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July 29, 2004
Gary,
Thanks for the comments so far. I really appreciate them.
Where to begin?
The Quotation about the Dialectic Of Enlightenment: I don’t know what the source is but it is wrong. The idea of a more substantive reason comes from Habermas – and perhaps Horkheimer but I don’t know his thought well enough – but definitely not from Adorno. The dialectic of enlightenment cannot be overcome by perfecting enlightenment because, in essence, it has already been perfected. Auschwitz is the perfection of enlightenment – that’s the point. Negative dialectics is not superior reason. It is the negative moment of enlightenment turned against itself.
But this is not an end in itself for Adorno. Negative dialectics needs to be overcome or it turns into a metaphysics, into another binding universal, another immanence, another myth. Negative dialectics is an historical curse, a kind of false teeth, as Canetti describes it.
One way of seeing this is as an attempt to get around the problem of identity, the negation of the negation. Negative dialectics is negation without identity. From this perspective Adorno is close to Deleuze. In fact, I’ve recently come to think that Deleuze and Adorno are much closer than is commonly recognised. They are both trying to get around the negation of the negation.
Dialectics cannot lead to its own dissolution but if that is all that we can do then it must contribute in some way to its overcoming. Adorno certainly thinks in this way. We know how it is overcome – through laughter. Through laughter enlightenment finally recognises itself for what it is and gives up its destructive urge. The question is, how do we come to see the joke through negative dialectics? Once again, Adorno thinks that dialectics, squarely faced, reflects the mirror image of its opposite, which is not identity but affinity.
For Adorno, this process is redemptive. We can’t have a positive image of a better world that we pursue, but in persistent critique we get a kind of negative reflection of that nebulous world that is always there in our longing.
In my view, it’s not a question of Adorno being more constrained and narrow than Heidegger. This treats philosophy like a bag of tricks – Heidegger is better because he has more applications, that sort of thing. It’s about the truth, and the truth is a negative truth. It lies in the unrest that negative dialectics promotes, to paraphrase Bataille, in a continual state of dissatisfaction with all that is, with everything that comes to pass.
As contingent beings, we must interact with all of the institutions that are subject to radical critique by Adorno. That’s just the way it is. ‘In order to exist human beings enter into definite relations with other human beings…’ I can’t keep away from the universities just because after Auschwitz all institutions that reconstituted themselves untransformed are garbage. If that’s the way it is I just have to play on the garbage heap. But I don’t think anyone should imagine that they will find an institution that isn’t garbage. Let’s be realistic!
I guess what I’m trying to say is that we do enter into our social institutions and we conduct ourselves ethically in relation to these institutions. We even engage in activities aimed at their betterment. I carry on as if the idea of the university really was true, although my view of the institution is essentially the same as Adorno’s. With the very limited access I have to students, I try to conduct myself as a teacher and do a good deal of unpaid work in upholding my self-imposed professional obligations. You are doing something similar in another realm. You are conducting yourself as if the institution really did what it pretended to do. The point is, as well as doing this, we must remain negative, for ever negative until – if we’re lucky – laughter intervenes.
Here’s hoping. Perhaps this is what Karen Blixen means when she says that God loves a joke.
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Shouldn't we heed Adorno's - and Horkheimer's - call to rescue mimesis? Mimesis allows solidarity, which dispels the attitude of the lone academic, and allows a space for socioethics - a resemantization of the sociocultural worldview.