BiographyTheodor Wiesengrund
Adorno was born in 1903 to relatively affluent parents in central
Germany. His mother was a gifted singer, of Italian descent, and his
father was a wine merchant and Jewish. Adorno's partial Jewish status
was to have an immeasurable effect upon his life and philosophical
works. He was an academically and musically gifted child. Initially,
it appeared that Adorno was destined for a musical career. During the
early to mid 1920s Adorno studied music composition under Alban Berg
in Vienna and his talent was recognized by the likes of Berg and
Schoenberg. However, in the late 1920s, Adorno joined the faculty of
the University of Frankfurt and devoted the greatest part of his
considerable talent and energy to the study and teaching of
philosophy. Adorno's Jewish heritage forced him to eventually seek
exile from Nazi Germany, initially registering as a doctoral student
at Merton College, Oxford and then, as a member of the University of
Frankfurt's Institute for Social Research, in New York concluding his
exile in Southern California. Adorno did not complete his Oxford
doctorate and appeared to be persistently unhappy in his exilic
condition. Along with other members of the Institute for Social
Research, Adorno returned to the University of Frankfurt immediately
after the completion of the war, taking up a professorial chair in
philosophy and sociology. Adorno remained a professor at the
University of Frankfurt until his death in 1969. He was married to
Gretel and they had no children.
Philosophical influences and
motivationAdorno is generally recognized
within the Continental tradition of philosophy as being one of the
foremost philosophers of the 20th. Century. His collected works
comprise some twenty-three volumes. He wrote on subjects ranging from
musicology to metaphysics and his writings span to include such
things as philosophical analyses of Hegelian metaphysics, a critical
study of the astrology column of the Los Angeles Times, and jazz. In
terms of both style and content, Adorno's writings defy convention.
In seeking to attain a clear understanding of the works of any
philosopher, one should begin by asking oneself what motivated his or
her philosophical labours. What was Adorno attempting to achieve
through his philosophical writings? Adorno's philosophy is
fundamentally concerned with human suffering. It is founded upon a
central moral conviction: that the development of human civilization
has been achieved through the systematic repression of nature and the
consolidation of insidiously oppressive social and political systems,
to which we are all exposed. The shadow of human suffering falls
across practically all of Adorno's writings. Adorno considered his
principal task to be that of testifying to the persistence of such
conditions and thereby, at best, retaining the possibility that such
conditions might be changed for the better. The central tension in
Adorno's diagnosis of what he termed 'damaged life' consists in the
unrelentingly critical character of his evaluation of the effects of
modern societies upon their inhabitants, coupled with a tentative,
but absolutely essential, commitment to a belief in the possibility
of the elimination of unnecessary suffering. As in the work of all
genuine forms of critical philosophy, Adorno's otherwise very bleak
diagnosis of modernity is necessarily grounded within a tentative
hope for a better world.
Adorno's philosophy is typically considered to have been most
influenced by the works of three previous German philosophers: Hegel,
Marx, and Nietzsche. In addition, his association with the Institute
of Social Research profoundly affected the development of Adorno's
thought. I shall begin by discussing this last, before briefly
summarizing the influence of the first three.
The Institute for Social Research was established at the University
of Frankfurt in 1923. The Institute, or the 'Frankfurt School', as it
was later to become known, was an inter-disciplinary body comprising
specialists in such fields as philosophy, economics, political
science, legal theory, psychoanalysis, and the study of cultural
phenomena such as music, film, and mass entertainment. The
establishment of The Frankfurt School was financed by the son of a
wealthy grain merchant who wished to create a western European
equivalent to the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. The Intellectual
labour of the Institute in Frankfurt thus explicitly aimed at
contributing to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of
socialism. However, from 1930 onwards, under the Directorship of Max
Horkheimer, the work of the Frankfurt School began to show subtle but
highly significant deviations from orthodox Marxism. Principally, the
School began to question, and ultimately reject, the strict economic
determinism to which orthodox Marxism was enthral at the time. This
coincided with a firm belief amongst the members of the School that
social phenomena, such as culture, mass entertainment, education, and
the family played a direct role in maintaining oppression. Marxists
had typically dismissed the importance of such phenomena on the
grounds that they were mere reflections of the underlying economic
basis of the capitalist mode of production. An undue concern for such
phenomena was thus generally thought of as, at best, a distraction
from the real task of overthrowing capitalism, at worst a veritable
hindrance. In contrast, the Frankfurt School argued that such
phenomena were fundamentally important, in their own right. The
Frankfurt School thus challenged the economically-centric character
of Marxism. The Frankfurt School's rejection of economic determinism
and interest in the social and cultural planes of human oppression
culminated in a far more circumspect appraisal of the likelihood of
capitalism's demise. The Frankfurt School rejected the Marx's belief
in the economic inevitability of capitalism experiencing cataclysmic
economic crises. The Frankfurt School continued to argue that
capitalism remained an oppressive system, but increasingly viewed the
system as far more adaptable and robust than Marxists had given it
credit for. The Frankfurt School came to portray capitalism as
potentially capable of averting its own demise indefinitely. The
final break with orthodox Marxism occurred with the Frankfurt School's coming to condemn the Soviet Union as a politically
oppressive system. Politically the Frankfurt School sought to
position itself equidistant from both Soviet socialism and liberal
capitalism. The greater cause of human emancipation appeared to call
for the relentless criticism of both systems.
The Frankfurt School's contribution to the cause of human
emancipation consisted in the production of primarily theoretical
studies of social and cultural phenomena. This brand of theoretical
study is generally referred to as 'critical theory'. Although
originating with the Frankfurt School, critical theory has now
achieved the status of a distinct and separate form of philosophical
study, taught and practiced in university departments throughout the
world. What, then are the central philosophical characteristics of
critical theory and to what extent does Adorno's philosophy share
these characteristics?
Critical theory is founded upon an unequivocal normative basis.
Taking a cold, hard look at the sheer scale of human misery and
suffering experienced during the 20th century in particular, critical
theory aims to testify to the extent and ultimate causes of the
calamitous state of human affairs. The ultimate causes of such
suffering are, of course, to be located in the material, political,
economic, and social conditions which human beings simultaneously
both produce and are exposed to. However, critical theory refrains
from engaging in any direct, political action. Rather, critical
theorists argue that suffering and domination are maintained, to a
significant degree, at the level of consciousness and the various
cultural institutions and phenomena that sustain that consciousness.
Critical theory restricts itself to engaging with such phenomena and
aims to show the extent to which 'uncritical theory' contributes to
the perpetuation of human suffering. Critical theory has thus been
defined as 'a tradition of social thought that, in part at least,
takes its cue from its opposition to the wrongs and ills of modern
societies on the one hand, and the forms of theorizing that simply go
along with or seek to legitimate those societies on the other hand.'
(J.M.Bernstein, 1995:11)
Max Horkheimer, the Director of the Frankfurt School, contrasted
critical theory with what he referred to as 'traditional theory'. For
Horkheimer the paradigm of traditional theory consisted in those
forms of social science that modelled themselves upon the
methodologies of natural science. Such 'positivistic' forms of social
science attempted to address and account for human and social
phenomena in terms analogous to the natural scientist's study of
material nature. Thus, legitimate knowledge of social reality was
considered to be attainable through the application of objective
forms of data gathering, yielding, ultimately, quantifiable data. A
strict adherence to such a positivist methodology entailed the
exclusion or rejection of any phenomena not amenable to such
procedures. Ironically, a strict concern for acquiring purely
objective knowledge of human social action ran the very real risk of
excluding from view certain aspects or features of the object under
study. Horkheimer criticized positivism on two grounds. First, that
it falsely represented human social action. Second, that the
representation of social reality produced by positivism was
politically conservative, helping to support the status quo, rather
than challenging it. The first criticism consisted of the argument
that positivism systematically failed to appreciate the extent to
which the so-called social facts it yielded did not exist 'out there', so to speak, but were themselves mediated by socially and
historically mediated human consciousness. Positivism ignored the
role of the 'observer' in the constitution of social reality and
thereby failed to consider the historical and social conditions
affecting the representation of social. Positivism falsely
represented the object of study by reifying social reality as
existing objectively and independently of those whose action and
labour actually produced those conditions. Horkheimer argued, in
contrast, that critical theory possessed a reflexive element lacking
in the positivistic traditional theory. Critical theory attempted to
penetrate the veil of reification so as to accurately determine the
extent to which the social reality represented by traditional theory
was partial and, in important respects, false. False precisely
because of traditional theory's failure to discern the inherently
social and historical character of social reality. Horkheimer
expressed this point thus, 'the facts which our senses present to us
are socially preformed in two ways: through the historical character
of the object perceived and through the historical character of the
perceiving organ. Both are not simply natural; they are shaped by
human activity, and yet the individual perceives himself as receptive
and passive in the act of perception.' (Ref??) Horkheimer's emphasis
upon the detrimental consequences of the representational fallacies
of positivism for the individual is at the heart of his second
fundamental criticism of traditional theory. Horkheimer argues that
traditional theory is politically conservative in two respects.
First, traditional theory falsely 'naturalizes' contingent social
reality, thereby obscuring the extent to which social reality
emanates not from nature, but from the relationship between human
action and nature. This has the effect of circumscribing a general
awareness of the possibility of change. Individuals come to see
themselves as generally confronted by an immutable and intransigent
social world, to which they must adapt and conform if they wish to
survive. Second, and following on from this, conceiving of reality in
these terms serves to unduly pacify individuals. Individuals come to
conceive of themselves as relatively passive recipients of the social
reality, falsely imbued with naturalistic characteristics, that
confronts them. We come to conceive of the potential exercise of our
individual and collective will as decisively limited by existing
conditions, as we find them, so to speak. The status quo is falsely
perceived as a reflection of some natural, inevitable order.
Adorno was a leading member of the Frankfurt School. His writings
are widely considered as having made a highly significant
contribution to the development of critical theory. Adorno
unequivocally shared the moral commitment of critical theory. He also
remained deeply suspicious of positivistic social science and
directed a large part of his intellectual interests to a critical
analysis of the philosophical basis of this approach. He shared the
Frankfurt School's general stance in respect of orthodox Marxism and
economic determinism, in particular. Adorno persistently criticized
any and all philosophical perspectives which posited the existence of
some ahistorical and immutable basis to social reality. He thus
shared Horkheimer's criticisms of any and all attempts at
'naturalizing' social reality. However, Adorno ultimately proceeded
to explicate an account of the entwinement of reason and domination
that was to have a profound effect upon the future development of
critical theory. In stark contrast to the philosophical convention
which counter-posed reason and domination, whereby the latter is to
be confronted with and dissolved by the application of reason so as
to achieve enlightenment, Adorno was to argue that reason itself had
become entangled with domination; reason had become a tool and device
for domination and suffering. This led Adorno to reassess the
prospects for overcoming domination and suffering. Put simply, Adorno
was far more sanguine in respect of the prospects for realizing
critical theory's aims than other members of the Frankfurt School.
Adorno was perhaps the most despairing of the Frankfurt School
intellectuals.
The Frankfurt School provided Adorno with an intellectual 'home' in
which to work. The development of Adorno's thought was to have a
profound effect upon the future development of critical theory.
Adorno's philosophy itself owed much to the works of Hegel, Marx, and
Nietzsche. The greater part of Adorno's thought, his account of
reason, his understanding of the role of consciousness in the
constitution of reality, and his vision of domination and human
suffering are all imbued with the thought of these earlier
philosophers. Adorno's philosophy consists, in large part, of a
dialogue with these philosophers and their particular, and very
different, visions of the formation and deformation of social
reality. I shall briefly consider each in turn.
Hegel's philosophy is notoriously abstruse and difficult to fully
understand. There are aspects of Hegel's thought which Adorno
consistently criticized and rejected. However, what Adorno did take
from Hegel, amongst other things, was a recognition that philosophy
was located within particular socio-historical conditions. The
objects of philosophical study and, indeed, the very exercise of
philosophy itself, were social and historical phenomena. The object
of philosophy was not the discovery of timeless, immutable truths,
but rather to provide interpretations of a socially constituted
reality. Hegel was also to insist that understanding human behaviour
was only possible through engaging with the distinct socio-historical
conditions, of which human beings were themselves a part. In stark
contrast to Immanuel Kant's conception of the self-constituting
character of human consciousness, Hegel argued that human
consciousness was mediated by the socio-historical conditions of
specific individuals. Further, Hegel argued that the development of
each individual's self-consciousness could only proceed through
relations with other individuals: attaining a consciousness of
oneself entailed the existence of others. No one single human being
was capable of achieving self-consciousness and exercising reason by
herself. Finally, Hegel also argued that the constitution of social
reality proceeded through subjects' relationship with the
'objective', material realm. In stark contrast to positivism, an
Hegelian inspired understanding of social reality accorded a
necessary and thoroughly active role to the subject. Hegel's draws
our attention to our own role in producing the objective reality with
which positivists confront us. Adorno was in basic agreement with all
of the above aspects of Hegel's philosophy. A recognition of
philosophy as a socio-historical phenomenon and an acceptance of the
socio-historical conditions of human consciousness remained central
to Adorno's thought. However, Adorno differed from Hegel most
unequivocally on one particularly fundamental point. Hegel
notoriously posited the existence of some ultimately constitutive
ground of human reality, in the metaphysical form 'Geist', or
'Spirit'. Hegel ultimately viewed reality as a manifestation of some
a priori form of consciousness, analogous to a God. In conceiving of
material reality as emanating from consciousness, Hegel was
expounding a form of philosophical Idealism. Adorno would never
accept this aspect of Hegel's thought. Adorno consistently argued
that any such recourse to some a priori, ultimately ahistorical basis
to reality was itself best seen as conditioned by material forces and
conditions. For Adorno, the abstractness of such philosophical
arguments actually revealed the unduly abstract character of specific
social conditions. Adorno could thereby criticize Hegel for not
according enough importance to the constitutive character of distinct
social and historical conditions. Such criticisms reveal the
influence of Karl Marx's thought upon the development of Adorno's
thought.
Marx has famously been described as standing Hegel on his head.
Where Hegel ultimately viewed consciousness as determining the form
and content of material conditions, Marx argued that material
conditions ultimately determined, or fundamentally conditioned, human
consciousness. For Marx, the ultimate grounds of social reality and
the forms of human consciousness required for the maintenance of this
reality were economic conditions. Marx argued that, within capitalist
societies, human suffering and domination originated in the economic
relations characteristic of capitalism. Put simply, Marx argued that
those who produced economic wealth, the proletariat, were alienated
from the fruits of their labour as a result of having to sell their
labour to those who controlled the forces of production: those who
owned the factories and the like; the bourgeoisie. The
disproportionate wealth and power of the bourgeoisie resulted from
the extraction of an economic surplus from the product of the
proletariat's labour, in the form of profit. Those who owned the
most, thus did the least to attain that wealth, whereas those who had
the least, did the most. Capitalism was thus considered to be
fundamentally based upon structural inequality and entailed one class
of people treating another class as mere instruments of their own
will. Under capitalism, Marx argued, human beings could never achieve
their full, creative potential as a result of being bound to
fundamentally alienating, dehumanising forms of economic production.
Capitalism ultimately reduces everyone, bourgeoisie and proletariat
alike, to mere appendages of the machine. Adorno shared Marx's view
of capitalism as a fundamentally dehumanising system. Adorno's
commitment to Marxism caused him, for example, to retain a lifelong
suspicion of those accounts of liberalism founded upon abstract
notions of formal equality and the prioritisation of economic and
property rights. Adorno's account of domination was thus deeply
indebted to Marx's account of domination. In addition, in numerous
articles and larger works, Adorno was to lay great stress on Marx's
specific understanding of capitalism and the predominance of exchange
value as the key determinant of worth in capitalist societies. As I
will show later, the concept of exchange value was central to Adorno's analysis of culture and entertainment in capitalist
societies. Marx's account of capitalism enabled critical theory and
Adorno to go beyond a mere assertion of the social grounds of reality
and the constitutive role of the subject in the production of that
reality. Adorno was not simply arguing that all human phenomena were
socially determined. Rather, he was arguing that an awareness of the
extent of domination required both an appreciation of the social
basis of human life coupled with the ability to qualitatively
distinguish between various social formations in respect of the
degree of human suffering prerequisite for their maintenance. To a
significant degree, Marx's account of capitalism provided Adorno with
the means for achieving this. However, as I argued above, Adorno
shared the Frankfurt School's suspicions of the more economically
determinist aspects of Marx's thought. Beyond even this, Adorno's
account of reason and domination ultimately drew upon philosophical
sources that were distinctly non-Marxian in character. Foremost
amongst these were the writings of Frederich Nietzsche.
Of all the critical theorists, the writings of Nietzsche have
exerted the most influence upon Adorno in two principal respects.
First, Adorno basically shared the importance which Nietzsche
attributed to the autonomous individual. However, Nietzsche's account
of the autonomous individual differs in several highly important
respects from that typically associated with the rationalist
tradition, within which the concept of the autonomous individual
occupied a central place. In contrast to those philosophers, such as
Kant, who tended to characterize autonomy in terms of the individual
gaining a systematic control over her desires and acting in
accordance with formal, potentially universalizable, rules and
procedures, Nietzsche placed far greater importance upon spontaneous,
creative human action as constituting the pinnacle of human
possibility. Nietzsche considerd the 'rule-bound' account of autonomy
to be little more than a form of self-imposed heteronomy. For
Nietzsche, reason exercised in this fashion amounted to a form of
self-domination. One might say that Nietzsche espoused an account of
individual autonomy as aesthetic self-creation. Being autonomous
entailed treating one's life as a potential work of art. This account
of autonomy exercised an important and consistent influence upon Adorno's own understanding of autonomy. Furthermore,
Adorno's concern
for the autonomous individual was absolutely central to his moral and
political philosophy. Adorno argued that a large part of what was so
morally wrong with complex, capitalist societies consisted in the
extent to which, despite their professed individualist ideology,
these societies actually frustrated and thwarted individuals'
exercise of autonomy. Adorno argued, along with other intellectuals
of that period, that capitalist society was a mass, consumer society,
within which individuals were categorized, subsumed, and governed by
highly restrictive social, economic and, political structures that
had little interest in specific individuals. For Adorno, the majority
of peoples' lives were lead within mass, collective entities and
structures, from school to the workplace and beyond. Being a true
individual, in the broadly Nietzschean sense of that term, was
considered to be nigh on impossible under these conditions. In
addition to this aspect of Nietzsche's influence upon Adorno, the
specific understanding which Adorno developed in respect of the
relationship between reason and domination owed much to Nietzsche.
Nietzsche refused to endorse any account of reason as a thoroughly
benign, or even disinterested force. Nietzsche argued that the
development and deployment of reason was driven by power. Above all
else, Nietzsche conceived of reason as a principal means of
domination; a tool for dominating nature and others. Nietzsche
vehemently criticized any and all non-adversarial accounts of reason.
On this reading, reason is a symptom of, and tool for, domination and
hence not a means for overcoming or remedying domination. Adorno came
to share some essential features of this basically instrumentalist
account of reason. The book he wrote with Max Horkheimer,
Dialectic of Enlightenment, which is a foremost text of
critical theory, grapples with precisely this account of reason.
However, Adorno refrained from simply taking over Nietzsche's account
in its entirety. Most importantly, Adorno basically shared Nietzsche's account of the instrumentalization of reason, however,
Adorno insisted against Nietzsche that the transformation of reason
was less an expression of human nature and more a consequence of
contingent social conditions which might, conceivably, be changed.
Where Nietzsche saw domination as an essential feature of human
society, Adorno argued that domination was contingent and potentially
capable of being overcome. Obviously, letting go of this particular
aspiration would be intellectually cataclysmic to the emancipatory
aims of critical theory. Adorno uses Nietzsche in an attempt to
bolster, not undermine, critical theory.
Adorno considered philosophy to be a social and historical exercise,
bound by both the past and existing traditions and conditions. Hence,
it would be fair to say that many philosophical streams run into the
river of Adorno's own writings. However, the works of Hegel, Marx,
and Nietzsche exercised a profound and lasting influence upon the
form and content of Adorno's work. It is now time to move on and
engage with certain key aspects of Adorno's philosophical writings. I
shall focus upon three aspects of Adorno's writings so as to provide
a clear summary of the scope and substance of Adorno's philosophy:
his understanding of reason and what he termed 'identity thinking';
his moral philosophy and discussion of nihilism; and finally, his
analysis of culture and its effects upon capitalist societies.
Identity thinking and
instrumental reasonAdorno unequivocally
rejected the view that philosophy and the exercise of reason afforded
access to a realm ofpristine thoughts and reality. In stark contrast
to those rationalists such as Plato, who posited the existence of an
ultimate realm of reality and truth underlying the manifest world,
Adorno argued that philosophical concepts actually expressed the
social structures within which they were found. Adorno consistently
argued that there is no such thing as pure thought: thinking is a
socio-historical form of activity. Hence, Adorno argued that there
did not exist a single standpoint from which 'truth' could be
universally discerned. To many this may sound like mere philosophical
relativism; the doctrine which claims that all criteria of truth are
socially and historically relative and contingent. However, the
charge of relativism has rarely been levelled at Adorno's work.
Relativists are typically accused of espousing a largely uncritical
form of theorizing. A belief in the social contingency of truth
criteria appears to exclude the possibility of criticizing social
practices and beliefs by recourse to practices and beliefs alien to
that society. Further, their commitment to the notion of contingency
has frequently resulted in philosophical relativists being accused of
unduly affirming the legitimacy claims of any given social practice
or belief without subjecting them to a sufficiently critical
scrutiny. No such criticisms have been made of Adorno's work.
Adorno's analysis of philosophical concepts aims to uncover the
extent to which such concepts are predicated upon, and manifestations
of, relations of power and domination. Adorno coined the term 'identity
thinking' to refer to that form of thinking which is the
most expressive philosophical manifestation of power and domination.
Drawing a contrast between his own form of dialectical thinking and
identity thinking, Adorno wrote that 'dialectics seeks to say what
something is, while identarian thinking says what something comes
under, what it exemplifies or represents, and what, accordingly, it
is not itself.' (1990:149). A perfect example of identity thinking
would be those forms of reasoning found within bureaucracies where
individual human beings are assembled within different classes or
categories. The bureaucracy can thus only be said to 'know' any
specific individual as an exemplar of the wider category to which
that individual has been assigned. The sheer, unique specificity of
the individual in question is thereby lost to view. One is liable to
being treated as a number, and not as a unique person. Thus, Adorno
condemns identity thinking as systematically and necessarily
misrepresenting reality by means of the subsumption of specific
phenomena under general, more abstract classificatory headings within
which the phenomenal world is cognitively assembled. While this mode
of representing reality may have the advantage of facilitating the
manipulation of the material environment, it does so at the cost of
failing to attend to the specificity of any given phenomenal entity;
everything becomes a mere exemplar. One consequence of apprehending
reality in this way is the elimination of qualities or properties
that may inhere within any given object but which are conceptually
excluded from view, so to speak, as a result of the imposition of a
classificatory framework. In this way, identity thinking
misrepresents its object. Adorno's understanding and use of the
concept of identity thinking provides a veritable foundation for his
philosophy and ultimately underlies much of his writing. One of the
principal examples of Adorno's analysis of identity thinking is to be
found in his and Horkheimer's critical study of enlightenment,
presented within their Dialectic of Enlightenment.
The centrepiece of Adorno and Horkheimer's highly unusual text is an
essay on the concept of enlightenment. The essay presents both a
critical analysis of enlightenment and an account of the
instrumentalization of reason. The enlightenment is
characteristically thought of as an historical period, spanning the
17th and 18th Centuries, embodying the emancipatory ideals of
modernity. Enlightenment intellectuals were united by a common vision
in which a genuinely human social and political order was to be
achieved through the dissolution of previously oppressive,
unenlightened, institutions. The establishment of enlightenment
ideals was to be achieved by creating the conditions in which
individuals could be free to exercise their own reason, free from the
dictates of rationally indefensible doctrine and dogma. The means for
establishing this new order was the exercise of reason. Freeing
reason from the societal bonds which had constrained it was
identified as the means for achieving human sovereignty over a world
which was typically conceived of as the manifestation of some higher,
divine authority. Enlightenment embodies the promise of human beings
finally taking individual and collective control over the destiny of
the species. Adorno and Horkheimer refused to endorse such a wholly
optimistic reading of the effects of the rationalization of society.
They stated, 'in the most general sense of progressive thought, the
Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and
establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth
radiates disaster triumphant.' (1979:3) How do Adorno and Horkheimer
conceive of the 'fully enlightened earth' and what is the nature of
the 'disaster' that ensues from this?
Adorno and Horkheimer's understanding of enlightenment differs in
several highly significant respects from the conventional
understanding of the concept. They do not conceive of enlightenment
as confined to a distinct historical period. As a recent commentator
on Adorno has written, 'Adorno and Horkheimer do not use the term
ìenlightenmentî primarily to designate a historical period ranging
from Descartes to Kant. Instead they use it to refer to a series of
related intellectual and practical operations which are presented as
demythologizing, secularizing or disenchanting some mythical,
religious or magical representation of the world.' (Jarvis, 1998:24).
Adorno and Horkheimer extend their understanding of enlightenment to
refer to a mode of apprehending reality found in the writings of
classical Greek philosophers, such as Parmenides, to 20th. Century
positivists such as Bertrand Russell. At the core of Adorno and Horkheimer's understanding of enlightenment are two, related theses:
'myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to
mythology.' (1979:xvi). An analysis of the second of these two theses
will suffice to explicate the concept of enlightenment Adorno and
Horkheimer present.
Adorno and Horkheimer's understanding of enlightenment differs
fundamentally from those accounts of the development of human thought
and civilization that posit a developmental schema according to which
human history is considered as progressively proceeding through
separate stages of cognitively classifying and apprehending reality.
These accounts typically describe the cognitive ascent of humanity as
originating in myth, proceeding to religion, and culminating in
secular, scientific reasoning. On this view, the scientific world-
view ushered in by the enlightenment is seen as effecting a radical
intellectual break and transition from that which went before. Adorno
and Horkheimer fundamentally challenge this assumption. Their thesis
that 'myth is already enlightenment' is based on the claim that the
development of human thought possesses a basic continuity. Both myth
and enlightenment are modes of representing reality, both attempt to
explain and account for reality. Adorno and Horkheimer's second
thesis, that enlightenment reverts to mythology requires a far more
detailed explanation since it entails engaging with their entire
understanding of reason and its relationship with heteronomy. They
aim to demonstrate that and how enlightenment's rationalization of
society comes to revert to the character of a mythical order. Adorno
and Horkheimer argue that enlightenment's reversion to mythology
amounts to the betrayal of the emancipatory ideals of enlightenment.
However, they view the betrayal of enlightenment as being inherently
entwined with enlightenment itself. For them, the reversion to
mythology primarily means reverting to an unreflexive, uncritical
mode of configuring and understanding reality. Reverting to mythology
means the institution of social conditions, over which individuals
come to have little perceived control. Reverting to mythology means a
reversion to a heteronomous condition.
Adorno and Horkheimer conceive of enlightenment as principally a
demythologizing mode of apprehending reality. For them, the
fundamental aim of enlightenment is the establishment of human
sovereignty over material reality, over nature: enlightenment is
founded upon the drive to master and control nature. The realization
of this aim requires the ability to cognitively and practically
manipulate the material environment in accordance with our will. In
order to be said to dominate nature, nature must become an object of
our will. Within highly technologically developed societies, the
constraints upon our ability to manipulate nature are typically
thought of in terms of the development of technological, scientific
knowledge: the limits of possibility are determined not by a mythical
belief in god, say, but in the development of the technological
forces available to us. This way of conceiving of the tangible limits
to human action and cognition had first to overcome a belief that the
natural order contained, and was the product of, mythical beings and
entities whose presumed existence constituted the ultimate form of
authority for those societies enthrall to them. The realization of
human sovereignty required the dissolution of such beliefs and the
disenchantment of nature. Adorno and Horkheimer write, 'the program
of the Enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world; the
dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy, From
now on, matter would at last be mastered without any illusion of
ruling or inherent powers, of hidden qualities.' (1979:3-6)
Overcoming myth was effected by conceiving of myth as a form of
anthropomorphism, as already a manifestation of human cognition so
that a realm which had served to constrain the development of
technological forces was itself a creation of mankind, falsely
projected onto the material realm. On this reading, enlightenment is
conceived of as superseding and replacing mythical and religious
belief systems, the falsity of which consist, in large part, of their
inability to discern the subjective character and origins of these
beliefs.
Few would dispute a view of enlightenment as antithetical to myth.
However, Adorno and Horkheimer's claim that enlightenment reverts to
mythology is considerably more contentious. While many
anthropologists and social theorists, for example have come to accept
Adorno and Horkheimer's claim that myth and enlightenment have the
same functional purpose of representing and understanding reality,
most political theorists would take great issue with the claim that
enlightenment has regressed, or relapsed into some mythical state
since this latter claim clearly implies that the general state of
social and political freedom assumed to exist in 'enlightened'
societies is largely bogus. This is, however, precisely what Adorno
and Horkheimer argue. They argue that human beings' attempt to gain
sovereignty over nature has been pursued through, in large part, the
accumulation of objective, verifiable knowledge of the material realm
and its constitutive processes: we take control over nature by
understanding how it can be made to work for us. Viewed in this way,
the value of nature is necessarily conceived of in primarily
instrumental terms: nature is thought of as an object for, and
instrument of, human will. This conception of nature necessitates
drawing a distinction between this realm and those beings for whom it
is an object. Thus, the instrumentalist conception of nature entails
a conception of human beings as categorically distinct entities,
capable of becoming subjects through the exercise of reason upon
nature. The very category of subject thus has inscribed within it a
particular conception of nature as that which is to be subordinated
to one's will: subject and object are hierarchically juxtaposed, just
as they are in the works of, for example, Descartes and Kant. For
nature to be considered amenable to such subordination requires that
it be conceived of as synonymous with the objectified models through
which human subjects represent nature to themselves. To be wholly
conceivable in these terms requires the exclusion of any properties
that cannot be subsumed within this representational understanding of
nature, this particular form of identity thinking. Adorno and
Horkheimer state, 'the concordance between the mind of man and the
nature of things that he had in mind is patriarchal: the human mind,
which overcomes superstition, is to hold sway over a disenchanted nature.' (1979:4) Nature is thereby configured as the object of human
will and representation. In this way, our criteria governing the
identification and pursuit of valid knowledge are grounded within a
hierarchical relationship between human beings and nature: reason is
instrumentalized. For Adorno and Horkheimer then, 'myth turns into
enlightenment, and nature into mere objectivity. Men pay for the
increase of their power with alienation from that over which they
exercise their power. Enlightenment behaves towards things as a
dictator toward men. He knows them in so far as he can manipulate
them. The man of science knows things in so far as he can make them.
In this way, their potentiality is turned to his own ends.' (1979:9)
Adorno and Horkheimer insist that this process results in the
establishment of a generally heteronomous social order; a condition
over which human beings have little control. Ultimately, the drive to
dominate nature results in the establishment of a form of reasoning
and a general world-view which appears to exist independently of
human beings and, more to the point, is principally characterized by
a systematic indifference to human beings and their sufferings: we
ultimately become mere objects of the form of reason that we have
created. Adorno and Horkheimer insist that individual
self-preservation in 'enlightened' societies requires that each of us
conform to the dictates of instrumental reason. How do Adorno and
Horkheimer attempt to defend such a fundamentally controversial
claim?
Throughout his philosophical lifetime Adorno argued that
authoritative forms of knowledge have become largely conceived of as
synonymous with instrumental reasoning; that the world has come to be
conceived of as identical with its representation within instrumental
reasoning. Reality is thus deemed discernible only in the form of
objectively verifiable facts and alternative modes of representing
reality are thereby fundamentally undermined. A successful appeal to
the 'facts' of a cause has become the principal means for resolving
disputes and settling disputes in societies such as ours. However,
Adorno argued that human beings are increasingly incapable of
legitimately excluding themselves from those determinative processes
thought to prevail within the disenchanted material realm: human
beings become objects of the form of reasoning through which their
status as subjects is first formulated. Thus, Adorno discerns a
particular irony in the totalising representation of reality which
enlightenment prioritizes. Human sovereignty over nature is pursued
by the accumulation of hard, objective data which purport to
accurately describe and catalogue this reality. The designation of
'legitimate knowledge' is thereby restricted to that thought of as 'factual': legitimate knowledge of the world is that which purports
to accurately reflect how the world is. As it stands, of course, the
mere act of describing any particular aspect of the material realm
does not, by itself, promote the cause of human freedom. It may
directly facilitate the exercise of freedom by providing sufficient
knowledge upon which an agent may exercise discretionary judgement
concerning, say, the viability of any particular desire, but, by
itself, accurate descriptions of the world are not a sufficient
condition for freedom. Adorno, however, argues that the very
constituents of this way of thinking are inextricably entwined with
heteronomy. In commenting upon Adorno and Horkheimer's claim that
enlightenment restricts legitimate knowledge to the category of
objectively verifiable facts, Simon Jarvis writes, 'thought is to
confine itself to the facts, which are thus the point at which
thought comes to a halt. The question as to whether these facts might
change is ruled out by enlightened thought as a pseudo-problem.
Everything which is, is thus represented as a kind of fate, no less
unalterable and uninterrogable than mythical fate itself.' (1998:24).
Conceived of in this way, material reality appears as an immutable
and fixed order of things which necessarily pre-structures and
pre-determines our consciousness of it. As Adorno and Horkheimer
themselves state, 'factuality wins the day; cognition is restricted
to its repetition; and thought becomes mere tautology. The more the
machinery of thought subjects existence to itself, the more blind its
resignation in reproducing existence. Hence enlightenment reverts to
mythology, which it never really knew how to elude. For in its
figures mythology had the essence of the status quo: cycle, fate, and
domination of the world reflected as the truth and deprived of hope.'
(1979:27) Facts have come to take on the same functional properties
of a belief in the existence of some mythical forces or beings:
representing an external order to which we must conform. The
ostensible difference between them is that the realm of facts appears
to be utterly objective and devoid of any subjective, or
anthropomorphic forces. Indeed, the identification of a truly
objective order was explicitly pursued through the exclusion of any
such subjective prejudices and fallacies. Subjective reasoning is
fallacious reasoning, on this view. Adorno's attempt to account for
this objective order as constituted through identity thinking poses a
fundamental challenge to the epistemological conceit of such views.
Adorno and Horkheimer argued that the instrumentalization of reason
and the epistemological supremacy of 'facts' served to establish a
single order, a single mode of representing and relating to reality.
For them, 'enlightenment is totalitarian' (1979:24). The pursuit of
human sovereignty over nature is predicated upon a mode of reasoning
whose functioning necessitates subsuming all of nature within a
single, representational framework. We possess knowledge of the world
as a result of the accumulation of facts, 'facts' that are themselves
necessarily abstractions from that to which they refer. Assembled
within a classificatory scheme these facts are not, cannot ever be, a
direct expression of that to which they refer; no aspect of its
thought, by its very nature, can ever legitimately be said to possess
that quality. However, while facts constitute the principal
constituents of this classificatory scheme, the scheme itself, this
mode of configuring reality, is founded upon a common, single
cognitive currency, which necessarily holds that the essence of all
that can be known is reducible to a single, inherently quantifiable
property: matter. They insist that this mode of configuring reality
originates within a desire to dominate nature and that this
domination is effected by reducing the manifold diversity of nature
to, ultimately, a single, manipulable form. For them the realization
of the single totality that proceeds from the domination of nature
necessitates that reason itself be shorn of any ostensibly partial or
particularistic elements. They conceive of enlightenment as aspiring
towards the institution of a form of reasoning which is fundamentally
universal and abstract in character: a form of reasoning which posits
the existence of a unified order, a priori. They argue, 'in advance,
the Enlightenment recognizes as being and occurrence only what can be
apprehended in unity: its ideal is the system from which all and
everything follows. Its rationalist and empiricist versions do not
part company on this point.' (1979:7) Thus, the identarian character
of enlightenment, on this reading, consists of the representation of
material reality as ultimately reducible to a single scale of
evaluation or measurement. Reality is henceforth to be known in so
far as it is quantifiable. Material reality is presented as having
become an object of calculation. The form of reasoning which is
adequate to the task of representing reality in this way must be
necessarily abstract and formal in character. Its evaluative
procedures must, similarly, avoid the inclusion of any unduly
restrictive and partial affiliations to any specific component
property of the system as a whole if they are to be considered
capable of being applicable to the system as a whole. Adorno and
Horkheimer present the aspiration towards achieving human sovereignty
over nature as culminating in the institution of a mode of reasoning
which is bound to the identification and accumulation of facts; which
restricts the perceived value of the exercise of reason to one which
is instrumental for the domination of nature; and which, finally,
aims at the assimilation of all of nature under a single,
universalizing representational order. Adorno and Horkheimer present
enlightenment as fundamentally driven by the desire to master nature,
of bringing all of material reality under a single representational
system, within which reason is transformed into a tool for achieving
this end.
For Adorno and Horkheimer then, nature has been fully mastered
within the 'fully enlightened earth' and human affairs are regulated
and evaluated in accordance with the demands of instrumental
reasoning: the means by which nature has been mastered have rebounded
upon us. The attempt to fully dominate nature culminates in the
institution of a social and political order over which we have lost
control. If one wishes to survive, either as an individual or even as
a nation, one must conform to, and learn to utilize, instrumental
reason. Thought and philosophy aids and abets this order where it
seeks merely to mirror or 'objectively' reflect that reality. Adorno
aims to avoid providing any such support by, at root, providing a
prototypical means of deconstructing that 'reality'. The radical
character of his concept of 'identity thinking' consists in its
insistence that such 'objective' forms of representing reality are
not 'objective' enough, so to speak. The facts upon which
instrumental reasoning goes to work are themselves conceptual
abstractions and not direct manifestations of phenomena, as they
claim to be. Adorno's philosophical writings fundamentally aim to
demonstrate the two-fold falsity of 'identity thinking'. First, in
respect of debunking the claims of identity thinking to representing
reality objectively. Second, in respect of the effects of
instrumental reasoning as a form of identity thinking upon the
potential for the exercise of human freedom. Adorno posits identity
thinking as fundamentally concerned not to understand phenomena but
to control and manipulate it. A genuinely critical form of philosophy
aims to both undercut the dominance of identity thinking and to
create an awareness of the potential of apprehending and relating to
phenomena in a non-coercive manner. Both how he aims to do this, and
how Adorno's philosophical project can itself be criticized will be
considered in the final section. However, having summarized the
substance of Adorno's understanding of philosophy and reason, what
must now be considered is the next most important theme addressed in Adorno's philosophical writings: his vision of the status of morality
and moral theory within this fully enlightened earth.
Morality and nihilism
Adorno's
moral philosophy is similarly concerned with the effects of
'enlightenment' upon both the prospects of individuals leading a 'morally good life' and philosophers' ability to identify what such a
life may consist of. Adorno argues that the instrumentalization of
reason has fundamentally undermined both. He argues that social life
in modern societies no longer coheres around a set of widely espoused
moral truths and that modern societies lack a moral basis. What has
replaced morality as the integrating 'cement' of social life are
instrumental reasoning and the exposure of everyone to the capitalist
market. According to Adorno, modern, capitalist societies are
fundamentally nihilistic, in character; opportunities for leading a
morally good life and even philosophically identifying and defending
the requisite conditions of a morally good life have been abandoned
to instrumental reasoning and capitalism. Within a nihilistic world,
moral beliefs and moral reasoning are held to have no ultimately
rational authority: moral claims are conceived of as, at best,
inherently subjective statements, expressing not an objective
property of the world, but the individual's own prejudices. Morality
is presented as thereby lacking any objective, public basis. The
espousal of specific moral beliefs is thus understood as an
instrument for the assertion of one's own, partial interests:
morality has been subsumed by instrumental reasoning. Adorno attempts
to critically analyse this condition. He is not a nihilist, but a
critic of nihilism.
Adorno's account of nihilism rests, in large part, on his
understanding of reason and of how modern societies have come to
conceive of legitimate knowledge. He argues that morality has fallen
victim to the distinction drawn between objective and subjective
knowledge. Objective knowledge consists of empirically verifiable
'facts' about material phenomena, whereas subjective knowledge
consists of all that remains, including such things as evaluative and
normative statements about the world. On this view, a statement such
as 'I am sitting at a desk as I write this essay' is of a different
category to the statement 'abortion is morally wrong'. The first
statement is amenable to empirical verification, whereas the latter
is an expression of a personal, subjective belief. Adorno argues that
moral beliefs and moral reasoning have been confined to the sphere of
subjective knowledge. He argues that, under the force of the
instrumentalization of reason and positivism, we have come to
conceive of the only meaningfully existing entities as empirically
verifiable facts: statements on the structure and content of reality.
Moral values and beliefs, in contrast, are denied such a status.
Morality is thereby conceived of as inherently prejudicial in
character so that, for example, there appears to be no way in which
one can objectively and rationally resolve disputes between
conflicting substantive moral beliefs and values. Under the condition
of nihilism one cannot distinguish between more or less valid moral
beliefs and values since the criteria allowing for such evaluative
distinctions have been excluded from the domain of subjective
knowledge. Adorno argues that, under nihilistic conditions, morality
has become a function or tool of power. The measure of the influence
of any particular moral vision is an expression of the material
interests that underlie it.
Interestingly, Adorno identifies the effects of nihilism as
extending to philosophical attempts to rationally defend morality and
moral reasoning. Thus, in support of his argument he does not rely
upon merely pointing to the extent of moral diversity and conflict in
modern societies. Nor does he rest his case upon those who, in the
name of some radical account of individual freedom, positively
espouse nihilism. Indeed, he identifies the effects of nihilism
within moral philosophy itself, paying particular attention to the
moral theory of Immanuel Kant. Adorno argues that Kant's account of
the moral law demonstrates the extent to which morality has been
reduced to the status of subjective knowledge. Kant certainly
attempts to establish a basis for morality by the exclusion of all
substantive moral claims, claims concerning the moral goodness of
this or that practice or way of life. Kant ultimately seeks to
establish valid moral reasoning upon a series of utterly formal,
procedural rules, or maxims which exclude even the pursuit of human
happiness as a legitimate component of moral reasoning. Adorno
criticizes Kant for emptying the moral law of any and all reference
to substantive conceptions of human well-being, or the 'good life'.
Ultimately, Kant is condemned for espousing an account of moral
reasoning that is every bit as formal and devoid of any substantively
moral constituents as instrumental reasoning. The thrust of Adorno's
criticism of Kant is not so much that Kant developed such an account
of morality, since this was, according to Adorno, to a large extent
prefigured by the material conditions of Kant's time and place, but
that he both precisely failed to identify the effects of these
conditions and, in so doing, thereby failed to discern the extent to
which his moral philosophy provides an affirmation, rather than a
criticism, of such conditions. Kant, of all people, is condemned for
not being sufficiently reflexive.
Unlike some other thinkers and philosophers of the time, Adorno does
not think that nihilism can be overcome by a mere act of will or by
simply affirming some substantive moral vision of the good life. He
does not seek to philosophically circumnavigate the extent to which
moral questions concerning the possible nature of the 'good life'
have become so profoundly problematic for us. Nor does he attempt to
provide a philosophical validation of this condition. Recall that
Adorno argues that reason has become entwined with domination and has
developed as a manifestation of the attempt to control nature. Adorno
thus considers nihilism to be a consequence of domination and a
testament, albeit in a negative sense, to the extent to which human
societies are no longer enthral to, for example, moral visions
grounded in some naturalistic conception of human well-being. For
Adorno, this process has been so thorough and complete that we can no
longer authoritatively identify the necessary constituents of the
good life since the philosophical means for doing so have been
vitiated by the domination of nature and the instrumentalization of
reason. The role of the critical theorist is, therefore, not to
positively promote some alternative, purportedly more just, vision of
a morally grounded social and political order. This would be to far
exceed the current bounds of the potential of reason. Rather, the
critical theorist must fundamentally aim to retain and promote an
awareness of the contingency of such conditions and the extent to
which such conditions are capable of being changed. Adorno's,
somewhat dystopian, account of morality in modern societies follows
from his argument that such societies are enthral to instrumental
reasoning and the prioritization of 'objective facts'. Nihilism
serves to fundamentally frustrate the ability of morality to impose
authoritative limits upon the application of instrumental reason.
The culture industryI stated
at the beginning of this piece that Adorno was a highly
unconventional philosopher. While he wrote volumes on such stock
philosophical themes as reason and morality, he also extended his
writings and critical focus to include mass entertainment. Adorno
analysed social phenomena as manifestations of domination. For him
both the most abstract philosophical text and the most easily
consumable film, record, or television show shared this basic
similarity. Adorno was a philosopher who took mass entertainment
seriously. Adorno was among the first philosophers and intellectuals
to recognize the potential social, political, and economic power of
the entertainment industry. Adorno saw what he referred to as 'theculture
industry' as constituting a principal source of domination within
complex, capitalist societies. He aims to show that the very areas of
life within which many people belief they are genuinely free, free
from the demands of work for example, actually perpetuates domination
by denying freedom and obstructing the development of a critical
consciousness. Adorno's discussion of the culture industry is
unequivocal in its depiction of mass consumer societies as being
based upon the systematic denial of genuine freedom. What is the
culture industry, and how does Adorno defend his vision of it?
Adorno described the culture industry as a key integrative mechanism
for binding individuals, as both consumers and producers, to modern,
capitalist societies. Where many sociologists have argued that
complex, capitalist societies are fragmented and heterogeneous in
character, Adorno insists that the culture industry, despite the
manifest diversity of cultural commodities, functions to maintain a
uniform system, to which all must conform. David Held, a commentator
on critical theory, describes the culture industry thus, 'the culture
industry produces for mass consumption and significantly contributes
to the determination of that consumption. For people are now being
treated as objects, machines, outside as well as inside the workshop.
The consumer, as the producer, has no sovereignty. The culture
industry, integrated into capitalism, in turn integrates consumers
from above. Its goal is the production of goods that are profitable
and consumable. It operates to ensure its own reproduction.'
(1981:91) Few can deny the accuracy of the description of the
dominant sectors of cultural production as capitalist, commercial
enterprises. The culture industry is a global, multibillion dollar
enterprise, driven, primarily, by the pursuit of profit. What the
culture industry produces is a means to the generation of profit,
like any commercial enterprise. To this point, few could dispute Adorno's description of the mass entertainment industry. However,
Adorno's specific notion of the 'culture industry' goes much further.
Adorno argues that individuals' integration within the culture
industry has the fundamental effect of restricting the development of
a critical awareness of the social conditions that confront us all.
The culture industry promotes domination by subverting the
psychological development of the mass of people in complex,
capitalist societies. This is the truly controversial aspect of Adorno's view of the culture industry. How does he defend it?
Adorno argues that cultural commodities are subject to the same
instrumentally rationalized mechanical forces which serve to dominate
individuals' working lives. Through our domination of nature and the
development of technologically sophisticated forms of productive
machinery, we have becomes objects of a system of our own making. Any
one who has worked on a production line or in a telephone call centre
should have some appreciation of the claim being made. Through the
veritably exponential increase in volume and scope of the commodities
produced under the auspices of the culture industry, individuals are
increasingly subjected to the same underlying conditions through
which the complex capitalist is maintained and reproduced. The
qualitative distinction between work and leisure, production and
consumption is thereby obliterated. As Adorno and Horkheimer assert,
'amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work. It is
sought after as an escape from the mechanized work process, and to
recruit strength in order to be able to cope with it again. But at
the same time mechanization has such a power over man's leisure and
happiness, and so profoundly determines the manufacture of amusement
goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work
process itself.' (1979:137). According to Adorno, systematic exposure
to the culture industry (and who can escape from it for long in this
media age?) has the fundamental effect of pacifying its consumers.
Consumers are presented as being denied any genuine opportunities to
actively contribute to the production of the goods to which they are
exposed. Similarly, Adorno insists that the form and content of the
specific commodities themselves, be it a record, film, or TV show,
require no active interpretative role on the part of the consumer:
all that is being asked of consumers is that they buy the goods.
Adorno locates the origins of the pacifying effects of cultural
commodities in what he views as the underlying uniformity of such
goods, a uniformity that belies their ostensible differences.
Adorno conceives of the culture industry as a manifestation of
identity-thinking and as being effected through the implementation of
instrumentally rationalized productive techniques. He presents the
culture industry as comprising an endless repetition of the same
commodified form. He argues that the ostensibly diverse range of
commodities produced and consumed under the auspices of the culture
industry actually derive from a limited, fundamentally standardized
'menu' of interchangeable features and constructs. Thus, he presents
the structural properties of the commodities produced and exchanged
within the culture industry as being increasingly standardized,
formulaic, and repetitive in character. He argues that the
standardized character of cultural commodities results from the
increasingly mechanized nature of the production, distribution, and
consumption of these goods. It is, for example, more economically
rational to produce as many products as possible from the same
identical 'mould'. Similarly, the increasing control of distribution
centres by large, multinational entertainment conglomerates tends
towards a high degree of uniformity. Adorno's analyses of specific
sectors of the culture industry extensive in scope. However, his
principal area of expertise and interest was music. Adorno analyzed
the production and consumption of music as a medium within which one
could discern the principal features and effects of the culture
industry and the commodification of culture.
The central claim underlying Adorno's analysis of music is that the
extension of industrialized production techniques has changed both
the structure of musical commodities and the manner in which they are
received. Adorno argued that the production of industrialized music
is characterized by a highly standardized and uniform menu of musical
styles and themes, in accordance with which the commodities are
produced. Consistently confronted by familiar and compositionally
simplistic musical phenomena requires that the audience need make
little interpretative effort in its reception of the product. Adorno
presents such musical commodities as consisting of set pieces which
elicit set, largely unreflected upon, responses. He states, 'the
counterpart to the fetishism of music is a regression of listening 'It
is contemporary listening which has regressed, arrested at the
infantile stage. Not only do the listening subjects lose, along with
freedom of choice and responsibility, the capacity for conscious
perception of music, but they stubbornly reject the possibility of
such perception. They are not childlike, as might be expected on the
basis of an interpretation of the new type of listener in terms of
the introduction to musical life of groups previously unacquainted
with music. But they are childish; their primitivism is not that of
the undeveloped, but that of the forcibly retarded.' (1978:286). Here
Adorno drew upon a distinction previously made by Kant in his
formulation of personal autonomy. Distinguishing between maturity and
immaturity, Adorno repeats the Kantian claim that to be autonomous is
to be mature, capable of exercising one's own discretionary
judgment, of making up one's own mind for oneself. Adorno argued
that the principal effect of the standardization of music is the
promotion of a general condition of immaturity, frustrating and
prohibiting the exercise of any critical or reflexive faculties in
one's interpretation of the phenomena in question. Adorno viewed the
production and consumption of musical commodities as exemplary of the
culture industry in general. However, he also extended his analysis
to include other areas of the culture industry, such as television
and, even, astrology columns. A brief discussion of this latter will
suffice to complete the general contours of Adorno's account of the
culture industry.
Adorno conducted a critical textual analysis of the astrology column
of the Los Angeles Times. His aim was to identify the 'rational'
function of the cultural institution itself. He thus took astrology
seriously. He considered astrology to be a symptom of complex,
capitalist societies and discerned in the widespread appeal of
astrology an albeit uncritical and unreflexive awareness of the
extent to which individuals' lives remain fundamentally conditioned
by impersonal, external forces, over which individuals have little
control. Society is projected, unwittingly, on to the stars. He
stated that, 'astrology is truly in harmony with a ubiquitous trend.
In as much as the social system is the 'fate' of most individuals
independent of their will and interest, it is projected onto the
stars in order thus to obtain a higher degree of dignity and
justification in which individuals hope to participate themselves.'
(1994:42). According to Adorno, astrology contributes to, and
simultaneously reflects, a pervasive fetishistic attitude towards the
conditions that actually confront individuals' lives through the
promotion of a vision of human life as being determined by forces
beyond our ultimate control. Rather than describing astrology as
being irrational in character, Adorno argued that the instrumentally
rational character of complex, capitalist societies actually served
to lend astrology a degree of rationality in respect of providing
individuals with a means for learning to live with conditions beyond
their apparent control. He describes astrology as 'an ideology for
dependence, as an attempt to strengthen and somehow justify painful
conditions which seem to be more tolerable if an affirmative attitude
is taken towards them.' (1994:115)
For Adorno no single domain of the culture industry is sufficient to
ensure the effects he identified it as generally exerting upon
individuals' consciousness and lives. However, when taken altogether,
the assorted media of the culture industry constitute a veritable web
within which the conditions for leading, for example, an autonomous
life, for developing the capacity for critical reflection upon
oneself and one's social conditions, are systematically obstructed.
According to Adorno, the culture industry fundamentally prohibits the
development of autonomy by means of the mediatory role its various
sectors play in the formation of individuals' consciousness of social
reality. The form and content of the culture industry is increasingly
misidentified as a veritable expression of reality: individuals come
to perceive and conceive of reality through the pre-determining form
of the culture industry. The culture industry is understood by Adorno
to be an essential component of a reified form of second nature,
which individuals come to accept as a pre-structured social order,
with which they must conform and adapt. The commodities produced by
the culture industry may be 'rubbish', but their effects upon
individuals is deadly serious.
Conclusion and general
criticismsAdorno is widely recognized as one
of the leading, but also one of the most controversial continental
philosophers of the 20th. Century. Though largely unappreciated
within the analytical tradition of philosophy, Adorno's philosophical
writings have had a significant and lasting effect upon the
development of subsequent generations of critical theorists and other
philosophers concerned with the general issue of nihilism and
domination. Publications on and by Adorno continue to proliferate.
Adorno has not been forgotten. His own, uncompromising diagnosis of
modern societies and the entwinement of reason and domination
continue to resonate and even inspire many working within the
continental tradition. However, he has attracted some considerable
criticism. I shall briefly consider some of the most pertinent
criticisms that have been levelled at Adorno within each of the three
areas of his writings I have considered above. I want to begin,
though, with some brief comments on Adorno's writing style.
Adorno can be very difficult to read. He writes in a manner which
does not lend itself to ready comprehension. This is intentional.
Adorno views language itself as having become an object of, and
vehicle for, the perpetuation of domination. He is acutely aware of
the extent to which this claim complicates his own work. In
attempting to encourage a critical awareness of suffering and
domination, Adorno is forced to use the very means by which these
conditions are, to a certain extent, sustained. His answer to this
problem, although not intended to be ultimately satisfying, is to
write in a way that requires hard and concentrated efforts on the
part of the reader, to write in a way that explicitly defies
convention and the familiar. Adorno aims to encourage his readers to
attempt to view the world and the concepts that represent the world
in a way that defies identity thinking. He aims, through his writing,
to express precisely the unacknowledged, non-identical aspects of any
given phenomenon. He aims to show, in a manner very similar to
contemporary deconstructionists, the extent to which our linguistic
conventions simultaneously both represent and misrepresent reality.
In contrast to many deconstructionists, however, Adorno does so in
the name of an explicit moral aim and not as a mere literary method.
For Adorno, reality is grounded in suffering and the domination of
nature. This is a profoundly important distinction. Adorno's
complaint against identity-thinking is a moral and not a
methodological one. However, it must be admitted that understanding
and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of Adorno's philosophical
vision is a difficult task. He does not wish to be easily understood
in a world in which easy understanding, so he claims, is dependent
upon identity-thinking's falsification of the world.
Adorno's writing style follows, in large part, from his account of
reason. Adorno's understanding of reason has been subject to
consistent criticism. One of the most significant forms of criticism
is associated with Jurgen Habermas, arguably the leading contemporary
exponent of critical theory. In essence, Habermas (1987) argues that
Adorno overestimates the extent to which reason has been
instrumentalized within modern, complex societies. For Habermas,
instrumental reasoning is only one of a number of forms of reasoning
identifiable within such societies. Instrumental reasoning,
therefore, is nowhere near as extensive and all-encompassing as
Adorno and Horkheimer presented it as being in the Dialectic of
Enlightenment. For Habermas, the undue importance attributed to
instrumental reasoning has profound moral and philosophical
consequences for Adorno's general vision. Habermas insists that
Adorno's understanding of reason amounts to a renunciation of the
moral aims of the Enlightenment, from which critical theory itself
appears to take its bearings. There is not doubt that the deployment
of technology has had the most horrendous and catastrophic effects
upon humanity. However, Habermas argues that these effects are less
the consequence of the extension of reason grounded in the domination
of nature, as Adorno argues, and more an aberration of enlightenment
reason. Adorno is accused of defending an account of instrumental
reasoning that is so encompassing and extensive as to exclude the
possibility of rationally overcoming these conditions and thereby
realizing the aims of critical theory. Adorno is accused of leading
critical theory down a moral cul-de-sac. Habermas proceeds to
criticize Adorno's account of reason on philosophical grounds also.
He argues, in effect, that Adorno's account of the
instrumentalization of reason is so all encompassing as to exclude
the possibility of someone like Adorno presenting a rational and
critical analysis of these conditions. Adorno's critical account of
reason seems to logically exclude the possibility of its own
existence. Habermas accuses Adorno of having lapsed into a form of
performative contradiction. For Habermas, the very fact that a given
political or social system is the object of criticism reveals the
extent to which the form of domination that Adorno posits has not
been fully realized. The fact that Adorno and Horkheimer could
proclaim that 'enlightenment is totalitarian' amounts to a
simultaneous self-refutation. The performance of the claim
contradicts its substance. Habermas takes issue with Adorno, finally,
on the grounds that Adorno's account of reason and his advocacy of
'non-identity thinking' appears to prohibit critical theory from
positively or constructively engaging with social and political
injustice. Adorno is accused of adopting the stance of an inveterate 'nay-sayer'. Being critical can appear as an end in itself, since the
very radicalness of Adorno's diagnosis of reason and modernity
appears to exclude the possibility of overcoming domination and
heteronomy.
Similar criticisms have been levelled at Adorno's account of
morality and his claims in respect of the extent of nihilism. Adorno
is consistently accused of failing to appreciate the moral gains
achieved as a direct consequence of the formalization of reason and
the subsequent demise of the authority of tradition. On this view,
attempting to categorize the Marquis de Sade, Kant, and Nietzsche as
all similarly expressing and testifying to the ultimate demise of
morality, as Adorno and Horkheimer do, is simply false and an example
of an apparent tendency to over-generalize in the application of
particular concepts.
BibliographyT.W.Adorno &
M.Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, tr. J.Cumming, London,
Verso, 1979
T.W.Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, tr.
E.F.N.Jephcott, London, Verso, 1978.
T.W.Adorno, Negative Dialectics, tr. E.B.Ashton, London, Routledge, 1990
J.Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve
Lectures, tr. F.G.Lawrence, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987
D.Held, Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas,
Cambridge, Polity, 1980
S.Jarvis, Adorno: a Critical Introduction, Cambridge, Polity, 1998
D.Rasmussen (ed.) The Handbook of Critical Theory, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996
Author Information:
Andrew Fagan
Email:
fagaaw@essex.ac.uk
University of
Essex
© 2003