Adorno and Empirical Sociology

[Claus Hansen]

Thank you both of you. I will take these things into consideration - and 
especially the book by Alford looks promising from what I can find on the net.

Just a quick comment on the Grounded Theory thing: It is true that one of 
the criteria put forward by Glaser & Strauss is that the concepts generated 
from the empirical study should be 'readily understandable to laymen 
concerned with that area'. Adorno would of course never accept a criteria 
like this which is why he talks of these preliminary observations as 
'physiognomic registrations' - the understanding ordinary people have of 
the situation, their way of interacting with each other are only 'surface 
phenomena' that is this is only the manifestations of the societal totality 
not this totality itself, and the task of sociology is to gain knowledge of 
this. So there are big differences between Grounded Theory and Adornos 
Social Physiognomics. However, as a starting point - the idea of Grounded 
Theory is good because it exemplify the very idea of 'granting primacy to 
the object' that governed Adorno's whole approach.

As for the common belief that Adorno would never change his major ideas as 
a result of the 'falsification' of these by empirical data you might have a 
point. However, I would like to cite a passage from Adorno where he is in 
fact relating to empirical data that speaks against his ideas of the 
culture industry:

"A few years ago at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research we 
conducted a study devoted to this problem. Unfortunately, the full analysis 
of this material was postponed in favour of more pressing tasks. 
Nevertheless a passing inspection of it does reveal something which might 
well be relevant to the so-called problem of free time. The study concerned 
the wedding of Princess Beatrix of Holland with the junior German diplomat 
Claus von Amsberg. The objective was to assess the reactions of the German 
public to the Wedding, which was broadcast by all the mass media, dwelt on 
incessantly by the illustrated weeklies, and so consumed but the public in 
their free time. Since the way in which the event was presented, like the 
articles written about it, accorded it an unusual degree of importance, we 
expected the spectators and readers to treat it just as seriously. In 
particular we expected to observe the operation of the characteristic 
contemporary ideology of personalization; through which, as a clear 
compensation for the functionalization of reality, the value of individual 
people and private relationships is immeasurably overestimated in 
comparison to actual social determinants. I should now like to say with due 
caution, that these expectations were too simplistic. In fact the study 
offers a virtually text book example of how critical-theoretical thought 
can both learn from and be corrected by empirical social research. It was 
possible to detect symptoms of a split consciousness. On the one hand 
people enjoyed it as a concrete event in the here and now quite unlike 
anything else in their everyday life: it was to be a 'unique experience' to 
use a cliché beloved of modern German. To this extent the reaction of the 
audience corresponded to familiar pattern, according to which even the 
relevant, possibly political news was transformed into consumer item by the 
way in which the information was transmitted. The format of our interview, 
however, was devised in such a way that the questions concerned with 
determining the immediate reactions of the viewers, were supplemented by 
control questions about the political significance that the interviewees 
ascribed to the grand event. Here it turned out that many of the people 
interviewed - we shall ignore the exact proportion - suddenly showed 
themselves to be thoroughly realistic, and proceeded to evaluate critically 
the political and social importance of the same event, the well publicized 
once-in-a-lifetime nature of which they had drooled over breathlessly in 
front of their television sets. What the culture industry presents people 
in their free time, if my conclusions are not too hasty, is indeed consumed 
and accepted, but with a kind of reservation, in the same way that even the 
most naive theatre or filmgoers do not simply take what they behold there 
for real....but I think that we can here glimpse a chance of maturity, 
which might just eventually help to turn free time into freedom proper." 
(Adorno, Free Time, 1969)

So I don't think it would be possible to dismiss the respect Adorno had the 
empirical studies and their results totally. To what extent he used these 
to 'correct' his views in other situation I do not know yet...

Thank you again,

Claus

At 11:29 22-07-03 -0400, you wrote:
>On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, Neil McLaughlin wrote:
>
> >
> > First, I see a big difference between "grounded theory" and what Adorno
> > does.  Adorno knew what he thought about a variety of cultural, political
> > and artistic questions before he did his research, something that goes
> > against the ideas of grounded theory as I understand them.
> > He really does not seem the type to do research, and then say, "hey, I
> > guess I was wrong about the enlightenment" based on empirical evidence of
> > any kind, as far as I can see.
>
>I have to agree with this. Grounded theory---and its cousin,
>"interpretavism"---assumes that the true social relations in a situation
>can be found by exhaustively interrogating the people in that situation.
>That's almost diametrically opposed to a critical theory approach, which
>(thanks at least in part to its psychoanalytic roots) assumes that
>subjects can be *wrong* about what they're doing and why they're doing it.
>That fact makes, as Neil writes, any empirical work hard to handle,
>although there are some directions one could go. But I find it very
>difficult to see grounded theory as compatible with critical theory.
>
>FYI, Adorno's essay "Meinungsforschung und Oeffentlichkeit," published in
>the Soziologische Schriften volume, speaks directly to this question. It's
>only in German now, but I've submitted a translation for publication and
>hope to have it out in English soon.
>
>Cheers,
>ANdy Perrin
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin@unc.edu - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
>  Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
>       269 Hamilton Hall, CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA

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

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