"Modernity is a qualitative, not a chronological, category."
#218
"Today it is seen as arrogant, alien and improper to engage
in private activity without any evident ulterior motive.
Not to be 'after' something is almost suspect."
#23-24
"Because thought has by now been perverted
into the solving of assigned problems,
even what is not assigned
is processed like a problem."
#196
Theodor Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969)
from Minima Moralia
Reflections from the damaged life
Part One
1944
Saturday, October 14, 2006
not news
"...and soon there is no relationship which is not seen in terms of other relationships, no impulse which is not subjected to prior censorship, in order not to deviate from approval. The concept of relationships, a category of mediation and circulation, never prospered best in the actual circulation-sphere, in the market, but in closed, monopoly-like hierarchies. Now that the entire society is becoming hierarchal, opaque relationships adhere everywhere, wherever there was still the appearance [Schein] of freedom.
...
Myriads of people make their living out of a condition, which follows the liquidation of occupations. These are the nice people, the popular ones, who are friends with all, the just ones, who excuse every sort of meanness as “human” ...and incorruptibly defame every non-normalized impulse as “sentimental” ....
They are indispensable thanks to their knowledge of all the channels and back doors of power, they guess its most secret judgments and live off the dexterous communication of such. They are to be found in all political camps, even there, where the rejection of the system is taken for granted and for that reason a lax and cunning conformism of its own has developed. Often they win over people through a certain benevolence, through the sympathetic sharing of the life of others: selflessness as speculation. They are clever, witty, sensible and flexible;
...
They are ready for anything, even love, yet always faithlessly. They betray not from instinctual drives, but from principle: they value even themselves as a profit, which they do not wish to share with anyone else. They are bound to the Spirit [Geist] with affinity and hate: they are a temptation for the thoughtful, but also their worst enemies. For they are the ones who subtly apprehend and despoil the last hiding-places of resistance, the hours which remain free from the demands of the machinery. Their belated individualism poisons what still remains of the individuated ....
#3
Theodor Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969)
from Minima Moralia
Reflections from the damaged life
Part One
1944
...
Myriads of people make their living out of a condition, which follows the liquidation of occupations. These are the nice people, the popular ones, who are friends with all, the just ones, who excuse every sort of meanness as “human” ...and incorruptibly defame every non-normalized impulse as “sentimental” ....
They are indispensable thanks to their knowledge of all the channels and back doors of power, they guess its most secret judgments and live off the dexterous communication of such. They are to be found in all political camps, even there, where the rejection of the system is taken for granted and for that reason a lax and cunning conformism of its own has developed. Often they win over people through a certain benevolence, through the sympathetic sharing of the life of others: selflessness as speculation. They are clever, witty, sensible and flexible;
...
They are ready for anything, even love, yet always faithlessly. They betray not from instinctual drives, but from principle: they value even themselves as a profit, which they do not wish to share with anyone else. They are bound to the Spirit [Geist] with affinity and hate: they are a temptation for the thoughtful, but also their worst enemies. For they are the ones who subtly apprehend and despoil the last hiding-places of resistance, the hours which remain free from the demands of the machinery. Their belated individualism poisons what still remains of the individuated ....
#3
Theodor Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969)
from Minima Moralia
Reflections from the damaged life
Part One
1944
not news
"Insane sects grow with the same rhythm as big organizations.
It is the rhythm of total destruction."
#163
from Minima Moralia
in Reflections from the damaged life
---Theodor Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969)
It is the rhythm of total destruction."
#163
from Minima Moralia
in Reflections from the damaged life
---Theodor Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969)
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