Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
Theodor W. Adornowas a German philosopher, sociologist, and composer known for his critical theory of society...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth11 September 1903
CountryGermany
individual states perceive
In his state of complete powerlessness the individual perceives the time he has left to live as a brief reprieve.
pride ideology goods
If across the Atlantic the ideology was pride, here it is delivering the goods.
culture demand trouble
In the products of the culture industry human beings get into trouble only so that they can be rescued unharmed, usually by representatives of a benevolent collective; and then, in illusory harmony, they are reconciled with the general interest whose demands they had initially experienced as irreconcilable with their own.
philosophy discipline intellectual
In the general tendency toward specialization, philosophy too has established itself as a specialized discipline, one purified of all specific content. In so doing, philosophy has denied its own constitutive concept: the intellectual freedom that does not obey the dictates of specialized knowledge.
division-of-labor errors derivatives
The error in positivism is that it takes as its standard of truth the contingently given division of labor, that between the science and social praxis as well as that within science itself, and allows no theory that could reveal the division of labor to be itself derivative and mediated and thus strip it of its false authority.
surveillance authority undisciplined
The invocation of science, of its ground rules, of the exclusive validity of the methods that science has now completely become, now constitutes a surveillance authority punishing free, uncoddled, undisciplined thought and tolerating nothing of mental activity other than what has been methodologically sanctioned. Science and scholarship, the medium of autonomy, has degenerated into an instrument of heteronomy.
people humanity culture
Only a humanity to whom death has become as indifferent as its members, that has itself died, can inflict it administratively on innumerable people.
lasts emotion tautology
Once the last trace of emotion has been eradicated, nothing remains of thought but absolute tautology.
self entwined existence
Not only is the self entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense.
philosophy goal legends
By abstaining from all definite content, whether as formal logic and theory of science or as the legend of Being beyond all beings, philosophy declared its bankruptcy regarding concrete social goals.
jargon language authenticity
The jargon of authenticity ... is a trademark of societalized chosenness, ... sub-language as superior language.
culture use triumph
The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them.
problem
Because thought has by now been perverted into the solving of assigned problems, even what is not assigned is processed like a problem.
aspiration exclusive totality
The specific is not exclusive: it lacks the aspiration to totality.