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/ 13
NOTES
1 @
LITERATURE
Volume One
ee
A et ol Re ed ein
vers age
seman ee THEODOR W. ADORNO
epee emer
ecient rep sy ROLF THDEMANN
ee a
Riad Wain The lye Corry A Cited Rar
Pere VcslNaqut ono Mery
isc Le Galt Hyon My
Jaen Nat Ws Won
ee
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
i ml an)
The Essay as Form
Devine os what illite, othe ight
(Got, Pao
2 in Germany the esis con
ame an hybrid, that he Form
aso compelling tation, tht is emphasc demands are met only
Sntermitenly—all this hasbeen si and censure, often enough, “The
cosy foe has aot et, today, travelled the rao independence which
Jt ster, poetey, covered long ago; the road of development from =
primitive, untreated unity with scene, ethics, and art.”" But
sitherdiscmfort with thie station nor cineomfor with the mentality
that rai tit by facing off art ts preserve for irtionality, eating
knowadge with organized scene, an exladinganthing tit does nt
fit chat antithesis ao impure, has changed anything in the prejudice
cusomary her in Germany. Even today to prise someone a an rein
isenough to kop him out of acacia, Despite the teling insights that
Simmel ad the young Lukle, Keser and Benjamin estrus tothe
‘say 25 speculation on specie, culturally pre-formed objec, the ca
Gemic guild accepts plosphy only what i clothed ia the digi of
‘the univers and th enduring —and today perhaps the orgiary. Ie ges
‘volved with paticlar eularalareifits only othe eater to which ey
aa be used to exemplify univera categories, orto the exten to which
the particule becomes trasparent whe seco in terms of them. The
stubbornnes with which ths acer survives would be as puzaing #8
the emotion tached t eft were not aby motives range han the
nfl memory ofthe lace of culation as culture in whi he ome
1 lara practically unknown. In Germany the es arouses esisace
‘because it evokes inlet! Freedom: Since the failure of an Ealighte
ment tha has been lukewarm since Lebais, even under presene-day condions of formal freedom, that igellectalfretdom tas never quite
Grveloped but ba always been ready to prelim its subordination to
‘ermal authorities a eal conere. Tae esay, however, docs not et
{i domain be preserbed fori Toaead of accomplishing something
‘ienaly or creating something areca, its efforts eect the lei-
fore of eile person who has no ques abou taking his inspiration
From what others have done before him. Te esa reflects whats loved
tnd lated insead of prsating the iad as cretion ex mile on the
trode of an unesrainad work ethic. Lack aa ply ar essential ot It
Seve aot with Adam and Eve bat with what tats 0 alk about it ays
Scns scars t tin that content and stope when Fee Sished rather
than when there i ating my. Hace iscsi eval endeavor.
Its concep are no derived from fs priniple, nor do they ott
‘ecome ultimate. principles. It interpreatons are aot phialogially
efitive and consensus in priciple they are ove-intrpretations—
cording tothe mechanized verdict ofthe vigilant nll chat hires oxt
fo supiiy as watchdog agus the mind. Out of far of eegaiviy,
the subjects efforts to peetate what hides behind the Fea under the
ume ofcbjectivity ae branded a8 ireevant. I's muck simpler than
thats we are ol. The person who interprets instead of accepting what =
[Bea and clsifving itis tmatked with the yellow star of one who
qusnders his inteligence in impotent speculation, reading things in
‘there Shere s nothing to interpret. A man with his fer onthe ground
Gr ran mith his ead in the cloude-—shose ae the alternatives. But
Teting oneself be terrorized by the prokibiton agin ying more than
sras ment eight then and there means complying with the fale concep
‘ons tatpeople and things hcbor concerning themselves. Lterprection
‘hen besmes nothing but removing an ovter shell tnd what the author
Srened ta, or possibly the individual peycholgical impulses to wich
Te phenomenon pints But since ie i xarely posible to determine
Ira someone may have thought or Felt a any particular point, nothing
{sental is ta be guned through such insights, The author’ impulses are
Cingised in the objective bance they mie hold of. In order t be
Aiclowd, however, the objective wealth of meanings eocapalated in
very intletual phenomenon demands of che recipient the same spon-
taney of subjective fntgy tht is castigated inthe mame of ebjcive
dlscpline, Nothing can be itepreted out of something that not
Snterpreted into it tthe sme time. The criteria for such interpretation
se is compatibility with the text and with itself and its power to give
s
oie to the elements ofthe object in conjunction with one another. In
‘his, the esey has something like an aesthetic sstonomy thi i eal
sceused of being simpy derived from art, although ti distinguished
from at by its medium, concepts, and by is claim to rath devoid of
sestbetc semblance. Lukdes fled to recognize this when he eld the
‘ay an at form in the lever to Leo Popper tat invoduces Soul and
Form. But the postive maxim cong which whats writen bout
{ar may in no way ay cls toate presentation that iy autonomy of
form, is no beter. Here a dhewbere, she general poivis tendency 0
set every possble objex, at an abject of research, ia stark oppoiion |
the subject, doesnot go beyond the mere separation of form and content
For one can haraly speak of aestctiematers unset, dewd oF
resemblance to the ubjest matter, without fling into phils and
Tesng touch with the objec priori, In posvie practic, the conten,
once fred onthe model ofthe procs seatece supposed tobe net
sith respect tots preston, which supposed o be conventional and
Tot determined bythe subject. To the asin of sient puriam, every
Cepresive impale in the presentation jeoandies an objectivity tht
Supposedly laps forth when the subject hasbeen removed. Ie thereby |
Jeopardizcs the authenticity of the cbjct, which i all the beter exab
Tied the ee eles on support fom he frm, despite the fc that he
criterion of form ie whether i delivers the object pare and. without
dmicre, Ine llergyt forms ae mere ccidestal atrbtes, the piri
of wence and eholarsip [Wiseecha] comes to resemble that of eg
ogmatom. Potvin’ ierxponibly sloppy language facies that i
documents esponsibility ini objet, std reflection on intelectual mat
ters becomes the privilege ofthe minds,
‘None of thes offipring of reentment ae pure flithond, I the ey
eines wo begin by driving ealtural works from something underying
ther it embrols ite all tuo eagery ia the clr] enerprie promot
ing the prominence, succes, and prestige of marketable products. ie
tionlzed bigrapite ad all the elated commercial writing tht depend
fon them are ot mere prducs of degeneration they are permanent
temptation fora form whose supciousness of fale profanity does ao
protec it rom turning into slick superfciity. This an be we even in
‘Suine-Beuve, fom whom the geae ofthe moder es derives. In
product ie Herbere Euleaberg’s biographical shoves, the German
Prototype of Hood of cultural tas aad down to flim sboat Rem
‘rand Toulouse Laure and the Bible, this involvement has promoted ‘
the neutalintion of euhural works to commadtin,« proces that in
rece intellectual history has iresieibly taken hold of what the Ensern
bo ignominiounly cals “the heritage.” The process i perhapr moe
obvious in Stefan Zweig, stho produced sever] sophie esa in
‘is youth ac ended up descending to the payhology of the crestive
Sndividal in his book on Bala. This kind of writing doesnot erticiae
stetractBundamental concept, aconeeptunl dats, er habit lich,
instead, it presupposes them, implicily but bythe same token with all
the more eamplity. The refuse of interpretive pychlogy i used with
rent categories from the Wetmchonng of the cultural phlisine,
categories like "personaly" or “the ievaonl.” Suck iy confuse
‘hemscies with the sme feilton with which the enemies of the exy
form confuse it, Foribly separated fom the discipline of scalemie
unfreedom, itll freedom itself becomes unfree and serves the
secaly preformed neds of ts clientele. respon, sel an sapect
‘all rth that does at exh elf in responsi fo theses que,
then justin itl tothe nade of etablished consioumess, bad ny
are jist a5 conformist at bad diseratins. Responsibility, however,
respects not only authorise and commis, bt al the object al.
‘The emy form, however, ber some responsibility fr the Fact tht
the bad esay tells stories abou peopl instead of elucidating the mater at
hand, The separntion of scene and scholarship from att irreversible
Only the naive of the manufacturer of leratre takes a aie of i
he considers himself at Jen an organizational genius aod griods good
swore of art down into bad one. With the objection ofthe world in
the coure of pogreive demythologization, arta science have sep
rtd. A consoutne for which inution and conep, image and ign
‘would be one and the ime—if sich » conciousness ever exited
ana be magically restored, adits rettation woul onsute a regres
sion to chaos. Such a consiosnes is conceivable only the completion
tf the proces of mediation, ax utopia, conceived by the idealist piles
hers sine Kant ander the mame of nelle Anchovon, intellectual
Innuition, something that broke down whenever atl keowledge ap-
pled ti Wherever philsophy imagines that by boring from
lteriure it can abolish ‘biscfed thought and it history wha is
‘commonly termed the anthes of subject and bjeet—and even hopes
that Being self will speak, in = pe concocted of Parenides ad
ungnickl, je sar w turn into a washed-out clare babble, With =
Penn cunning tit jsties self ab primordial, refs w honor
the obligations ofc ‘ought © which, however, it had sub
seriad then i sed concept in its proposisons end judgments. At the
‘ame tim ts aexhetc lement consis merely of watered-down, second
hand reminiscences of Holderln or Expressionism, o- perhaps Jageu-
i, becuse m9 thooght can etre as absolutely and blindly to
Janguage athe notion of a primordial uterane would lead ut believe.
From the violence that image and concept thereby do to one another
springs the jagon of sthenicy, in which words vibrate with mason
ile keeping quiet about what bas moved them. Language’ ambitious
Tranmendence of mening ends up ina meaninglanaes which can be
sly zal upon by 2 potvim to which one ele superior ope plays
ito the hands of positivism through the very epeningleanese it crit
‘Sams, 4 meaninglesnes which one shares by adopting i tkens. Under
the apal of such developments, language comes, where tall ars to
fr in acholarahip and scence, co ranmble the haadirafts, and the
Tevearcher who reas lnguage altogether and, instead of degrading
Innguage to 5 mere parsphrae of his numbers ues tbls that nual
fey acknowledge the reifcaton of concournes, i the one who Ser
‘onststes,negrtiey, fathflnes to the sete. In hin charts he Ss
something like 2 form forthe efition without splogeic borowing
from art. To be sare, art hat alwya been so intertwined with the
onsinantteodeaces of elighteament that thas made use of scien
Sand scholarly Sndings in its techniques since casi antiquity. But
‘quantity Besomes quay. IFteshniqae i made abvolte inthe work oF
‘rf construction becomes tal and eradicate expression, ss poste
Sod its motivating Force if art thas claims to be diet sientfc know
ge and correct by sens standards itis aaconing a patie
‘manipulation of materials ar devoid of meaning as aly the "Sey"
[Being] ofthe philosophy separtments ca be. Tt fratereizing with
reieation —agnnst which it as been znd ail the function of whats
functions, of rt, to prote, however mute and eifed hat protesx
‘lf ay be
‘But although art and science became separate the couse of history,
the appestion berweea them should not be hypostatized. Aversion an
‘nachronisi confiton ofthe two doesnot reader a compartmentalize
Cure sicrosnc, Fr all their necniy, those compartments represent
Insiuional confirmation of te renunciation ofthe whole truth, The
ideals of purity aod tides that ae common tothe eterprine of =
‘veritable piloeopy vere i tere valen an airtight and throughly ’
organized scene, and an aconceptalinutive at, eat the marks oft
reprenive order. Acerfete of competency is required ofthe mind s9
that it will noe wanegress upoe offical culture by crossing cltrally
confirmed boundary lines. Presupposed in this isthe notion chat all
Irnowledge can poeaally be convered to sieace. The epistemologes
that disingush prescieac fom scenic consciousness have one snd
Il conceived the distinction sll a one of degree. The at tit has
gone oo farther thin the mere sturance of eis convert, without
Tiving conciousness ever in actuality ving been transformed ito si-
vie omciouness, pointe up the preariumes ofthe ranion, ¢
(ualtatvecffeence, The simples reletion onthe life of coscousess
‘Poul reach us eo what a slight exentimsghts, which ae by no means
ebitrary hunches, can be fully captared within he net of sence. The
ttorkof Marce! Prost, which no more lacking ina sient postive
{lemet than Bergeon’ san tempt to expres necemary snd compelling
fosihts into human beings and social reltons thet are not madly
secommodred within seience and scholarship, despite the fc tht their
Chim to objectivity 8 neither diminished nor abandoned toa vague
pusibly, The measure of such objectivity in not the veriation of
sertios through repeated tezing but rater indvial human experi=
face, maintained through hope and disilusonment, Such experience
throws ifs obreratons ito rele through confirmation or refutation in
the proces of realetion. But its individually symthesized unity, in
‘which the whole neverthles appears, cannot be distributed and reate-
{ott under the spate psoas and apparetuses of pycholgy and
‘ecilogy. Under the presure of the sine spirit andi deniers,
which are ubigutous, in tet frm, even inthe att, Pou tried,
‘rough a techaigue elf modeled onthe riences, a kindof experimen:
‘al method, to salvage, or prbaperevore, wha uscd te thought of —
inthe diye of bourgcis individualism, whe individual conscioasoess
sill had confidence in ie and was ot intimidated by ongennational
Censorsip-—at the knowledge of & man of experience like the now
cin homme de etre, whom Prout conjures up 2 the highest form of
‘he detante, Ie would aot have occured to anyone to dismiss what such
man of experince had to say a insignificant, arbitrary, and etna
fon the grounds thar it was only his owa and could bat simply be
(generalized in sient fchion. Tote of hi dings that lip through
the meshes of science most certinly elude cence self. As Green
‘chef, iterally the science of mind, sient scholarship fils to deliver
C
‘nha it promises the mind: illuminate ts work fom the inside. The
Young writer who wanteto learn what a work of arte, what lingusic
Form, srhese quality, and eveaaeshesc technique ae at college will,
sully lara abot ther oly haphazardly, ora best recive information|
taken readymade fom whatever philosophy is in vogue and more oles
‘bitrarly applied to the content of the works in question. But i he tare
to philosophies ashes he is besiged mith sbaract propositions thet
te oot relted to the works he wants to understand an do no in fact,
‘present the content hei groping toward. The division of labor in the
‘amor matty, the intellectual world, between at on the one hand and
‘cince and scholarship oo the other, however, isnot wey responsible
forall hat it line of demareation cannot be set aside through goodwill
snd comprehensive plnning. Rather, ao itll irevorbly madeled
fon the domination of nature snd material production abandons the real
Tection of the sage it has overcome, 4 stage har promises a futre one,
(he ranacendece of rigid relations of produstion; and this ripples
‘ts apis apponch preiely when it comes to it specie abject,
Init celaionship to en procedre and its philsopicl ground
ing ab mated, the esa, i accordance with idea, draws the fllest
conclusions from the ertgue of sytem. Even empiricist theories, which
Ne priority to experience ht i open-ended and cannot be eticputed,
1 opposed to Sued conceptual ordering, remsinsyatematic im a hey
dal with preconditions for knowlege that are conceived s more a es
onsat end develop them in as homogeneous contexts posible, Since
‘Bacon —himself an essayist empiricism has been 25 mucha "metho
se rstionalism, In the rai of thoughts virwally the ema alne tha
de succenilly ried doubts aboct the absolute privilege of method.
‘The emay allows forthe concioument of onidenty, without expressing
it diorys iis radical in i ron-radicainm, ia efaining Fom ay
reduction to principle, in it scentuaton of he partial agaist the tl,
ints fragmentary characte.
‘Perhaps the great Siar de Motige fl somthing tke his when be
ive he writings the wonderfully segs a pte of "Eaay.” The
‘inp mole fhe word tan acroan courte. Te ey iis
Ihr owa prod hops which sri ed hist Bebeve th Be bs
come oto the ulate: he hat afer al, oo moe to offer tha
‘plato of te poems of thers, or t bao his oe ies, But he
itnily nape Hil oth ltt the eee rales of te ‘pon profound work of he intl in fice of Heard eve np
‘with ene men.
“The esay dors aot play by the rues of organized wince and theory,
cording to which, in Since’ formulation, the order of tings i he
Same athe order of des. Because the urea order of concep nit
‘auivalent to what exis, the enay doce aot am at a cloved deductive or
inductive structure. I particular, it rebels against the doctrine, deeply
rooted since Paw, that what is transient and ephemeral is unworthy of
plilosphy—shar old injustice done to the transtory, wheehy it i
fondemaed agen inthe concept. The ey recs From the violence in
‘he dogs scording to which thereat ofthe proces of aban, the
concept, which, in contrast to the iciviual it grape i temporally
Javariant should be granted ontological dignity. The filly that the
‘nd dear, the oder OF dss, isthe rds rerum, the order o things is
founded on se imputation of immediacy to something mediated. Ju as
something tha io merely factual canoe be cnseved without a concept,
because to thik it always already to conceive it, 20 too the purest
concep cannot be thought except in relation to fatty Even the con
structs of fatsy, presumably Free of time and space, refer if deriva.
tively, to individu existence, “This is why the exay refuses to be
jimidted by the depraved profundity according to which truth apd
history ar incompatible and oppose to one another. If truth hs in fet
2 temporal core, then the fall historical content becomes an itegral
‘moment in it the a posteriori becomes thea prior concretely aad aot
‘merely in general, at Fite and his followers chimed. The relationship
to experience —and the ey invents experience with ax mich bance
1 tional theory does mere categores—is the reatinship to all of
history. Merely individual experience, which consciousness takes a its
int of departure, since it is what is closet i ie mediated by
the overafching experienc of historia! humankind. The notin th the
later i minted and one’s own experience nmedined is mere wl
deception on the pare ofan individatic society and ideology. Hence
the emay challenges the notion that what hasbeen peadced sorely
Is nota it objec of theory. The disincion between 4 prima pila,
! Sst philrophy, and a mere philwopy of cule tat wool! presi.
pose that Srst philsophy and bud upon it—the distinction ued at a
‘thoreticl rationalization fo the abo on the ey ——cannot be salvage,
‘An intelectual mosis operendi that honors the division between the
temporal and the atemporal a though i¢ were canonical oe ite author
iy. Higher levels of abatracion inven thought with either greater
‘ancity nor metaphysical substance; onthe contrary, the later tends fo
eapoite withthe ance ofsbaraction, snd the ea reso compen=|
ste for tome ofthat The customary objection that the es is ragmen-
tary and contingent itself postulates that tality given, and with the
identity of sues and objec, and ama though one were in posesion
ofthe whole. The ey, homever, doce ot ryt eek the eral in the
transient and dil it ous i tries to render the transient roa.
weakness bens witness the very onideniy it had to express. It lo
testifies fo at ese of inteation over abet and thereby tothe stop
‘which is locke by the partion ofthe world into the cteral and the
transient. Inthe emphatic esay thought dives self of the traitonal
iden of rth
Tn doings it lo suspends the erations concept of method. Though’
depth depends on how deeply it penetrates its ject, not on the exe ©
svhich it reduces ito somthing ele, The cay gives this polemical
‘urn by dealing with objects thet would be omidered derivative, without
‘elf pursing their limite derivation. It thinks conjointly aad in
Freadom about things tat mec ns fresy chosen objet, Te dos ot
inst on somthing beyond meditions—and thse ae the hisorcal
‘medion in which the whole ot is sedimented —but eck the tah
content in its objects, il inherently historical, It doesnot sek any
Primordial given, thos siting a scialinl [eergualchater) society
that, becuse it dave aot tolerate anything that dow oot bear i tmp,
tolerates leet of all anything that semis it ofits own iq, amd
inevitably cites idzolopial complement the very nature pins
has completely eliminated. The esy quily puts an end eo the isin
that thought could break cu of the sphere ofthe, culture, 20d move
into that of phys, ature. Splloound by what is fied apd acknowledge
to be derivative, by ari, it honors nate by confirming tha tno
longer exists for human beings. Is alexaadrinism ia response tthe fact,
that by thee very essence, ies and nightngales—where the wives
et has permite them to survive—make os believe tat life is il
Alive. The esay aundoas the royal oad tthe origins, which lads only
‘o what in moet dervaive—Being, the idelogy that duplicates wht
slready exit, bt the idea of immediacy, an ides posted inthe meaning
of meiation bel, doe net appear completely. For the easy all levels
‘of meintion are immedite unt bgias ore. Just athe ey ects primordia given, 2 it eject dain oft
concept. Philoopy has aviv a a throughgoing etique of def-
tion fram the mont divergent perspectives—is Kanty ia Hegel, in
[Nitache, But scence har never adoped tis eriqu, Wheres the
movement tht begins with Kant, a movement agunst the scholastic
Fesidus in modern thought, replaces verbal deiitons with an gader=
‘anding of coneegts im terms of the process through which they are
produced the incvidual science, in order t prevent the security of
their operations from being diurbed, sll iasist on the pre-
