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Adorno

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on December 6, 2005 at 11:57:26 am
 

Possible texts:

 

Notes to Literature (vol. 1) - Received from Prospector

Notes to Literature (vol. 2) - Received from Prospector

Prisms - Received from (HM101 .A4513 1983)

Problems of Moral Philosophy - Received from Prospector

Can One Live After Auschwitz? - Received from Prospector

 

About Adorno:

 

Susan Gubar - Poetry After Auschwitz: Remembering What One Never Knew - (IN... PS153.J4 G78 2003)

 

  • Definitions:
    • reification - "the perception of what is qualitative as quantitative" (Adorno Reader, 13).

 

  • From Can One Live After Auschwitz? A Philosophical Reader (Adorno, ed. Rolf Tiedemann)
Introduction (Rolf Tiedemann)Reread me!
"The Meaning of Working Through the Past"Here, Adorno makes the distinction between working through the past and working upon it. The term "working through" is not the psychological "I am working through my fears" but an everday "I am working through this thesis so that I can graduate" (4 and footnote). The difference is that something we work through can be finished and then (at least potentially) forgotten. Adorno claims that contemporary Germany (at least contemporary for this piece) is trying to work through the past, and working through the past is appropriate only for the victims of the past (4). The German urge to work through the past is partly good in the sense that the violence/guilt of/from the past leads to violence/guilt in/from the present (think: the conflice between Palastine and Israel as an endless cycle of violence rooted partly in an unwillingness to give up the past), but it is partly bad because it treats the entire situation of Nazi Germany (and the Shoah), and all of its roots, as past, when - according to Adorno - National Socialism and its roots still exist even within democracy (4). This topic drives most of Adorno's speech-turned-paper. Adorno argues, through several societal structures (including the guilt of being a German), that the roots of National Socialism still exist, and so - even as Germans claim (can this be generalized to all people?) to be working through what happened, they are opening up the possibility that it happen again. Guilt, Adorno argues, is irrational in the sense that it has no relation to present external circumstances (as opposed to, say, stress or happiness), yet it has been made rational because it is the fashionable feeling of the moment, such that being guilty can become an automatic, unthoughtful response. When the topic of the Shoah comes around, I feel guilty, and then - afterwards - continue with my life (6). This lack of reflection turns out to be precisely at the root of the problem - a lack of reflection is the root of fascism (think: Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil). Even as democracy is making progress in Germany, and is succeeding, it has not quelled the German approach to themselves as "subjects of the political process" (7). Democracy here is not representative of a belief system but an imposed political system that has its benefits and drawbacks. In other words, Germans (in this sense) view themselves as part of a political system rather than vice versa (that the political system is defined by its people). More, this view is self-concious in German ideology (7), so it makes people think of themselves as powerless because they blame everything on their own political immaturity rather than on alterable external circumstances (maybe... education?). More generally, "the people's alienation from democracy reflects the self-alienation of society" (8) - in other words, the individual no longer considerers herself a part of or responsible for her society. Or, in other words still, people feel powerless against the political machine, so they do not try to change anything. Thus, the view that Hitler was correct in his attempt to unify Europe against the threat of Communism is a view that forgets that the Communism we see today is a result of its interactions with the totalitarianism in Germany (and also that the German Nazis were an equal threat to freedom as were the Russian communists). It places guilt on an entire political system (democracy) because of external, circumstancial events rather than noticing the similarities of the circumstances that led to both Nazism and Communism. What led to both is, in fact, this view, which leads people to identify themselves with an ideology without first looking at its contents (9). Hitler fostered this view with national narcissism, and - although the narcissism was hurt by the Nazi regime's fall, it is by no means gone (10-1). (In fact, we see it in full force in the United States.) This national narcissism is problematic for several reasons, a) it fosters the above view (people support a nation regardless of what that nation is doing), b) it rests on an obsolete notion of "nation" (nations historically existed apart from each other (Adorno uses the example of tribes), but as the world becomes more global, what makes a nation "a nation" no longer exists), and c) it concentrates on a binary of us and them (see: Hitler's attack on anything different). (All from page 12.) Thus, we see that the potential for National Socialism still exists - people view themselves as impotent next to a national government that they support regardless of what it does.

Adorno claims that he has exaggerated (though justifiably) and that democracy in Germany is improving, but - he claims - improvement is only good enough in an isolated world. The battles against atrocities and catastrophes are always around, and Germany has still failed to work through its past and its totalitarianism. He cites parents who, embarrassed by questions from their children about Nazism, try to make it sound better (to justify their involvement in it?, 14). He, therefore, turns to social education, claiming that - although education might only appeal to those who are open to it and thus not prone to Fascism - the educated will form small groups (Adorno uses a military term: "cadres") to affect the underlying opinion (15). He avoids answering the question of "how far it is advisable to go into the past when attempting to raise public awareness, and whether precisely the insistence on it does not provoke a defiant resistance and produce the opposite of what it intends" (15). But, he does argue that making people aware could never be as bad as leaving them unaware (!!!), such that questions about how to best do social education (what he calls "re-education") becomes more important than questions about Being (snap!). This move will be opposed by anti-Semites because it involves self-reflection, whereas anti-Semitism rests on unresponsiveness (15-6). Even if an anti-Semite meets Jews (or learns about their plight), her unresponsiveness, her unwillingness to think about what she believes will leave her an anti-Semite still. Adorno's example is of a woman who, when watching a dramatization of The Diary of Anne Frank said, "Yes, but that girl at least should have been allowed to live" (16). (The play, notes Adorno, is an improvement (it increases awareness), but it does not itself solve the problem of anti-Semitism, and it is also "repugnant...and...seems to be a profanation of the dignity of the dead" (16).) Anti-Semitism has, in fact, nothing to do with Jews. It is only a form of the above nationalistic, un-self-critical views (an attack against something different) and is a necessary element in such views (that there be something different to attack). Thus, it does not make sense to combat anti-Semitism by facts about the Jews. Anti-semites "should be made aware of the mechanisms that cause racial prejudice within them" and also "the knowledge of the few durable propaganda tricks that are attuned exactly to those psychological dispositions we must assume are present in human beings" (17). Yet, even this social education (leading to social enlightenment) is not enough. If fascism begins to appeal once more to people (is linked up to their interests), they must be shown that it does not in fact link up with their interests. That it leads to "war, suffering, and privation under a coercive system, and, in the end, probably the Russian domination of Europe" (17). This argument is much more appealing than an appeal to the suffering of others, which we stop thinking about relatively quickly (18). In the end, the only way to work through the past is to remove the roots of it, and thus - because these roots still remain - the past remains captivating.

 

  • From Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics (J.M. Bernstein)
IntroductionAdorno is building off of Nietzsche and, to a larger extent, Max Weber's reading of Nietzsche. Both of these thinkers claim that in our society there are two interconnected forces driving us away from individual, affected existence. Intellectualization is the force from science, which attempts to look at everything without reference to a viewer (a subject). It, in a sense, attempts to make all experience patterned and ordinary. Rationalization is the force from economics, which attempts to look at everybody as a commodety. It, in a sense, attempts to make all subjects into patterned and ordinary (predictable) objects. These two forces, by devalueing every end (for the scientists especially: God), end up even devalueing their own project. If everything is also a cause, then there is no reason to study science. To use a term from the text, we become "disenchanted" with everything. There is no reason to do anything. Morality too comes into question - if all values are unreal, then there is nothing differentiating them. So, the best choice is the one that will lead you to the best future, the one that aligns most readily with the economic environment (this is all from pages 1-10).

There is a distinction in ethics between externalism and internalism. Externalist ethics strives for universal claims - claims that apply to every person at every time. It is, thus, forced to also distinguish between the "truth" and "acceptance" conditions of behavior. It may be true that I should never lie, but my reason for not lying might have nothing to do with a universal imperative. (In fact, knowledge of certain universal imperatives - like the consequentialist "greatest good for the greatest number" - might cause me to do things which oppose it - mispredict what will be good for myself and others.) Internalist ethics, on the other hand, claims that an imperative only has truth insofar as it applies to situations in people's lives. It is an anti-theoretical approach to ethics. Now, Bernstein argues that this distinction is not a formal distinction - one in which the different types of ethics cover different terrains - but a contentual distinction - one about the attitude that they represent in the world. In internalist ethics, a person's motivations can contain patterns (of thought, of attachment, etc.), that is, motivations that lots of people have, and internalist ethics does not preclude the claim that "education, training, experience, imagination, and reflection" all contribute to our motivations (13), such that pretty much any originally externalist truth can be incorporated into an internalist explanation of motivations. The difference between the two ethics is that behind externalist ethics is "the experience of disenchantment" (14). Arguments against externalist ethics argue that this ethics fails to take into account - it "is indifferent to, squandes, and distorts" - "individual ethical experience" (15). It is an attempt to return the individual into a form of ethics - like the disenchantment of science/commerce above - that has quantified the individual. Bernstein claims that this objection comes from a standpoint of "hurt" (15), which is part of what Adorno means by a "damaged life" (see, __Minima Moralia: Reflections from a Damaged Life__) - that is, the person who objects to theories is objecting from a personal worry, not indifferent philosophical curiosity. The objections do not let up, not only because they are strong objections, but because the objectors are unwilling to stop objecting. It is through this hurt, in fact, that internalism and externalism become opposing ethics. When people are uncomfortable with externalist ethics, they are uncomfortable with the disenchantment of externalization, not with its claims. Adorno argues on similar grounds; he claims that the systematic distinction between specific and universal (between internal and external) is created by the disenchantment of rationalization/intellectualization. (This is not to say that specificity and unversality are not distinct, but that the distinction we make is caused by our disenchantment, so it is an example of the problem it is also trying to express.) To place specificity and universality into a binary affects the way we think about both concepts. It "distorts" them (18). In other words, as soon as we articulate the problem that we face, we are already falling into that problem, such that our articulation (and the concepts that we use in it) are aleady distorted. It is for this reason that Adorno claims that our problem is a "deficit of rationality" (18) - what it means for something to be rational is itself part of our problem. This problem is important because - if we believe it - "we have nothing approaching a normative account explaining how a wholly secular form of life can be rationally compelling and intrinsically motivating" (18). But, if we do not have such an account, then any rational work attempting to describe a wholly secular form of life (like Adorno's work and Bernstein's) is necessarily non-objective and partial. Responses to this problem are common, and in fact many attitudes in the world can be considered (at least partly) a response to disenchantment (see pages 19-20 for a list). In fact, it is at least hypothetically possible that all attitudes, all claims, reflect a position or hurt or flight from rationality (skepticism, cynicism, etc).

 

  • From __The Adorno Reader__
IntroductionAdorno's method for doing philosophy (one of them, at least) is to find antinomies in arguments and show that they are based on the society/material from which the argument developed. One of Adorno's central concepts is that of experience, which is based on Hegel. Hegel claims that "experience is the dialectical movement of consciousness" (11), where the movement refers to the moments in which we confront something that does nto fit within our understanding of truth, such that we have to revise our criteria for truth. (It is a dialectical movement in that it comes from within us (because we have a need to fit everything within our understanding) rather than from without.) This movement is natural - it occurs in everyday life - and if we refuse to do it, we are living in what is called "unthinking inertia" (12). Adorno agrees with Hegel in the understanding of experience, but claims that - because we are molded by our society, and it is often in society's best interest to keep us from revising our understanding of truth (about the society's goodness, say) - our "contemporary consciousness" is sustained by unthinking inertia. (Note: this molding by society is true of every discipline except for philosophy and art (!!!), where society does not have enough control.) If society sets its own perpetuation and growth above that of its constituent people (and thus removes their individuality ... called an "exchange society" (13)), and people have a fundamental need to be automonomous and individual, why would those people choose to help society fulfill its function? Adorno claims that we are experiencing "false consciousness" (13). In false consciousness, we stop being able to think of ourselves in terms of autonomous beings, and we also do not realize that society is contradicting our autonomy. Thus, we also miss the moment of change in our conception of truth. Now, an exchange society demands that each person be treated only in terms of the society's goals, so people become quantities with sets of quantifiable qualities (hence reification) for fulfilling those goals. Reification also explains the problem with contemporary rationality, which attempts to quantify everything. Adorno, then, is trying to return our attention to experience, which is neither immediately subjective nor objective. (In fact, Adorno claims that nothing is unmediated. The subject is only the subject in relation to objects.) One method for returing our attention (perhaps the method) is art (!!!), which (when it is authentic/truly aesthetic) occurs at a moment of experience, when our concept of truth is changing.
The Actuality of PhilosophyTwo ideas of Adorno's: 1) there can be no total philosophy (like Hegel attempted), 2) philosophy has to search for "true and just reality" rather than the appearances of reality (23).

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