[FRA:] Wrong life etc.

[Philip Anthony O'Hanlon]

Hi 
 
I Was interested in this thread about "wrong life".  One poster remarked about Adorno's negativism which chimed with me, and I was most interested to read a couple of responses from Josh and Ralph.  That's because I also, unsurprisingly, struggle with the negativism and ascetism.  I'm really not an expert on Adorno but work with some of his ideas, in conjunction with lots of other traditions.  I;m actually trying to develop a more explicit political and ethical understanding of Adorno's ideas.  I like to contrast with e.g. Alasdair MacIntyre, or critical realism and some versions of ethical naturalism.  I've noticed JM Bernstein remark that he would like to compare MacIntyre and Adorno.  Bernstein is of course trying to explicate the ethical dimension of Adorno too, and he's done a great job so far, IMO.  
 
It seems as if Ralph is suggesting to some extent that we understand Adorno's negativism in the context of the time and circumstances in which he lived.  Does that mean there is room for a less negativist approach to Adorno?  It was remarked that Adorno was interested primarily in throwing light on the things that are repressed by mainstream culture, and it was this interest that led him away from addressing what individuals or activists were to do.  But supposing we broaden the interest, can we think about ways to address what activists are to do that is consistent with an Adornian approach?
 
Now whenever I put this to Adorno scholars - the question of why one cannot be more explicit and explicitly normative - when dealing with Adorno, the answer seems to be an expression of a fear of dogmatism, authoritarianism etc; that to do so is dangerous.  Can anything fruitful come of trying to explore an interchange between Aristotle's magna moralia and Adorno's minima moralia?  MacIntyre talks of the need for embodied dispositions, e.g. sophrosune.  But Aristotelians generally would emphasise the need for clean drinking water and healthy living environments; more liesure time and nutritious food.  Surely Adorno would not disagree. There must be a certain order in the soul (and in the city) in order even to begin thinking about what it is one wants, or to think about negative dialectics.  Are there better regimes of socialisation than others?  Aesthetic experiences can awaken our moral sentiments - therefore we need a society in which there is more of that.  Is that a concrete normative recommendation that one can justifiably take from Adorno.  You see, I often cannot help feeling that this idea that we cannot make concrete or positive normative proposals is a bit of a abnegation of responsiblity.  I read Adorno as a moral realist.  The reverse of damaged life has to be a life well-lived, and this seems to me encompassed or encompassable by a reconstructed Aristotelian moral framework.
 
Then there is the related question of ontology.  Adorno seems not to be a fan, but his understanding of ontology seems to be taken from Heidegger, or pre-critical foundationalist programmes.  What about a critical realist conception of ontology?  Bhaskar makes the point that if one does not explicitly thematise one's ontology then one will simply generate a tacit and uncritical one.  Adorno himself seems to require some notion of the independently real, but again perhaps it is merely gestured at negatively, rather than positively formulated.  However, it seems as though positive research in philosophical anthropology, or moral psychology, that shows, for example, that certain human needs seem to be universal, such as the need for love, recognition, sense of belonging or a role, the importance of trust especially in the early years of life, respect, friendship, etc. as well as all the biological needs; surely these can be forumlated quite simply in a positive way and needn't be formulated in any cryptic manner.  Is our universal biological inheritance always reducible to our historical and social one?  If so, how come there are things about ancient Greek stories that seem familiar to us, as well as others that seem strange?
 
Sorry, those thoughts are a bit random, but these are some of the things I think about when dealing with Adorno.
 
Thanks
Phil.
 
  
 

Today's Topics:
   1. Re: wrong life can't be lived rightly... so then what are you
      going to do? (Ralph Dumain)

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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:38:37 -0500
From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain at autodidactproject.org>
Subject: Re: [FRA:] wrong life can't be lived rightly... so then what
        are you going to do?
To: theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org
Message-ID: <E1LQVd9-0007qY-4k at elasmtp-curtail.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Actually, I have shared the same frustrations as yours. A few years
back I objected to Adorno's notion that the good life could only be
characterized negatively; that we couldn't say anything positive.
This also dovetails with Adorno's animosity towards Erich Fromm, who,
because of his generally affirmative posture, was called by one of
the Frankfurters--maybe it was Marcuse--the Normal Vincent Peale of
the left.  And yes, I have found Adorno far too ascetic and
austere.  But when one feels that one's culture and society has been
totally compromised, and one can see the long-range implications of
negative social forces, taking this stance makes more sense.
But it's not mere elitism that drove Adorno, though it does relate to
his lived experience as a product of high bourgeois culture. Adorno
lived through the destruction of European culture as he knew it. His
first book, on Kierkegaard, was published the day Hitler took
power.  The swallowing up of the individual personality--what was
then called "modern man"--by the monstrous machine of society, was
not the world of postwar prosperity in western nations as we knew it
from approx. 1950-1970, which also involved a dehumanizing
regimentation against which the '60s generation rebelled.  Fascism
meant that the individual life could be totally compromised, and
there was no room to maneuver. Adorno may have also experienced
survivor's guilt, not only in general, but in particular, in relation
to his close friend Benjamin.
However exaggerated Adorno might have depicted the iron cage in
prosperous western democracies (but for only about the last two
decades of his life), even with a more differentiated and refined
analysis, Adorno's broad-brush picture nonetheless abstracts out
broad social trends, ongoing processes rather than total faits
accompli. As such, Adorno highlights decisive aspects of contemporary
society that are ideologically repressed by the culture industry and
the so-called ideological state apparatuses: that is, Adorno
expresses broad contours of society against the enforced silence
about how society is fundamentally constituted.
Hence Adorno doesn't address what the individual is going to do, or
what social activists are going to do, but what can't be spoken in
the mainstream media and cultural apparatus.  And this is why I bring
in the self-help industry, Oprah, Dr. Phil, Extreme Home Makeover,
American Idol, and the rest.  The largess bestowed by the wealthy and
corporate America on a few lucky people is fine for the individuals
who benefit, but it is predicated on the falsification of social
reality and social misery, while fostering a groveling attitude to
corporate America (or whatever country you live in).
So maybe we don't need to be depressed all the time, but the gap
between the illusory notions on which society runs and the
recognition of the gap between that and an understanding of what's
really going on and the depth at which it has to be challenged, is
likely to promote a much-needed negatively.  Though I don't believe
in being grumpy 24-7, I don't trust people who always want to think
positively, for, when one examines their ideology, one always finds
it predicated on falsehood. And when the people who espouse it belong
to the privileged upper middle class (though not exclusive to them),
I find their attitude insufferable.
At 04:32 PM 1/22/2009, Jason Gallagher wrote:
>Hello
>
>I respond to the posting about "wrong life cant be lived
>rightly".  If wrong life can't be lived rightly, does this mean that
>there is no point in trying to live rightly at all?  You see, I hear
>people who study Adorno go on and on about the culture industry and
>about self-help industry;  but I think a lot of this is just
>intellectual snobery.  If all is industry and Adorno's books are
>marketed too, and so we have Frankfurt School industry, what
>difference in principle is there between Adorno's "self-help" books
>and others.  I struggle with this one, because perhaps there are
>some, beleive it or not, pretty alright self-help books out there,
>that actually do what they say on the tin... i.e. they help.  They
>might no change the world, but they can open eyes and provoke
>thought.  Adorno helped me understand a lot; so did Aristotle, and
>Marx, and even Nietzsche.  All these guys can help to a certain
>degree.  Some self-help stuff is pretty bad.
>  But not all.  Some of it is written by people who have had long
> personal journeys and profound transformative intellectual and
> "spiritual" experiences... and perhaps have even read Adorno
> too.  To me, one has to be discriminating in whatever it is one
> reads.  Novels are a kind of self-help, as is philosophy to a
> certain extent, if we understand self-help in the broader
> sense.   I don't see why one cannot read Adorno AND selective
> self-help if one can take something from it.  In this elitist
> attitude towards anything that does not meet the standards of high
> intellectual rigor set by certain people, you take legitimacy away
> from something that can actually make a difference to someone.  Who
> are we to say that that is not appropriate for someone?  I often
> sense a cynical and self-loathing attitude to anything that might
> inspire hope or joy in some Adorno commentators.  Not all though.
>
>On Obama, yes, he is not the Messiah, but if he is inspiring people
>in some positive direction what is the problem?  He will not bring
>all the changes that you would like to see, and no doubt if he did
>you would still find something to be unhappy about.  But if he wants
>to close Guantanamo, I'm happy and praise him for that.  If he wants
>to change CIA practices away from torture, I'm happy about that.  If
>he wants to bring more effort to bear on dealing with Middle Eastern
>issues then that's good too.  Why all the constant negativism?  Is
>life really so depressing and absent of hope or joy?  If it is, why
>reproduce it with constant negativism.  Try a little self-help, you
>never know you might actually find something interesting.
>
>It may be that life cannot be lived rightly.  OK, I get that,... but
>we all still need to live in any case, so do we constantly have to
>be depressed and so god darn pessimistic all the time?