(Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno)
Edgar Andrew, University of Cardiff
(3028 words) Print
Add to Bookshelves
Marxist Cultural Critic, Philosopher.
Active 1923-1969 in Germany, Continental Europe
The philosopher Theodor Adorno was born in Frankfurt, in 1903, and he is most closely associated with the Frankfurt School. The term ‘Frankfurt School' embraces the work of the members and associates of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. Founded in 1924, the Institute was attached to Frankfurt University. It took its distinctive form, supporting multi-disciplinary research in the social sciences, grounded in an Hegelian-Marxist critical theory, when Max Horkheimer became its director in 1930. While Adorno did indeed emerge as its leading theorist in the 1950s, as well as becoming the co-director (with Horkheimer), he did not formally become a member of the Institute until the 1940s, when both he and the Institute were in exile in New York. Prior to the war, Adorno held an academic post at Frankfurt University, and had established a reputation, not merely as a philosopher but also as a music theorist and critic. It may be noted that Adorno's talent as a pianist was sufficient to justify his contemplating a career as a musician. In 1926 he took composition lessons with the avant-garde composer Alban Berg, and remained a significant figure, as both teacher and theorist, in German musical life up until his death in 1969.
Adorno's work may be understood as an attempt to articulate a Marxist theory of twentieth century capitalism and – given the grim image that he provides of contemporary society – to explore the remaining, limited possibilities that exist in philosophy and the arts for keeping alive critical and politically committed thought.
Adorno argues that classical Marxist theory has become inadequate because it cannot account for a series of fundamental changes in the structures of capitalist societies. Crucially, the rise of modern bureaucracies, with their capacity for extending techniques of social administration into all aspects of human life, transforms the historical dynamic of capitalism. Marx's nineteenth century capitalism is structured by the anarchy of overt competition between capitalist producers on the one hand, and between individual labourers on the other. Marx argues that this will ultimately lead to an immiseration of the proletariat, as wages are forced down in an effort to maintain profits. Poverty changes proletarian consciousness – so that the illusions of the ruling ideology are seen through – and makes possible effective revolutionary practice. Productive property will be transferred to the control of the proletariat, and thus capitalism will break down in the transition to socialism. In contrast, for Adorno (following the work of the sociologist Max Weber, and the Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukács), the administrative power of both larger, monopolistic capitalist enterprises, and of the emergent welfare state, serve to stabilise capitalism. The anarchy of capitalist competition is replaced by the increasing integration of industrial production.
This integration is more radical than it may at first seem. Adorno (again following Lukács) identifies a fundamental homology between Marx's analysis of commodity exchange, which is to say the principles that underpin the capitalist market, and Weber's analysis of bureaucracy and the instrumental rationality that dominates contemporary scientific and administrative thought. Commodity exchange entails the reduction of qualitatively unique entities to the common, quantitative measure of monetary value, so that they may be freely exchanged. Significantly, this quantification extends to labour power. The subjectively unique and distinctive skills of human beings are all reduced to monetary values. Similarly, administration involves the reduction of human subjects to mere office holders. Again, the qualitatively unique is abstracted away in favour of some quantifiable and easily encapsulated common ground. At an extreme, the employee is reduced to their payroll number, and the beneficiary of the welfare state to their national insurance number. Crucially, systems of market exchange and bureaucratic administration prove to be highly efficient, if efficiency is understood instrumentally, which is to say, in terms of establishing and realising the most effective means to realise any given end.
Here then is a core claim that Adorno makes about contemporary society: it is reproduced through the dominance of instrumental reason. Thought processes that are coherent with commodity exchange and administration work through quantification. As such, they cannot take account of that which is qualitatively or subjectively distinctive, and thus they cannot evaluate the ends for which any activity is pursued, for ends are subjectively chosen, and thus, it is claimed, beyond rational debate and assessment. Ultimately, this entails that the very purpose of capitalism, which is to say profit maximisation, cannot be evaluated. It is merely given. The idea that capitalism may be at odds with the genuine needs of human beings, which is an idea that Marx could still articulate coherently, is at best now reduced to mere subjective assertion, and thus incapable of rational justification. Any philosophy or intellectual activity that shares this form of instrumental thinking – and Adorno's claim is that today the dominant schools of philosophy, natural science and social science do share it – is thus incapable of supporting thought that is genuinely critical of contemporary capitalism. In effect, it therefore becomes impossible to penetrate the ideological illusion of the apparent naturalness and inevitability of the capitalist industrial order.
Perhaps the most profound working out of this idea is to be found in the study that Adorno co-authored with Max Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1973). These 'fragments' explore the dialectical tension that exists between mythological ways of thinking and any aspiration to enlightenment. Enlightenment may be understood as the attempt to expose myths as the projections of the human mind and constructions of human culture, and thus to replace them by truths grounded in objective experience. Horkheimer and Adorno argue that enlightenment does not stand in simple opposition to mythology for, on the one hand, it emerges from myth. Mythical entities stand for natural phenomena (Zeus for the sky and weather, Apollo for the sun and so on), and associated ceremonies represent an initial attempt to understand and control the natural world. On the other hand, enlightenment has, in the twentieth century, reverted into a mythology. This occurs, not least, in the rise of positivism and its influence over the natural and social sciences. Positivism strives to establish a scientific methodology that will allow nature to be articulated objectively within scientific theory. At the core of this methodology lies mathematics, and thus quantification (as well as the instrumental reasoning that structures the technological application of scientific theory). The positivist project presupposes that it is possible for the scientist, and indeed for the institution of science itself, to be disengaged from its ambient culture. Horkheimer and Adorno's point, as Marxists, is that science is a cultural activity, and as such can never be wholly untangled from a determining economic base. Enlightenment thus reverts to mythology, precisely at the point that it fails to recognise that its own scientific language is a projection of human culture. The hubris of positivism lies in its presupposition that the order of ideas can map exactly onto the order of things. By refusing to reflect upon its own cultural origins, and thus upon the ends for which it has been forged, positivist science is unable to recognise that its methodology does not in fact allow the objectivity which it claims for its knowledge.
For Horkheimer and Adorno, “[t]hinking objectifies itself to become an automatic, self-activating process; an impersonation of the machine that it produces itself so that ultimately the machine can replace it” (1973 p. 25). Human subjects, be they a member of the putative ruling bourgeoisie or of the proletariat, in a “total administered society” (Adorno 2000b, p. 136-144) are equally subordinated to instrumental reason and its institutionalisation in social and intellectual structures. This institutional and intellectual blindness to ends in the pursuit of instrumental efficiency may be seen to have its apotheosis in the Nazi death camps.
For Adorno, any philosophy that claims to have grasped the truth, be this the truth of scientific method articulated by the positivists, or the political 'truths' of the Nazis or the Stalinists, has succumbed to the mythologisation of enlightened thought. It has prematurely halted the process of self-reflection. Yet, for Adorno, it is equally unacceptable to resign oneself to subjectivism or cultural relativism, for then one is left impotent in the face of the many evils of twentieth century politics. Adorno responds to the challenge to steer between absolutism and relativism in what he calls 'negative dialectics'. The nineteenth century idealist philosopher Hegel had articulated a dialectic that allowed thought to progress through a series of contradictory, and thus unsatisfactory, stages to a final absolute, within which all earlier contradictions are resolved. Adorno's dialectic stops short of the final stage. His Marxist materialism, as the criticism of positivism's faith in autonomous reason suggests, makes him enough of a cultural relativist to recognise that the intellectual resources available to a philosopher and cultural critic are determined by their society. A false – which is to say politically oppressive – society cannot provide a thinker with the resources to think truly. The material base of contemporary society therefore denies its intellectuals access to any sort of the absolute knowledge. But more radically for Adorno, contemporary society denies the intellectual the resources to think truly about this society, which is to say that one cannot articulate a coherent account of contemporary capitalism in its own terms. Therefore, the thinker can but register the failure of their attempts to think truly, recognising that that failure is not a symptom of subjective or personal weakness, but rather of the falsehood of society itself. Adorno's negative dialectics therefore remains at the stage of contradiction and structured incoherence.
Adorno's writings are frequently obscure, not least in an attempt to shake the reader out of a complacent acceptance of dominant ways of thinking, reading and perceiving the world. He refuses to define concepts but rather, seeing them as the determinant products of late capitalist culture, allows an essay to pursue them, seeking links between different and often contradictory concepts, until their superficial coherence and meaningful breakdown. He expresses this in the elegant metaphor of a 'constellation' of concepts. A constellation of stars is a two dimensional image of a complex four dimensional object (for remember the light from stars takes time to reach the Earth), and the particular image depends upon one's viewpoint from Earth. The constellation could, in principle, be reconstructed from any of its component stars. So Adorno's writing attempts to disrupt what is taken for granted about our social and historical viewpoint, the expression of that viewpoint in the materiality of our language, and our attempts to articulate knowledge claims and moral and political positions within that language. The fluidity of the constellation forces us to reflect upon the historical and social forces that shape the particular perspective that we may naively have taken to be self-evident. We may not then be allowed to express a truth, but the failures and contradictions of our thought allow us at least an awareness of falsehood – and when everything is bad, it is best to know the worst.
Adorno's Aesthetic Theory (1984a), and indeed his many writings on music and literature, encapsulate much of his approach to philosophy and to critical thought. He articulates art through a contradiction, akin to that between absolutism and relativism. Works of art are both autonomous and socially constituted. This is to say that on the one side Adorno defends the claim of traditional aesthetics that art works have an autonomous value (indeed, Adorno argues, a truth content) independent of the particular society within which they are produced; and yet on the other side, the sociology of art is correct, in analysing art works as determinate products of particular societies. The facticity of the work lies, not least, in the dependence of the art work upon material and intellectual resources drawn from the artist's ambient culture (just as the philosopher or scientist depends upon and is constituted by the same culture). Typically, the artist may be using the most advanced technology available, be this the chemistry of paints, or the computers that generate much contemporary music. Similarly, intellectual resources may include language, narrative forms and our understandings of space and time. Yet, the artist does not use those resources primarily to the dominant ends of their society. Those ends are the ends of capitalism (such as profit maximisation). This break from the economy is what is articulated in the idea of the work's autonomy. The artist, as an artist, responds to purely aesthetic problems. Thus Adorno focuses, often in the penetrating detail that is reminiscent of formalist approaches to aesthetic analysis and criticism, upon the way in which an art work may be interpreted as a determinate responses to the expressive and technical potentials and challenges, and to the failures and contradictions of its predecessors within a tradition. Yet, because the material with which the artist works is social in origin, or put otherwise, is sedimented social content, the art work may also be interpreted as a critical comment upon its society. Adorno thus celebrates those modernist artists who, throughout the twentieth century, have sought to expose the taken for granted language of traditional art, be this Picasso and Braque throwing into question the naturalness of Renaissance perspective in painting, Proust and Joyce questioning narrative, or, most importantly for the early Adorno, Schoenberg's revolution against tonality in music. Such art maintains an enlightenment impulse, exposing that which is taken as natural to be a projection of a particular culture, and yet never allowing the audience's response to the work to come to rest in a coherent interpretation. In Adorno's work this restless modernist self-criticism culminates in Beckett's theatre, where the very possibility of meaningful communication is thrown into question: “Understanding [Endgame] can mean only understanding its unintelligibility, concretely reconstructing the meaning of the fact that it has no meaning” (Adorno 1991c, p. 243).
Ultimately, the very rigor of Adorno's critical project leaves him hesitant before any political practice. Notoriously, towards the end of his life, he refused to support what he saw as the naive and undisciplined student protests of 1968. While critical thought may be kept alive in philosophy and art, that thought cannot bring about political change. Indeed, the supposed truth of elite or high art is compromised by its inability to communicate with a mass audience. On that level, it is false in comparison with popular art. (One cannot, after all, think or create truly in a false society.) At best, critical thought merely awaits the end of the present political ice-age, keeping vital the promise of genuine humanity until the material base has shifted enough to make critical political engagement possible once more.
Works referred to above:
Adorno, T. W. (1967a; first published 1955) Prisms [Prismen: Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft], London, Spearman.
Adorno, T. W. (1967b; first published 1955) “The Sociology of Knowledge and its Consciousness” [Das Bewußtsein der Wissenssoziologie] in Prisms, London, Spearman
Adorno, T. W. (1973a; first published 1948) The Philosophy of Modern Music [Philosophie der neuen Musik], London, Sheed and Ward.
Adorno, T. W. (1973b; first published 1966) Negative Dialectics [Negative Dialektik], London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Adorno, T.W, (1977) “The Actuality of Philosophy” [Aktualität der Philosophie], Telos, no. 31, 120-133
Adorno, T. W. (1978a; first published 1951) Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life [Minima Moralia: Reflexionenaus dem beschädigten Leben], London, New Left Books.
Adorno, T.W. (1982; first published 1956) Against Epistomology, Studies in Husserl and the Phenomenological Antomonies [Zur Metakritik der Erkenntnistheorie], tr. Willis Domingo, Oxford, Blackwell.
Adorno, T. W. (1984a; first published 1970) Aesthetic Theory [Ästhetische Theorie], London, Routledge
Adorno, T.W. (1987) “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society” [Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?], in: Volker Meja, Dieter Misgeld and Nico Stehr (eds.), Modern German Sociology, New York: Columbia University Press.
Adorno, T.W. (1989; first published 1933) Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic [Kierkegaard. Konstruktioncdes Ästhetischen], tr. R. Hullot-Kentor, Minneapolis: Minneapolis University Press.
Adorno, T. W. (1991a) The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, ed. J. M. Bernstein, London, Routledge.
Adorno, T. W. (1991b; first published 1957-1963) Notes to Literature, Volume 1 [Noten zur Literatur], New York, Columbia University Press
Adorno, T. W. (1991c) “Trying to Understand Engame” [Versuch, das Endgame zu verstehen] in: Notes to Literature volume 1, New York, Columbia University Press.
Adorno, T.W. (1991d; first published 1968) Alban Berg: Master of the Smallest Link [Berg. Der Meister der kleinsten Übergangs] , New York: Cambridge University Press.
Adorno, T. W. (1991e; first published 1952) In Search of Wagner [Versuch über Wagner] tr R. Livingstone, London ; New York : Verso.
Adorno, T. W. (1992a; first published 1965-1974) Notes to Literature, Volume 2 [Noten zur Literatur], New York, Columbia University Press
Adorno, T. W. (1992b; first published 1963) Quasi una fantasia: Essays on Modern Music [Quasi una fantasia: Musikalische Schriften II], London, Verso.
Adorno, T. W. (1992c; first published 1960) Mahler : a Musical Physiognomy [Mahler. Eine Musikalische Physiognomik]; tr E. Jephcott. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
Adorno, T.W. (1993; first published 1963) Hegel: Three Studies [Drei Studien zu Hegel], Cambridge: MIT Press.
Adorno, T. W. (1994a; first published 1941) “On Popular Music”, in: J. Storey (ed.), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, London, Edward Arnold.
Adorno, T. W. (1994b) The Stars Down to Earth and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture, ed. S. Crook, New York: Routledge.
Adorno, T. W. (1998a; first published 1963-1969) Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords [Eingriffe; Stichworte] New York: Columbia University Press.
Adorno, T. W. (1998b) Beethoven : the Philosophy of Music, ed. R. Tiedemann; tr E. Jephcott. Oxford: Polity Press.
Adorno, T. W. (2000a) The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Addresses, Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 2000.
Adorno, T. W. (2000b) Introduction to Sociology, ed C. Gödde, tr E. Jephcott, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. T. and Sanford, R. N. (1950) The Authoritarian Personality, New York: Harper.
Adorno, T.W. and Horkheimer, M. (1973; first published 1944) Dialectic of Enlightenment [Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente], tr. John Cummings, London, Allen Lane.
First published 07 July 2001
Citation: Edgar Andrew, University of Cardiff. "Theodor Adorno." The Literary Encyclopedia. 7 Jul. 2001. The Literary Dictionary Company. 26 December 2007.
No comments:
Post a Comment