Relevance of the later Adorno

[MSalter1@aol.com]

In a message dated 16/07/97 12:09:18 GMT, Ken writes:

<< I would 
 also note that the writing of theory itself is a form of practice - in which
case, after 
 examining the extent of Adorno's body of literary work, makes him one of the

 foremost activists of the 20th century. >>

Yes, an interesting problematic is the role of the literary form in which
Adorno expressed his ideas. Many represent a kind of aesthetic shocktactics
designed to immediately subvert the self-fulfiling processes of ideological
assumptions/practices. This is clear in his use of dramatic inversions,
sudden inversions of the particular and universal, use of aphorisms, the
essay form, absence of deductive phrases such as therefore/it follows etc.
His praxis is - in part - a kind of defensive resistance to ideologiocal
closure, and - as such - quite consistent with his admittedly one-dimensional
and partial diagnosis of the down-wood trajectory of consumer capitalism.
Some parallels here with Foucault - himself following Deleuze's reading of
Nietzsche) I suggest, although the latter is as anti-dialectical (and hence
as dialectical) as one can get.

Michael Salter.