Adorno & Benjamin:
"You're a Star-Belly Sneech, You suck like a leech
This chapter includes reference to a compounded "dialectical" dichotomy. First there is the general dichotomy between the critics, and some mass-media "art." Within each of these categories, there is on the one hand a specific exemplar dichotomy between Frankfurt School insider critic Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) (with some focus here on his works, "Cultural Criticism and Society," and "A portrait of Walter Benjamin," found in Prisms), and the almost outsider critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) (with some focus on his works, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," and the "Thesis on the Philosophy of History" found in Illuminations). On the other hand, there is a material dichotomy between two "mass-media art works," I've selected to examine: a typical Richie Rich—The Poor Little Rich Boy comic book and the Dead Kennedys' song, "Holiday in Cambodia," included here from their CD album, Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death. Although both Adorno and Benjamin may have found such art vulgar, I believe these selections exaggerate, and hence clarify in way, the kind of pop-art that has saturated highly capitalist culture.
Martin Jay (in his The Dialectical Imagination) noted that:
My selections also poke a little fun at Adorno and Benjamin as the lovers of seriously "classical" (yet challenging) music and literature. The following will include many quotes:
Jay offers some religious context for this as well:
And further, Herbert Schnadelbach (in his Philosophy in Germany 1831-1933) writes concerning a Historicist approach, of a:
by way of:
Could simple juxtaposed quotations from and selections of art from mass-culture be a powerful form of criticism? Could the critic, by withdrawing themselves from the work, and simply presenting it, still imply a critique of the current state of society and point towards a more civilized and reasonable future—and help fulfill the goals of "Critical Theory" (which might precisely defined as: exactly not that which leads to its conception)?
Historical consciousness operates something like a history pivot, where history turns or folds on itself and becomes conscious of its own determination: the light of consciousness becomes self-conscious through a hall of mirrors: mirrors of history reflecting on history through the light of that consciousness; yet that consciousness may become alienated from determining history, fearing a bad-faith un-freedom due to total historical determination: a double bind of being both from and against history.
A tension intensifies in early twentieth century continental philosophy between various theoretical dichotomies and their inter-determination. Indeed, the theoretical, or abstract itself has its opposite in the particular and, with another context, in praxis, or practice. However, theory is seen to color particular experience, through what is highlighted, and how it is interpreted. There is a hermeneutic circle, where an individual's history and background (or a group's), both as part of the human condition and culture on this planet, informs what is determined as perceptually relevant: just as we can only learn what we almost already know, the hermetically self-referential nature of what a person knows shapes what they can possibly come to know in addition. That is, knowledge is not added, piece by piece in some sort of stockpile, but is integrated with what we already know, by means of what we already know how to do. We, as individuals, and a culture, have a web of knowledge, as it were, that can integrate new knowledge only when it is recognized as such through the lens of that web. How we are who we are is largely determined by our cultural history; a cultural history which limits what we may perceive, simply by offering some of the only tools by which we can perceive at all: the gift of the ability to reason, as given by culture (beyond the body), is also constrained by the limited number of methods given (what we have to work with), and by the historically indoctrinated limitations on what is considered acceptable (these methods and limitations have proven pragmatically useful over the course of the evolution of culture's reason and knowledge).
Now, Critical Theory (and Adorno's Negative Dialectic), as developed in the Frankfurt School, seems aimed, like an active Darwinism (or more accurately, a post-Hegelian Marxist praxis) at propelling culture forward by a critique of that present which is a remnant of the past: the status quo. Hence the critique of repetitious and formulaic art, and the anti-systematic, anti-methodological, and difficult to summarize, appropriate, and co-opt style of Adorno's thinking that favors bold schisms and unfamiliar shocks, which would awaken people from their dogmatic slumber. (A possible critique of such a notion might make reference to the fact that errant DNA would more often lead to dysfunction rather than better adaption to existing and new niches in the ecological and sociological environment.)
The link between the particular and practice in opposition to theory, is important, in that while theory often strives for that which is universal and absolute (think science and mathematics), practice operates temporally through change, as the particular itself also changes relative to some other particular (spatiotemporally). There is a tension between the contingent, singular, dynamic particular, and the theoretical reasoning that tries to freeze it, e.g. in a concept or percept, through hypostasis, reification and analytical definition: a fetishism that isolates some feature of the inexhaustible "object." Such an "object" may itself be a limitation of the dynamic flux of the concrete particulars: the surface of the concrete may have no theoretically distinguishably identifiable particular. The truth of the singular particular is lost in repetitious generalizations (by "The Whole is the False" Adorno must have referenced Hegel's Reason reaching the absolute and comprehending everything, and not the whole as every particular aspect of the concrete: possibly the two are one at such a differential point of being). Adorno does not keep silence with some sort of particular—he uses the repeated words of language, albeit often in a different manner, and emphasizes a gestalt constellation of concepts in opposition to some key concept (like Being), or isolatable faculties of the mind (as with Kant). Adorno recognizes that his is an Immanent Critique, one already within a tradition: that he is part of what he questions. The objective is always perceived through the lens of the subjective, which subjectivity is shaped by the objective. Hence the difficulty with the critical project of withdrawing from culture (and its objective history) and letting it speak for itself in such a way that said culture is disrupted, disturbed by its own image, and is propelled towards improvement.
ENCULTURED CRITIQUE OF CULTURE CRITICS
Addressing the problematic and subjective nature of critical selection in Prisms, Adorno notes:
These last remarks seem directed at cultural criticism performed by life philosophers such as Nietzsche: such individualist preferences fly in the face of lessons learned from Marx et.al. about the importance of the social: Adorno's "Culture Industry" critique and psychoanalysis of culture was informed by both Nietzsche's notion of a "herd" mentality, and Marx's notion of class-consciousness and outlook "ideology." The "masses," like Heidegger's "they," are often un-self-determined in their flocking to a inter-subjective "reality" which may have little resemblance to objective reality. However, in contrast to Marx, for Adorno the material objective order does not center on the economic, but on the social. Again, there is a tension for the critic, for that objective reality sought may be heavily intertwined with the very inter-subjective "reality" that shapes the critic too.
Like Jacques Lacan psychoanalyzing psychoanalysis, Adorno, more generally, is criticizing criticism: he is performing a double application of criticism, a folding over of criticism on itself where the critic becomes more self-conscious of what they are doing: while criticizing the critic, Adorno is simultaneously criticizing himself:
Critics are in a struggle for their own autonomy:
Here Adorno, with shades of Freud, has taken cultural criticism to the absolute limits, where the critic, in an insane moment of monumental megalomania completely severs all ties with society. But again, back here on earth, the:
GIVE ME CONVENIENCE OR GIVE ME DEATH
The very title of the compilation CD, Give Me Convenience OR Give Me Death, has its own little dialectic; and is a commentary on the fact that the band "Dead Kennedys" has let its record company weed out all their less popular tunes for the sake of a more marketable compilation album. Even my own selected quotation of their song, "Holiday in Cambodia" could be seen as a co-opting choice: this song was probably their most popular. Maybe the Dead Kennedys have co-opted the Frankfurt School a little with their questioning the use of brand-name "Right Guard" antiperspirant in Pol Pot's Cambodia ("It's time to taste what you most fear / Right Guard will not help you here": turning political radicalism into the band's most accessible "alternative hit song," complete with a repetitious and catchy chorus. The CD album art shows a road littered with decaying corpses and large face with its mouth bound by barbed-wire, possibly depicting the atrocities that occur in society, and the stifling of those who would try to reveal them (such as the Dead Kennedys). Martin Jay on Adorno on music:
With this Dead Kennedys' CD, we have something that wavers on the edge of marketability; possibly both the best and worst for either spreading critical thought or co-opting it. Adorno may have not appreciated the frantic beat of punk though, for he found the:
Although, Adorno praised a:
he may have found punk music's:
AUTHORITARIANISM: HITLER, JESUS & THE UNITED STATES
In his "Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda," Adorno notes:
On the flip side of rejecting the psychological "status quo history" of the unconscious (our animal past), we have the ego hitting a glass ceiling of the super-ego state; Martin Jay notes:
Max Horkheimer from his "The Authoritarian State":
MESSIANIC NOW TIME
In his critique of radio, Martin Jay claims Adorno thought:
Jay later notes that:
In this "Thesis on the Philosophy of History," Walter Benjamin roughly sketches two views of history; one which he believes to be the faulty view of classical historicism, and the other, which is the proper goal of the historical materialist. He sees the faulty view as that of a narrative history, where the historian compiles:
with a history conceived as a
Such historians believe in
yet ultimately end up perpetuating the status quo, and reinforcing the hold of those in power.
To understand how historicism is duped into this, we must see how Benjamin views time. As Jay was noted above, for Benjamin, the important element is the moment; Benjamin says:
Thus, there is a moment of pure presence of the moment, which disappears instantly—an instant which may only be remembered through the constructs of the history we are embedded in:
As soon as one tries to articulate the past moment, dominant modes of perception distort it; it is:
From each of Benjamin's historical perspectives, the other seems like chaos. From his preferred view, what I would call "Now History," narrative history resembles a:
Within narrative history, the Now occurs as revolution. To recognize this, the historical materialist must attempt to exit historical constructs; (s)he must view:
in order to recognize
The critic must rescue the moment from the continuum of history, thus redeeming the silent origin which was fractured into narrative history, and returning the moment to a:
For Benjamin, each moment can be viewed within two contexts; the fallen (genealogical) context of a narrative history, or the proper (phenomenal) context of "Messianic time."
APPROVED BY THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY
Benjamin's notion of a continually experienced full "now" connects with his notion of an artistic:
In his "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Benjamin examines this notion of the aura, and how it is both lost and artificially reconstructed in the age of reproduction. He says:
What is lost, then, is the sense of authenticity, but more theoretically important, as discussed above, the singular particularity of the work of art is lost when it is mechanically repeated and reproduced, much like abstractions, or theories, (or even language) lose some detail of the object or data they are concerned with.
Benjamin argues that contemporary society seeks to distance itself from authenticity:
I think this point is exemplified by turning a few pages of a typical Richie Rich comic book. The comic book could be seen as the ultimate humanized and inauthentic work of pop-art. And with Richie Rich, we have the added dimension of glorified wealth aimed at enticing youth. The words "NOW" and / or "NEW" are frequently emblazed across the typical cover, as if to compensate for the considerable distance the comic book has from any sort of actuality. Moreover, in the upper right corner, appears a stamp reading, "Approved by the Comics Code Authority." Benjamin notes that such types of art were able to come about only through the mechanisms of reproduction:
Jay also points out that Adorno and Benjamin:
It would seem clear then, that a comic book might be caught up in a perpetuation of capitalism, and a degradation of critical autonomy. Along similar lines, Benjamin claims:
In our Richie Rich comic book there is a "center-fold" of "Casper the Friendly Ghost," evidencing this: what appears as an added bonus also doubles as advertisement, and hence far from being some Hegelian Spirit at the center of things, we find a semi-present ghost referring to yet another product possibly promising its own "NEW NOW" that never ultimately delivers authenticity.
The comic book form may have merits though; as Benjamin discussed film in depth, noting that the format offered different modes of expression:
Could it be that Richie Rich is a parody? Who could take the approval of the comic code authority as authoritarian? (Its logo looks slightly like an anarchy symbol!) Possibly this is an opportunity for those who can afford a comic book to have a laugh at the impossibly rich. Yes, the comic book creates a fantasy world where all of the Rich family's employees are happy… but possibly in a subversive implication, the fact that this is self-evidently an impossible fantasy world brings down the entire house of cards. The comic book allows the reader to both enter an impossible fantasy world of wealth vicariously, and to remain critical of it as completely ridiculous. The parodying nature of this comic book might subtly indoctrinate youth to have a bifurcated relation to super riches, as both an unobtainable fantasy, and something not to take too seriously: a joke. If you are against capitalism, this might be negatively interpreted as encouraging complacency with the status quo of wealth. If you don't mind some capitalism, but are not as rich as Richie, it may help you to not take the disparity between you and him too seriously. Whether the parody is dangerous, or comforting, might depend on your own political persuasion: but a unified message is clear—you're not as wealthy as Richie Rich.
AN AUTHENTIC SOCIAL HISTORY, NOT AN AUTHENTIC SELF
When Adorno writes of Benjamin, in "A Portrait of Walter Benjamin," he notes that Benjamin is a philosopher who:
Although being one of those who lived the kind of life that others write about, Benjamin did not draw upon his life, in order to create something original—something originating in him:
Such was in line with Benjamin's "anti-subjectivism" that sought to eliminate personal intention, and let "objects" speak for themselves. In fact, an unfinished "On the Concept of History" had nothing more or less than 1000's of pages of citations. He didn't seek to use his subjective powers to form such into a unified narrative, but rather left the object in its fragmented state:
Adorno sees "myth" as tying Benjamin's theological esoteric period with his fragmentary materialist period; yet each period tried to suspend subjectivity:
reconciliation—conceived after the model of the 'name'—is the contrary of human autonomy" (Prisms, p. 236, "A Portrait of Walter Benjamin").
Like some cabbalist performing an exegesis of a sacred text, the text takes primary place before the subjectivity of the exegete, for:
Yet, twice in his essay on Benjamin, Adorno mentions Medusa:
And, twice, Adorno notes the metaphor of "microscope":
I find it interesting that Adorno, when citing a "Medusan glance," says first that it is from Benjamin's philosophy, and then from Benjamin himself, as if the two were one and the same—and indeed this close friend of Benjamin seems more oriented towards his friend's philosophy in this portrait, than to the human being himself. Possibly such was in line with the anti-subjectivity sought for; but this seems a little less than friendly, or humane. Yet again, with his turn of phrase, Adorno is also giving Benjamin, something of the "legendary" treatment—promoting him, through his work, as larger than life. Such "anti-humanism" may have been oriented towards Benjamin's own wishes, with his:
Such reminds me of Heidegger's looking toward a Being beyond beings in his "Letter on Humanism." Although it is a safe bet that Benjamin and Adorno did not share Heidegger's affiliation with the Nazi's, there remains a dangerous, in my opinion, desire to transcend the human—by perfecting science like some engineered machine, and pushing the human into that perfection, to the point of losing what was characteristically human. Yes, I can see the desire for the spiritual as some sort of pursuit of perfection parallel to a scientific quest for the deepest truths—and Benjamin, with his theological and materialist pursuits seems to be looking for the final revelation of attaining these truths—but perfection at the price of personal humanity seems too steep for me. Again, not that Benjamin, Adorno, or even Heidegger were inhumane people (I have little inclination to believe they were not humane)—but one may ask: "can a person live in your philosophy, and remain humanly alive?"
It is clear that Benjamin sought to suspend his subjectivity and let the fragmented material objects of contemporary history speak their ancient being beyond the everyday ways they are commonly comprehended—with a sort of social Heideggerian existentialism, which sought not for an authentic self in the face of vacuous everydayness, but for an authentic social history erupting out of the corrupt status quo. Walter Benjamin sought to be nothing less than a pivot for the critical awakening of history to itself; in order, it would seem, to transform it into something ultimately out of history as we know it. A tall order for a "mere" human; yet with reference to Benjamin's interest in the "microscopic":
Adorno's epigraph by Karl Kraus captures the flavor of Benjamin's project in a crystal clear light:
With these words, and linking the "day" with a microscopic look at contemporary history, that through the subject-less observer's Medusan look, is found frozen in time like an eternal "now," Walter Benjamin could have been seen as (1) messianically realizing the true essence of social history, or (2) caught in a self or world-referential paranoia almost beyond imagination. Maybe a little of both, seeing that Benjamin had both monumental insights, yet remained a troubled human being.
HIGHLIGHTS OF CRITICAL THEORY
In closing this chapter, I'll try to co-opt some Critical Theory insights, given my opinion that for many, the DNA divergence has gone fallow, and for the few where seeds have taken root, or may take root, spurring healthy intellectual growth, my few insights should not obstruct further Frankfurt School fertilization.
In sum, a central methodological, systematic, and structural element of critical theory is to be a-methodological, a-systematic, and a-structural: it might be defined in the negative. It questions all that is stable, the same, and repeating (the status quo, etc.) and everything that would attempt to keep things stable, the same and repeating (co-optation, the formulaic, etc.)—in contrast, it celebrates the subversive, changing, and differing. Again, this opposition between conservation and revolution has structural-epistemological roots in the contrast between a mental reason which would reveal the universal (unchanging), and a material reality which would be in constant motion: the revolution of the now, vs. the stasis of a static eternal history. Yet, although these thinkers seemed to prefer change to stasis (they tended to be more liberal than conservative, politically), they often recognized the impossibility of completely severing themselves from history: possibly a balance should be struck, but they saw history, especially the history of theory, as dominated by the pursuit of eternal stability, and a counter-movement seemed necessary in the face of the fascist seizures of centralized power seeking ego-controlled order in their time.
Benjamin, but especially Adorno were both thinkers that took "thinking outside the box" to an (anti) systematic extreme. Their sophisticated philosophical outlook was crucial to the formation of Derridian deconstruction, and AI researchers may find, that although difficult, the Frankfurt School work went to the very heart of social intelligence.