ADORNO, BLAKE, KIERKEGAARD (for MSalter)

[kenneth.mackendrick]

> The principle of hope: Keep critique alive!  Why ascetic 
grouchiness?  Why no hope for escape from the hegemony of the 
culture industry?  Why solely the analysis of how life down to its 
roots is corrupted by social structure?
> The '30s and '40s were a dark time ... but were there no other pairs 
of alert eyes outside of Adorno and his pals?  Nowhere to be found?
> Only possibility?--resistance against the bleak?  Where the seeds 
of regeneration?  In contrast, Blake brightens my day.

The idea of raising hope to the level of a principle is a bit like running 
amok to god (something that Kracauer said to Lowenthal about 
what Scheler had said about Bloch).  I think this is true - I also agree 
with Ralph about "brighter days" - which points to the idea that 
human beings who study philosophy need to develop a sense of 
humour (lets call it a sense of playfulness) which extends beyond 
clever, shrewd, and witty antidotes - but is not reduceable to "not 
taking things seriously."
he said jokingly,
ken