the problem with my little next book project of trying to figure out how or why marxism keeps resurging in the high-end intellectual world, is that then you have to read the texts, and in general the last thing you want to do is read something written by a marxist. anyway, i'm still inching through horkheimer and adorno's dialectic of enlightenment. here's a nice bit from the 1944 preface:
The loyal son of modern civilization's fear of departing from the facts, which even in their perception are turned into cliches by the prevailing usages in science, business, and politics, is exactly the same as the fear of social deviation.
they are just flat telling you that they have overcome their fear of departing from the facts; a bold anti-bourgeois strike (by bourgeois people, mind). we are free of truth, which is an anachronistic bourgeois disaster. now we are free (from reality entirely)! they proceed to vividly demonstrate this freedom in the rest of the book.
of course every moment in adorno reeks of aesthetic snobbery; want 20 quick examples? let's skip it until pressed. like i really cannot actually understand how the structure is supposed to fit together or where the conclusions, or even the assumptions are coming from. the whole authorship is like some crazy self-devouring artifact.
i actually think the argument is this: capitalism has led to radio, jazz music, the hard-boiled detective story. if not for their false consciousness, the proletariat would be listening to schoenberg and shostakovich all day. i'll just say, when you come to free us, we'll be shooting back. i definitely like my chances against theodor & co. meanwhile, schoenberg and shostakovich are haut bourgeois darlings; the people at the concerts are the best-dressed people in paris; no proletarian ever went anywhere near that shit. i must be missing something? how did you get here?
