Theodor Adorno..I don't get it...

i feel like i must have said nearly the same thing elsewhere on ilx, or someone else did, or i read it somewhere - even down to the ambivalence between 'this is why it is like this in adorno' and 'tricky to pull off, doesn't really succeed here'. but i realize i've probably said much the same thing when teaching nietzsche (esp. whenever he says anything about women, often simultaneously nuanced/sympathetic and crude/offensive), who (far as i know, not being good on hegel) is much more of a model for this kind of philosophizing via the aphorist's weird both-ways mode of wielding/taking authority to judge over an existent state of affairs. i think it has something to do with the way that the form tends to (claim to) voice 'our' judgments in the course of critiquing/revealing something irredeemably suspicious about them, generally with the end of forcing a self-examination by the reader operating under false beliefs about the possibility of their being untouchably pure, commonsensically sound, etc., with the side hope by the aphorist of thinking that only freed of those false beliefs can a more fruitful recognition of the NOT irredeemably suspicious, NOR untouchably etc etc, character of those judgments, behaviors, institutions, etc., be had (and thus changed existences). some ways of doing this permit certain ways of concealing the 'i' actually doing the voicing of the judgments, or excusing or exempting or valorizing, or making it moot that he is doing so while voicing what 'we' think. for instance it seems offhand like nietzsche is generally in a less fraught position in that regard because of his form of individualism and 'immoralism' (which he usually treats as, among other things, licensing sort of a lack of caution/scruple for whatever the harmful/questionable effects of his stance/work as this separate-from-the-crowd-of-humanity voice might be). but adorno can't be because of his thought about e.g. complicity (which seems caught up e.g. in his association with benjamin, jewish thought, with the bit at the end of MM about the only responsible philosophy practiced in the face of despair is one that contemplates things from the standpoint of redemption). i've been interested for a while in better understanding what nietzsche learned from la rochefoucauld, who was right away suspected of being an atheist/egoist etc, which caused him to underline (or so i've read) the scrutinize-thyself-first-with-this-mirror aspect of his maxims that let him claim that it was consistent with versions of christianity. maybe a contrast with adorno shows differently how that might be working, because without the same sort of dogmatic framework of self-love/christlike love to work against, and not for various reasons taking nietzsche's approach, but working in a similar mode, he has to write as if he had the authority to do so while saying something that… i dunno, doesn't undermine it, but leaves it a problem, who could have that authority, and how.

?

I feel like this question of authority and the semi-concealed I often comes up in his comments on intellectuals and the division of labor (to say nothing of his reflections on philosophical thinking after the Shoah and the way that survivor's guilt informs that aspect of his thought), but I'll have to think harder about his relation to Nietzsche (I usually think about it more w/r/t Adorno's choice of forms). This is helpful in thinking about Adorno's rhetorical/ethical position, though.

(Also, Martin Jay's Marxism and Totality is fairly thorough about the history of the concept of totality before and throughout Marxist intellectual history, including a lengthy chapter on Adorno.)

― one way street, Thursday, October 23, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That book came out quite quickly after a bit of googling so thanks.

Lord knows how books came out before google

the wonders of the modern world etc etc.

https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348243075l/1315909.jpg

second that martin jay. great primer on "western marxism" in general.

What I do deeply regret is that MM virtually created the "numbered Twitter essay" as a stream of dysphoric, so-pessimistic-they're-hard-to-argue soundbites. This is a tactic anyone can employ now. First, complain that every single thing in existence "paradoxically reveals its opposite" and so on and so forth. Then, cut and run before people can ask you to explain what you mean by that.

MM in 140 characters? So glad I'm not on it.

It's supposed to've worked as a hardcore EP, though: http://www.therestisnoise.com/2005/02/when_i_saw_on_c.html

If Taylor Swift ever wants to change subject from the usual she could do worse..

lol

In the preface to a book of essays,[ 2 ] Adorno cites in detail a letter from the composer Schoenberg to Rudolph Kolisch:

You worked out the row for my string quartet (except for one small matter: the second consequent is: 6th note C sharp, 7th G sharp) correctly. It must have taken a great deal of effort, and I doubt I would have had the patience. Do you really think it is of any use to know that? [ … ] it can act as a stimulus for a composer who is still inexperienced in the use of rows, suggesting one way to approach a piece — a purely technical indication of the possibility to draw on rows. But this is not where we discover aesthetic qualities. [ … ] I have attempted to make this clear to Wiesengrund on several occasions, and also to Berg and Webern. But they don’t believe me. I cannot say it often enough: My works are twelve-note compositions, not twelve-note compositions.

Since italics don't work correctly in ILX block quotes:

"My works are twelve-note compositions, not twelve-note compositions."

lol all the same

o rite forgot abt that

i haven't seen the 'night music' book the passage is quoted from, no doubt adorno goes on to chide schoenberg somehow

why is that lol-worthy? he was just emphasizing the importance of making considered music over pure formalism.

the idea that schoenberg's technique was a merely arbitrary constraint meant to create willfully impenetrable music is a canard, and a tired one. if music needs to be hummed along to to be enjoyed, well, i can hum along to many sections of the 3rd string quartet, and even there is the same sense of inevitability as in a schubert piano sonata.

this is the adorno thread, obviously it is for loling at adorno

Found a lot to like from this talk on music crit, especially the bit on make-believe.

http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-translation-of-reflexionen-uber.html?m=1

"procession of verbal phantoms (…) from which one would recoil in horror": only moments away from grasping there's no such thing as influence IMO

I choose to believe that this is an oblique response to recent developments in the Pfork thread.

And yeah, the part about make-believe is otm, a variation on Coleridge's willing suspension of disbelief. I'm also on board with this definition:

criticism is the paradoxical unity of a thoroughly passive, almost pliant abandonment to the object and the firmest resoluteness of judgment.

Sibelius is good, though, and more modern(ist) than Adorno gave him credit for.

annoyingly big ted doesn't seem actually to say what *makes* sib bad not good (it seems almost like a technical judgment, like a carpenter who can't do adequate dovetail joints is a bad carpenter, so a composer who can't do what is a bad composer?)

i also like sibelius and the orinciple that everyone has to pass through the exact same set of portals in the same order to qualify as basically able seems like not a useful idea?

i enjoyed berg flying into a rage at the very idea of r.strauss tho (and also the image of TWA getting a massive wigging from teacher)

All sorts of chewy enjoyable detail left hanging and funny. The bit on the Egk, the student who couldn't explain Bach Vs Teleman properly (who nevertheless passed).

It bespeaks a very linear, Western-centric understanding of history, still in thrall to standard Hegelian dialectics. His later emphasis on the 'negative' opened up the field somewhat, but I'm not sure he was fully cognizant of its implications. It really is too much to ask, though, given how influential he's been otherwise – and the same can be said of most thinkers of his stature.

xp

agreed yes (tho as this piece is from 1967 it's evidence he never changed significantly in that area)

i very much like the idea of music on the radio playing with a running critical commentary over the top of it

Come to think of it, reaction videos are a disappointing approximation of that suggestion.

Normal week in Brazil, 2019:

Olavo Carvalho - the political guru of Jair Bolsonaro - stated that Theodor Adorno was the composer of Beatles’ song.

“The Beatles were semi-literate in music, they barely knew how to play the guitar. Who composed their songs was Theodor Adorno” https://t.co/uotpR84LU0

— Carolina Alves (@cacrisalves) September 8, 2019

Amazing.

everyone's got something to hide except me and max horkheimer

I think he's confusing Hamburg with Frankfurt.

Besides, I'm pretty sure it was the other way around: Adorno studied composition under Johann Lennonberg.

The ability is lost to close a door quietly and discreetly, yet firmly. Those of cars and refrigerators have to be slammed.

— Theodor Adorno (@TheodorAdorno17) December 25, 2022

I just love finding shit like this pic.twitter.com/JxsUYdW7ZN

— julie autumn shoes (@h0mmelette) October 3, 2023

i do not love it :(

but sometimes i can appreciate the humour of the nauseating void

lol look at mark s way upthread knowing what i'm talking about, couldnt be me

literally though https://t.co/Cx9Gw2rFCe pic.twitter.com/7cgILVm0Zk

— Critical Theory Working Group (@crit_theory_grp) November 19, 2023

yes and (or is it no and? no but?)

I love to hate / hate to love these dorks

I call him Ted