Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 15:39:39 +0200
From: Claus Hansen <clausdh-AT-tdcspace.dk>
Subject: Re: FS & Praxis


Just a comment or two on this issue on praxis and Adorno...

At 10:51 03-04-03 +0000, you wrote:

>Not very encouraging really for FS support of direct praxis action. 
>Afterall given Adorno's _Negative Dialectics_ prescriptive critical 
>theoretical undertakings let alone direct political ACTION doesn't get support.

I think the passivity and refusal of political action that almost always is 
attributed to Adorno's philosophy in
general is overstated primarily because he's texts have been read in much 
too conventional ways. I would
recommend reading J.M. Bernsteins reconstruction of the ethical core of 
Adornos philosophy in the book:
'Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics'. As I read Bernstein - and I must admit 
that I find the book rather
difficult - he is offering a interpretation where Adorno argues for the 
possibility of 'metaphysical experiences'
that somehow motivates people towards acting in an ethical 'right way'. The 
exemplar he is using is of course
related to the jew-question in the second world war where Danes enacted a 
'largescale' effort to bring the
jews in Denmark across the water into Sweden in order for them not to be 
transported to the concentration
camps. According to Bernstein this episode - an exemplar of fugitive 
experience - happened because of the
moral claims the suffering of the jews had on the Danish people. I cannot 
elaborate on this any further now
as it is indeed a difficult book (especially when you're studying sociology 
and not moral philosophy and epistemology)
- but my point is that I still believe that there are potentials for 
political action immanent in Adornos work.
  It of course depends on how you interpret political action. I also wonder 
if not the participation in the
reeducation of Germany after Nazi-rule could not be considered some kind of 
political action. Adorno
puts quite an emphasis on history: you cannot separate an episode, a 
concept etc from its history of
formation - for this reason education as such is an important part of 
political action.

Claus


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