Of course! The fault is mine for not posting the note yesterday night.

Also, since I did write a full response to your previous comment before realizing it had been removed, so I'll share it here anyways. Should it seem appropriate, please feel entirely authorized to simply delete it –

Hi @Bustamove1,

Glad for you to chime in! Contrary to what all of my edits yesterday might suggest, I actually do prefer to work collaboratively. The article just needed such a heavy edit, IMO, that it would have been difficult to know in advance what I would find in need of revision. Hence I opted instead to provide an after-the-fact justification, which you'll see below. It likely only went up as you were writing this.

In any case, we both know that it is quite easy to restore anything from previous versions or revert to one of them entirely. Please do restore anything you think belongs in the article, and, if I disagree, I will discuss here and not remove without consensus.

With respect to my edit descriptions, I will be more mindful in the future that they might be read by the original contributing editors. My apologizes to anyone whose work I so dismissively characterized. I'd be happy to review and remove any actually or potentially offensive descriptions from my summaries, but I do not believe it is possible to edit these after the fact.

My reason for removing the religion section is, first, that I do not see how it contributes to an understanding of the FS, and, second, there is no precedent for it in the high-quality, reliable sources with which I am familiar. (Not that there is no literature on it, just that it does not figure in encyclopedia-length pieces on the FS that I have read.) As I said the edit description, however, if I'm missing something, I invite anyone to tell me what it is. Otherwise, it seems most appropriate to me to leave the religious views of particular members to the bio sections of their individual articles. The FS, after all, was not a religious movement.

I agree entirely that the positivism dispute is important and deserves to be included. I removed it only because I did not see a way to edit what was there into something that would makes sense to the average reader. Entirely fair chance this reflects more a limitation on my part than a shortcoming of the material. If you can put something together on this, that would be great for the article. Full support!

Can you be more specific about what you think is missing from the History section? Or, just restore anything you think should not have been removed? (As to a separate article, may that editor step forward!)

I'd love for there to be some treatment of Habermas in the article, with which I'd be willing to assist if you or anyone else takes the lead; I'm just not interested in taking on the project myself. The only reason I removed the critical material is that it is confusing to criticize views not presented in the article. Readers can't be assumed to be familiar with his philosophical project.

I look forward to your restorations/contributions, and apologize again for the thoughtlessness of some of my edit descriptions.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:01, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I had added three or four paragraphs to three subsections of the article. The first was on religion, the second on the positivism dispute, and the third on criticism of Habermas. The first two were extant, initially authored by previous users and editors. For my part, I extended the subsections (which were then reviewed and revised by other editors) because of, first, previous user implications on religious affiliations of the Frankfurt School as well as, second, a paragraph treatment of the positivism dispute that warranted clarification and elucidation. I attempted to at least address all three "generations" of the Frankfurt School into these discussions.

As you noted, the positivism dispute is important to the history of the Frankfurt School. In the future, I will reinsert only my contributions, with revisions. That stated, I do prefer not to single out the initial author of that topic. Article history is there for public viewing if you or anyone else wishes to confirm. If I remember correctly, the initial content was only on Karl Popper's preliminary perspectives. Had I known that passages in the article serviced the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory debate, I would've avoided the Frankfurt School article altogether. Likewise, users, editors, and yours truly did quote and cite major scholars ---Martin Jay, Peter Gordon, etc.---for the history of religious affiliations. I only wanted to be clear that those scholars would most likely recommend at least a subsection on the topic, as well as including all three "generations" of the Frankfurt School.

I thank you for pasting my third subsection extension on Habermas into the Talk, as well as for recommending its inclusion in any future "treatments of his work." I've already indicated to other editors that I am neither a principal author on this article, nor do I desire to be one, for a variety of non-cryptic reasons. I'll monitor your recent "Edits" section for discussions with additional users...if any(!). Peace out, Bustamove1 (talk) 18:08, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Lede currently doesn't say what the Frankfurt school said or believed, even if that may be plural or ununifoed or whatever. In many other pages of Wikipedia Frankfurt school is noted as one side of a debate, or that Frankfurt school ideas influenced something else. ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A0A:EF40:8B9:D701:9AE5:C971:3CB:864A (talk) 23:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Small copy edit

I don't have enough edits to fix this, can someone more senior grab it?

"The researcher does not understand is that he or she operates within an historical and ideological context." Stevedorex (talk) 14:10, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, done! Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:24, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Incorrect characterization of opposition to Marxism 73.68.98.176 (talk) 23:31, 7 May 2024 (UTC)