Theodor 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.
2. Philosophical Influences and Motivation
Adorno 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.
3. Identity Thinking and Instrumental Reason
Adorno 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 fancyÖFrom 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.
4. 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.
5. The Culture Industry
I 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 listeningÖit
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 musicÖbut they stubbornly reject the possibility of such
perceptionÖThey 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 judgement,
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 ìfateî 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.
6. Conclusion and General Criticisms
Adorno 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
Adornocontinue 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.
7. References and Further Reading
* T.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
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