The advance of digital technology further and further into the nooks and crannies of our lives is based on an elementary trade-off. It supplies us with a great deal of convenience: It lets us communicate with one another wherever and whenever we want to. It provides us with instantaneous access to and limitless storage of media, everything from personal photos to films to most of the history of recorded music on a terabyte hard drive. It’s capable of building in a level of redundancy in our lives, preserving what we might otherwise forget and protecting us from oversights—if you lose tickets to an event, chances are the barcode on them can be canceled and new tickets issued to you. And if your credit card number is stolen, the bank may very well recognize suspicious purchases and notify you.

But in exchange for all this convenience, we sacrifice privacy and spontaneity. We permit all our public actions to be cataloged and processed, and we make ourselves completely and instantly accessible not just to our friends and family, but to marketers who seek to guide our behavior in contexts that they can detect and analyze perhaps even before we have a chance to, and also to the state, which may seek to stifle dissent before it has the opportunity to assemble and gather force. By allowing ourselves to be tracked and recorded and analyzed, we become willing parties to our own reification, to our assimilation into the giant digital data machine.

[...] Technology threatens to render our wishes irrelevant even as it pretends to cater to them—that is, it serves our needs as long as they are boiled down to the need for convenience, to consume faster and with maximum indiscriminateness.  I feel this acutely when I find myself spending more time tagging and arranging my music files than I spend listening to my music. Part of that is a cognitive illusion, but a telling one—I’m listening to music the entire time I’m doing the iTunes bookkeeping work, but I’m concentrating on the data, not on the intricacies, harmonies, melodies, and hooks of the music. It barely breaks through, usually only when what’s playing is so irritating, I have to skip it. >>

the colawar

Lazarsfeld's own preconceived notions of what constituted valid research surfaced in an unpublished critical response to Adorno's 161-page memorandum, Music in Radio (June 26. 1938) that left no room for compromise with Adorno's own understanding of the problematic. He wrote to Adorno,

"You know that I have an unchanging respect for your ideas ant that I am sure our project will ... profit greatly by your cooperation. But you also know that I have great objections against the way you present you ideas and against your disregard of evidence and systematic empirical research."

Lazarsfeld's response was that of a fund raiser, sensitive to the prospective sources and critical of the style and content of the funding proposal; he concluded by saying that

"you think because you are basicly [sic] right somewhere you are right everywhere. Whereas I think that because you are right somewhere you overlook the fact that you are terrible in other respects, and the final reader will think that because you are outrageous in some part of your work where he can easily catch you, you are impossible altogether." (Lazarsfeld, 1938).

Adorno, on the other hand, remembered his encounter with American mass communication research years later when he concluded that "theoretical reflections upon society as a whole cannot be completely realized by empirical findings" (1976: 69). He recognized the primacy of empirical sociology, because of its "immediate practical utilizability, and its affinity to every type of administration" (1976: 70), and he implicated academic communication research for the failure to acknowledge and to clarify the complexity of "societal objectivity" by suggesting that those who fund media research projects are only partly to blame for making sure "that only reactions within the dominant 'commercial system' are recorded and that the structure and implications of the system itself are not analyzed" (1976: 71).

[...] About thirty years later, Lazarsfeld recalled Adorno as a "major figure in German sociology," identifying him as a representative of "one side in a continuing debate between two positions, often distinguished as critical and positivistic sociology" (1969: 322). On the other hand, while Lazarsfeld had attempted to engage in a discourse with members of the Frankfurt School, subsequent representatives of empirical communication research remained uninvolved. McLuskie has observed that the dialogue between "'the Lazarsfeldian paradigm' and the variety of so-called 'critical paradigms' mentioned in leading Anglo-American journals of communication research occurs without engagement, without working relationships, from a distance quite safer than that which existed between Adorno and Lazarsfeld:  (1988: 33-4).

(p. 107)

Habermas states that when utilizing tools of free speech, people operate not like a business or like any private individual, but as a public body. He says that "access is granted to all citizens," and that the public body is able to trasmit information through various forms of media, such as news, cable television, and in our modern world view we can hitherto also include the Internet and the information production and delivery systems included therein, sweetly ignoring the idea that anyone is sitting at the healm of the information systems, ready at any time to hit a button called "Publish" or "Send," or that many people will never attain access to the control panels of information delivery. He also ignores ideas like those of Herman and Chomsky that media created, which comes from the "public body," might have already been sent through any kind of filtration system in order  to protect any individual or businesses' better interests.

Habermas says that the state operates in reaction and reflection of the greater public's notions and opinions, maintaining rules and standards of conduct that police or reflect the needs and amplify the voices of those in the public sphere. However his critics, as paraphrased by Nicholas Garnham in "The Media and the Public Sphere" argue that Habermas overlooks the lack of access to the media and public outlets of exchange for the "plebeian" classes, and focuses too much on the bourgeouis public sphere and its participation in the exchange of infortmation (359).

Critics also said that Habermas idealized the intentions of the early presses, always assuming that they behaved on the behalf of the greater good. He also failed to recognized "household economy" and its influence on the access of participants in the public, also overlooking genderized inequities both in the market and the home; failed to recognize pluralities in the public sphere; his arguments remained too dependent on the model of the "Culture Industry," as described by his predecessor, Adorno; failed to recognize distortion and manipulation of ibnformation; and left out analysis of the rhetorical and sometimes whimsical information products often released into public discourse.

Garnham says Habermas' model is still useful, however, because he shows and unbreakable link between the media and pubilc institutions, recognizes that the exchange of information largely exists outside of the state, (even if it is often influenced by the state) and supports the practices of democratic processes.

Equal access to the media and participation in public discourse (or, the public sphere), is not equal however. For one thing, access to the tools of gathering and delivering information varies greatly by class, Garnham points out.

For a practical example, take blogging. In recent years, the instantaneous and widely-accessibly ability to publish information to the Internet has opened up channels and canyons for private persons to post information freely, and without the umbrella of corporate sponsorship or the "filtering," editing and abridging of stories by corporate censors. The web has forever changed the face of news gathering with its ease of instant deliverability. Many see blogging as the most democratic form of participating in the public sphere.

However, participation in blogging is not an example of a full, completely democratic process, because it is still inaccessible to some. For those who have no access to a computer, no possible way of connecting to the Web, those who are illiterate or have physical disabilities such as sight or hearing impairments, the Web and blogging are not accessible and it is not possible to participate.

Another point that this week's readings touched upon is the tendency of dialogues in the public sphere to be steered by the two-party system. Garnham explains the problem of representation: "As Bobbio has argued, direct democracy works best wtih simple either/or choices (e.g. whether or not to have nuclear poiwer) but cannot deal with the variables that are more typical of political decisions in a complex and pluralistic modern society."

This model of the public sphere, though neat and tidy and capable of functioning fairly productively, is not capable of operating fully democratically. It is not possible to have full, fair and equal discourse, because someone will always be in charge of the tools of (information) productionand will thereby always be operating in his/her/its own best interest and working to censor dissenting positions. Furthermore, it is impossible to escape the proliferation of propaganda, because given only two options to choose from, there will always be a pool of "undecided" persons or skeptics who must be wrangled in or persuaded to lean towards one side or the other for there to be a majority leaning that leads to a decision made between the gien two options.

Not every voice can be heard; only the voices of the dominant two parties are given precedence and value and allowed to participate in the "public sphere." The system denies equal access to all of those individuals whose opinions fall between or outside of the black-or-white range.

While the idea of a fair, equal and fully democratic public sphere to represent all peoples is a nice ideal, it is rie with shortcomings that inevitably always excludes certain third parties and leads to feelings of isolation and alienation for some, and for others disproportionate pools of wealth and power which are given and maintained by only a few "representatives."

The question of ethics came up here in light of Wittgenstein's remarks about philosophical problems arising when 'language goes on holiday' or is like 'an engine idling' rather than doing real work. For if we take philosophical problems to share this form -- however diffuse their manifestation and origins -- then it seems we are led to a conception of philosophy as a therapeutic set of practices which simply "bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use." (PI 116)

This makes philosophy look like a purely negative activity, and there are certainly places where Wittgenstein appears to embrace this idea. Take PI 118-9, for example:

Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important? (As it were all the buildings, leaving only bits of stone and rubble.) What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stand.

The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or other piece of plain nonsense and of other bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value of inquiry.

So conceived, philosophy returns us to the everyday. We get back to baseline. This is not something just to be sniffed at since the temptations to fall into philosophical error are deep (and such inclinations are not products of stupidity), and the baseline we get back to is not forever fixed but shifts as our linguistic usage does, requiring some acuity in grammatical investigations to recognise. Nevertheless, something important can seem to go missing here.

Such a philosophy can appear very conservative, lacking the sort of critical function which has animated much of the best philosophical work. For those of us with an affinity to Wittgenstein as well as the post-Kantian tradition, through Hegel and Marx to the Frankfurt school, this presents something of a problem. How do we ensure that our philosophising respects the insights of a therapeutic approach and yet remains able to interrogate our everyday assumptions?

One attractive answer to that question would be to deepen our understanding of the sources of philosophical problems, not resting content with a linguistic turn alone. For language is, of course, a practice -- one that takes place in a wider social world. Following this line, there may be room for a marriage of critical theory and therapeutic philosophy. For example, such an approach might try and trace a connection between the perennial temptation to forms of Cartesianism and the alienation engendered by the conditions of life in modernity. The upshot of such an approach would likely not be a philosophical therapy that tried to return the wayward philosopher to ordinary linguistic usage, but rather identified what social conditions would need to be changed in order to stem intuitive but misleading forms of thought. I don't know much Adorno, but my suggestion here I think might end up sharing some aspects of his approach.

Without going this far though, there are still important tasks that Wittgensteinian methodology can be put too. Here, perhaps the most important is holding the line against virulent forms of reductive naturalism. Recourse to grammatical investigation can be a tool in defending a kind of philosophical humanism: a position which takes human life to be just as substantial and respectable as the domain studied by the natural sciences. Our ordinary activities are shot through with appeals to values, to our dispositions, to the contingencies of our history (a history which no less unfolds in nature than that of supernovae or trilobites). Anatomising these sort of appeals in the manner of a grammatical investigator can help us understand the place of humanity in a natural world, and can be drawn on in resisting the rabid reductive naturalist who wants to evacuate meaning in favour of mechanism. Bare appeals to the phenomenology of human experience are cheap, but grammatical investigation in a Wittgensteinian vein can help draw out the underlying patterns of human activity in a more substantial way. This sort of rich understanding of the role of our human qualities as something which are (and should continue to be) drawn upon without embarrassment in our explanatory endeavours can be employed to stave off the sort of naturalist for whom all this is merely folk psychological self-delusion. It is, of course, not enough to say that 'this is just what we do' and expect the reductive naturalist to be satisfied, but this can be an important first step in resisting the breezy dismissal of human attitudes as no more than mere projections onto an indifferent world which a properly scientific cast of mind can see through.

Oggi si è convinti che la comunicazione sia «ciò che tutti sanno cosa sia», ma in realtà è solo una ricaduta in un'illusione alquanto pietosa. Diverse sfere della cultura (quali sociologia, psicologia) si sono occupate di essa credendo che tutto fosse ormai chiaro non accorgendosi che in verità la comunicazione subisce una distorsione da parte di diversi campi della nostra società moderna per propri scopi non sempre eleganti o alquanto speculativi.

Per M. Perniola, autore di un saggio aggressivo-pamphlet, assumere un atteggiamento contro la comunicazione significa lanciarle una sfida essenziale laddove essa confonde per «dislocare gli opposti».

La sfida più importante infatti, oggi, la gioca da una parte la comunicazione (prima parte del libro) e dall'altra parte l'estetica (seconda parte del libro).

Perniola mira ad individuare la pericolosità della comunicazione. La sua analisi infatti sottolinea dei caratteri fondamentali di essa quali totalitario (tende ad inglobare in sé ogni discorso nella mancanza assoluta di discrezione); psicotico (nella sua esposizione finisce per il reale); violento (incapace di concepire l'altro).

Da tutto ciò scaturisce che l'autore dia alla comunicazione un identikit e dell'estetica una considerazione categorica di tipo socio-antropologica.

Egli afferma che: « la comunicazione è l'opposto della conoscenza e nemica delle idee», poiché nel rivolgersi al pubblico sembra che appaia con un'apparenza democratica, ma, in realtà, non è che una forzatura.

Finché si configura nella sua ipotesi come chiacchiera, nulla di originario vi sarà mai in essa. Nel senso letterale è da intendersi come originale solamente l'arte, la qual è origine. La comunicazione invece sarebbe solo una forma di allontanamento da essa stessa.

Un problema di fondo costituisce anche il problema comunicazione – conoscenza. In teoria un individuo appartiene alla classe dei comunicatori quando sa di conoscere. In verità oggigiorno siamo imbottiti d comunicatori imbonitori che c'inducono a credere ad una miriade di affermazioni per finalità alquanto diverse da quelli espitemici.

L'unica soluzione è quella di chiederci di quali buone ragioni disponiamo per credere a quanto ci viene comunicato. La distinzione tra proposizioni che avanzano una pretesa di verità e di validità rivela l'essenziale per comprendere il grado di validità di ciò che ci viene comunicato.

A conferirle un'inaspettata efficacia sulla realtà sono nozioni come disinteresse, discrezione e moderazione.

In conclusione la proposta di Perniola è quella di rispondere a questi problemi legati alla comunicazione con una strategica e globale resistenza di lotta contro essi.

In questo ambito a rivestire notevole importanza è anche la figura di Ramonet.

Contro le censure e le manipolazioni da essa stabilite afferma che le masse sarebbero vittime di una propaganda occulta e silenziosa dovuta ai mass media. L'insieme delle immagini che ci vengono proiettate, finiscono per influenzare in maniera significativa il nostro comportamento, riducendo la nostra libertà.

Tutti gli argomenti della comunicazione devono dimostrarsi veri.

«La verità di una asserzione sembra poter essere garantita soltanto dalla sua coerenza con altre asserzioni già accettate».

Vi è una grande differenza tra agire comunicativo (quando gli attori coordinano i loro porgetti d'azione tramite intesa linguistica) e agire strategico (per annebbiare o robotizzare l'altro), così come consiste una grande differenza tra il detto e non detto (occorre citare un saggio di M.Ruggenini): «Il non detto…se sopravvive alla sterilizzazione che ne operano i media…rappresenta l'appiattimento allo sterminio delle differenze , che oggi sembrano dominanti.»

Infine anche il ruolo della retorica e/o immaginazione non è però immune da un rischio che Habermas ha indicato come « il livellamento della differenza di genere fra filosofia e letteraturaSolo espungendo molta sabbia dal motore del ragionamento filosofico, il linguaggio potrà rendersi autonomo e cessare dall'essere considerato quale destino epocale dell'essere.

Fondamentale si presenta il ruolo di Kierkegaard nell'arte della comunicazione. Studiato profondamente da Adorno su cui esercitava una profonda attrazione, la sua filosofia dell'estetico era estremamente fuori dal comune. E' tramite questo pensatore che egli cerca di dare concretezza alle proprie idee filosofiche ed alla sua arte. La sua interpretazione di Kierkegaard prende il nome di “La costruzione dell'estetico” in cui Adorno parla della teoria delle tre sfere: estetica (la più libera ed esteriore), etica e religiosa . Con estetico si intende certamente il campo delle opere d'arte e della riflessione teorica sull'arte, o maniera secondo la quale si manifesta l'interiorità come modo della comunicazione soggettiva, poiché secondo la dottrina del Kierkegaard non può mai diventare oggettiva. La parola estetico abbraccia diversi significati ma quello più significato è il sottolineare l'esistenza, anche se occorre fare una distinzione tra senso letterale e metaforico - filosofico cui si perviene tramite la critica. Ma ancor più dell'estetica in Kierkegaard a rivestire importanza è la poetica come riflessione sulla propria opera da arte dell'autore.

L'approccio estetico deve presupporre prima il “come” ed in seguito “il che cosa”. Ma il suo rapporto con la scrittura non è immediato, anzi è molto sofferto. In Kierkegaard « la pseudonomia è in realtà una “polionomia” ed ha, come dice egli stesso, un rapporto non casuale con l'intera sua produzione». Sceglie per i pseudonimi nomi bizzarri al tempo stesso allusivi, vere e proprie cifre di interpretazione dell'opera di cui figurano essere gli autori. Pseudonimia e ironia sono strumenti fondamentali della scelta comunicativa del Kierkeegard. I grandi maestri di comunicazione sono Socrate (come pensatore esistente) e Cristo (verità che si fa esistenza). All'anonimato del mittente corrisponde quello del ricevente, che lo sviluppo della stampa ha trasformato in Io Impersonale chiamato Pubblico .

Kierkeegard è assolutamente contrario a quella forma argomentativa chiamata trattato che segue una ferrea logica deduttiva privilegiando il pensare per immagini utilizzando la retorica non intesa come teoria del discorso persuasivo ma una modalità di scrittura di tipo connotativo. Sembra scontato che questa retorica è da intendersi all' interno del mondo dell'estetica.

«Adorno seguiva Kierkeegard per quel che concerne la concezione secondo la quale la verità esiste soltanto come qualcosa di cifrato e reso inaccessibile con gli strumenti logico – deduttiviSul modo comunque di intendere la retorica emerge un'intensa riflessione da parte di Adorno.

« La retorica supplisce nella filosofia ciò che non è pensabile nel linguaggio» Essa rappresenta l'unica arma per combattere il dispotismo del pensiero. « […] Nella qualità retorica, la cultura, la società, la tradizione animano il pensiero; ciò che non è affatto retorico è alleato con quella barbaria in cui termina il pensiero borghese»

Ma in cosa consiste la connessione fra retorica, linguaggio e comunicazione?

Vi sono diverse interpretazioni in proposito tra cui quella del celebre Ruschi il quale sostiene che la concezione estetica di Adorno riporta necessariamente al fatto che l'arte e la filosofia convergono in quello che rappresenta il concetto di verità. Si reggono su un fatto linguistico. In esse questo linguaggio subisce un passaggio da comunicativo a mimetico, con la sua sottomissione alle categorie formali. L'universalità del linguaggio poetico trova il suo apice nel passaggio dal soggetto individuale a quello collettivo, storico, nella misura in cui perviene a se stessa la lingua artistica con una soggettività poetica in cui prende a parlare una obbiettività spirituale linguisticamente oggettualizzata.

L'altra interpretazione riguarda Cortella con la sua opera intitolata. Comunicare le cose, Adorno e il linguaggio.

Secondo egli infatti, in Adorno il linguaggio invece di manifestare le cose le occulta, non rinunciando però all'idea che l'unico nostro modo di conoscere le cose sia l'uso dei concetti. L'unica soluzione sembra quella del non-dire affinché essa si manifesti.

La verità non è richiudibile in un concetto. Importante è anche precisare che Adorno continua a pensare al concetto di non – identico come qualcosa che sta aldilà del linguaggio e che il linguaggio si limiterebbe a manifestare. Il terreno privilegiato in cui noi siamo soliti fare esperienza della non-identità del linguaggio sia il dialogo con il suo mettere in discussione non solo le opinioni, il sapere ma anche i significati.

Infine come non citare il rapporto che esiste fra soggetto e oggetto, il quale Adorno lo pone in uno stato libero da una differenziazione di unità e antiteticità fra essi. Dalla dialettica soggetto-oggetto scaturisce un infinità di significati. Per esempio l'oggetto è da intendersi come natura esterna ed interna, l'io come oggetto di autoriflessione, l'altro e/o gli altri come esseri umani.

Per Adorno il linguaggio riveste quindi, un valore eminente perché gli riconosce due qualità fondamentali: tramite esso gli uomini trovano la loro individualità e la lingua è il tramite mediante cui la spiritualità di questa individualità viene prodotta.

Aveva del linguaggio un' idea ben precisa. Non lo intendeva come una forma limitata al suo aspetto strumentale ma che dovesse contribuire a riportare a galla il rimosso, il sommerso ed il non identico.

Il tema della comunicazione è stato interpretato e studiato comunque nel panorama del Novecento filosofico con un atteggiamento alquanto “”aristocratico”, lontano dalla banalità di una prassi di basso profilo.

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INDICE NOMI BIBLIOGRAFIA

I.R AMONET , Propagandes silencieuses. Masses, televisione, cinema, Éditions Galilée, Paris 2000; trad. It. Di A. ed E. Vinassa de Regny, Propaganda silenziosa, Masse, televisione, cinema , Asterios Editore, Trieste 2002.

J.H ABERMAS , Il discorso filosofico della modernita , trad. it., di E. Agazzi, Laterza, Roma - Bari 1988, pp 189 sgg; ID., Il pensiero post - metafisico.

L.C ORTELLA , Comunicare le cose, Adorno e il linguaggio , in AA. VV.. Cio che si dice e cio che si lascia dire.

M.P ERNIOLA , Contro la Comunicazione , Einaudi, Torino 2004.

M.R UGGENIN I, Prefazione.

P. P ELLEGRINO , Estetica e Comunicazione nel panorama teorico del Novecento , Congedo Editore, 2005.

T H.W .A DORNO , Kierkeegard Konstruktion des Asthetischen, J.B.C. Mohr, Frankfurt-Tuningen 1933; trad. It. Di A. Burger Cori, Kierkegaard, La costruzione dell'estetico, Longanesi, Milano 1983 (I. edizione 1962).

T H.W . A DORNO , Dialettica negativa , trad. it. di P.Lauro, introd. E cura di S.Petrucciani, Einaudi, Torino 2004.

Domnul Aurel Mateescu mi-a răspuns  :

+Blogideologic, randurile dvs ma fac sa cred - sau cel putin asta este impresia cu care raman, ca este un fel de filosofie a rusilor sa ma schimbe din cand in cand meniul…Oribil.+

@ Aurel Mateescu

Da, este un vechi “arhetip cultural samoied” al slavilor răsăriteni. Varegii, adică vikingii răsăriteni care au fondat Rusiile pe istmul baltico-pontic, s-au forţat tot timpul să stîrpească această “gastronomie de samoied” printre slavii răsăriteni, după ce i-au obligat să se creştineze. Reforma dură a lui Petru Velikii de europenizare a Rusiilor se explică tot prin această politică a varegilor creştinaţi şi civilizaţi de Bizanţ, de eradicare a barbariei printre slavii răsăriteni. Chiar şi Adorno explică politica lui Stalin drept continuarea politicii lui Petru Velikii de iluminare a Rusiilor.

Titus Filipas

“It has made the technology of the culture industry no more than achievement of standardization and mass production, sacrificing whatever involved a distinction between the logic of the work and that of the social system.”

The culture industry absorbs pure art and manipulates it into a standardized product. Also, in order to succeed, the artist him/herself must be absorbed and assimilated; socially edited—so to remove all coarseness, true originality and innovation, in order to fit into a model of success (72).

According to Horkeimer and Adorno, the culture industry is totalitarian, self-policing and has a built-in system of reinforcement. It strengthens itself the more it grows and the general public, in fact, likes its system of filters and controls and has come to rely on it. At the helm of the culture ship is ruler, or führer; the most powerful force in the system being those parties with the most capital. “The people at the top in the culture agencies, who work in harmony as only one manager can with another … have long since reorganized and rationalized the objective spirit.” Capitalism confines the consumer to the serving class, and therefore limits he/she from receiving the whole picture—or seeing the forest for the “filters” that are at work upon him/her (79).

This is similar to the power at play in "A Propaganda Model" as outlined by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, but not identical.

“A propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power in its multi-level effects on mass media interests and choices,” Herman and Chomsky write (280).

Herman and Chomsky propose a multi-tiered system of control in which news/communication is filtered so that only what is “safe” to the reputations, bank rolls and perpetuation of those in power is delivered to the public. But instead of framing this form of manipulation as iron-fisted, totalitarian and practically omnipotent, Herman and Chomsky break it down into five filters which they define to be not as overtly fascist, though potentially just as forceful and manipulative.

The five filters that Herman and Chomsky discuss are 1.) “Size, ownership profit orientation of the mass media.” That is, the clear concentration of wealth and media resources which belong to an elite, uber-wealthy segment of the population. Namely, about two dozen families and a handful or other “outside directors.”

2.) “The advertising license to do business.” That is, the persuasion of advertiser dollars over the slant of the content. For example, editorial staff in a form of media dependent on ad sales for revenue, such as a newspaper, might hesitate to run a story in which an interviewee criticized the business practices of one of the newspaper’s ad clients, let’s say, such as The Gap, for fear that the client would cancel ads and therefore forfeit revenues (289-292).

3.) “Sourcing mass-media news.” Because media outlets are limited in budgets and staff numbers to gather news, they rely on a set group of “official,” “available” sources, such as press agents from the U.S. armed forces, church and special interest groups and government officials. Collecting news from these sources inherently allows the debasement of objectivity, for information provided comes from the vantage of the sources and is most likely slated to protect the source’s own best interests. (292-298)

4.) “Flak and the enforcers.” Flak is the negative responses generated sometimes by advertisers, the government, religious interests, other media outlets, etc. in response to statements or programs generated by a media source. For example, an editorial run in a newspaper deriding The Gap for abusing its workers in unregulated sweatshops. Flak could be the corporation’s response to the editorial in the form of scolding, writing a response column denying the abuses, or withdrawing the purchase of pre-negotiated advertising space. Flak can not only tarnish a media outlet’s reputation and hurt subscription numbers or affect viewership, it can cost actual dollars if/when advertisers withdraw ads in response to flak fallout. (298-300, 302-304)

5. “Anticommunism…” as fervor and national religion. Herman and Chomsky show how making examples of the communist plight can be set in motion to instill fear of anything or anyone who is perceived as different, pro-Socialist, or critical of Capitalism (i.e. dissidents) (300-302).

Herman and Chomsky conclude by defining who uses propaganda models and for what reasons. For example, they cite the presses failure to cover the torture of Turkish political prisoners and break up of trade unions in Turkey in 1980 because of a concealed U.S. government interest in supporting the “martial-law” state in Turkey (302). Conversely, Herman and Chomsky discuss the way the American press jumped to cover rights violations of Polish trade unions at a time under Reagan’s presidency when the U.S. government wanted to appear pro-business and pro-Free Trade (303).

Again, as in the Horkheimer/Adorno reading, those in power, or those who held the greatest wealth would be at the reins of a propaganda campaign. Samely, the filterization of information and the ad hominem forced adherence to a culture standard lies in the hands of those with the greatest power and wealth, who stand to benefit the most, from controlled responses of the general public (and preordained, orchestrated buying patterns).

Saruman, il più potente fra gli Istari, il capo dell'Ordine degli Stregoni tradisce le aspettative della Compagnia dell'Anello e si allea con il loro principale nemico, Sauron, mettendo a disposizione dell'oscuro signore tutta la sua immensa conoscenza tecnica. Un cambiamento che tiene fede alla tradizione narrativa che suggerisce il personaggio “cattivo” come più propenso ad opere di ingegno tecnico-scientifico (basti pensare alla mela avvelenata di Biancaneve, frutto della natura modificato in artefatto sterminatore dal morboso desiderio di arrivismo della strega) e che rappresenta allo stesso tempo la base sulla quale si articola il seguente lavoro comparativo. Un'analisi diretta, più che a soffermarsi sugli innumerevoli dettagli del complesso narrativo, verso l'individuazione dei possibili collegamenti che intercorrono tra Saruman nel momento in cui abbraccia la fede della ragione sistemica e il soggetto illuminista, teorizzato dagli esponenti della Scuola di Francoforte Theodor Adorno e Max Horkheimer nel celebre testo “Dialettica dell'illuminismo”, impegnato nel congedarsi da ogni autorità e affermare la sua autonomia razionale. Leggi l'intero saggio su Mediazone

http://toxicologist.wordpress.com/stories/the-end-of-art-history/

Entrevista com o filósofo espanhol Fernando Savater.

Lúcido e polêmico como sempre, não é difícil imaginar por trás da voz que fala pelo telefone os chamativos óculos de Fernando Savater movendo-se agitadamente sobre seu nariz. É que assim como os temas do mundo não lhe são indiferentes, este grande pensador espanhol não permanece indiferente às perguntas.

Acaba de publicar o livro “La aventura del pensamiento” [A aventura do pensamento, ainda sem tradução para o português], onde explica com simplicidade e clareza a vida e obra dos principais pensadores que foram fundamentais para estruturar a moral e a ética do Ocidente. Platão, Aristóteles, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Sartre, Nietzsche, Adorno, Foucault, Spinoza, Descartes, Locke e Unamuno, entre outros. “Esta obra tem como missão abrir o apetite”, esclarece no começo desta entrevista com o Clarín. “Não é um ponto de chegada, mas um ponto de partida, que quer despertar a curiosidade dos leitores e fazer com que desejem buscar a obra destes autores, investigar o seu legado”.

- No livro, cita Sartre quando diz “o inferno são os outros” e a Hobbes com aquela frase de que o homem é o lobo do homem. É o medo do outro ou o olhar do outro que está no centro da ordem social?

- Esse medo é uma das bases. Nós, seres humanos, necessitamos uns dos outros porque somos seres simbólicos, que falamos, e um ser que maneja símbolos nunca pode viver só. Mas os demais também são livres, têm seus próprios desejos e, portanto, enfrentar-se a eles é perigoso. Creio, então, que há um medo negativo e outro medo que é são e tem a ver com saber que se um desrespeita os demais, este, mais cedo ou mais tarde, se voltará contra alguém.

- Pareceria que, em resposta a este confronto, os homens tendem a fecharem-se cada vez mais sobre si mesmos e em sua própria identidade social, fazendo renascer nacionalismos, fechando fronteiras, iniciando lutas étnicas ou religiosas.

- Eu creio que aqui, mais que o medo da diferença, o que há é um problema econômico, social. Em épocas em que se considera que o bolo tem diminuído muito e que não haverá porções para todos, as pessoas não querem convidados à mesa. Os demais são vistos como pessoas que podem nos tirar algo, sobretudo os pobres.

- Os excluídos dos quais falava Foucault, encarcerados ou marginalizados da sociedade, “os outros”, são hoje os pobres?

- Sem dúvida. A única raça perseguida no mundo é a raça dos pobres. Ninguém vê a cor de pele do sultão de Brunei, mas, em contrapartida, o pobre pertence a uma raça perseguida e será ainda mais perseguido se, além disso, tiver traços étnicos diferentes.

- É paradoxal que para manter o pobre do lado de fora, o que se propõe seja a própria prisão.

- Os países mais ricos crêem que podem fazer fortalezas e ficar lá dentro com o que necessitam, com pobres suficientes para que trabalhem para eles, mas que não incomodem. Mas este é um conceito equivocado, porque o mundo chegou a tal nível de interconexão que ou nos salvamos todos, ou nos perdemos todos. Hoje, ser cosmopolita e ser solidário é ser realista. Crer que é possível que alguns pequenos grupos se salvem enquanto os outros perecem devorados por um mar de necessidades é um erro enorme. Ninguém se salva nem afunda sozinho.

- Essa é a lição da atual crise dos Estados Unidos?

- Sim. E nós, espanhóis, temos isso muito claro hoje. Mas não somente nos afetará o que acontecer nos países ricos, também nos afetam a África e a América Latina. O mundo tem ficado menor. Hoje viajamos de uma ponta à outra em questão de horas, as notícias chegam imediatamente, e nem falemos da facilidade com que se movem os capitais e os investimentos. Então, supor que vamos criar guetos e salvar-nos uns dos outros é absurdo. O que deve ser feito é com que essa comunicação universal funcione a favor da felicidade e do bem-estar de todos.

- A sociedade feliz é a mais tolerante com a diferença ou a mais igualitária?

- As sociedades mais tolerantes são as que dão importância ao que se tem em comum. O mais importante são nossas semelhanças, não nossas diferenças. Agora, há uma superstição que fala da riqueza de nossas diferenças. Entretanto, a verdadeira riqueza não reside em nossas diferenças, mas em nossas semelhanças. Quando estamos convencidos da importância do que compartilhamos, toleramos também a diferença, esse gosto pelo diferente, pela ideologia, pelos tipos de comida, pelo erotismo. O importante são os direitos humanos. Dentro disso está a possibilidade de que logo cada um viva sua humanidade de maneira distinta, com possibilidades semelhantes.

- O legado de Locke, sua idéia de tolerância e direitos do homem persiste para além dos discursos?

- Os direitos sociais e humanos são muito mais respeitados agora do que em qualquer outra época...

- Mas não parece que nos encaminhamos para uma sociedade mais justa...

- ..., ainda que nós consideremos que não é o suficiente, precisamente porque sabemos que existem e queremos que se cumpram melhor. Hoje, por exemplo, há um elevado número de pessoas no mundo, muito maior que o de outras épocas, que sabe o que é a previdência social, sabe o que lhe cabe e que pode pedi-lo. Muitas vezes não o obtém, e muitas pessoas do mundo nem têm a quem solicitá-lo, mas isto era pior em outras épocas, sem dúvida. A contradição de nosso mundo é que hoje sim teríamos meios para resolver alguns dos problemas que deixam marginalizados do sistema uma grande parcela da população. Pessoas que podem estar longe, ou que podemos tratar de manter longe, mas que estão perto através da televisão e de outros meios de comunicação.

- Comove da mesma maneira vê-los através dos meios de comunicação? Não vimos os cadáveres do 11/9 ou do furacão Katrina como vimos os corpos do tsunami da Indonésia?

- É verdade que, todavia, hoje existem mortos de primeira categoria e mortos de segunda categoria, mas também é certo que quando foram os da Indonésia o mundo todo se sentiu comovido. Porém, há guerras terríveis na África que passam completamente despercebidas. Isso já depende de políticas informativas de cada um. Agora mesmo, em plena campanha presidencial nos Estados Unidos, o tema do furacão Gustav teve repercussões eleitorais e se transmitiu a notícia por esta ótica, para além da sensibilidade que podem ou não ter os candidatos. Para além de Obama ou McCain.

- Crê que o fato de que Barack Obama possa chegar à presidência dos Estados Unidos, fala de uma superação do racismo nesse país?

- Não sei se o racismo está superado, mas sim, houve uma mudança radical. Voltemos ao que disse antes: não importa a cor de pele, importa que não sejam pobres. Para uma pessoa de minha geração o fato fundamental é que Obama é negro, mas creio que para os mais jovens não, eles já estão acostumados a uma educação integrada. Esta é uma conquista do presidente Johnson, que levou a integração às escolas estadunidenses há 40 anos. Nesse país existem problemas econômicos e culturais, mas creio que o problema racial, como expôs Martin Luther King quando eu tinha 20 anos, já não existe.

- Além das transformações históricas que têm a ver com o marxismo, qual você acha que foi a maior influência do materialismo de Marx no pensamento do homem comum?

- Os grandes pensadores influenciam através de seus seguidores. Não são muitos os que leram realmente “O Capital”, mas são muitos os que ouviram falar os marxistas de boteco, então a idéia se rebaixa um pouco. Creio que a noção de Marx de que os grandes movimentos históricos, ainda que tenham um revestimento retórico de grandes idéias religiosas e humanistas, se movem por interesses econômicos, e que estes interesses econômicos são mais determinantes na história que outros discursos, é algo que as pessoas têm aceitado, inclusive mais do que devem. Seguindo-a, se chega a simplificar ao extremo, e na busca do interesse econômico são esquecidas as outras questões, como os interesses ideológicos e étnicos, que também têm importância.

- Você também disse que a religião é “muito mais que o ópio do povo”, citando Marx.

- Sim, é a cocaína do povo, uma droga pesada que os coloca em atividade. Marx sustentou que a religião adormecia os impulsos revolucionários do povo, e o que estamos vivendo agora não é um entorpecente, como pensava Marx, senão, muitas vezes um estimulante terrível da violência ou do terrorismo.

- Por que acredita que desde o fim do século passado a questão religiosa recuperou um protagonismo?

- A decadência da política tem trazido como conseqüência o ressurgimento da questão religiosa. Enquanto a política ocupava um lugar central na vida, a religião estava relegada. Mas no momento em que a política começou a passar a um segundo plano e a ser considerada uma questão meramente econômica, a religião passou a ocupar este lugar. Nós, seres humanos, necessitamos de compensações simbólicas da nossa mortalidade e da nossa própria vida. As igrejas são piores do que as religiões porque são instituições de poder, e muitas vezes afetam as liberdades individuais.

- Não é contraditório que tenha dito que se deve tolerar o véu muçulmano nas escolas francesas?

- Eu, o que creio é que não se deve responder a obrigatoriedade de usar o véu com a obrigatoriedade de tirar o véu. Acredito que é importante defender o espaço laico da república e a educação laica que defendeu a França, mas sem converter isso numa outra Inquisição. Minha mãe colocava um véu para ir à igreja e não acontecia nada. Não convertamos algo que pode ser um costume em algo digno de ser perseguido, salvo se realmente vejamos que é uma humilhação.

Socorro Estrada

Acesse o texto original clicando aqui.

Entre as varias coisas gostosas de fazer por lá – comer, visitar lojas, ver gente que acha que saiu de um manga etc. – comprei um Buda que aparece de madeira, mas na realidade é feito de resina. Na loja que entramos existem outros Budas que parecem ter sido feito de jade, mas que nada, tudo de resina.

Gostei tanto que estou pensando em iniciar uma pequena coleção de Budas, sem falar que ele ficou lindo na minha estante!

Theodor Adorno, 1968

Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?
Opening Address to the 16th German Sociological Congress

Source: http://www.efn.org/~dredmond/AdornoSocAddr.html;
Translation: © 2001 Dennis Redmond;
CopyLeft: translation used with permission, Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike);
Original German: from Suhrkamp Verlag as: Theodor W. Adorno. Collected Works, Volume 4;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

The criterion of class relations, which empirical research is fond of referring to as “social stratification” [in English], strata divided according to income, life-style, education, are generalizations of the findings of specific individuals. To that extent they may be called subjective. In contrast to this, the more traditional concept of class was objective, meant to be independent of indices, which are garnered out of the immediate life of subjects, however much, by the way, that these express social objectivities. Marxist theory rests on the position of entrepreneurs and workers in the production-process, and ultimately of their control over the means of production. In the predominant contemporary strains of sociology this conclusion has for the most part been rejected as dogmatic. The controversy needs to be sorted out theoretically, not simply through the presentation of facts, which indeed for their part make numerous contributions to the critique, but which in light of critical theory can also conceal the structure. Even the opponents of dialectics have no wish to delay a theory, which serves to account for sociology’s own interests. The controversy is essentially one concerning interpretation - even if it were only the attempt to banish the demand for such in the purgatory of that which is extra-scientific.

A dialectical theory of society concerns itself with structural laws, which condition the facts, in which it manifests itself and from which it is modified. By structural laws we mean tendencies, which more or less stringently follow the historical constitution of the total system. The Marxist models for this were the law of value, the law of accumulation, the law of economic crisis. Dialectical theory did not intend to turn structures into ordered schematas, which could be applied to sociological findings as completely, continually and non-contradictorily as possible; nor systemizations, but rather the procedures and data of scientific cognition of the already-organized system of society. Such a theory ought least of all to withhold facts from itself, to twist them around according to a thema probandum. Otherwise it would in fact fall right back into dogmatism and would repeat conceptually what the entrenched authorities of the Eastern bloc have already perpetrated through the instrument of Diamat: freezing into place what, according to its own concept, cannot be otherwise thought than as something which moves. The fetishism of the facts corresponds to one of the objective laws. Dialectics, which has had its fill of the painful experience of such hegemony, does not hegemonize in turn, but criticizes this just as much as the appearance, that the individuated and the concrete already determine the course of the world hic et nunc [Latin: here and now]. It’s very likely that under the spell of the latter the individuated and the concrete do not even exist yet. Through the word pluralism, utopia is suppressed, as if it were already here; it serves as consolation. That is why however dialectical theory, which critically reflects on itself, may not for its part install itself domestic-style in the medium of the generality. Its intention is precisely to break out of this medium. It too is not immune before the false division of reflective thinking and empirical research. Some time ago a Russian intellectual of considerable influence told me that sociology is a new science in the Soviet Union. He meant of course the empirical kind; that this might have something to do with what in his country is a doctrine of society raised to a state religion was no more apparent to him, than the fact that Marx conducted empirical inquests. Reified consciousness does not end where the concept of reification has a place of honor. The inflated bluster over concepts such as “imperialism” or “monopoly,” without taking into consideration what these words factually entail [Sachverhalten], and to what extent they are relevant, is as wrong, that is to say irrational, as a mode of conduct which, thanks to its blindly nominalistic conception of the matter at hand [Sachverhalten], refuses to consider that concepts such as exchange-society might have their objectivity, revealing a compulsion of the generality behind the matter at hand [Sachverhalten], which is by no means always adequately translated into the operational field of the facts of the matter [Sachverhalte]. Both are to be opposed; to this extent the theme of the Congress, late capitalism or industrial society, testifies to the methodological intent of self-critique out of freedom.

A simple answer to the question which lies in that thematic, is neither to be expected nor really to be sought after. Alternatives which compel one to opt for one or the other determination, even if only theoretically, are already mandatory situations, modeled after an unfree society and transposed onto the Mind [Geist], towards which the latter ought to do what it can to break unfreedom through its tenacious reflection. As completely as the dialectician may refuse to draw a defining line between late capitalism and industrial society, the less can he indulge in the pleasure of a non-committal on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other-hand. He must guard against simplification, contrary to Brecht’s suggestion, precisely because the well-worn commonplace suggests the well-worn response, just as the opposite answer falls so easily from the lips from his opponents.

Whoever does not wish to be hoodwinked by the experience of the preponderance of the structure over the matter at hand [Sachverhalten], will not, unlike most of his opponents, devalue contradictions in advance to methodology, to mere conceptual errors and attempt to stamp them out through the harmony of scientific systematics. Instead he will trace them back into the structure, which was antagonistic ever since organized society first emerged, and which remains so, just as the extra-political conflicts and the permanent possibility of a catastrophic war, most recently also the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, crassly demonstrate. This glosses over an alternative thinking, to that unbroken formal-logical non-contradictoriness which projects itself onto that which is to be thought. It is not a question of choosing between either form, according to one’s scientific viewpoint or taste, but rather their relationship expresses for its part the contradiction which characterizes the current era, and it befits sociology to articulate this theoretically.

Many prognoses of dialectical theory have a contradictory relationship to one another. Some simply did not fulfill themselves; certain theoretical-analytical categories have lead meanwhile to aporias, which can only be thought out of the world with the utmost artifice. Other predictions, originally closely associated with the former, have been resoundingly confirmed. Even those who do not reduce the meaning of a theory to its prognoses, would not hesitate to ascribe the claim of the dialectical one as partly true and partly false. These divergences require for their part theoretical explanation. That one cannot speak of a proletarian class-consciousness in the leading industrial countries does not necessarily refute, in contrast to the communis opinio [prevailing opinion], the existence of classes: class was determined by the position to the means of production, not by the consciousness of its members. There are no lack of plausible reasons for the lack of class-consciousness: that workers are no longer being immiserated, that they were increasing integrated into bourgeois society and its world-views, as compared to the period during and immediately after the industrial revolution, when the industrial proletariat was being recruited from paupers and stood half-extraterritorial to society, could not have been foreseen. Social being does not immediately produce class consciousness. Without the masses, and indeed precisely because of their social integration, having any more control over their social destiny than 120 years ago, they lack not only class solidarity, but also the full consciousness of this, that they are objects and not subjects of social processes, which nevertheless animate them as subjects. Class- consciousness, on which according to Marxist theory the qualitative leap forwards depended, was consequently and at the same time an epiphenomenon. If however no class consciousness emerges over long periods in countries supposedly determined by class relations, for example North America, insofar as it had ever been present there; if the question of the proletariat becomes a puzzle-picture, then quantity rebounds into quality, and the suspicion of a conceptual mythology can only be suppressed by decree, not assuaged by thought. This development is difficult to separate from the central plank of Marxist theory, namely the doctrine of surplus value. This was supposed to explain the relationship of classes and the increase of class antagonisms as something objectively economic. But if the share of living labor, from which all surplus value accordingly flows, sinks, thanks to the extension of technological progress, to a tendential limit-point, then this affects the central plank, the theory of surplus value. The current lack of an objective theory of value is conditioned not merely by what the academy narrowly defines as scholastic economics. It also refers back to the prohibitive difficulty of objectively grounding the construction of classes without the theory of surplus value. Non-economists may find it illuminating, that even the so-called neo-Marxist theories attempt to stop the holes in their treatment of constitutive problems with scraps of subjective economics. The responsibility for this is certainly not merely the weakness of theoretical capability. It’s conceivable that contemporary society cannot be contained within a coherent theory. By comparison, Marx had it much easier, when he laid out the fully-fledged system of liberalism as a science. He only needed to ask whether capitalism corresponded in its own dynamic categories to this model, in order to produce, out of the determinate negation of the preexisting theoretical system, a system-like theory in its own right. Meanwhile the market economy has become so honeycombed, that it mocks any such confrontation. The irrationality of the contemporary social structure hinders its rational development in theory. The perspective that the direction of economic processes is passing into the hands of political power, though it follows from the logical dynamic of the system, is at the same time also one of objective irrationality. This, and not simply the sterile dogmatism of its followers, should help to explain why for a long time no really convincing objective theory of society emerged. Under this aspect the renunciation of such would be no critical advance of the scientific spirit, but an expression of compulsory resignation. The regression of society runs parallel to that of its thinking.

In the meantime we are faced with no less drastic facts, which for their part can be interpreted without [Adorno's emphasis] the usage of hte key concepts of capitalism only with th eutmost violence and caprice. The economic process continues to perpetuate domination over human beings. The objects of such are no longer merely the masses, but also the administrators and their hangers-on. In terms of the traditional theory, they have become largely functions of their own production-apparatus. The much-belabored question of the “managerial revolution” [in English], concerning the supposed transition of domination from the juridical owners to the bureaucracy is correspondingly secondary. then as now, this process produces and reproduces classes which, though not necessarily in the form of Zola’s Germinal, at the very least a structure which the anti-socialist Nietzsche anticipated with the expression, all herd and no shepherd. In this, however, was concealed what he did not want to see: the same odl social oppression, only now become anonymous. If the theory of immiseration was not borne out of à la lettre [to the letter], then it certainly has in the no less frightening sense, that unfreedom, one’s dependence on the consciousness of those who serve an uncontrollable apparatus, is spreading universally over humanity. The much-maligned immaturity of the masses is only the reflex of this, this they are as little as ever autonomous masters of their lives; like in mythology, it confronts them as a doom [Schicksal: fate, destiny]. Empirical investigations show by the way that even subjectively, according to their reality-principle [Realitaetsbewusstsein], classes are by no means so leveled out as one at times presumes. Even the theories of imperialism do not become obsolete due to the forcible withdrawal of the great powers from their colonies. The process which they referred to continues in the antagonism of both monstrous power-blocs. The supposedly outmoded doctrine of social antagonisms, including the telos of the final crisis, is being immeasurably trumped by manifestly political ones. Whether and to what extent class relations have been relocated onto those between the leading industrial nations and the much courted-after developing countries, remains to be seen.

In the categories of critical-dialectical theory I would like to suggest as a first and necessarily abstract answer, that contemporary society is above all an industrial society according to the level of its productive forces [Adorno’s emphasis]. Industrial labor has become the model pattern of society everywhere and across all borders of political systems. It developed itself into a totality due to the fact that modes of procedure, which resemble the industrial ones, are extending by economic necessity into the realms of material production, into administration, the distribution-sphere and that which we call culture. Conversely, society is capitalism in terms of its relations of production [Adorno’s emphasis]. Human beings are still what they were according to the Marxist analysis of the middle of the 19th century: appendages of machines, not merely in the literal sense as workers, who have to adapt themselves to the constitution of the machines which they serve, but far beyond this and metaphorically, compelled to assume the roles of the social mechanism and to model themselves on such, without reservation, on the level of their most intimate impulses. Production goes on today just as it did before, for the sake of profits. Needs have gone beyond anything Marx could have foreseen in his time, completely becoming the function of the production-apparatus, which they potentially were all along, instead of the reverse. They are totally governed [gesteuert: mechanically steered, governed]. To be sure, even within this transformation, as pinned-down and adapted to the interests of the apparatus as it is, the needs of human beings are smuggled in, something which the apparatus never fails to direct popular attention to. But the use-value side of commodities has in the meantime been shorn of their last “naturally-grown” or self-apparent truth [Selbstverstaendlichkeit: casualness, self-evidence]. Not only are needs satisfied purely indirectly, by means of exchange-values, but within the relevant economic sectors produced by the profit-motive, and thus at the cost of the objective needs of the consumers, namely those for adequate housing, and completely so in terms of the education and information over the processes which most affect them. In the realm of necessities not directly connected with basic living standards, use-values as such are tending to dissolve or be exhausted; a phenomenon which appears in empirical sociology under termini such as status symbols and prestige, without really being objectively grasped by such. The highly industrialized countries of the Earth, so long as, in spite of Keynes, some renewed economic natural catastrophe does not occur, have learned to conceal the more visible forms of poverty, albeit not to the extent that the thesis of the “affluent society” [in English] would have it. The bane, however, which the system exerts over human beings, has only become stronger due to this integration, insofar as such comparisons can be reasonably made. It is undeniable that the increasing satisfaction of material needs, in spite of their distortion by the apparatus, hints incomparably more concretely to the possibility of a life without necessity. Even in the poorest countries, no-one need hunger anymore. That the envelope before the consciousness of the possible has nonetheless become thin indeed, is supported by the panic-stricken fright created by any sort of social enlightenment which is not broadcast by the official communication systems. What Marx and Engels, who strove for a truly humane organization of society, denounced as utopian for merely sabotaging such an organization, has become a palpable reality. Nowadays the critique of utopia has sunk into the common ideological stockpile, while at the same time the triumph of technical productivity strives to maintain the illusion that utopia, incompatible with the relations of production, has already been realized within its realm. But the contradictions in their new, international-political quality - the arms race of East and West - make that which is possible at the same time impossible.

To see through all this demands, indeed, that one does not cast the blame on what critique has time and again been side-tracked by, namely technics, that is to say the productive-forces, thereby indulging in a kind of theoretical machine-breaking on an expanded level. Technics is not the disaster, but rather its intertwining with the social relations, in which it is entangled. One need only recall how the conscious application of the profit-motive and power-motive [Herrschaftsinteresse: “power-interest,” used here in the sense of factory discipline] canalizes technical development: they fatally harmonize, in the meantime, with the necessity of supervision. It is not for nothing that the invention of means of destruction has become the prototype of the new quality of technics. By contrast, the potential of those which distance themselves from domination, centralization, and violence against nature, and which would also probably permit the healing of much of what is literally and figuratively is damaged by technics, is left to die on the vine.

Contemporary society exhibits, in spite of all assertions to the contrary, as its dynamism and increase of production, static aspects. These include the relations of production. These are no longer merely the property of the owner, but of the administration, all the way to the role of the state as total capitalist. To the extent that its rationalization converges with technical rationality, a.k.a. the productive forces, they've undeniably become more flexible. This has created the illusion that the universal interest has its ideal as the status quo and universal employment, not the liberation of heteronomous work. But this condition, from an external political position quite labile, is a merely temporary balance, the result of forces, whose tension threatens to disrupt it. Inside the dominant relations of production, humanity is virtually its own reserve army of labor and is fed through as such. Marx’s expectation, that the primacy of the productive forces was certain to explode the relations of production, was all too optimistic. To that extent Marx remained, as the sworn enemy of German idealism, true to its affirmative construction of history. Trusting in the world-spirit benefited the justification of later versions of that world-order which, according to the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach, was to have been changed. The relations of production have out of sheer self-preservation continued to subjugate the unbound forces of production, through piecework and particular measures. The signature of the epoch is the preponderance of the relations of production over the productive forces, which have nonetheless mocked these relations for some time. That the extended arm of humanity can reach to distant and empty planets, but that it cannot create peace on Earth, highlights the absurdity, towards which the social dialectic is moving. That things happened otherwise than was hoped for is not least due to the fact that the society has ingested what Veblen called the “underlying population.” But the only ones who could wish that this be undone, are those who put the happiness of the abstract totality over that of living individual beings. This development depends for its part once again on that of the productive forces. It was never identical, though, with its primacy over the relations of production. This was never imagined as something mechanical. Its realization had for its precondition the spontaneity of those who were interested in the transformation of the relations, and their number has surpassed the actual industrial proletariat several times over. Objective interest and subjective spontaneity yawn wide from each other; these wither under the disproportionate hegemony of the existent. The sentence of Marx, that theory, too, becomes a genuine force as soon as it seizes the masses, has been turned flagrantly upside down by the course of the world. If the constitution of the world, through planned measures or automatically, hinders the simplest cognition and experience of the most threatening events and indispensable critical ideas and theorems by means of the culture- and consciousness-industries; if it hamstrings, far beyond this, even the basic capacity to imagine the world differently than it overwhelmingly appears to be to those who constitute this world, then these locked-up and manipulated intellectual and spiritual conditions become indeed a genuine power, that of repression, just what its opposite, the emancipated Mind [Geist: mind, spirit, intellect], once wished to combat.

By contrast, the terminus industrial society suggests, to a certain degree, that it’s a question of the technocratic moment in Marx, which this term would like to show the way out of the world, immediately in itself; as if the essence of society followed the level of the productive forces in lockstep, independent of its social conditions. It’s astonishing, how rarely the sociological establishment actually considers this, how rarely it is analyzed. The best part, which by no means needs to be the best, is forgotten, namely the totality, or in Hegel’s words the all-penetrating ether of society. This however is anything but ethereal, but on the contrary an ens realissimum [Latin: that which is real, materially existent]. Insofar as it is abstractly veiled, the fault of its abstraction is not to be blamed on a solipsistic and reality-distant thinking, but on the exchange-relationships, the objective abstractions, which belongs to the social life-process. The power of that abstraction over humanity is far more corporeal than that of any single institution, which silently constitutes itself in advance according to the scheme of things and beats itself into human beings. The powerlessness which the individual experiences in the face of the totality is the most drastic expression of this. Admittedly in sociology the leading social relations realize themselves in the social conditions of production, in accordance with their logical-extensive classificatory nature, far less palpably than in that concrete generality. They become neutralized into concepts of power or social control. In such categories, the point of the spike vanishes and thereby, one would like to say, that which is actually social in society, its structure. It is one of the tasks of today’s sociological congress, to work towards changing this.

It is least of all permissible for dialectical theory to simply set up the productive forces and relations of production as polar opposites. They are delimited by each another, each contains the other in itself. Exactly this leads to the bland recurrence of the productive forces, where the relations of production have the upper hand. The productive forces are, more than ever before, mediated through the relations of production; so completely perhaps, that these appear exactly for that reason as their essence; they have completely become a second nature. Their responsibility lies in this, that in an insane contradiction to what is possible, human beings across great stretches of the Earth live in misery. Even where an abundance of goods is the norm, this stands as if under a curse. The necessity which extends deep into the illusionary appearance [Schein], infects goods with its illusionary character. Objectively true and false needs can indeed be differentiated, though nowhere in the world ought to be signed over to bureaucratic regimentation for this reason. In needs exist always what is good and what is bad in the entire society; they may be the next best thing to market surveys, but they are not in the administered world in themselves the first thing. To judge between true and false consciousness would, according to the insight into the structure of society, require that of all its mediations. That which is fictitious, which distorts all satiation of necessities nowadays, is undoubtedly perceived unconsciously; this contributes significantly to the contemporary discontent in culture. More important than even the almost impenetrable quid pro quo of need, satisfaction and profit- or power-motive is the unrelieved and continuing threat of one need, on which all others depend on, the motive of simple survival. Delimited to a horizon in which at any moment the bomb can fall, even the most riotous display of consumer goods contains an element of self-mockery. The international antagonisms which, however, for the first time are building to a truly total war, stand in flagrant context with the relations of production, in the most literal sense imaginable. The threat of one catastrophe is displaced by the catastrophe of the other. The relations of production could scarcely maintain themselves without the apocalyptic earthquake of renewed economic crises as tenaciously as they do, if an inordinate share of the social product, which would otherwise be unsaleable, were not dedicated to the production of the means of destruction. In the Soviet Union something similar is at work, despite the removal of the market economy. The economic reasons for this are obvious: the requirement for speedy increases in production in the underdeveloped lands necessitates tight, dictatorial administration. Out of the unfettering of the forces of production emerged renewed fetters, those of the relations of production: production became its own end and hindered the purpose of such, i.e. undiminished and fully-realized freedom. Under both systems, the capitalist concept of socially essential work is reduced to a satanic parody: in the marketplace it is based on profit, never on self-evident utility for human beings themselves or their happiness. Such domination of the relations of production over human beings requires above all the fully-matured state of development of the forces of production. While both need to be differentiated, those who wish to grasp the merest part of the baleful spell cast on the situation must constantly use one as a means of understanding the other. The overproduction which drives that expansion, through which the apparently subjective need is received and substituted for, is spit out from a technical apparatus which has come so far towards realizing itself, that it has become, under a certain volume of production, irrational - that is, unprofitable; it is necessarily realized by the relations of production. It is solely from the viewpoint of total annihilation that the relations of production have not fettered the forces of production. The dirigiste methods, however, with which in spite of everything the masses are kept in line, presuppose a kind of concentration and centralization which has not only an economic side but also a technological one, as the mass-media go to show; i.e. that it has become possible to homogenize the consciousness of countless individuals from just a few points, through the selection and presentation of news and commentary.

The power of the relations of production, which were not overthrown, is greater than ever, and yet at the same time they are, as objectively anachronistic, everywhere diseased, damaged, riddled with holes. They do not function by themselves. Economic interventionism is not, as the older liberal school thought, something cobbled together from outside the system, but is rather system-immanent, the embodiment of self-defense; nothing could illuminate the category of dialectics with greater clarity. This is analogous to what became of the erstwhile Hegelian philosophy of law, wherein bourgeois ideology and the dialectic of bourgeois society are so deeply interwoven, in that the state, presumably intervening from beyond the reach of society’s power-struggles, had to be conjured up out of the immanent dialectic of society in order to damper and police the antagonisms of such, lest society, following Hegel’s insight, disintegrate. The invasion of that which is not system-immanent is at the same time also a piece of immanent dialectics, just as, on the opposite end of the spectrum, Marx thought of the overthrow of the relations of production as something compelled by the course of history, and nevertheless as something to be realized outside the closure of the system, as a qualitatively different action. If one argued, on the grounds of interventionism and from the standpoint of large-scale planning, that late capitalism [consumer capitalism] has moved beyond the anarchy of commodity production and is therefore no longer really capitalism, the response must be that the social destiny of the particular within this latter is more contingent than ever before. The model of capitalism never applied so purely as its liberal apologists wished to think. It was already in Marx’s day a critique of ideology, which was supposed to reveal how little the concept which capitalist society had of itself had to do with reality. Not the least of the ironies of this critical motif is that liberalism, which even in its heyday was nothing of the sort, has today been refunctioned in support of the thesis that capitalism is actually not what it is. This, too, points to a transformation. What since time immemorial in capitalist society was, in relation to free and fair exchange, and indeed by consequence of its own implications, irrational (that is to say, unfree and unjust) has increased to the point that its model has collapsed. Exactly this has become a condition, whose integration has turned into the prototype of disintegration, which is appraised as an asset. That which is alien to the system reveals itself to be the inner essence of the system, all the way into its political tendencies. In interventionism the power of resistance of the system has confirmed itself, indirectly in the theory of economic crisis; the transition to domination independent of market forces is its telos. The catchphrase of the “prefab society” is unwitting testament to this. Such a reconfiguration of liberal capitalism has its correlate in the reconfiguration of consciousness, a regression of human beings behind the objective possibility, which today would be open to them. Human beings are sacrificing the characteristics which they no longer need and which only hinder them; the kernel of individuation is beginning to come apart. It’s only in recent times that signs of a counter-tendency are becoming visible in various groups of young people: resistance against blind adjustment, freedom for rationally chosen goals, disgust before the world of swindles and illusions, meditations on the possibility of transformation. Whether the socially ever-increasing drive towards destruction triumphs in spite of this, only time will tell. Subjective regression favors once again the regression of the system. To borrow a phrase which Merton employed in a somewhat different context, because it became dysfunctional, the consciousness of the masses flattened out the system, such that it increasingly divested itself [sich entaeussern: to relinquish, divest oneself of; also to conceptually disclose, to realize] of that rationality of the fixed, identical ego, which was still implicit in the idea of a functional society.

That the forces of production and the relations of production are one nowadays, and that one could immediately construe society from the standpoint of the productive forces alone, says that the current society is socially necessary appearance. It is socially necessary because in fact previously separated moments of the social process, which living human beings incarnate, are being brought into a kind of overall equivalence. Material production, distribution, consumption are administered in common. Their borders, which once separated from inside the total process of externally separated spheres, and thereby respected that which was qualitatively different, are melting away. Everything is one. The totality of the process of mediation, in truth that of the exchange-principle, produces a second and deceptive immediacy. It makes it possible for that which is separate and antagonistic to be, against its own appearance, forgotten or to be repressed from consciousness. This consciousness of society is however an illusion, because it represents the consequences of technological and organizational homogenization, but nonetheless fails to see that this homogenization is not truly rational, but remains itself subordinated itself to a blind, irrational nomothetism [Gesetzmaessigkeit: lawfulness, juridicality]. No truly total subject of society yet exists. The mere appearance ought to be formulated as follows, that everything socially existent today is so thoroughly mediated, that even the moment of mediation is itself distorted by the totality. There is no standpoint outside of the whole affair which can be referred to, from which the ghost could be called by its name; the lever can be deployed only by means of its own incoherence. That is what Horkheimer and I described decades ago as the concept of the technological veil. The false identity between the constitution of the world and its inhabitants through the total expansion of technics is leading in the direction of the confirmation of the relations of production, whose true beneficiaries one searches for in vain, just as proletarians have become invisible. The self-realization of the system in relation to everyone, even functionaries, has reached a limit. It has turned into that fatality, which finds its expression in the current situation, to use Freud’s words, in free-floating angst; free-floating, because it can no longer be fixed on living beings, people or classes. The only relationships ultimately realized between people, however, are those buried under the relations of production. This is why the overwhelming organization of things remains at the same time its own ideology, virtually powerless. As impenetrable as the bane [Bann] is, it’s only a spell [Bann]. If sociology is to do more than just furnish welcome information to agents and interests, by fulfilling those tasks for which it was once conceived, then it is up to it, with means which do not themselves fall prey to the universal character of the fetish, to ensure, be it to ever so modest an extent, that the spell dissolves itself.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1547063&w=425&h=350&fv=videoId%3D184086](From about a million blogs, including but not limited to The Electronic Writer.)

Yes, it's Jon Stewart, yes, it's typically snarky and yes, it's full of unuseful "gotcha" moments, but Adorno would have been nodding his head and muttering.  The broader message is this: by standing boldly, unflinchingly and, worst of all, unsmilingly up to the self-evident with the absurd, all of these commentators - Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, Dick Morris, this Nancy Pfotenhauer character - know that they can create a narrative out of whole cloth.  The thing that is - was - self-evident here is that Sarah Palin is relatively inexperienced.  Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Just ask Senator Obama!

But instead of making an argument based on the self-evident (options would have included 'judgment is the issue here, and with her common-sense stands on abortion, same-sex marriage, oil drilling and blah blah blah Sarah Palin has proven herself to possess the judgment that Barack Obama, liberal socialist terrorist unamerican pig-dog, lacks' or 'Palin perfectly complements McCain.  He brings the experience, she brings the small-town sensibilities of the American people.') these folks and many others knew that they could create a narrative.  If they all get on TV and trumpet Sarah Palin's experience, it becomes "something that is being said," and the codifiers of narrative, the actual reporters, have to sit up and take notice, because gosh, here's something that's being said by a lot of people, and we can't come across as biased or anything.  And that's how it shows up in newspaper articles, morning TV, your neighbor's kitchen: "some folks are saying that Sarah Palin is so inexperienced that her selection is a travesty.  Others are saying that her experience is better than Obama's!"  Now, the fact that those "others" were confronting the self-evident with the absurd is lost, because narratives dance on top of facts, don't require them moment-to-moment.

The result?  By all at once presenting the absurd as though it were self-evident, the pundits above have created a new thing that is self-evident.  It's an end run around logic, by way of media narratives.  Pundits say it, the media takes notice, a competing narrative is born and gets equal airtime with the old one.  Expressed as a narrative "people are saying this, people are saying that" there's nothing in it to indicate that it was once absurd.

Jon Stewart's role?  Restoring the absurd to its rightful place, reminding us what it is by making us laugh at it.  Thank you, Jon Stewart.  One has to wonder what might happen if he tried to take on the anchor-ship of a real news show.

The absurd is presented as though it were self-evident, in order to disempower what is self-evident.
Theodor Adorno, Essay on One-Way Street.

Not to be too downbeat from the start, or anything.

His words are very much alive, but they are dead. Dead because the conversation with their author has ended long ago. Then again, do words gain an independence? Are they free once they leave the mouth? Get printed? Get blogged?

I few principles from Ong on orally-based thought (http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2008/02/orality-and-lit.html)

5.  close to human lifeworld (no lists or how to manuals but understanding in terms of specific lifeworld context);

6.  agonism (because knowledge is situated in the lifeworld, it is part of everyday combat, whether as descriptions of violence, practices of name calling, or the polarization of good and evil);

7.  empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced (communal identification, hearer's reaction is communal reaction);

8.  homeostasis (live in the present);

I like the words lifeworld and homeostasis. I feel they should be used more in these conversations. But yes, print, and now web-based media is meant to be more permanent, apply to more audiences, stick around, live longer. I remember reading texts that discussed the difference between sociological theory and social theory. How social theory was better because it was subjective and it accounted for its present condition. No more over-arching hegemonic theories that attempt to explain all events for all time, but personal, self-reflective theories that are aware of their limited objectivity.

Hence why blogging, in some ways, is pretty awesome. I like the blogs that are subjective. That will toss you a bone about the writer's awkward life. That there is a person writing this, not some academic. This is the intimacy (my connection spurred by this entry: http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2008/02/does-it-matter.html), although I do not fully agree or disagree with the presented analysis. For me, learning about the blogger's life, as long as it is tangential and entertaining, makes a blog far more interesting for me. I like to know what type of being generated the text on the screen. I can at least use my imagination. Sort of the way that when I read fantasy novels. My imagination would be given some clues from the book, but I created the characters, the sound of their voice, the way their hair caught in the wind, the amount of monster blood splatter..etc etc. I made the visuals and sounds. It doesn't matter true or false considering I will never be proved wrong or right because until I met the blogger face to face, I will never be sure of their identity (photoshop can do amazing things). While that type of simplistic intimacy is not a deal-breaker in blog reading, I do find it pleasant, especially if it is rare.

Also, the comments section in blogs can be pretty productive. (http://cscannella.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/the-orality-of-blogging/) " There is no 'blogging alone,'" gosh I like that line. I mean, not only am I a part of this "group," and I can choose to identify as a "blogger," but the fact that cyberspace is not a lonely place. Maybe I am the only one curious as to the face behind the mask. The person behind the blogger (if there is a difference (are some people born bloggers and some not?)). It's sort of a game. Back to what I said in my entry about face-to-face interaction, is it the message or the medium that is of greater importance? The blog won't change whether I know who is writing it. The words will be there. Yet, perhaps my perception of the words would change if I knew what the person looked like. I still want to know. At the same time, I don't think I ever want to truly know. It's no fun anymore. The game will end. I like the tension. The delay of gratification. I like the unknown pang.

Yet, I don't want to fool anyone into thinking that blogging really brings people closer together. That "we are drawn outward, rather than inward" (http://cscannella.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/inward-and-outward/). I used to believe that we were becoming more narcissistic, but now I'm not so sure. Yet, I'm not sold on any image of a global village either (Levinson, 27). Again, how connected can I possibly be to the blogger when we have no trust between us, and only text?

Hmm...do words count as technology? I would argue yes, and I wouldn't feel as if I am being overly philosophical. Even broader, is language a technology? Is communication a technology? I remember Aristotle making distinctions between human and animal speech. I wish I could remember more though. Will have to look it up.

Animals communicate, and they do so often instinctual. I don't know if I would count that as technology, because for me, technology has to be created, it has to be culled to life. The idea of said object, and also its actualization (end results of course may deviate and vary from the initial conception). So while communication on certain levels is, lets say, inside of certain species. I think words (certainly writing) is a technology. They had to be invented. They weren't just there.

Are objects, or the idea of the object, like Athena? A painful birthing process? Was language painful to create? Wars were, and are, waged over language.

If words are a technology, then yes, they shape reality, and they shape who you are. They create your knowledge and realization of reality. For instance, Eskimos have something like 80 different words for snow (not true statistic, but close to) while we have basically one. Thus, the importance we attach to the phenomenon of snow is different than the Eskimo's. Also, we see and experience snow very differently. Snow may be heavy or light, but the only thing is the amount and consistency. But we do not have a specific word for soft, light snow that comes and leaves quickly. No word for snow that is hard but it impossible to make snowballs with. The snow object isn't as versatile for us. Our language has shaped the way we view and experience ourselves, our world, and each other. Naming, labeling, or choosing not to, gives life and and meaning to both object and namer. Adam was given the task of naming everything, that is how he was given dominion over fish and fowl.

What would we be without language?

In identity politics, racial, sexual, physical ability, the words that are used to address or described are very important. Are you known as handicapped or differently-abled? Are you disabled Amy, or Amy that has a disability? It's not semantics. Are you the disability, or the person first, who has a disability (there is a whole movement aimed at people-first language, so that people that are differently-abled are not seen only as a disability, but actually people). Are you a Miss or Ms or Mrs? What type of x hyphen American are you? Why can't you be a American-Russian?

I remember the entire world changed for me when I added new vocabulary words. Bisexual was a biggy. I thought I was strange. I didn't understand my urges. In a way, they existed, but they weren't alive, in a way. Once the word was known, I knew it wasn't just me, or that it wasn't, well it was always strange and not easily accepted, but it wasn't some freakish thing anymore. It made sense. It was. It actually existed! I actually existed.

After reading Levinson's (Digital McLuhan) book, I got inspired by the metaphor. What does metaphor do for language? If definition kills, suggestion creates (Stephanie Mallarme) (p.28), then what does metaphor do? What does comparison do? Adorno and Horkheimer must hate metaphor. After all, in order for a metaphor to be effective we need familiarity with both objects, but also, the metaphors that we prefer best are cliche ones. Time flies, etc. Levinson said the world wasn't ready for McLuhan's metaphors. Violet (in Feed) said she liked Titus because he was the only one who used them. What do metaphors do for language? What do they do for face-to-face interactions?

I am my language. In a lot of ways I am fortunate to be bi-lingual. I feel both languages. I understand the texture of the words, and the deeper layers and flavours they have, rather than when someone learns a language later in life, and while they know that moloko is milk, I believe it is a different sensation. There are words I cannot translate from Russian to English, because the mood won't come. The feeling of the words cannot go anywhere. I always feel so lost because I need paragraphs to depict what one is supposed to feel when saying/hearing a word.

Yet that is also the difference between speaking and writing. Not only can I clarify what I said and discuss, but I send a lot more than guttural noises to my audiences. I send a lot of myself, which in writing is dislocated from my person. I can't say I have a preference for either, but I cannot live without either one. I am love with the purr of the human voice, but literacy has been my life, and sweet god do I get an erection from the smell of libraries,  and I love being able to write to people across the world in instant communication, but nothing makes me cry harder than a hand-written letter.

These are two of the most amazing videos I have ever witnessed. Yes, they are long, but seriously, you will never feel these minutes of your life wasted. Just listen.

The melancholy science from which I make this offering to my friend relates to a region that from time immemorial was regarded as the true field of philosophy, but which, since the latter's conversion into method, has lapsed into intellectual neglect, sententious whimsy and finally oblivion: the teaching of the good life.

An astute student or, I guess, professor maybe, who wrote all over the library's copy of this book (I actually often enjoy what other people write in books) had written, in pencil, above the word 'melancholy', gay. And of course, yes: In this first sentence of a dedication, Adorno takes a stance toward Nietzsche. His "melancholy science" (die traurige Wissenschaft) is in direct opposition to Nietzsche's gay science (die fröliche Wissenschaft). Of course Adorno isn't articulating a simple opposition here - both Adorno and Nietzsche are engaged in similar projects, "the teaching of the good life". Rather, for Adorno, something fundamental about the world had changed since Nietzsche: Fascism had reared its artificially beblondened head.

Rather than focus directly on fascism here, though, I'd like to spend some time articulating that astute student's one-word note: gay. As Kauffmann notes in his introduction to The Gay Science, it is "no accident that the homosexuals as well as Nietzsche opted for 'gay' rather than 'cheerful'" because it "has overtones of a light-hearted defiance of convention; it suggests Nietzsche's 'immoralism' and his 'revaluation of values.'" Gay, then, I think forms one axis of a possible analysis of Adorno's work, which lays out vertically as an opposition between Nietzsche's joyful, light-hearted revaluation of all values and Adorno's "melancholy science", and horizontally as an opposition between homosexuality, and its light-hearted defiance of conventions, on the one hand, and heterosexuality and the status quo on the other.

Adorno is - the astute student was correct - gay.  Where Nietzsche took to delight, Adorno took to despair.  Where Nietzsche undermined, Adorno reinforced.  One of the things that bugs me about Adorno, which I think this introductory sentence makes clear, is that Adorno is not aiming at a Nietzschean revaluation of all values, not even the values of those systems that he claimed so ardently to oppose.  His melancholy science is one for the perpetuation of a system of values - which could be defined in several ways (Adorno's own, fascist, bourgeois, anti-working-class, racist, homophobic) - that already exist in the world.  Where Nietzsche looked (or at least claimed to look) forward, Adorno looked back.

Though it certainly isn't clear that Adorno looked to the golden past with an eye toward a return - he didn't seem to think such a return was possible - it was nevertheless in the past that "technical virtuosity, at least, was demanded of singing stars", that melody had not come "to mean eight-beat symmetrical treble melody", that there was at least a difference in terms of reaction to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and a bikini.  The past, on Adorno's analysis, was one in which fetishism had not yet come to dominate the musical (and, indeed, cultural) scene.

It is at the site of the fetish where Adorno most strongly attempts to rhetorically establish links between homosexuality, or sexual deviance more generally, and fascism.  Musical fascism, one can only surmise given Adorno's peculiar language, becomes embodied as the homosexual rapist.  As the first part of a key to Adorn's aggressively homophobic rhetorical construction here, I will turn to Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility", a work which Adorno openly stated radically influenced his "On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening".  Benjamin, late in the essay, announces that "The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values."  This apparatus (camera or phallus?), which artificially reproduces a process that has at least come to be natural to humankind, now (re)produces reality, substituting "a space consciously explored by man" with "an unconsciously penetrated space", opening up "a different nature", the process of which can, apparently, only mimic that "violation of the masses" at the hand of the Führer.

Adorno puts it more clearly: "Totalitarianism and homosexuality belong together."  Gorky had already stated it yet more clearly in 1934:

In the land where the proletariat governs courageously and successfully, homosexuality, with its corrupting effect on the young, is considered a social crime punishable under the law.  By contrast, in the “cultivated land” of the great philosophers, scholars and musicians, it is practiced freely and with impunity.  There is already a sarcastic saying: “Destroy homosexuality and fascism will disappear.”

Marxism, in this mode of analysis, acts as the cure for both homosexuality and for fascism.  For Gorky, this was no doubt due to a presumed direct relationship between the means of production and the superstructural effect of sexual expression.  For Adorno, the mysterious relationship between fascism and homosexuality expressed the structure of much, if not all, of contemporary society.  Despite his near-continual analyses of this or that phenomenon as homosexual/fascist, Adorno never quite gets to analyzing this relationship (he would later, possibly having developed a more sympathetic eye toward gay men and women, analyze this relationship in terms of repressed homosexuality (and, as the old chestnut goes, necessarily homophobia) and tendencies toward fascism, but as far as I can tell this is a turn for Adorno, something new).  Benjamin, though, is fairly more explicit: In a discussion of Futurism, he suggests that "[i]f the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. ... Instead of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches; instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over citites; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way."  There is, here, a "natural utilization" for "productive forces" (and, I suggest, Benjamin was saying that this was true for all (re)productive forces) which, could be, in unnatural circumstances, pressed "for an unnatural utilization".  The words "human stream", "bed of trenches", "seeds", "bombs" underline the stakes here: This is a life or death struggle.  Not simply a struggle against the forces of death, but a choice between life - the "human stream" or "seeds" (that is, semen) - or death, first in the form of an unnatural destination for the "human stream", and second as an unnatural replacement of that "seed" being "dropped" with "bombs".

This theme, first mobilized around the cluster of homosexuality and fascism and, now, the military, and second around the axis of life/death is