In general they are intoxicated by the fame of mass culture, a fame which the latter knows how to manipulate; they could just as well get together in… - Theodor W. Adorno

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In general they are intoxicated by the fame of mass culture, a fame which the latter knows how to manipulate; they could just as well get together in clubs for worshipping film stars or for collecting autographs. What is important to them is the sense of belonging as such, identification, without paying particular attention to its content. As girls, they have trained themselves to faint upon hearing the voice of a 'crooner'. Their applause, cued in by a light-signal, is transmitted directly on the popular radio programmes they are permitted to attend. They call themselves 'jitter-bugs', bugs which carry out reflex movements, performers of their own ecstasy. Merely to be carried away by anything at all, to have something of their own, compensates for their impoverished and barren existence. The gesture of adolescence, which raves for this or that on one day with the ever-present possibility of damning it as idiocy on the next, is now socialized.

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About Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969) was a German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist and composer.

Also Known As

Native Name: Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno
Alternative Names: Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno Theodor Wiesengrund-Adorno Theodor Wiesengrund Teodor V. Adorno Theodore W. Adorno Theodor Adorno Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund-Adorno Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
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Additional quotes by Theodor W. Adorno

Die traurige Wissenschaft, aus der ich meinem Freunde einiges darbiete, bezieht sich auf einen Bereich, der für undenkliche Zeiten als der eigentliche der Philosophie galt, seit deren Verwandlung in Methode aber der intellektuellen Nichtachtung, der sententiösen Willkür und am Ende der Vergessenheit verfiel: die Lehre vom richtigen Leben. Was einmal den Philosophen Leben hieß, ist zur Sphäre des Privaten und dann bloß noch des Konsums geworden, die als Anhang des materiellen Produktionsprozesses, ohne Autonomie und ohne eigene Substanz, mit geschleift wird.

A thinking that approaches it objects openly, rigorously ... is also free toward its objects in the sense that it refuses to have rules prescribed to it by organized knowledge. It ... rends the veil with which society conceals them, and perceives them anew.

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