theory was not reactionary retreat into a Grand Hotel Abyss, but principled withdrawal into a fortress of thought, a citadel from which, periodically, radical jeremiads were issued

the cosseted German childhoods of these thinkers as they were raised by and rebelled against their fathers

[...] Humans had been transformed into desirable, readily exchangeable, commodities, and all that was left to choose was the option of knowing that one was being manipulated. ‘The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them.’ [...]

we still live in a world like the one Frankfurt School excoriated