The great philosoper, writer, composer, sociologist and musicologist Theodor W. Adorno was born in Frankfurt am Main on September 11, 1903. It is an irony of history that we mark the anniversary of his birth on a day that carries so much ominous meaning for Americans. In many ways, Adorno anticipated both the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the military response of the US government that culminated in the unilateral invasion of a country not involved in the attacks. Dialectic of the Enlightment follows the historical progess of instrumental reason from a foundation of enlightment to a tool for domination and barbarism. His research in the Authoritarian Personality augments Fromm’s Escape from Freedom gives us insight to today on the willingness of so many citizens to relinquish their democratic freedoms. His critique of mass culture illuminates how culture has been commoditized and has become a tool of domination and reification of human consciousness.
We shudder at the brutalization of life, but lacking any objectively binding morality we are forced at every step into actions and words, into calculations that are by humane standards barbaric, and even by the dubious values of good society, tactless. ( T.W. Adorno Minima Moralia. Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben: 1950
Adorno on the Web: The complete text in English of Enlightenment as Mass Deception (1944) can be found here.
