Thread by @ZoharAtkins

Adorno would recoil at being subjected to a @threadapalooza as it turns him into a commodity, his thought into a kind of brand or currency. Still, his ideas are timely & influential; if you want to understand today's left, internecine conflicts & culture wars, he's a touchstone.

https://twitter.com/ZoharAtkins/status/1363938911316287494

He would have hated being on social media for 1000 reasons, which we will get into, but the first is that limiting oneself to bite-size short form is not dialectical; it "reifies" (glamorizes, distills) the hot take, but leaves little room for the nuanced "yes, but also." 2

He would find followership to be not only a vain metric, but a distraction from "truth" which should be indifferent to popularity, and may more likely negatively correlate with it. 3

The reduction of thought to shareable content (what we can call meme-ification) is both a cause and symptom of what he names "the jargon of authenticity. JoA is the simulation of meaning without any there there. 4

Adorno (b. 1903) was born into wealth and reacted against it by becoming a leading Western Marxist thinker. He was of Jewish, but assimilated origin, and like many other great German-Jewish intellectuals moved from Germany to America, though he mad a pitstop in Oxford, UK. 5

Adorno was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, of which Habermas is today the chief proponent member. 6

Does today's Critical Legal Theory, Critical Race Theory, Critical Gender Theory, etc. having anything to do with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory? The cultural right would like to conflate these. The genealogy itself is, in my view, far more complex. 7

The answer, in my view, is more sociological than substantive. Adorno got fused with a bunch of other thinkers in post 60s US academic culture, but his thought is not particularly focused on race, gender, or sexuality. It's mostly focused on class and mass culture. 8

When mainstream cultural critics hate on "Critical Theory" (yes, this is a subtweet) they fail to disambiguate Adorno and co. (Marcuse, Horkheimer, Fromm) from contemporary American proponents of "intersectionality" who for the most part don't read the Frankfurt School & who 9

if they did, would likely dismiss them as a bunch of dead white males who need to check their Western patriarch privilege, etc. 10

So how come Adorno directly or indirectly gets blamed for intersectionality? 11

Well, there is one sense in which he--and not just he, but also Hegel and Marx--set themselves up for inter sectionalist arguments, namely, holism. 12

Holism states that every part of society is interconnected to every other part. Thus, in a messed up world everything will be messed up; everything will hold a micro-mirror up as to how the world is messed up. 13

This is a doozy. And also a kind of anti-liberal stance, since liberalism prides itself on a distinction between a private and public realm; it prides itself on the idea that there are autonomous domains. 14

Holism says there's one world and so how you do anything is how you do everything. The personal IS political. Aesthetic taste IS political. Liturgy IS political. The way we communicate IS political. Our metaphors are political. 15

It's a pretty exhausting frame. And also it means that for a critic, there's an infinite supply of things to find unacceptable. 16

But Adorno opposed the student movement of the 60s. He's still basically an armchair intellectual who thinks that writing books and describing how things are is the best hope we have. His activism is old-school. 17

What would he say about marches for progressive causes? Likely that they are machinations of corporate capitalism. That woke signage and slogans are just more of the same jingle telling us to buy things and distract us from a more fundamental struggle. 18

I think Adorno would probably be more comfortable amongst the so-called "dirtbag left," ie. the left that hates capitalism but that sees identity politics as a distraction from class warfare. Adorno would most certainly oppose political correctness. 19

He'd probably find common cause with the Never-Never-Trump crowd, with folks like @mtaibbi and @ggreenwald. 20

But I'm less interested in Adorno's (beguiling) politics, and more interested in his arguments about culture (a distinction, remember, that Adorno would oppose). 21

First, Adorno champions the idea that every great thinker and artist is blemished as a result of the fact that they inhabit an unredeemed world. This humility is beautiful, a kind of secularized understanding of original sin. Nobody is above it all, has the master-key. 22

The best thinkers and artist expose the problems with society by leaving problems or holes in their own work. Their work is double-edged. It's broken, but through it's brokenness it exposes possibilities. 23

Great thought and art is a "message in a bottle" to future generations that will be better able to receive and enact its critical message. 24

Fame and popularity co-opt and de-fang radical ideas and works. But popularity isn't itself a sign that something isn't radical. The critic finds clues where the consensus cannot. 25

In Adorno's critical hands everything is duplicitous in the sense of doubled. Works simultaneously contain all that's wrong with the world and offer paths for imagining a way out. The same goes for criticism. Adorno himself can be read in both ways. 26

One way to think about how works (and people) are double-edged is in terms of the debate between fatalism and freedom. 27

The answer to the question "do we have free will" is yes AND no. No, insofar as we are byproducts/reflections of our societies. Yes, insofar as--and this is sort of a faith that Adorno has--fatalism is itself a myth we need to shed. 28

Where Kant resolves the tension between a determined material world and a sense of personal freedom through the introduction of the moral law, Adorno seems to introduce it in the form of art, philosophy, or criticism. 29

The philosopher is unfree, but by knowing it, gestures at the possibility of becoming free. 30

There's still a strain of individualism in Adorno, even though his illiberal collectivist bias tilts him to accept as axiomatic the notion that "as long as one is not free, all are not free." 31

Here's Adorno on art, long before #NFTs: "Everything has value only in so far as it can be exchanged, not in so far as it is something in itself... For consumers the use value of art...is a fetish...32

and the fetish—the social valuation which they mistake for the merit of works of art— becomes its only use value, the only quality they enjoy." 33

He gets that the "culture industry" is about performative consumption, rather than genuine enjoyment. This, btw, is a major theme in the work of David Foster Wallace. for whom the quest for authenticity was a kind of elusive holy grail. 34

Adorno also understood that in a capitalist society, artists would come to measure their success in terms of output, sales, winning prizes, getting reviewed in the NYTimes, etc.--all things that have nothing to do with art in itself. 35

Artist and philosopher are "careers". Success involves one's capacity to play the game, which means following society's rules and not rocking the boat. Self-promotion, politicking, and a host of other things they never teach you in grad or art school rule the day. 36

In a sense, not just financial markets but everything for Adorno has become a form of "speculation"--we don't know how to value things for what they are, only for how others value or might value them. Sad. 37

Also an idea found in Girard who writes about mimesis (imitation) as foundational to society. Also an idea in Rousseau, who idealizing solitude and sees the city and society as corrupting influences. Envy and mineness belong together. 38

Adorno isn't an existentialist, because existentialism is romanticized individualism and he sees it as a boogie ideology that attempts to escape the material conditions of oppression on which society is founded, but 39

he shares a lot in common with the mid- 20th century existentialists insofar as he thinks society and mass culture have basically benumbed us and replaced a capacity to see what's wrong and what could be better with polyannish pieties. 40

Harsh though it may be, Adorno is of the opinion that if it soothes you it's probably an instrument of power and domination. Of course, this view can itself be soothing, so there's no end to the paranoia. 41

This explains why the left is often always trying to out-left itself by accusing people in its camp of being "neoliberal shills"; it's difficult to distinguish thoughtfulness from performative artifice once you've chalked most things up to being instruments of power 42

The French Revolution ended with the revolutionaries who beheaded the extent regime becoming beheaded themselves. It's a good metaphor for one consequence of the thought of Adorno, and similarly, Foucault. 43

Once you say everything mainstream is ideologically suspect, it's only a matter of time before you yourself go mainstream and then get canceled. Cancel not, lest ye be cancelled is the meta-moral of some of these lines of argument. 44

Though Adorno might accept the inevitability of his own cancellation as a kind of progress. 45

Here's a great line from Adorno on the subject: "The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying glass." 46

It's a reference to and reworking of Matthew 7:5

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye" 47

Basically, it's bad to be a hypocrite in the gospels, but for Adorno it's not bad; it's inevitable. It's something we need to "lean into." Fascinating and bizarre. 48

I don't think the point of the Adorno fragment is that hypocrisy is good; it's just that we are limited and so it's a fools errand to think we can overcome our limits. We might as well own our biases, and see if they afford us anything positive. 49

The same view appears in Heidegger, Gadamer and Franz Rosenzweig.

Gadamer: "prejudice is a condition for understanding."
Heidegger: "care is the basis for understanding."
Rosenzweig: "my eyes are only my eyes but it would be foolish to pluck them out to see straight." 50

My favorite work of Adorno's is his Minima Moralia, subtitled Reflections on a Damaged Life. In it he declares he wants to take up the once essential question of "the good life" but from the standpoint of someone living in a time when that question has fallen into disrepute 51

In a way Adorno is saying he's got "diamond hands" and will Hodl onto philosophy even though it's basically dismissed as outdated and stupid. I find it moving, if in his own words "melancholic." 52

You see, Hegel was an optimist who though society was getting better and more rational. Adorno keeps the Hegelian frame, but scraps the inevitability and the optimism. Hegel expects the messianic dawn. Adorno lives after the crash and now has to make sense of it. 53

The crash I am first of all referring to is European fascism and Nazism, but also the disappointment of various communist revolutions in the form of Stalinsm, above all. 54

The common view of liberals after both catastrophes is epitomized by Isaiah Berlin's essay on negative liberty. We should stop trying to have totalizing views on everything, because it just leads to the worst. Let's agree to bracket the hard questions. They make us violent. 55

Adorno is saying in response, no, we need to ask the fundamental questions and be willing to imagine radical transformation. Let's not give up. But then while he says this out of one mouth there's another part that shares Berlin's skepticism. It's a tight-rope. 56

Btw this is also the conclusion reached by Emmanuel Levinas in Totality and Infinity--we shouldn't try to change society radically; we should be pluralistic. But that shouldn't become an excuse for giving up on "Ethics"; we still owe each other something. 57

My response to these sentiments is that they are stirring and motivating but insufficiently directive. I don't think they should be thrown out as unhelpful simply because they are opaque, but at a certain point you have to choose: 58

Do you attempt to opt out of society to be a critic or do you try to make society better even if it entails compromise? Philosophers and critics more often than not opt out; they stay in the world of ideas, free from policy debates, free from popularity contests. 59

I wrote in a previous thread about how for Leo Strauss the philosopher must largely leave politics behind to focus on truth. Adorno doesn't quite accept the dualism between philosophy and politics--he's a holist, as mentioned; but he's not quite dogmatic, either. 60

Meaning the philosopher is basically powerless in the short-run, but in the long-run may be of service. Critical theory, for Adorno, is a Hail Mary pass to the future. It's not a program for ruling. 61

Another core idea in Adorno, is that we moderns are not as rational or enlightened as we think. He holds onto the promise of the enlightenment, but suggests that it is more of a promise, a theoretical North Star, a hope, than an achievement. 62

This means we are still primitive despite our self-perception (& often most primitive when we grand-stand). It also means that the seeds of enlightenment ideals can be found in the past. We can't be arrogant & write off past works because they were insufficiently progressive 63

Minima Moralia is a book of aphoristic fragments. Its form suggests that philosophers can only see "through a glass, dimly"; it's not a master-work. It's humble. Philosophy can't do what it used to, but it's still needed: 64

"Philosophy exists because the chance to realize it was missed" (65)

That's a bewildering statement, almost a faithful one. It suggests that philosophy exists in proportion to our need for it, our need for the good life. A perfect world would mean the end of philosophy. 66

Adorno shares the common 20th c. assessment that philosophy has largely become useless relative to science, social science and tech. He stands at the end of a tradition. 67

But he's not going to concede. Instead he's going to recast philosophy's Loss as a Win. Philosophy is most needed in times that are unenlightened. 68

I'm reminded of Heidegger's quip that our greatest affliction is that we don't recognize our affliction; our great need is our loss of our sense of need. 69

I think Adorno shares the sentiment, though he hated Heidegger. 70

For Adorno, philosophy reminds us that we aren't living the good life. It's not fun, but it's wholesome. Philosophy is an ascetic call, a call to understand that things are not fine as they are. 71

It's interesting--for Plato, philosophy begins in wonder, but it's wonder that we exist, not wonder at injustice. For Moses, the change of heart occurs when he observes a task master beating a slave. 72

For Buddha, likewise, it's the observation of suffering that compels him to leave his royal palace 73

In a way, Adorno fuses philosophy and religion, religion-ifies philosophy. He makes his chief concern truth, but what he mostly means is moral truth. The fundamental question isn't why do we exist, but why do we oppress. 74

There's a part of Adorno that depending on temperament is either perfectly pitched or wildly exaggerated. It's the equivocation (shared also by Heidegger) that liberal democratic Western societies are hardly better than fascist Europe and communist Russia. 75

Adorno doesn't say it outright; he's not a relativist. But he's not super impressed by American culture. He's responsible for turning the concept of "fascism" from a political term to a cultural one, making it so ubiquitous as to be emptied of meaning. 76

If everything is fascist, nothing is. 77

To the pundits saying MAGA is fascist, Adorno would say, yes, but what isn't? Google is fascist. LinkedIn is fascist. The danger of fascism for him isn't restricted to brown shirts, it's just as easy to find it amongst smiley hustlers and charmers who celebrate "diversity." 78

He'd probably be banned from twitter if he were on here, but he wouldn't be, as mentioned. He'd be too busy listening to the late Beethoven in person in a warehouse. (Spotify is also fascist.) 79

I'm being a bit harsh and unfairly glib, but the cultural legacy of Adorno, in my view, is a kind of hipsterish performance of cynicism--even if Adorno was dead serious--not sincere grassroots organizing at which he might have rolled his eyes or even feared. 80

So, I've said some critical things about him, which is what he invites. He's not a party. But I do love him at times. I love dialectical thinking, especially applied to cultural criticism, and he excelled at it. 81

It's so enriching to look at a work and see it as saying multiple things, even conflicting things. That ambivalence is dear to me. 82

Adorno famously says no poetry after Auschwitz but also that there must be poetry after Auschwitz. Too often people focus on only one of those ideas; we catastrophize or we diminish. To do both at once is really hard and really a feat and gift when done well. 83

Another classic Adorno maxim: "Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth." Think about that for awhile. Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth. 84

To me, it means that art retains its majesty even after disenchantment; we need art even as we no longer are gullible enough to give ourselves entirely over to its spellbinding character. 85

Adorno moves in two directions. Art is good because it enraptures us. But it's suspect because it does that. Reason needs to be free of spells, to break illusions. 86

But unlike Plato, Adorno isn't ready to banish the artists. On the contrary, when we stop seeing them as telling the truth or whole truth, we can appreciate them as gestures at something that can't be said any other way. 87

Again, art has a double function. It's basically, cynically, just social currency (cultural capital). It's transfixing in a bad way. But it's also liberating. 88

Art is of the matrix and beyond the matrix. In the world, but not of it. 89

Adorno was, by various estimations, not an easy character, to say the least. He had a life long spat with Hannah Arendt, particularly over the reception and presentation of Walter Benjamin, whom he denied a job because WB wasn't sufficiently ideological. 90

I don't think of his personal character as an inspiration. There's a stridency and a fundamentalism and obsession with melancholy in him that I find off-putting. 91

But I appreciate his belief that we should still

a) seek the good life
b) recognize the world as a place that is broken
c) appeal to art and philosophy as limited, but nonetheless important paths, to a "redeemed state."
d) believe in our agency while rejecting fatalism. 92

I think Adorno also serves as a positive meta-example of how to take other thinkers, such as Hegel and Marx, and "Repurpose" them. 93

The architectural metaphor of repurposing is needed in a contemporary culture that too often tells us we must either accept the whole house or "burn it all down." 94

I hope my thread models in a small way how one might repurpose thinkers with which one disagrees, finding what's personally useful and not tossing baby out with bathwater. 94

I agree with Adorno and Hegel that history can well be described as a master-slave struggle. I agree with Adorno and Marx that too often commodity culture makes us into speculative bots incapable of having genuinely moving encounters with things of substance. 95

I agree with Adorno that everything is a microcosm of the whole and that an exclusively individualistic point of view is both philosophically and ethically deficient. 96

I nonetheless, disagree with his conflation of metaphysical truth and morality and morality and politics. I don't share his messianic politics, however gestural. I'm afraid of revolutions and also skeptical that an opera or a short story is revolutionary. 97

For better and worse, I think Strauss and Heidegger better understand the limits of what philosophy can achieve, reserving them as private consolations in a world that is largely intransigent and fickle. 98

For all that Adorno disagrees with his contemporaries, they share more in common with each other than with us in their reservations about mass culture. 99

It's too late to be against mass culture; it's inevitable. But how one finds one's way in it is of utmost import, and I hope this twitter thread demonstrates not my success, but my genuine attempt to navigate the world of yesterday and the demands of the present. 100 (fin)