Remembering Adorno John Abromeit In his sociology of religion, but also in his analyses of table removed and the war monument was replaced bureaucracy in modern societies, Max Weber analysed by an artistic memorial by the Russian artist Vadim the process by which ideas that aim for qualitative Zakharov in the form of a large desk with several of change, for a transvaluation of values, are worn down Adornoʼs principal works on top of it. in the historical process, codified and routinized by The city of Frankfurt and the federal state of interpreters, gradually brought back into line with Hesse have been reluctant to support nonconformist the status quo. Building upon Georg Lukácsʼs early cultural causes in the past. The budget of the Frankfurt analyses of reification, which reinterpreted Weberʼs Film Museum was slashed several years ago, which theory of rationalization in terms of Marxʼs analysis prompted Adornoʼs friend and well-known representa- of commodity fetishism, Theodor Adorno would prove tive of the New German Cinema, Alexander Kluge, to himself to be one of the most astute analysts of write several letters in protest. More recently, the city such processes of ʻadjustmentʼ, which would expand government has threatened to cut the funding for what and intensify in the twentieth century. Adornoʼs own is without doubt the most innovative cultural under- theory was driven in large part by the increasingly taking in Frankfurt today, namely William Forsytheʼs difficult task of escaping the levelling tendencies of avant-garde ballet.3 Such continuing conspicuous a society dominated by the logic of the commodity, neglect of Adorno would not, however, have been but he also clearly recognized that his own efforts possible during his centenary year, for the city has would be only partially successful: ʻNo theoryʼ, not realized that the ʻFrankfurt Schoolʼ has become an even his own, ʻescapes the market any longer.ʼ1 The internationally recognized label, one that they literally adjustment of the dialectically transcendent ideas of cannot afford to ignore. In fact, the city has in the Adorno and his colleagues has been described as the meantime charged full-steam ahead. The face-lift of transformation of Critical Theory into the Frankfurt Theodor Adorno Platz has been just one part of a much School.2 While the concept of Critical Theory has larger ʻJubiläumʼ the city has dedicated to its exiled become practically meaningless – particularly in the son this past year. For example, the Institute for Social Anglo-American world – the concept of the Frankfurt Research, which has since come to represent the ideas School has become a convenient label to designate one of the so-called second and third generations of the of the many theoretical tendencies competing on the Frankfurt School, organized a three-day international market today. It is not entirely clear who belongs to conference on Adornoʼs work. Considering what the the ʻschoolʼ or what exactly it stands for. In the past ʻsecond and third generationʼ members of the ʻFrank- decades many have taken a trip to the city of Frankfurt furt Schoolʼ have written about Adorno in the past itself in hopes of clarifying this question. But upon two decades, it is difficult to imagine that this confer- arriving in the mini-metropolis on the Main, asking ence was motivated by anything more than Pflichtbe- a taxi driver to be taken to the ʻFrankfurt Schoolʼ, as wusstsein (consciousness of duty).4 The conference some bewildered visitors have done recently, will lead thematized Adornoʼs not so surprising disappearance only to a wild goose chase. Theodor Adorno Platz, from academic discussions in Germany in the past on the other hand, really does exist. But prior to this decades. But far from merely confirming that Adornoʼs year, one would have discovered there only a large war thought belongs to the past, this academic neglect of memorial from 1925, a concrete ping-pong table, and Adorno and the other Critical Theorists also confirms several benches – often littered with empty cans of their own deeply ambivalent attitude towards academic beer – all surrounded by some overgrown hedges. Just specialization, with its affirmative tendency towards a few days before what would have been his hundredth insularity and insufficient self-reflexivity. But not all of birthday in 2003, the city of Frankfurt finally decided the centenary events were driven by a concern with the to improve the miserable state of Adornoʼs official site. cityʼs image and/or performed reluctantly out of a mere Beer cans were picked up, hedges trimmed, ping-pong sense of duty. Several other conferences and talks were Radical Philosophy 124 (March/April 2004) 27 organized that called into question the numbing effects did not lie in the sphere of production but were instead of ritualized memory and made an attempt not merely a mixture of an increasingly threatened existence in to think about Adorno, but to think with him about the sphere of circulation, on his fatherʼs side, and contemporary issues. Furthermore, several new studies lower-middle-class artistic, even bohemian, existence of Adornoʼs life and work were published last year, on his motherʼs side. As Claussen shows, Adornoʼs including two new intellectual biographies that take childhood was by no means typically bourgeois, in seriously the task of working through Adornoʼs impres- so far as art – music, to be precise – was not reduced sive and manifold legacies.* These two biographies will in his unorthodox family to mere cultural capital or a be the subject of the following remarks. pedagogical tool; it was instead the daily nourishment of the young Teddie, which sustained the remarkable A Künstlerroman development of this ʻhothouse plantʼ, as he would later Detlev Claussen begins Theodor Adorno: Ein Letztes describe himself.7 Claussen also makes some interest- Genie (Theodor Adorno: A Last Genius) with a discus- ing observations in his first chapter on the history of sion of two potential problems that leap immediately to Frankfurt and the history of the Jewish community the attention of anyone familiar with Adornoʼs thought. in Frankfurt and the surrounding area, and how it Is the genre of biography really an appropriate way to influenced Adornoʼs childhood. He shows, for example, approach Adornoʼs work? How can one justify using how the rising incidence of anti-Semitic violence in the concept of genius to describe Adorno, when he was the Hessian countryside in the mid-nineteenth century so critical of this typically bourgeois fetishization of probably led Adornoʼs grandfather to relocate their art, the individual and production? Claussen explicitly wine business from the provincial Dettelbach to the mentions Adornoʼs objections to biography, but justifies burgeoning trading centre of Frankfurt, which had his own undertaking in terms of letting Adornoʼs work by far the highest percentage of Jews of any city in speak for itself. He claims to eschew any attempt to Germany at the time. It was the only city in which interpret Adornoʼs work merely in terms of biographi- it was possible at the turn of the century to erect cal details, thereby observing Adornoʼs own lifelong a memorial to Heinrich Heine. Heine continues to rejection of psychologism and sociologism. Claussen play a minor, yet important, role in the remainder of invokes Goethe as the quintessential bildungsbürger- Claussenʼs narrative, particularly in his emphasis on liche model of the genius and integrated subjectivity, the impossibility of explaining Adornoʼs – or Heineʼs and his portrayal of Adornoʼs life contains elements – work solely in terms of its ʻJewish originsʼ. It was of a Bildungsroman.5 While Claussen insists that the in fact the anti-Semites who insisted upon classifying concept of the genius ʻreally does apply to Adornoʼ, Heineʼs work as ʻJewishʼ. As Adorno would point out he also stresses throughout the book the ʻnon-identicalʼ later in a trenchant essay on Heine, the increasingly character of Adornoʼs development, even the negative chauvinistic versions of ethnic and nationalist ʻiden- consequences of certain instances when Adorno suc- tityʼ that developed in Europe and elsewhere in the cumbed to identity thinking, such as his rigid rejection nineteenth century – which relied upon the exclusion of jazz. Claussen stresses certain transformative phases of putative ʻforeignersʼ, such as Jews – had fatefully in Adornoʼs life, but its different periods never coalesce ignored one of Heineʼs central insights, namely that into a meaningful whole. In other words, Adornoʼs life ʻtranscendental homelessnessʼ had become universal is portrayed more in terms of a tragic Künstlerroman, in the modern world.8 such as Anton Reiser or The Green Henry, in which In the second chapter, Claussen examines the the artist never fully succeeds in reconciling himself various contexts of Adornoʼs development in the 1920s. with society, than as an edifying Bildungsroman, such His re-examination of the circumstances that led to as Wilhelm Meister, in which the protagonist achieves the founding of the Institute for Social Research will peace with himself and his world at the end.6 be familiar to most, and his lengthy panegyric to The metaphor of the Künstlerroman also proves apt Hermann Weil seems gratuitous and one-sided.9 But in relation to Adornoʼs childhood, which is the topic his description of both the betrayal felt by many of Claussenʼs first chapter. In contrast to many of his young intellectuals at the capitulation of their older future friends and colleagues, Adornoʼs family origins counterparts in the face of World War I, and the * Detlev Claussen, Theodor W. Adorno: Ein Letztes Genie, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2003. 479 pp., €26.90 hb., 3 10010813 2. Stefan Müller-Doohm, Adorno: Eine Biographie, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2003. 1032 pp., €36.90 hb., 3 51858378 6. Page references appear in brackets within the text. 28 ongoing restrictively conservative state of the German respected Adornoʼs formidable artistic and intellectual universities in the 1920s, provides an important and powers, but this respect was – as was so often the often overlooked key to understanding the origins of case among those who came to know him personally Critical Theory. Despite his meteoric rise from student – tempered by reservations about Adornoʼs extreme to lecturer to professor and director of the Institute for narcissism, which was inseparable from his genius, Social Research, Horkheimer never abandoned his deep but was frequently overbearing at the same time. As suspicion of the academic conformism that dominated Horkheimerʼs wife, Rosa Riekher, once put it, ʻ[Teddie even relatively liberal universities in Germany at this was the] most immense narcissist to be found in both time, such as Frankfurt. It was this same conform- the Old and the New Worldʼ (372).12 But Claussenʼs ism that made academic careers extremely difficult discussion of the charged relationship between the or impossible for Adorno, Benjamin and Kracauer. two men moves beyond the merely personal to reflect In this sense, Claussen is correct to stress the vital upon the displaced position of art at a time when both importance of an extra-academic ʻpeer groupʼ for German and bourgeois cultural continuity had been Adornoʼs development at this time. But his sociological called deeply into question. This situation led to many acumen verges on sociologism when he views Adornoʼs paradoxical expressions of ʻthe non-identicalʼ – the work in this period as driven primarily by a desire for title of the chapter – in the work of both Mann and community, his theory as an ersatz religion. While Adorno. Adorno saw in Mann a living embodiment of Adorno was unquestionably drawn to the theologically ʻthat German tradition … from which I received eve- inspired work of Bloch and Benjamin, his commitment rything, including the strength to resist traditionʼ (149). to radical Enlightenment was also strong, as even a Claussen characterizes Mann as a ʻBourgeois artist [who] experienced the present as an epoch of debourgeoisifica- tion [Entbürgerlichung]ʼ (169). Adorno viewed the role of criti- cal intellectuals such as himself as ʻthe last enemies of the bour- geois … and the last bourgeois at the same timeʼ (169). As Claussen convincingly argues, these reflections upon the status of tradition in their own work became particularly acute for exiles like Adorno and Mann in the United States, a country cursory reading of his first Habilitationsschrift on Adorno perceived as the embodiment of ʻa completely ʻThe Concept of the Unconscious in the Transcendental pure form of capitalism … without any remnants of Theory of the Soulʼ (1927) reveals.10 Like Horkheimer, feudalismʼ (258), and a ʻradically bourgeois countryʼ Adorno was interested in using psychoanalysis as a (167). weapon against the uncritical and irrationalist apolo- These reflections on both the central significance of gists of the unconscious. The de facto rejection of this his ʻAmerican experienceʼ for his work, and the contra- study by Hans Cornelius, who was on the left-liberal dictory ʻnatureʼ of Bürgerlichkeit, continue throughout fringe of the German university system at this time, the remainder of Claussenʼs book.13 His examina- certainly contributed to Adornoʼs subsequent theoreti- tions of Adornoʼs friendships with Hanns Eisler and cal turn away from Horkheimer towards Benjamin. Fritz Lang also centre on these themes. Like Adorno, Chapter 3 leaps over the 1930s to a series of short Eisler studied music in Vienna in the 1920s, but ʻÜbergängeʼ (transitions) which examine some of unlike him he succeeded in winning the recognition Adornoʼs key relationships while he was in exile in of Schoenberg and was not forced to relinquish his the USA. It focuses mainly on Adornoʼs complex rela- career as a composer. Thus Claussen portrays Eisler tionship to Thomas Mann. Claussen succeeds – where as Adornoʼs unidentical Doppelgänger, an embodiment others have failed11 – in providing a balanced portrayal of the ʻartist, who is no longer supported by the bour- of Adornoʼs admiration for Mann and his contributions geoisie. The artist as critic of the bourgeois society, to Doktor Faustus. There is no question that Mann from and in which he nonetheless must liveʼ (185). 29 Claussen uses the discussion of Fritz Lang to criticize points out, correctly, that Adornoʼs critique – however the misconception that Adorno was a rigid defender of ones judges it – viewed jazz merely as a symptom Kultur against the blandishments of popular entertain- of much deeper social-psychological phenomena, and ment. He shows that Lang served as Adornoʼs inside this is what Adorno demanded be taken seriously, not man in Hollywood, and provided him with the insights just the musical merits of jazz from a purely aesthetic he needed to criticize the instrumental attitudes of standpoint. He also reflects at length in this chapter the studio bosses and their lackeys, not the entire upon a figure who might be considered a second, film genre or the very notion of entertainment. While more distant, ʻunidentical brotherʼ of Adorno, namely Claussenʼs demonstration that Adorno was not the Paul Lazarsfeld. Lazarsfeld is used mainly as a foil, to Spassverderber (spoilsport) that he is usually taken illustrate those aspects of the ʻAmerican experienceʼ to be – that he criticized the culture industry as an which Adorno refused to assimilate. While Claussen ʻintellectualization of amusementʼ (201) – hits the does stress the crucial importance of Adornoʼs expo- mark, his characterization of Adorno as a ʻpassionate sure to professional, empirical social science in the movie-goerʼ (199) overshoots even Adornoʼs legendary USA, he is also careful to highlight Adornoʼs obstinate penchant for hyperbole. refusal to remake himself completely in the American The next chapter examines Adornoʼs ʻFrankfurt melting pot. From Adornoʼs perspective, Lazarsfeldʼs Transferʼ, but largely in terms of its preconditions American re-education worked a bit too well; thus, in the USA. In other words, Claussen returns here rather than emulate his example of ʻentrepreneurial in greater depth to Adornoʼs ʻAmerican experienceʼ initiativeʼ (217), Adorno chose to return to Frankfurt in order to explain Adornoʼs ambivalent attitude to after the war, in no small part because he preferred returning to Germany after the war. Adornoʼs aver- ʻthe security of an existence as a civil servantʼ to the sions to the United States come out more clearly in ʻfreedom of a market organized as a culture industryʼ this section. Claussen discusses Adornoʼs stubborn (246). resistance to jazz, explaining and criticizing it in The identical and non-identical moments in Adornoʼs terms of a compensation for his own thwarted musical friendship with and intellectual development vis-à- ambitions and an excessive desire for continuity and vis Horkheimer provide one of the unifying themes identity in his damaged life in exile. On the other of Chapter 5. Unlike Müller-Doohm, who portrays hand, Claussen also criticizes those who cite Adornoʼs Adornoʼs relationship to Horkheimer as one of gradual, overwrought critique of jazz as a convenient excuse to but continual confluence (sealed by a ʻdouble liaisonʼ dismiss his critical social theory as a whole. Claussen with Gretel Karplus and Max Horkheimer on 8 Sep- tember 1937, when Horkheimer served as best man at Adornoʼs wedding to Karplus), Claussen clearly recog- nizes the ʻups and downsʼ in the prehistory of this remarkable friendship. After the de facto refusal by Hans Cornelius of Adornoʼs first Habilitationsschrift in 1927, Adorno drifted away from Horkheimer in order to pursue passionately his theoretical elective affinity with Walter Benjamin. Horkheimer reacted sceptically to Adornoʼs inaugural lecture as a Privatdozent on ʻThe Actuality of Philosophyʼ, and did not extend an explicit invitation to Adorno to join the Institute in exile after the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933. The two of them did not speak for a year and a half, and, even though Horkheimer soon renewed his efforts to bring Adorno back into the Instituteʼs orbit, he continued to remain sceptical of several of his projects, refusing to publish essays by Adorno on Husserl and Karl Mannheim, even after the ʻdouble liaisonʼ in 1937. Horkheimer did, of course, ultimately choose Adorno, rather than Marcuse, to co-write the Dialectic of Enlightenment, but Claussen shows how Adorno, nonetheless, ʻstruggled his entire life for the 30 recognition of the older manʼ (265). Claussen recog- Apart from Horkheimer, who had already passed his nizes that Horkheimer had already reached his theo- theoretical prime by this time, Adorno turned to poets retical apogee in the 1930s, while Adorno still suffered such as Samuel Beckett and Paul Celan to find an from a certain political naïveté that went hand in hand adequate expression of the traumatic historical situa- with his ʻaesthetic Left-radicalismʼ from the 1920s.14 tion. Claussen concludes the final chapter with some Claussen gives Horkheimer and Adornoʼs ʻAmerican reflections on Adornoʼs relationship to the protest experienceʼ credit for curing Adorno of these lasts movements of the 1960s, which represent a working remnants of naïveté, which did not, however, diminish through of Claussenʼs own past, since he was, like his his theoretical radicalism. Adorno returned to Frank- friend Hans-Jürgen Krahl, one of Adornoʼs students furt also because it was where he spent his childhood, who was active in the SDS at the time. Claussen which remained an important source of the negatively criticizes the radicalized studentsʼ unmediated appro- formulated allusions to utopia in his writings. Whereas priation of the Critical Theoristsʼ positions from the Horkheimer ʻwas looking for a possibility to retreatʼ 1930s and the spread of a ʻLeft-radical attitude as (308) after the war, Adorno first came into his own in conformist fashionʼ (44). On the other hand, he also the Federal Republic in the 1950s. demonstrates that Adorno stood solidly, if cautiously, The 1920s and the 1950s were separated by the behind the protesting students – until they began dis- civilizational rupture of Auschwitz. In his final chapter rupting his own lectures.18 As elsewhere in his study, Claussen demonstrates how – virtually alone among Claussen approaches this crucial and complex subject his peers – Adorno fully registered this unfathom- as an Aufklärer [Enlightener], criticizing widespread able shock and how it moved to the very centre of pre- and misconceptions and offering new insights his Critical Theory. He does this by creating another with engaged and serious scholarship. ʻpalimpsestʼ of Adornoʼs life, reconstructing in detail The Composer as Critical Theorist the development of Adornoʼs most important intel- lectual relationships. In what can be seen as significant Stephan Müller-Doohmʼs Adorno: Eine Biographie contribution to the history of the Frankfurt intellec- is nearly twice as long as Claussenʼs book, which tual milieu in the 1920s,15 Claussen reconstructs the has advantages and disadvantages. It enables Müller- dynamic force field within which Adornoʼs Critical Doohm to examine certain aspects of Adornoʼs life Theory took shape, among the attraction and repulsion and work in greater detail. He devotes more space, for to the ideas of Kracauer, Lukács, Rosenzweig, Buber, example, to exploring Adornoʼs personal life. If you Horkheimer, Bloch, Benjamin and Brecht. He then want to learn about the less than egalitarian domes- shows how this intellectual force field developed in tic arrangements Adorno had with his wife, Gretel the 1930s and 1940s and how Adornoʼs mature Criti- Karplus, or about Adornoʼs various lovers, Müller- cal Theory emerged from it in the 1950s.16 His most Doohmʼs study is the place to go.19 Müller-Doohm significant contribution is his finely sketched portrait of also devotes more space to short synopses of Adornoʼs Adornoʼs relationship to Bloch, which has often been work. One could debate the usefulness of any three- overlooked in the secondary literature. page summary of Negative Dialectics, but you wonʼt It was with Bloch, not Benjamin or Horkheimer, find one in Claussenʼs study. In this and his linearly that Adorno shared the intimate Du in the 1920s and structured, more or less comprehensive narrative of 1930s. Adorno moved away from Kracauer and Hork- Adornoʼs life and work, Müller-Doohmʼs study is a heimer towards Benjamin in the late 1920s, ʻbut also more traditional intellectual biography then Claussenʼs. in this friendship Adorno seemed to miss something And, despite its greater length, Müller-Doohmʼs study that he could share only with Bloch – musicʼ (328). reads more quickly than Claussenʼs. Müller-Doohmʼs Benjamin reacted allergically in the early 1930s to polished prose usually draws the reader along quickly, Adornoʼs operetta about Mark Twain, whereas Bloch whereas Claussenʼs mimetic approach often captures was able to understand the utopia of a ʻnon-bourgeois and conveys the intellectual and emotional density of notion of maturityʼ (331) that it expressed. But Blochʼs Adornoʼs own prose, which presupposes a high level reduction of utopia to a principle remained too abstract of previous knowledge and constantly demands that to accommodate the catastrophic historical experi- the reader stop, reflect and reread. Müller-Doohmʼs ences of the twentieth century. Brechtʼs, Eislerʼs and book will be more appropriate for those less familiar Lukácsʼs positions in the 1950s also led to a ʻdis- with Adornoʼs work, which is not to say that this appearance of Auschwitz behind a rationalistically thoroughly researched study does not break any new constructed Marxismʼ (388), according to Claussen.17 scholarly ground. 31 Müller-Doohmʼs study is structured chronologically he spent these years in Frankfurt. The discussion of and divided into four main sections. The first addres- the vicissitudes of Adornoʼs musical apprenticeship in ses Adornoʼs family background, his childhood and Vienna is the highlight of this section. He provides youth. Müller-Doohm begins with a detailed por- a finely sketched portrait of Adornoʼs relationship trait of Adornoʼs Corsican grandfather, Jean-François to one of Schoenbergʼs most respected composition Francesco, who settled in the Frankfurt suburb of students, Alban Berg. He explains why Adorno was Bockenheim without speaking German and struggled unable to win the recognition of the greatly admired to make a living as a fencing instructor. Thus his pioneer of atonal and twelve-tone music,22 but his daughters, Louise and Agathe, who would become ʻunconditional recognitionʼ of Berg was handsomely Adornoʼs ʻtwo mothersʼ, grew up in very modest sur- rewarded; Adorno began a friendship with him that roundings. After Francesco died in 1879, his musi- ʻintensified continually over the following months and cally gifted wife attempted to improve her familyʼs financial situation by organizing public concerts with her daughters, which soon earned them the reputation in the local press of being ʻmusikalische Wunder- kinderʼ. But despite Müller-Doohmʼs more detailed examination of the humble background of Adornoʼs family – particularly on the maternal side – he still describes it as typically bourgeois. Müller-Doohm cites the Instituteʼs later Studies on Authority and Family to support this claim. Whereas bourgeois society is dominated by the principle of competitive self-interest, yearsʼ (126–7), documented by 136 letters from 1925 the family supposedly provides ʻa haven in a heartless to 1936, from which Müller-Doohm draws extensively worldʼ, a separate sphere in which everyone is com- and profitably in the further course of his study.23 mitted to the happiness of the other, which leads ʻto a Whereas Claussen uses Adornoʼs fatherʼs wine busi- premonition of better human conditionʼ.20 Adorno did ness to introduce the pronounced sensualist dimension indeed benefit from the extraordinary solicitude of not of his temperament, Müller-Doohm argues that it was just one but two ʻmothersʼ and the unwavering bene- Bergʼs sophisticated hedonism, and the ʻsensuality ficence of his father, but the artistic – even bohemian of Vienna lifeʼ more generally, which taught Adorno – tendencies in his family, and its social standing, how to enjoy himself. Müller-Doohm also includes leave no doubt that it was not typically bourgeois in detailed discussions of Adornoʼs own compositions many respects. Claussen is more attentive to these and musical writings during this period. For example, fine, but significant differences from the more solidly Müller-Doohm illustrates concretely how Adorno bourgeois backgrounds of Horkheimer, Pollock and ʻtook the step from a concert and composition critic Felix Weil. Thus it comes as perhaps no surprise that to a musical theorist with his texts from the early Siegfried Kracauer, whose origins were more humble 1930sʼ (176). He emphasizes repeatedly and convinc- than Adornoʼs, became Adornoʼs first extra-familial ingly that composition was every bit as important mentor. Müller-Doohm devotes much attention to this as philosophy for Adorno at this time (182). This crucial relationship. But because significant portions also helps explain Adornoʼs increasing distance from of the Adorno–Kracauer correspondence are still off Horkheimer in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Like limits to publication – Müller-Doohm was forced at his philosophical mentors, Kracauer, Bloch, Benjamin the last minute by Reemtsma foundation, who owns and the young Lukács, Adornoʼs concept of philosophy the rights to the Adorno–Kracauer correspondence, was more closely related to his aesthetic concerns to retract several quotations – neither he nor Claussen than to Horkheimerʼs model of empirically founded was able to move substantially beyond what readers interdisciplinary social research. Müller-Doohm makes of Kracauerʼs fictionalized account of his relationship this point with a comprehensive, if occasionally sloppy, with Adorno in Georg have known since the belated discussion not only of Adornoʼs philosophical writings publication of that novel in 1973.21 from this period but also the seminars he offered as a In the second part, Müller-Doohm examines lecturer in Frankfurt in the early 1930s.24 Adornoʼs years as a student and lecturer. Apart from The third part of Müller-Doohmʼs study examines a relatively short but influential stay in Vienna in Adornoʼs years in exile: in England from 1934 to 1938 1925 and frequent trips to Berlin in the late 1920s, and in the USA from 1938 to 1949. The strengths 32 and weaknesses of the more traditional intellectual In the final and lengthiest part of the book, Müller- biographical approach can be seen clearly in his Doohm provides a comprehensive examination of treatment of Adornoʼs development in the 1930s. His Adornoʼs life and work after his return to Frank- continuous and comprehensive narrative occasionally furt in 1949 until his death in 1969. His assiduous gets bogged down in excessively detailed descriptions attention to little-known sources often enables him to of Adornoʼs quotidian life, or repeats material that place Adornoʼs work in a new light. For example, he will be familiar to anyone who is not a newcomer reveals the special importance that Adorno accorded to Adornoʼs work. But the more personal approach to his essay on Kafka within his work as whole, by pays rewards at other times. The description of the drawing on an obscure letter that Adorno wrote to the disastrous effects Kristallnacht had for Adornoʼs father editor of a German newspaper in which the essay was – he was wounded and thrown in jail for several first published (538). Müller-Doohmʼs discussion of weeks, his business was largely destroyed, and the Adornoʼs Jargon of Authenticity is also illuminating. endowment for his business was confiscated (399) He explains clearly why Adorno refused to engage – illustrates the direct and personal threat that the Heideggerʼs philosophy directly, ʻon his own termsʼ Nazi terror posed even to those like Adorno who had as it were, and chose instead to attack the leere Tiefe escaped; it also drives home Müller-Doohmʼs larger (pseudo-profundity) of the Heideggerian jargon that argument about Adornoʼs gradual loss of political formed an integral part of the sanctimonious religion naïveté in the 1930s. Müller-Doohm also conveys of Kultur that arose in Germany in the 1950s.27 Adornoʼs devastation at the death of Walter Benjamin, Müller-Doohm patiently documents Adornoʼs who – despite his increasing proximity to Horkheimer professional life in the postwar period. His innumer- – was still Adornoʼs most important interlocutor at this able public lectures and radio appearances, his willing- time. Adornoʼs immediate reaction to Benjaminʼs death ness to work with other leading German scholars, speaks volumes about his own appropriation of his and his professional activities all demonstrate that work: ʻWith this death, philosophy has been robbed of Adorno was by no means an outsider in the Federal the best that it could possibly hope forʼ (402).25 Republic. As elsewhere, Müller-Doohm does not Müller-Doohm also highlights the strong presence neglect Adornoʼs personal life. He illustrates not only of Benjamin in the subsequent period of intense work Adornoʼs numerous friendships with artists and other with Horkheimer on Dialectic of Enlightenment in intellectuals – such as Samuel Beckett, Alexander order to develop an original, if flawed, interpretation Kluge and Ingeborg Bachmann – but also the numer- of its conception (411f. and 429ff.). He argues that ous places to which he was drawn intellectually and/or there were two competing tendencies at work during emotionally bound, such as Paris, Rome, Sils Maria the crucial, formative phase of Dialectic of Enlighten- and a small town in the Bavarian Odenwald by the ment. On the one hand, Adorno wanted to develop a name of Amorbach, where Adorno had been going critique of some of the most basic concepts of Western on vacation since he was a child.28 There is even a rationality, which was deeply influenced by Benjaminʼs short chapter near the end that attempts once again to ideas of the entanglement of myth and modernity and dispel the stubborn stereotype of Adorno as an elitist his negative philosophy of history. On the other hand, curmudgeon by examining his love of hosting dinner Horkheimer wanted to work out the universal and guests, playing the piano together with a partner, transcendental norms implicit in language use in order going to the zoo – a passion he shared with Marcuse to reformulate a concept of reason that could provide a – and his general ʻweakness for the ironically playfulʼ new foundation for Critical Theory (409–13). In the end (711). Adornoʼs interests prevailed over Horkheimerʼs. While Bourgeois or civil society? Müller-Doohm is correct to emphasize that Dialectic of Enlightenment is more representative of Adornoʼs Müller-Doohmʼs and Claussenʼs discussions of work as a whole than Horkheimerʼs, his attempt to Adornoʼs development in the postwar period parallel read Habermasʼs efforts to develop a linguistically and complement each other in many respects, but on based normative foundation for Critical Theory back two important and related subjects they diverge signifi- onto Horkheimer fail to do justice to the complexities cantly: in their portrayal of Adornoʼs attitude towards of his position at the time.26 This part concludes with democracy and his relationship to Jürgen Habermasʼs a penetrating examination of Adornoʼs relationship to work. Even on these subjects the differences are a Thomas Mann, in which Adorno appears in an even matter of degree, but one that reveals a significantly more positive light than in Claussenʼs study. different approach to Adornoʼs work and to the tradition 33 of Critical Theory as a whole. Müller-Doohm portrays But in Claussenʼs study there seems to be a contra- Adorno consistently as an ardent defender of democ- diction between two different determinations of the racy in postwar Germany. As a result of the war, the concept of bourgeois society. On the one hand, he rise of an authoritarian state socialism in the Eastern makes use of a historical concept of bourgeois society bloc and his ʻAmerican experienceʼ, Adorno came to as a phenomenon that was limited to the long nine- a greater appreciation of parliamentary democracy. teenth century31 and characterized by conspicuous class Although Müller-Doohm does not completely overlook differences that manifested themselves in both material Adornoʼs analysis of the ʻobjective violenceʼ (586) of and cultural terms. On the other hand, a philosophical ʻsocial relationsʼ, his emphasis lies more on the puta- concept of bourgeois society also appears in Claus- tive normative underpinnings of Adornoʼs critique, senʼs work, to describe a larger, epochal phenomenon which allows him to emphasize Adornoʼs proximity that was by no means limited to the long nineteenth to Habermas, and to portray Habermas as a – if not century.32 It is clearly this philosophical concept of the – legitimate heir of his Critical Theory (586). In bourgeois society to which Adorno refers when he several places, Müller-Doohm argues that Habermas is speaks of the United States in the twentieth century as an important – if not the only – inheritor of Adornoʼs a ʻradically bourgeois countryʼ. Like Hegel, Adorno is Critical Theory; in fact, he even hints that Habermasʼs convinced that bourgeois society has been responsible theory may have rendered Adornoʼs theory obsolete in for the introduction into world history of certain pro- certain key respects.29 He also affirms the recent thesis gressive principles – subjective freedom being perhaps that Adorno and the other members of the ʻFrankfurt the most important – which have become necessary Schoolʼ were part of a belated ʻintellectual found- conditions of any further attempts to bring about a ingʼ of the Federal Republic in the postwar period.30 more just and emancipated society.33 Nevertheless, Müller-Doohm does discuss Adornoʼs famous state- as Claussen sees more clearly than Müller-Doohm, ment from 1959, ʻI view the continued existence of Adorno also refused to turn a blind eye to the unbroken National Socialism within democracy as potentially dynamic inherent in bourgeois society and the fateful more dangerous than the continued existence of fascist consequences of which it had already proven itself tendencies against democracyʼ (584), but he downplays capable.34 its importance and broader implications by linking it Yet it is precisely this critical, philosophical dimen- to a specific discussion about the state of democracy in sion that has been lost in recent discussions of the Germany at that time. Furthermore, in the few places concept of bürgerliche Gesellschaft. In the wake of where the concept of ʻbourgeois societyʼ (bürgerliche the collapse of state socialism in the East, many com- Gesellschaft) shows up in his discussions of Adornoʼs mentators rediscovered the concept of civil society as work, it is used in a positive, normative sense (587). In a way of describing the emancipatory transformations all of these respects, Müller-Doohmʼs study could be in these societies.35 The English version of the term seen as a routinization and normalization of Adornoʼs – civil society – lent itself well to an interpretation Critical Theory, in the Weberian sense, mentioned which drew more on a Kantian than a Hegelian or above. Marxist determination of the concept – that is, one While Claussen also heavily emphasizes Adornoʼs more or less untouched by any systematic reflec- presence in the German public sphere in the post- tions on political economy.36 Civil society was read in war period, and – like Müller-Doohm – stresses his undialectical terms as that which lay outside the state uncompromising critique of actually existing social- – the public sphere, voluntary associations, free market ism, one does not find in his study a discussion of economy. This position often went hand in hand with a normative concept of democracy in relation to an explicit refusal – what Adorno might call a Denk- Adornoʼs work. One does, however, find a complex verbot (prohibition on thinking) – to reflect upon the – even contradictory – discussion of the concepts political-economic dimensions of the concept, under of bourgeois and bourgeois society in relation to the pretext that theories such as Hegelʼs or Adornoʼs Adornoʼs life and work. In this respect, Claussen which rely heavily upon a concept of social totality remains closer to the materialist underpinnings of are no longer possible. Habermasʼs work contributed Adornoʼs own thought, by not losing sight of the to this trend, in so far as he too distanced himself socio-historical and social-psychological conditions from Adornoʼs critical concept of bourgeois society, which play such an important role in determining the and drew instead upon Kant, Weber and Luhmann to parameters of abstract or proceduralist ʻdemocracyʼ develop a conception of modern society as a system in any given society. of pluralistically differentiated value spheres, not one 34 of systematic domination. Habermasʼs early criticisms It would not be an exaggeration to say that these of the welfare state as a form of ʻpowerʼ that colo- tendencies have accelerated since Adornoʼs death. But, nized the ʻlifeworldʼ, and his interpretation of the new as Claussen points out, a purely rationalist Marxism, social movements in terms of anti-statist outgrowths à la Brecht or Lukács, is not adequate to the task of civil society, reinforced this tendency. Even though of grasping the irrational rationality of bourgeois Habermas has modified his position substantially in society. The psychoanalytic and social-psychological the past decade, the ongoing influence of his early dimensions of Critical Theory – which have also been work and the retranslation of Anglo-American discus- largely emasculated by Habermas41 – also remain as sion of civil society into the German context have led relevant as ever. The steady drift of democrats and to the virtual disappearance of the critical concept social democrats to the Right in the past few decades of bürgerliche Gesellschaft.37 Habermasʼs work was and their unwillingness to thematize the negative indeed important as a philosophische Westanbindung38 moments inherent in the global ʻcivil societyʼ have in the postwar period, which contributed to burying created a vast reservoir of voters susceptible to the once and for all – let us hope – the reactionary irrational paroles of right-wing populism. Arnold anti-Western and anti-democratic traditions that had Schwarzeneggerʼs recent election as the governor of been so important for the German Right. But since it California can be seen as the most recent mani- has become clear that German democracy no longer festation of this increasingly widespread trend, one stands on shaky ground and that since 1989 the which cannot be fully understood without the social- form of ʻradical bourgeoisʼ society represented by psychological categories developed by the Critical the United States has become the dominant force in Theorists. If Schwarzeneggerʼs election in California the contemporary world, might a reconsideration of can be seen as symptomatic of the persistence of sado- Critical Theory be more timely than a historicizing masochist character structures in American society, as approach to the so-called ʻFrankfurt Schoolʼ? It would one recent commentator has argued,42 then one could go beyond the parameters of this article to examine make a case, based on arguments put forth by the the contentious relationship of Habermasʼs theory to Critical Theorists in the 1930s, that we are still living the older tradition of Critical Theory, but some of in the bourgeois epoch.43 As Claussen points out, his own more recent positions seem to indicate that Adorno and Horkheimer often spoke of the twentieth he too is aware of the shortcomings in his earlier century as an epoch of transition,44 but perhaps both work for an appraisal of contemporary conditions.39 of their arguments were premature. Schwarzeneggerʼs In this respect, Claussenʼs argument that Adornoʼs election and the broader phenomenon of right-wing and Habermasʼs theoretical differences are greater populism bring to mind Walter Benjaminʼs eighth than their similarities, and that Adornoʼs work has yet thesis on the philosophy of history: to receive the hearing it deserves (e.g. 379 and 400) may prove to be more prescient than Müller-Doohmʼs The current amazement that the things we are stress on their commonalities and his insinuations that experiencing in the twentieth century [and now the twenty-first!] is not philosophical. This amazement Habermasʼs work may have supplanted Adornoʼs in is not the beginning of knowledge – unless it is the most important respects. knowledge that the view of history which gives rise Developments in the United States and around the to it is untenable.45 globe since Adornoʼs death appear to have confirmed Adornoʼs more critical view of bürgerliche Gesell- Benjaminʼs words were written in a more ominous schaft. In a talk he delivered in Rome in 1966 on the period, the irrationalist and populist dimensions of concept of ʻSocietyʼ, for example, he argued that: Schwarzeneggerʼs victory warrant renewed reflection All society is still class society as it was at the time on the political-economic and social-psychological when this concept appeared; the excessive pressure dimensions of bourgeois society which have been in the Eastern bloc countries makes clear that it is neglected in recent debates. Are we still living in no different there. Although Marxʼs prognosis of the bourgeois epoch? How can we conceptualize the pauperization over a long period of time has not identity and non-identity of bourgeois society? Without been proven true, the disappearance of classes is Critical Theory, to whose collective development an epiphenomenon.… Subjectively concealed, class differences grow objectively due to the constant Adorno contributed so much, we will not be able to progression of the concentration of capital.40 answer these questions. 35 Notes finance these projects Felix Weil drew upon not only his inheritance from his father but also a substantial 1. Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E.B. inheritance from his motherʼs family. In addition, Felix Ashton, Continuum, New York, 1973, p. 4 (translation Weil would not forget later in his life one of the most amended). important sources of the surplus value that was used 2. See, for example, Alex Demirovic, Der Non- to finance the Institute for Social Research and other Konformistische Intellektuelle: Die Entwicklung der projects. His father dealt primarily in Argentinian grain, Kritischen Theorie zur Frankfurter Schule, Suhrkamp, and Felix became one of the leading experts on the Frankfurt am Main, 1999. Argentinian economy and workersʼ movement, a lengthy 3. On Forsytheʼs ballet, see the website of the Frankfurt study of which he published in 1944 as The Argentine Ballet (www.frankfurt-ballett.de), in particular the sec- Riddle. Very little work has been done on Felix Weil; tion marked ʻarticlesʼ, which contains several essays on his fascinating unfinished memoirs lie unpublished in the and interviews with Forsythe. Frankfurt city archive. It seems that he, not his father, 4. Both Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth have repeat- is in need of more scholarly attention. edly articulated fundamental critiques of Adornoʼs phil- 10. The Habilitationsschrift is a second dissertation required osophy in the past two decades. Habermas argues that Adorno, like the post-structuralists, fell into an aporetic in order to gain permission to teach at a German univer- ʻself-referentiality of a totalizing critique of reasonʼ, sity. It is too simple to dismiss this writing as an empty which eliminated any possibility of providing a much academic exercise, as Claussen does. For even though needed normative foundation for Critical Theory. See, Adorno would soon reject its main argument, its funda- for example, The Postnational Constellation, trans. Max mental impulse – to place psychoanalysis in the service Pensky, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2001, pp. 130 and of radical Enlightenment – would remain powerful for 141, respectively. Honneth follows Habermasʼs criticisms the rest of his life. of Adorno in most respects. He places more emphasis 11. See, for example, Michael Maar, ʻTeddy and Tommy: on the putatively obsolescent elements of productionist The Masks of Doctor Faustusʼ, New Left Review 20, philosophy in Adornoʼs work. See, for example, Axel March/April 2003, pp. 113–30. Honneth, ʻAdornoʼs Theory of Society: The Definitive 12. For a provocative examination of some of the subversive Repression of the Socialʼ, in The Critique of Power: aspects of narcissism in a Promethean society, see Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory, trans. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, Beacon Press, Kenneth Baynes, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1991, pp. Boston, 1955, pp. 144–56. 57–96. 13. On the topic of Adornoʼs relationship to the United States, 5. The term Bildungbürger arose in nineteenth-century see Claussenʼs essay ʻThe American Experience of the Germany to describe those portions of the middle class Critical Theoristsʼ, in J. Abromeit and W.M. Cobb, eds, that defined themselves in terms of education, usually Herbert Marcuse: A Critical Reader, London and New based on the humanistic model of classical education. York, 2004, pp. 51–66; Martin Jay, ʻAdorno in Americaʼ, The Bildungsroman – novel of development or educa- in Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration tion – evolved as a genre in nineteenth-century German from Germany to Americaʼ, Columbia University Press, literature. It usually focused on the stages of maturation New York, 1986, pp. 120–37; as well as Adornoʼs own of a central figure, often ending with his reconciliation essay ʻScientific Experiences of a European Scholar with himself and/or society at the end. Bildung more in Americaʼ, The Intellectual Migration: Europe and generally refers to typically nineteenth-century human- America, 1930–1960, ed. D. Fleming and B. Bailyn, istic ideal of education as ennobling of the character, and Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1969. contrasted to education as mere utilitarian training. 14. Oddly enough, Claussen does not mention Adornoʼs un- 6. The Künstlerroman was a subgenre of the Bildungs- fortunate piece on Baldur von Schirach here, or else- roman, which focused on alienated artists who usually where in the book. See Müller-Doohm, Adorno, pp. did not succeed in coming to terms with themselves and/ 281ff. or society in the course of the novel. On the genre of the 15. Claussen places himself here in the company of the Künstlerrroman and its relation to the Bildungsroman, other leading intellectual historians of this period, such see Herbert Marcuse, ʻDer Deutsche Künstlerromanʼ, in as Wolfgang Schivelbusch (see, e.g., his Intellektuell Schriften, vol. 1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1978. endämmerung: Zur Lage der Frankfurter Intelligenz 7. Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia, trans. E.F.N. Jephcott, in den Zwanziger Jahren, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Verso, London, 1974, 1993, p. 161. Main, 1982) and Martin Jay (see, e.g., his Permanent 8. For Adornoʼs reflections on Heine and ʻtranscendental Exiles). homelessnessʼ – a concept that plays a central role in 16. See, for example, Claussenʼs interpretation of Minima Lukácsʼs Theory of the Novel – see his essay ʻHeine the Moralia in terms of this dynamic force field (p. 342). Woundʼ, in Notes on Literature, vol. 1, trans. Shierry 17. In this regard, Adorno did indeed remain indebted to Weber Nicholsen, Columbia University Press, New Walter Benjamin, particularly his early study of The York, 1991, pp. 80–85. Origins of German Tragic Drama (trans. J. Osborne, 9. If ʻpolitical reaction was not an option for Hermann Verso, London, 1998), from which Adorno drew the Weilʼ (102), as Claussen claims, then why did he serve inspiration for the following words at the end of Minima as a military adviser to the Kaiser during the war? Is Moralia, ʻconsummate negativity, once squarely faced, parvenu conformism really enough to explain this? Felix delineates the mirror-image of its oppositeʼ (p. 247). Weil, not his father, was the decisive person in securing 18. For a more detailed description of Claussenʼs under- the funding not only for the Institute of Social Research, standing of the Frankfurt SDS, and their relationship but also for a number of other progressive artistic and to the Critical Theorists and their role within protest intellectual projects in Weimar Germany, such as the movement as a whole in Germany, see ʻDer kurze Mailik publishing house and the Piscator Theater. To Sommer der Theorieʼ, in Detlev Claussen, Aspekte der 36