Adorno puts the matter clearly in one of his 1965 lectures that dealt with Negative Dialectics: “[P]hilosophy is the contradictory effort to say, through mediation and contextualization, what cannot be said.” The longing for the totally other fosters a situation in which the conceptual must constantly seek to grasp the non-conceptual. The connection is palpable between Adorno’s outlook and that of Beckett in The Unnamable (1953): “I can’t go on. I will go on.”
Resistance involves rejecting the ontology of false conditions without thinking it can be changed. The philosophical blends with the aesthetic and the religious as well. Hegel is turned not on his head, but inside out: the qualitative distinctions between the three moments of his Absolute Idea are abolished. There remains only reflection upon the indefinable and indeterminate longing for freedom that has been elicited by the reality that denies its realization. Herein is the last vestige of solidarity. The metacritique has no room for institutions or organizations capable of concretely fostering (or inhibiting) solidarity in a world dominated by the commodity form, bureaucratic hierarchy, and the culture industry.
Solidarity, like resistance, thus takes a new metaphysical form. The logic of historical materialism immanently insists upon such a change. Communism is dead, social democracy has been domesticated, and the culture industry has rendered it impossible to conceive of a transformative agent. Reality itself calls for privileging metaphysics over materialism. In Negative Dialectics, therefore, Adorno could write that “philosophy, which once seemed obsolete, lives on because the moment to realize it was missed.”
Chapter 8
From resignation to renewal
Critical theory was originally intended as an alternative to mainstream forms of both metaphysics and materialism. Its aim was to illuminate hidden sources of repression and neglected transformative possibilities. Following the outbreak of World War II, however, the Frankfurt School concluded that liberating alternatives had vanished. Critical theory awoke in Hegel’s night where all cows are black. Resistance took an increasingly existential form. It now rested on intensifying the non-identity between the individual and society. The “system” became the point of reference. Negation confronted the ontology of false conditions. Hints of utopia contested civilization. “He wants all or nothing,” Brecht once wrote, “and in response to this challenge the world usually answers: then better nothing.”
A critical theory of society
The Frankfurt School first achieved popularity in the United States by appealing to what Martin Jay, its first historian, termed “the generation of 1968.” Well into the 1980s, critical theory was still considered eccentric in mainstream academic circles and somewhat exotic even among progressive intellectuals. With the collapse of the New Left, however, the Frankfurt School became institutionalized within the academy. Critical legal studies, critical race theory, critical gender studies began interrogating prevailing paradigms and assumptions. As subaltern groups emerged from the shadows of public life, however, the integrated assault upon an integrated system of domination began to erode. New emphasis was placed on contesting master narratives, the established canons of the Western tradition, and even popular culture entered the mix. The critical theory of society, its coherence, was becoming imperiled. Its transformative purpose was taking increasingly arbitrary forms.
New proposals have not been forthcoming for dealing with imperialist exploits, economic contradictions, the state, mass media, and the character of resistance in modern society. The negation is casting a pall over critical theory. The intellectual heir of Hegel and Marx now lacks an understanding of power and, as a consequence, the ability to confront the imbalance of power. Correctives exist in some of the more neglected writings of the Frankfurt School.
Essays like “State Capitalism” (1941) by Friedrich Pollock provide a starting point. Its analysis of the “command economy” forces us to consider whether talk of the free market is anachronistic and whether old notions of nationalization are equivalent with socialism. “Confining Conditions and Revolutionary Breakthroughs” (1965) by Otto Kirchheimer warns of tendencies of the modern state to render emergency powers “normal.” Posthumously published essays like “A History of the Doctrine of Social Change” and “Theories of Social Change” by Herbert Marcuse and Franz Neumann speak to the presuppositions that a genuinely critical theory of society must confront
Contemporary philosophical and literary offshoots of critical theory usually treat power as an artificial social or linguistic construct. The accumulation process disappears, the system takes on a life of its own, and individuals are left to find a common basis for solidarity in notions of recognition or care that lack any institutional or organizational referent. Domination is thereby severed from exploitation and principle is divorced from interest. An alternative to the overtly metaphysical and subjective trends within critical theory is offered by Jürgen Habermas.
Communication is seen by him as inherently grounded in the open character of the discourse, the recognition of each participant as equal, and the willingness of each to change his mind when faced with a better argument, Communication, in short, does not require some kind of metaphysical ethic separate from practice. It harbors its own “universal pragmatics.” Or, to put it another way, communicative ethics preserves autonomy while fostering solidarity in the very desire to communicate. Those who deny the norms of this ethic, or who exercise power arbitrarily, deny the very means they use to persuade: they find themselves caught, philosophically speaking, in a “performative contradiction.”
But the metaphysical turn in critical theory has resisted—or, better, incorporated—Habermas’ challenge. Robert’s Rules of Order embodies similar principles. Whether this handbook for guiding public meetings is taken seriously by the participants, of course, is another matter. The practical contribution of the universal pragmatics is not self-evident. Communicative ethics allows liberals and rationalists to congratulate themselves whenever they avoid falling into a performative contradiction. Many of their political adversaries, however, privilege intuition and experience in evaluating truth claims, Others who are more extreme have no interest at all in truth claims. Most of these people would probably respond, when caught in a performative contradiction, so what?
Speaking truth to power presupposes the ability to render it visible—and concrete. The Authoritarian Personality (1950) renders an important service in this regard. Edited by Adorno, and various other collaborators, it notes psychological differences between individuals and calls for re-educating not merely the anti-Semite in particular but the parochial and bigoted personality in general. Using empirical techniques like the famous “f-scale” or “fascism scale,” its authors illuminate the reactionary character structure and castigate its effects. They emphasize how the authoritarian personality shows contempt for the outsider, the new, and the different. They highlight its penchant for violence, and they plead for policies fostering tolerance.
On first blush, of course, there is something strange about this coming from the inventor of negative dialectics. The study smacks of mass education and adaptation to establishmentarian standards. Potential now seemingly exists for intervening in what elsewhere is considered a seamless whole. But, then, there is the warning that the authoritarian and non-authoritarian personalities are different less in kind than in degree. The qualitative distinction between them appears more illusory than real. The authors vacillate between embracing reform and denying its utility.
In his Introduction to Sociology (2000), and other works, Adorno stated his opposition to civic passivity and his support for progressive reform. But the question of agency was left hanging in the abstract. He also never dealt with the impact of reform on the totally administered society or the ontology of false conditions. That Adorno should have undertaken a critique of the exchange relationship under capitalism does not change matters. The totally administered society and the genuine negativity it requires are both insulated from any commonly accep
ted notion of political action. In “Theory, Practice, and Moral Philosophy (2001),” therefore, Adorno can envision a new form of practice that “resists the call of practicality” and that, precisely because it rejects any instrumental usage, thereby “contains a practical element within itself.” Or, more simply, theory becomes practice—though it need contribute nothing with concrete implications for liberating society.
9. A new direction for critical theory finds its source in the famous inscription on the statue marking Karl Marx’s grave site in London: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it!”
Scrutiny is required of the metaphysical turn taken by critical theory along with categories like the totally administered society and the ontology of false conditions. The empirical claims of the Frankfurt School concerning the former are invalid and the philosophical reliance on the latter doesn’t help make them valid. Eliminating the proletariat as a revolutionary agent did not result in a totally administered society but rather in splits among the elite—or the ruling class—over particular social policies, cultural values, and institutional developments. These have very different effects upon working people and subaltern groups. Opposition still exists between what Marx called the political economy of capital and the political economy of labor.
Neglecting real ideological and material conflicts of interest in the name of an image like the totally administered society hinders the ability to interpret events in meaningful and innovative ways. More is involved than communicative misunderstanding or the imperiled life-world. Meaningful notions of solidarity refer to actual conflicts within society. Without privileging them, indeed, both resistance and domination lose their historical specificity and, hence, their concreteness. They become just another pair of words.
Alienation and reification once spoke to the experience of domination and the imperative of transformative practice. Now they mostly serve to excuse inaction. In order to make these concepts salient once again, in my opinion, it is important to distinguish between them. It is probably best to begin in the following way: Alienation was defined by the young Marx with an eye on overcoming the division of labor and reasserting human control over the production process.
In the twentieth century, however, alienation has taken on other connotations. Elusive and unyielding, it has become associated with feelings of guilt, fear, mortality, and meaninglessness. Utopia is the only response to alienation or, better, the existential problems that plague us and the anthropological foundations of our existence. Reification should, by contrast, be considered fungible—and the target for social action. It exhibits less the framework for advanced industrial society than the impact of its workings. Instrumental rationality is nothing more than a mathematical technique for dealing efficiently with scarcity. It can empower victims of pre-capitalist prejudices as easily as it can reduce the worker to a cost of production and human beings to disposable resources.
What counts is not the formal character of bureaucracy and instrumental rationality but rather the (often hidden) values and interests informing how they are employed. Critical theory should be scrutinizing the purposive ends or, better, the different priorities and interests embedded in the policies and institutions that are shaping our lives. Obsession with the formal character of instrumental rationality is itself an expression of reification that has had debilitating effects on the interpretation of science and its methods.
Critical theory originally confronted orthodox Marxism by severing the inquiry into society from the inquiry into nature. Treating instrumental rationality in terms of epistemological formalism, however, undermines that distinction. Sociological attempts to contextualize scientific theories and technological innovations are both legitimate and salient. It is another matter, however, for a normative theory to judge the internal workings of scientific theories and techniques. To put it crudely, critical theory can offer fruitful perspectives on the historical genesis and social uses of, say, the theory of relativity introduced by Albert Einstein. But it should not attempt to make philosophical judgments about its truth character.
Contesting reification does not obliterate the need for disciplinary expertise and the ability to know what one is talking about. Utopian visions of a new science, especially one that lacks criteria for verifying its truth claims, are also defined by the reification they oppose. Critical theory would be better served by building upon the notion of “falsifiability” that Sir Karl Popper introduced in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959). The spirited “positivism debate” of the 1960s between the Frankfurt School and its more scientifically inclined rivals treat this matter and others from a number of fascinating perspectives. Advocates of critical theory, however, usually tend to underestimate the methodological importance and practical implications of viewing scientific truth claims as provisional and open to revision in light of future research. Such a stance, indeed, fits neatly into the critical enterprise.
To be sure: scientific paradigms and their criteria for verifying truth claims will change down the line. Even “paradigm shifts” will take place. Thomas Kuhn suggested in his classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), however, that they will occur because new problems are encountered that the old scientific methods cannot adequately address—not because philosophers engage in some abstract indictment of science based on an inarticulate utopian vision.
Articulate utopian approaches, by contrast, might have something to offer. Without jettisoning the natural sciences, but while circumscribing their conceptual applicability, Ernst Bloch’s Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left (1949) offers an innovative cosmological view of nature predicated on a reinterpretation of Aristotle. Highlighting his neglected notions of potentiality and dynamism for understanding the life world, employing Avicenna and Averroes to juxtapose the living quality of nature (natura naturans) against its empirical expressions (natura naturata), this work generated a view of the ecosystem that would have profound significance for modern ecology and environmentalism.
Nature is seen by Bloch as irreducible to its empirical constituents, (which is precisely what capitalist rationality assumes), and as a life-sustaining element of humanity. Scientific rationality of the traditional sort has its place, but the cosmological element within nature sets boundaries for what instrumental rationality can ascertain and projects ethical priorities for its employment. The ecosystem becomes the target of cultivation and preservation. Recognizing the subject or life-sustaining quality of nature, which is hidden behind its objective manifestations, is the precondition for genuine radicalism and any meaningful notion of utopia. Whatever its problems, therefore, Bloch’s speculative inquiry into materialism has social implications: its critique presents a positive conceptual response to existing environmental assumptions that have had such devastating implications.
Engaging in critique need not require an anthropological break with reality. Norms are required in order to evaluate the alternatives on any given issue. But they hang in the abstract unless related to often conflicting interests and the ability to realize them. Power is an ineradicable element of modern society. It is neither an artificial construct nor an arbitrary determination of the will. Its mediations and determinations define the character of society and the political reaction to it. Freedom becomes, once again, the insight into necessity.
Franz Neumann alludes to these matters in his classic essays, “Approaches to the Study of Power (1950) and “The Concept of Freedom.” He notes that the issue for modern society is much less the curtailment of political power than its reasonable employment. Only by drawing this distinction is it possible to prevent the theory of reification from itself becoming reified. Critique begins with its commitment to freedom. For this to become concrete, however, theory needs to engage the matter of power. Just as institutions can retain too much power so is it possible for them to retain too little. Competing institutional visions will offer qualitatively different policy options. Criteria are necessary for distin
guishing between rational and irrational forms of authority and policy. A genuinely critical theory of society should provide them.
The politics of enlightenment
Enlightenment theory and practice focused upon curtailing the arbitrary exercise of institutional power, fostering pluralism, and enabling the exercise of individuality. Not the “Great Refusal” but this complex of ethical and political themes informed the great progressive movements of the past. That was the case with the socialist labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s liberation movement, the anti-communist uprisings in Eastern Europe, and the most democratic and egalitarian trends within world religions and the once colonized world. The implication is clear: invigorating the transformative purpose of critical theory calls for revising its primarily negative view of the enlightenment legacy.
Walter Benjamin’s German People (1933) perhaps provides a place to begin. It is composed of letters that he collected over the years. They were written not by famous people but rather by their friends, relatives, or associates. These were everyday people inspired by enlightenment ideals like Kant’s brother or Goethe’s close friend. This little book rebukes the common wisdom. The Enlightenment extended beyond a small circle of intellectuals. Its political values and cultural concerns spoke to those who sought a more decent and liberal world.
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