Theodor W. Adorno Quotes

The error in positivism is that it takes as its standard of truth the contingently given division of labor, that between the science and social praxis as well as that within science itself, and allows no theory that could reveal the division of labor to be itself derivative and mediated and thus strip it of its false authority.

The more reified the world becomes, the thicker the veil cast upon nature, the more the thinking weaving that veil in its turn claims ideologically to be nature, primordial experience.

Underlying the concept of positivity is the conviction that the positive is intrinsically positive in itself, without anyone pausing to ask what is to be regarded as positive. ... It is significant and really quite interesting that the term 'positive' actually contains this ambivalence. On the one hand, 'positive' means what is given, is postulated, is there—as when we speak of positivism as the philosophy that sticks to the facts. But, equally, 'positive' also refers to the good, the approvable, in a certain sense, the ideal. And I imagine that this semantic constellation expresses with precision what countless people actually feel to be the case.

Anpassung tritt kraft der Ideologie der Kulturindustrie anstelle von Bewußtsein: nie wird die Ordnung, die aus ihr herausspringt, dem konfrontiert, was sie zu sein beansprucht, oder den realen Interessen der Menschen. Ordnung aber ist nicht an sich ein Gutes. Sie wäre es einzig als richtige. Daß die Kulturindustrie darum nicht sich kümmert; daß sie Ordnung in abstracto anpreist, bezeugt nur die Ohnmacht und Unwahrheit der Botschaften, die sie übermittelt. Während sie beansprucht, Führer der Ratlosen zu sein, und ihnen Konflikte vorgaukelt, die sie mit ihren eigenen verwechseln sollen, löst sie die Konflikte nur zum Schein, so wie sie in ihrem eigenen Leben kaum gelöst werden könnten.

Both are torn halves of an integral freedom, to which however they do not add up.

The power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness. The order that springs from it is never confronted with what it claims to be or with the real interests of human beings. Order, however, is not good in itself. It would be so only as a good order. The fact that the culture industry is oblivious to this and extols order in abstracto, bears witness to the impotence and untruth of the messages it conveys. While it claims to lead the perplexed, it deludes them with false conflicts which they are to exchange for their own. It solves conflicts for them only in appearance, in a way that they can hardly be solved in their real lives.

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them. They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured. Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.

Regressive listeners behave like children. Again and again and with stubborn malice, they demand the one dish they have once been served.

... to promote precisely that manner of intellectual freedom that has no place in the regnant philosophical movements

The jargon makes it seem that ... the pure attention of the expression to the subject matter would be a fall into sin.

The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.

The metaphysical apologia at least betrayed the injustice of the established order through the incongruence of concept and reality. The impartiality of scientific language deprived what was powerless of the strength to make itself heard and merely provided the existing order with a neutral sign for itself. Such neutrality is more metaphysical than metaphysics.'''

Impulse, subjectivity and profanation, the old adversaries of materialistic alienation, now succumb to it. ... The representatives of the opposition to the authoritarian schema become witnesses to the authority of commercial success. ... In the service of success they renounce that insubordinate character which was theirs.

Was Jargon sei und was nicht, darüber entscheidet, ob das Wort in dem Tonfall geschrieben ist, in dem es sich als transzendent gegenüber der eigenen Bedeutung setzt; ob die einzelnen Worte aufgeladen werden auf Kosten von Satz, Urteil, Gedachtem. Demnach wäre der Charakter des Jargons überaus formal: er sorgt dafür, daß, was er möchte, in weitem Maß ohne Rücksicht auf den Inhalt der Worte gespürt und akzeptiert wird durch ihren Vortrag.