He Critical Role of Art: Adorno Between Utopia and Dystopia
KRITIKĒ
VOLUME ONE
NUMBER ONE
(JUNE 2007) 25-31
Article
The Critical Role of Art: Adorno between Utopia and Dystopia
Paolo A. Bolaños
In the drama of conscious existence, it is not theory and practice that encounter each other, but enigma and transparency, phenomenon and insight. If enlightenment does occur, it does so no through the establishment of a dictatorship of lucidity but as the dramatic selfillumination of existence. – Peter Sloterdijk1
Introduction eading or hearing about Theodor Adorno’s ideas always results in quibbles. He strikes many as a naïve philosopher because of his reversal of concept and object; some see him as an anarchist because of his relentless critique of rationality; while to others he simply does not make sense, and especially a critique of society based on negative dialectics simply does not make sense to many! These points, however, are precisely some of the key elements of his thought; without a deeper apprehension of these main themes, it would be impossible to arrive at a level-headed appraisal of his philosophy. Adorno’s philosophy revolves around the idea that the history of rationality has relapsed into barbarism; that irrationality itself inheres in rationality. In Minima Moralia, he writes, “Our perspective of life has passed into an ideology which conceals the fact that there is life no longer.”2 What modernity or Enlightenment promises are the liberation of men from fear and the establishment of their sovereignty through the disenchantment of the world and the dissolution of myths;3 this is how we are seduced by Enlightenment. It was through the triumph of knowledge over our caprices that liberation was supposedly achieved. For Adorno, however, this promise of liberation is but another caprice, and a subtle one. The promise hides behind the façade of rationality—of enlightened knowledge—but its real nature is one that contradicts its façade. “There is to be no mystery” in
1 Thinker on the Stage:
VOLUME ONE
NUMBER ONE
(JUNE 2007) 25-31
Article
The Critical Role of Art: Adorno between Utopia and Dystopia
Paolo A. Bolaños
In the drama of conscious existence, it is not theory and practice that encounter each other, but enigma and transparency, phenomenon and insight. If enlightenment does occur, it does so no through the establishment of a dictatorship of lucidity but as the dramatic selfillumination of existence. – Peter Sloterdijk1
Introduction eading or hearing about Theodor Adorno’s ideas always results in quibbles. He strikes many as a naïve philosopher because of his reversal of concept and object; some see him as an anarchist because of his relentless critique of rationality; while to others he simply does not make sense, and especially a critique of society based on negative dialectics simply does not make sense to many! These points, however, are precisely some of the key elements of his thought; without a deeper apprehension of these main themes, it would be impossible to arrive at a level-headed appraisal of his philosophy. Adorno’s philosophy revolves around the idea that the history of rationality has relapsed into barbarism; that irrationality itself inheres in rationality. In Minima Moralia, he writes, “Our perspective of life has passed into an ideology which conceals the fact that there is life no longer.”2 What modernity or Enlightenment promises are the liberation of men from fear and the establishment of their sovereignty through the disenchantment of the world and the dissolution of myths;3 this is how we are seduced by Enlightenment. It was through the triumph of knowledge over our caprices that liberation was supposedly achieved. For Adorno, however, this promise of liberation is but another caprice, and a subtle one. The promise hides behind the façade of rationality—of enlightened knowledge—but its real nature is one that contradicts its façade. “There is to be no mystery” in
1 Thinker on the Stage:
References: Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. by John Cumming (London: Verso, 1997). Adorno, Theodor, Aesthetic Theory, trans. by Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Continuum, 2004). __________, Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life, trans. by E. F. N. Jephcott (London: Verso, 2005). __________, Philosophy of Modern Music, trans. by Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster (New York: Continuum, 2003). Jarvis, Simon, Adorno: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998). Sloterdijk, Peter, Thinker on the Stage: Nietzsche’s Materialism, trans. by Jamie Owen Daniel (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989). Smith, Nicholas H., “Hope and Critical Theory,” in Critical Horizons, 6:1 (2005), 45-61. Thomson, Alex, Adorno: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2006). 31 32 Ibid., 138. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 247.