[FRA:] Adorno's constellation

[James Rovira]

Thanks, Ralph, for reminding me of Buck-Morss' book and for your short
discussion of Adorno on Kierkegaard.  I've been wanting to read A's
Kierkegaard book and was curious what he had to say -- I see the
influences of K in Adorno at times in the first essay of _The Culture
Industry_: A's attacks on false individuality are reminiscent of
Kierkegaard.

I think A's critique of K as you have presented it here is off the
mark, but at the same time represents a common reading of Kierkegaard
during the early years of his dissemination across Europe and the US
-- a reading that still persists for many people.  K didn't retreat
into inwardness. K located the universal in inwardness and claimed
that by it we rejoin the entire human race. Furthermore, he argues in
Either/Or II that the leap into the ethical stage makes us aware of a
historically and socially conditioned self that, with this new
awareness, we begin to take responsibility for.  Those who truly do
retreat into inwardness K describes as "the demonic" in his _Concept
of Anxiety_.

Still going to read A's book though, and probably read SBM's summary
of it first.

Jim R.