I admit that evrything I know about Adorno, more or less, comes from an extremely cursory reading of the first part of Dialectic of the Enlightenment and the essays in this book (oddly the table of contents omits an essay that appears in my edition, called "Form and 'the new' in Adorno's Vers une musique informelle", before the final essay), but, based on that extremely limited background, I can't really understand why anyone would find his writing on art of continued interest, because they just seem plain nutty. To me.
Also, the band Ahleuchatistas has an album called On the Culture Industry which is quite good.
Of course this would be a perfect opportunity for me to claim that you're just editing my comments to make me look bad, but I'm tired enough that I probably just messed up my own self. Ah well.
Actually I did spend undergrad steeping in all things Frankfurt School. There's one Adorno essay where he writes about actually cringing at even the sound of the word "jazz". Very funny, but not intentionally so. I think in that one he also compares dancing jitterbug to the jerking movements of advanced stage syphilitics or something like that. Damn but that man was white.
Back when I lived in Austin, I occasionally saw "I Heart Adorno" bumperstickers, which is also hilarious.
Despite his nuttiness, though, I have a strange soft spot for Adorno. And I still like Walter Benjamin very much, although there's much I disagree with him about. But then I wouldn't call Benjamin a full-fledged member of the Frankfurt school anyway.
Ah, bullshit. I first discovered Adorno on the sleeve of the Mekons' So Good It Hurts. Minima Moralia is a fascinating book (and from what I hear, one of the few that wasn't butchered in translation).
Domination delegates the physical violence on which it rests to the dominated, don't you think that's insightful? And don't you think Dispelling rationalizations becomes itself rationalization is a great account of this?
b-wo, I would offer you as an out that the antecedent of "they" is "essays," but since the essays are by Geuss that would destroy the sense of your passage. Your choice--grammar or sense?
I admit that evrything I know about Adorno, more or less, comes from an extremely cursory reading of the first part of Dialectic of the Enlightenment and the essays in this book (oddly the table of contents omits an essay that appears in my edition, called "Form and 'the new' in Adorno's Vers une musique informelle", before the final essay), but, based on that extremely limited background, I can't really understand why anyone would find his writing on art of continued interest, because they just seem plain nutty. To me.
Also, the band Ahleuchatistas has an album called On the Culture Industry which is quite good.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-26-05 5:43 PM
can't really understand why anyone would find his writing on art of continued interest, because they just seem plain nutty
Answers itself, don't it?
Not only did you typo "everything," but in that quoted part, you have a pronoun mismatch, unless you're going to claim that that's just another typo.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02-26-05 5:49 PM
Of course this would be a perfect opportunity for me to claim that you're just editing my comments to make me look bad, but I'm tired enough that I probably just messed up my own self. Ah well.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-26-05 5:56 PM
Actually I did spend undergrad steeping in all things Frankfurt School. There's one Adorno essay where he writes about actually cringing at even the sound of the word "jazz". Very funny, but not intentionally so. I think in that one he also compares dancing jitterbug to the jerking movements of advanced stage syphilitics or something like that. Damn but that man was white.
Back when I lived in Austin, I occasionally saw "I Heart Adorno" bumperstickers, which is also hilarious.
Despite his nuttiness, though, I have a strange soft spot for Adorno. And I still like Walter Benjamin very much, although there's much I disagree with him about. But then I wouldn't call Benjamin a full-fledged member of the Frankfurt school anyway.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 02-27-05 6:15 AM
The punks never read Adorno
Ah, bullshit. I first discovered Adorno on the sleeve of the Mekons' So Good It Hurts. Minima Moralia is a fascinating book (and from what I hear, one of the few that wasn't butchered in translation).
Domination delegates the physical violence on which it rests to the dominated, don't you think that's insightful? And don't you think Dispelling rationalizations becomes itself rationalization is a great account of this?
b-wo, I would offer you as an out that the antecedent of "they" is "essays," but since the essays are by Geuss that would destroy the sense of your passage. Your choice--grammar or sense?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-28-05 8:22 AM