From: Michael Hoover <hoov-AT-freenet.tlh.fl.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Lukacs + Adorno
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 97 17:26:42 18000


> Yes, it was called "Late Capitalism or Industrial Society", I think.
> In Adorno's essay, he makes the point that the usual
> arguments about capitalism being either "late capitalism" or
> "industrial society" don't hold water: 
> Adorno's model would be countless
> micro-revolutions, tied together in strategic ensembles; 
> -- Dennis

cicrumstances have precluded my responding more promptly...and given
the few posts on this topic, there may not be much more to say
anyway...but:

Habermas wrote - in *Autonomy & Solidarity*/1986 - that Adorno 
"remains true to the idea that there is no cure for the wounds of
Enlightenment other than the radicalized Enlightenment itself"
(p158)...H was careful to distinguish between the pessimism of A from
which recovery was apparently possible and that of Derrida, Foucault
and Lyotard...he characterized the latter trio's anti-scientism as
irrational and prone to reactionary politics (Habermas' reassessment of 
F in his essay entitled *Taking Aim at the Heart of the Present" that 
appeared in *Foucault: A Critical Reader*/1986 notwithstanding)...

but Lyotard's "turn towards" Adorno places him closer to the
latter than Habermas sits...L, who earlier referred to Adorno as
a devil, points this out in *The Differend*/1988 by noting their
anti-capitalist, anti-instrumentalist, micro-logical, and aesthetic
similarities...

so Adorno tried to sustain rational critical theory via a negative
dialectics that would both uncover social contradictions and offer
reconciliation with nature?...and the intended result - freedom from 
domination and reclamation of the progressive elements of science?...

still, I keep returning to A on abstract modern art...despite his
claim that this form is suggestive of an unalienated condition, he
tempers his support by saying that "among the dangers threatening
modern art, not least is that it is becoming inoffensive"
(*Aesthetic Theory*/1984)...and today, even that which is offensive
can be easily commodified...Michael



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