Summary of Jargon of Authenticity

[Jim Rovira]

That's very useful, thanks.  And pretty convincing -- it fits the argument of the
book well.

I haven't read Goldmann, not yet.

Jim

Ralph Dumain wrote:

> I think the clarification most called for is the original one you demanded:
>
> >Adornos key observation seems to be that through the jargon, the authority of
> >the absolute is overthrown by absolutized authority (5). At this point, as at
> >many others, it is unclear if Adorno is really developing an argument or
> >simply
> >making assertions.  Immediately after making this observation, however, Adorno
> >describes fascisms development in a powerful social context supported by
> >language, presumably the jargon.  Since absolutized authority in this
> >sentence clearly refers to fascism, Adornos critique of existentialism
> >ultimately seeks to demonstrate how its jargon of authenticity actually
> >creates
> >an atmosphere conducive to and supportive of fascism.
>
> I think I know what Adorno is getting at here with respect to absolute
> authority, but the point should be clarified.  It's important and therefore
> we should guard against misinterpretation.  I take Adorno to contrast the
> new subjectivism with the old absolute idealism.  The metaphysical
> assertions of yore are overthrown--i.e. the authority of the absolute--but
> what replaces them?  A philosophy claiming to represent real being and
> experience over abstraction, but with indefinite reference and
> content.  Adorno then wants to show how the Heideggerian template does not
> promote authentic experience at all, but rather an ideology of power
> against which there is no appeal because there is no determinate
> intellectual content to support or oppose.  Hence there is no ideal order
> to confirm or oppose, but a mere subjective stance, which absolutizes
> authority as a power principle while destroying it as an intellectual
> principle.  And this is just what Nazism did.  The paradox is that Nazism
> was so opportunistic that, apart from its racial theory, it never
> established or accepted any official philosophy!  Neither Heidegger nor his
> rivals  succeeded in getting the Nazis to endorse their philosophies.  If
> Adorno means anything like what I think he does, I would say his
> observation is very profound.
>
> As for Adorno's objection to the authentic self, let's hope this was not
> motivated by the same animus that set him against Fromm.  Either way,
> Adorno is certainly correct to point out how the jargon of authenticity
> serves as an ideological mask, first of all for Heidegger himself, whose
> authenticity ended up as the fuhrerprinzip.  Heidegger was a scumbag
> through and through, and the fact that people like Marcuse or Sartre could
> be taken in to the extent that they were screams volumes about the
> bankruptcy of bourgeois European civilization and its intellectuals.
>
> As for parallels between C.T. and Heidegger, I take it you've read LUKACS
> AND HEIDEGGER by Lucien Goldmann?