Adorno, theory & praxis & the FBI

[Claus Hansen]

Hi Ralph,

thank you for the very interesting report, please write about the other two 
speakers if you have
the time for it. I just had a little comments to add on the Rubin lecture. 
I think the middle
part you speak of must be based on his article in the Adorno Critical 
Reader (Gibson & Rubin Ed).
where he has an article called: "The Adorno Files" pp. 172-190. As for the 
disappearance
of the marxists elements of The Dialectic of Enlightenment I can recommend 
the new translation
of the book released by Stanford UP last year. This is based on the version 
in Horkheimers
Collected works and includes all the changes between the first version and 
the published version.
It is then possible to see how the marxists elements were removed from the 
final edition in order
to conceal the authors marxist heritage. There is also a little essay by 
William van Reijen on this
subject called: The Disappearance of Class History in "Dialectic of 
Enlightenment".


At 00:00 08-04-03 -0400, you wrote:
>This is not very helpful, I know, but what matters here is the middle part 
>of the talk, based on FBI files on Adorno obtained via the Freedom of 
>Information Act.  All members of the Institute for Social Research and 
>associates of Adorno such as Eisler were all spied on by the FBI, from 
>1935 on.  The FBI made a note of everything, from the car he drove, to the 
>contents of his correspondence they opened and read.  FBI surveillance 
>affected the work of Adorno and Horkheimer, inducing a rewrite of 
>DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT to conceal its Marxism.  The word "capitalism" 
>for example was changed to "existing conditions".  Apparently, they were 
>successful, because the FBI could never pin them down as Marxists 
>regardless of their suspicions.  Government paranoia was also coupled with 
>ignorance and stupidity.  Hoover thought reference to Nietzsche in 
>Adorno's correspondence was some kind of secret code or language.
>
>I have not attempted to verify Rubin's statements, and I would have to 
>read DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT carefully to judge it accurately 
>myself.  The implication I see here is that the work might have become 
>much more abstract due to the marxophobia of American conditions.  Hence 
>it seems to me there could have been no question of A & H being too soft 
>on Marxism if they had harbored strong anti-Marxist sentiments; the 
>pressure would have been entirely in the opposite direction.  I couldn't 
>tell you offhand how seriously this work might have been compromised. 
>However, I find the quotations from this work recently adduced to be 
>extremely noxious and objectionable:
>
>>Formal logic was the major school of unified science. It provided the 
>>Enlightenment thinkers with the schema of the calculability of the world. 
>>The mythologizing equation of Ideas with numbers in Platos last writings 
>>expresses the longing of all demythologization: number became the canon 
>>of the Enlightenment. (1995: 7)
>>
>>To the Enlightenment, that which does not reduce to numbers, and 
>>ultimately to the one, becomes illusion; modern positivism writes it off 
>>as literature. Unity is the slogan from Parmenides to Russell. The 
>>destruction of gods and qualities alike is insisted upon. (1995: 7-8)
>>
>>Man imagines himself free from fear when there is no longer anything 
>>unknown. That determines the course of demythologization, of 
>>enlightenment, which compounds the animate with the inanimate just as 
>>myth compounds the inanimate with the animate. Enlightenment is mythic 
>>fear turned radical. The pure immanence of positivism, its ultimate 
>>product, is no more than a so to speak universal taboo. Nothing at all 
>>may remain outside, because the main idea of outsideness is the very 
>>source of fear. (1995: 16)
>
>Not only does such rubbish reduce real history to metaphysical 
>abstractions, it betrays an elementary ignorance of what logic, 
>mathematics, and science are all about, as well as the varied motives of 
>individual scientists.  This repeats the worst and most ignorant cliches 
>about science conflating it with "positivism", ignorant of its real history.

Could you elaborate this please. I think a common misunderstanding of 
Adorno is that he was against science. He
protested against positivism and because science was and still is 
positivistic in the sense Adorno gave to it - it has
to be combatted but the aim for Adorno was always to expand the conception 
of science - very much in the way that
Habermas later did it - although I think that is often forgotten.


>Adorno was in Germany when he delivered these lectures.  Perhaps his 1949 
>obsession with positivism as villain has something to do with the American 
>conditions in which he was immersed in the 1940s, which he reacted against?

I dont think so - in the beginning of the sixties Adorno debated with 
Popper in what was known as the Positivist
Dispute in German Sociology - and in his lectures on sociology from 1968 he 
was also very criticial of positivism.
But he never completely refused the 'good' elements american society had 
teached him in comparission to
the life in Germany. I think it is Martin Jay that writes something in the 
line you're saying: when he was in
America he was critical of the american way of life - when he was in 
Germany he was critical of the german
way of life. The article 'Adorno in America' deals with some of these 
issues anyway as far as I can remember.

But it would be interesting to hear what the other two speakers said at the 
conference especially the one about
teaching Adorno to working class people

Kind regards,

Claus


____________________________________________________________________________
"Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, når de siger 'jeg'" 
(T.W. Adorno)