September 06, 2005
Adorno: the end of ethical life
I've been watching television images of a flooded New Orleans. Large parts of it look like as if it is a banana republic in the Third World. Here a public ethical life whose elements make us ethical subjects has broken down, and everyday life has become a Hobbesian state of nature.
Swat teams are invading their own city and they having to fight to regain control of the hospitals. The state could not proceeed with the rescue until the city had been secured.
Not even the Adorno retreat to the deformed personal or intimate sphere is possible in many parts of the city. That too has disintegrated.
New Orleans highlights the truth of Adorno's argument about the rationality deficit in our ethical life.
Where to from there?
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