[FRA:] Social Philosophy After Adorno

[Ralph Dumain]

Zuidervaart, Lambert.  Social Philosophy After Adorno.  Cambridge; 
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.



Table of Contents
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0714/2007012541.html
Preface
Abbreviations
Thinking Otherwise: Introduction
0.1     "Wozu noch Philosophie?"
0.2     Going after Adorno
0.3     Critical Retrieval
1.      Transgression or Transformation
1.1     Menke's Derridean Reconstruction
1.2     Liberation and Deconstruction
1.3     Aesthetic and Artistic Autonomy
2.      Metaphysics after Auschwitz
2.1     Wellmer's Postmetaphysical Critique
2.2     Suffering, Hope, and Societal Evil
2.3     Displaced Object
3.      Heidegger and Adorno in Reverse
3.1     Existential Authenticity
3.2     Emphatic Experience
3.3.    Public Authentication
4.      Globalizing Dialectic of Enlightenment
4.1     Habermas's Paradigmatic Critique
4.2     Remembrance of Nature
4.3     Beyond Globalization
5.      Autonomy Reconfigured
5.1     Feminist Cultural Politics
5.2     The Culture Industry
5.3     Culture, Politics, and Economy
6.      Ethical Turns
6.1     Adorno's Politics
6.2     Social Ethics and Global Politics
6.3     Resistance and Transformation
Adorno's Social Philosophy: Appendix
Bibliography
Index



This book examines what is living and what is dead in the social 
philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno, the most important philosopher and 
social critic in Germany after World War II. When he died in 1969, 
Adorno's successors abandoned his critical-utopian passions. 
Habermas, in particular, rejected or ignored Adorno's central 
insights on the negative effects of capitalism and new technologies 
upon nature and human life. In this book, Lambert Zuidervaart 
reclaims Adorno's insights from Habermasian neglect, while taking up 
legitimate Habermasian criticisms. He also addresses the prospects 
for radical and democratic transformations of an increasingly 
globalized world. The book proposes a provocative social philosophy 
"after Adorno." http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0729/2007012541-d.html

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I gave this new book a very quick run through this evening and I must 
say I am highly unimpressed.  It struck me as a regrettable 
manifestation of excessive inbreeding among critical theorists. 
Critical theory is prone to incestuous intellectual behavior, given 
the high degree of cultural capital needed to process it and the 
difficulty of popularizing it, in Adorno's case above all others.  In 
addition to this, the field is prone to a certain kind of academic 
hackwork in which the self-contemplation of theory squeezes out the 
analysis of society. Zuidervaart's promise of social relevance could 
not be more vacuous given the actual content of the book, which is 
essentially a celebrity death match between Adorno and Habermas on 
the question of the Dialectic of Enlightenment.

There are three foci for Zuidervaart: dialectic of enlightenment, 
aesthetic theory, and philosophical experience (negative dialectics). 
The first is the most objectionable.  These themes are recapitulated 
in the appendix.  It seems that social theory comes down to DofE, 
while aesthetics and philosophy are covered by the other two items.

(At the beginning Z declares his indebtedness to Jarvis and 
Bernstein. I know others have recommended Jarvis as the best intro to 
Adorno, and taking a glance at it, I'd say it's very clearly written.)

Chapter 1 is mostly about aesthetic autonomy. Chapter 2--"Metaphysics 
After Auschwitz"--focuses on the attack on DoE initiated by Habermas 
and continued by Wellmer and others. Zuidervaart aims to defend 
Adorno, but in my view DoE is indefensible, regardless of what one 
thinks of Habermas.  Chapter 3 is about Heidegger and authenticity, 
and Adorno's counter to this perspective.  Z pinpoints the essential 
weakness of Adorno's notion of philosophical experience. (100-1)

Chapter 4 is on the DofE in the era of globalization. I can't read my 
handwriting, but there's something of interest on p. 108.  I think 
it's a catalogue of DofE haters. ( Iamde a not of Habermas' 
references in KHI and TRS.)

Chapter 5 is more than any other an exercise in academic 
incestuousness and uselessness: autonomy vs. feminism.  Apparently 
feminists tend to be opposed to autonomy.  Who gives a fuck? (Plus 
another illegible note.)

Chapter 6 is on ethics. Z recommends Brunkhorst's Solidarity.

In sum, this book serves as a shining example to prove no one but 
academic hacks can find relevance in Adorno today.

But surely there is an alternative to this sort of vacuous inbreeding.