Adorno's Theory
Adorno's Theory, developed by Theodor Adorno, is a critical theory that focuses on the role of culture and mass media in shaping individuals' thoughts and behaviors. It emphasizes the impact of societal structures and the manipulation of individuals by powerful forces. Adorno's Theory is known for its examination of the effects of authoritarianism and the potential for resistance through critical consciousness.
7 Key excerpts on "Adorno's Theory"
eBook - ePubContemporary Social Theory
An Introduction
- Anthony Elliott(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Adorno’s version of critical theory consists in generalizing beyond an image of the bureaucratized, administered world of advanced capitalism to consider how such alienated forms of consciousness become deeply implanted at the level of personal identity itself. This takes us to his final point concerning irrational authoritarianism – namely, that fascist ideology is a core mechanism for the seamless monolith of contemporary social processes. In The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno and his co-authors sought to identify how an all-pervasive social authority is internalized by women and men in what they called the F scale – designed as a measurement of fascist potential. Through over 200 questionnaires and detailed psychoanalytic profiles, Adorno and his colleagues explored such topics as their respondents’ early childhoods, family relationships and wider political ‘world views’. The F scale sought to measure implicit ‘prefascist tendencies’ towards anti-Semitism, ethnocentrism and political and economic conservatism...
eBook - ePubCritical Theory to Structuralism
Philosophy, Politics and the Human Sciences
- David Ingram(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...He also criticized Freud in Minima Moralia, charging that psychoanalysis encourages adaptation to prevailing conditions, and that it vacillates between “negating the renunciation of instinct as repression contrary to reality, and applauding it as sublimation beneficial to culture.” 32 Still, Adorno was certainly not persuaded to jettison Freudian theory altogether. Even as he advanced these criticisms, he was discussing the psychology of anti-Semitism with Freudian social psychologists, 33 and he wrote two pieces substantially influenced by Freudian theory. 34 He elaborated on his ideas in The Authoritarian Personality which involved an extensive, empirically based, psychological account of fascist tendencies in the United States. It was not simply his supplementation of Marxism by psychoanalysis that made Adorno a less than orthodox Marxist. For, in “Reflexionen zur Klassentheorie” (composed as a working document comprising nine theses in 1942 35), Adorno measured his distance from both Marx and the orthodox Marxism of the Soviet Union. Since Marx’s prediction about the concentration and centralization of capital had been realized, the nature of capitalism changed, particularly with respect to the composition of classes. Consisting of relatively independent entrepreneurs during the earlier phase of liberal capital, the bourgeoisie lost much of its economic power as monopoly conditions developed...
eBook - ePubCrossing the Psycho-Social Divide
Freud, Weber, Adorno and Elias
- George Cavalletto(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Or does it? When the Thomas manuscript is examined closely, a type of theory other than social clearly emerges also in the forefront: specifically, the theoretical meta-psychology of Sigmund Freud—his theory of psychic structure, of drives and unconscious mechanisms—and Adorno’s elaborations upon this theoretical psychology. Psychoanalytic theory informs much of Adorno’s analysis, operating in conjunction with social theory to reveal the post-liberal transformations underpinning the appeal of fascism. Often, indeed, a premise of social theory about a social condition is explicated not in terms of its social constitution but rather in terms of its psychodynamic ramiications, as when the emergence of societal “monopolism” is explicated not by a presentation of detailed evidence of economic, cultural, and political concentration but rather in terms of its effect on the psyche, in terms of ego loss and masochistic submission. In several important aspects Adorno’s version of Freudian meta-psychology resembles his theory of society: specifically, the theory of the psyche shares several formal features characterized in his 1969 essay as belonging to social theory. First of all, while psychoanalytic theory may not escape the empiricist’s grasp as easily as does social reification theory, it nonetheless is, in Adorno’s hands (as it is, in fact, in Freud’s hands), a theory that also “resists direct empirical treatment”; even today, much of Freud’s meta-psychology remains beyond empirical verification...
eBook - ePub- Thomas Osborne(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Manchester University Press(Publisher)
...Politics, in this context, begins with the family. In Adorno, the general theme – largely derived from the writings of Eric Fromm as well as Freud – is that in monopoly capitalism the father’s authority as an ‘ego-ideal’ decreases. People then become susceptible to fascist and authoritarian ideologies. Actually, it is not really just a question of the rise of anti-semitism that concerns Adorno here. It is something more like antidotes to anti-semitism that he is concerned with. Critical maturity inoculates people from childish dependencies such as anti-semitic ideologies. So, for instance, the famous F-Scale of The Authoritarian Personality studies does not really measure anti-semitism or even the potential for it. 34 Rather it measures, as it were, the lack of anti -anti-semitism. In other words, it measures the lack of possibilities for the development of critical self-reflection and maturity. That, as always, is the problem. Critical immaturity can have socio-psychological roots. 35 Aggression is not resolved but turned backward on to the ego, and then outward on to out-groups; masochism turned outwards becomes sadism. At the same time, these weakly developed egos develop leadership fantasies – or rather follow-the-leader fantasies. But these are ultimately auto-erotic. It is not just love of the leader that is at stake but love of the leader as oneself. An erotic tie is established between the leader and the mass: hence the masses actually desire authority and their own repression. The fascist leader is an object of identification, a quasi-father. Therefore the leader is an ‘ego-ideal’: not a superego – somebody who dominates – but a projection of the mass. So, yes; predictably enough, we are back – as always with Adorno – not just with the rather dubious question of sociological descriptions of character-types or even positivist typologies of society but with the ethical problem of critical self-reflection...
...Seven Adorno's philosophical legacy Adorno wrote with authority not only on philosophy but on music, literature, sociology and cultural theory. He brought a consistently philosophical approach and characteristic style of analysis to all of the areas of intellectual enquiry that were of interest to him. Historically, however, appreciation of his work has largely been divided among those academic disciplines into which his studies seem for the most part to fall. A complete account of Adorno’s intellectual legacy would require an assessment of his contribution to those separate disciplines. A study which has concentrated mainly on Adorno’s central philosophical claims and arguments ought to confine itself to a consideration of the evolving interpretation of his place in contemporary philosophy. The publication of Adorno’s first book in 1933 marked the appearance of a new and brilliant philosopher. But it was during the mid 1950s that he entered the most important phase of his work. 1 Giving formulation to his implicit conception of the dialectical structure of experience became Adorno’s major preoccupation. This conception was developed through his reading of the problems he found in the accounts of the subject-object relationship in the various philosophical works he considered significant. Adorno was thereby setting out both a distinctive account of experience and a powerful form of philosophical criticism. His work became progressively more complex and far reaching as he sought to identify, with potentially devastating implications for philosophy, the relationship between philosophical conceptions of experience and reason and our epistemic, interpersonal, moral and aesthetic practices. His constant dedication to this project is evident in, especially, Negative Dialectics (1966), Critical Models (two volumes, 1963 and 1969) and the unfinished Aesthetic Theory...
- Ulrich Plass(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Adorno’s interpretations of literature adhere to no orthodoxy of Critical Theory, and the insights and arguments they advance do not always square with the concepts and norms that intellectual historians tend to ascribe to the so-called first generation of the Frankfurt School. Assessing Adorno’s literary criticism requires far more than pointing out its position within the larger framework known as Critical Theory; it is equally important, if not more so, to contemplate the idiosyncrasies and self-conscious contradictions in Adorno’s writings on literature. An additional challenge is posed by the inconsistent use of philosophically determinate concepts. Adorno’s tendency to supplement conventional philosophical vocabulary with suggestive metaphorical terms is particularly pronounced in his literary criticism, which therefore requires bold, incisive interpretation. Paraphrasing his arguments in these essays is not sufficient to enable one to get to the substance of his writings, since his arguments cannot be neatly separated from the complicated and ironic textual operations that make his essays fascinating but also potentially uninterpretable. My intention in this study is to provide interpretations—necessarily incomplete—that go beyond what is stated directly in Adorno’s texts. Using his description of the essay as an “art of transition” as a point of departure, I seek to alert the reader not only to Adorno’s use of concepts and metaphors, but also to the larger rhetorical structures of his essays on literature. By including “history” and “language” in the title of this study, I am highlighting two terms whose significance for Adorno’s thought is evident at first glance. Yet, in typical fashion, Adorno nowhere defines these two concepts...
eBook - ePubFrom Romanticism to Critical Theory
The Philosophy of German Literary Theory
- Andrew Bowie(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...9 The culture of truth Adorno DOI: 10.4324/9780203026250-10 Adorno and Benjamin: paradigms of modern aesthetics The extent to which Romantic hopes for art in modernity come in the twentieth century to be threatened by historical developments that put the very notion of art into question was evident in Benjamin’s Marxist work in the 1930s. T.W.Adorno’s work on aesthetics is in this respect the most radical attempt to salvage, rather than abandon, the Romantic heritage. In this chapter I want to highlight certain aspects of Adorno’s work in the light of our concerns so far: I shall not undertake anything remotely resembling an exhaustive account of Adorno. Rather than get lost in generalities it is, in line with Adorno’s own assumptions, better to engage in detail with a few key aspects of his work within the framework we have already established. This will entail concentrating upon his route to his more elaborated positions, rather than giving an analysis of Negative Dialectics (ND) and Aesthetic Theory (AT) themselves. 1 Adorno’s work is so complex and so uneven that any attempt either to give a characterisation of, or to pass a verdict on, his philosophy ‘as a whole’ is likely to conceal more than it reveals. An account which simply takes up some of what Adorno says concerning certain major questions, of the kind volunteered here, may in fact do Adorno’s thought more justice. Many of the most influential and important responses to Adorno, such as those of Wellmer and Habermas, are concerned to locate him in a particular theoretical space, which is then shown to be untenable. This creates a specific Adorno, such as the philosopher who reveals by his failure the aporias of a philosophical model which his critics wish to abandon. In the process other Adornos tend to be neglected, at the cost of some vital insights...
