in my opinion the very worst philosophers of the twentieth century that anyone ever took seriously were the frankfurt school guys. they were both miserable marxists and miserable snobs, extreme egalitarians and extreme elitists: a particularly charming combination. look, being a marxist is pathetic enough, particularly for anyone calling himself a philosopher. but being a radical leftist revolutionary and also a sneering, pretentious fuckhead is justification for a sound thrashing. for whatever reason, people like that were very typical productions of the twentieth century, and they're still all over academia.
i want you to imagine what the arts of the 20th century would have looked like if they were doing what adorno thought they should do. you'd do better to have no art. also, i would say that if anti-capitalism leads you to sneer at, say, duke ellington or hank williams, on the grounds that people bought their records, then anti-capitalism should be blown to smithereens. rarely has anyone had worse taste that theodor adorno, or been so celebrated for it. but i'm too sophisto to get all 'dorkheimer' and 'adornob': i'll leave that to today's grad students.
