German sociologist & philosopher (1903-1969)
It is not the office of art to spotlight alternatives, but to resist by its form alone the course of the world, which permanently puts a pistol to men's heads.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
"Engagement"
Art respects the masses, by standing up to them for what they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Aesthetic Theory
Whoever is versed in the jargon does not have to say what he thinks, does not even have to think it properly. The jargon takes over this task.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Jargon of Authenticity
The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass available.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
Only thought which does violence to itself is hard enough to shatter myth.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Talent is perhaps nothing other than successfully sublimated rage.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
Humanity had to inflict terrible injuries on itself before the self, the identical, purpose-directed, masculine character of human beings was created, and something of this process is repeated in every childhood.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Dialectic of Enlightenment
In the end, the writer is not even allowed to live in his writing.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them. They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured. Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Culture Industry Reconsidered
The creed of evil has been, since the beginnings of highly industrialized society, not only a precursor of barbarism but a mask of good. The worth of the latter was transferred to the evil that drew to itself all the hatred and resentment of an order which drummed good into its adherents so that it could with impunity be evil.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
Rigour and purity in assembling words, however simple the result, create a vacuum.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
There can be no poetry after Auschwitz.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Gesammelte Schriften: Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft
People know what they want because they know what other people want.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
The work of art still has something in common with enchantment: it posits its own, self-enclosed area, which is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which special laws apply.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Dialectic of Enlightenment
What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Prisms
Even the loveliest dream bears like a blemish its difference from reality, the awareness that what it grants is mere illusion.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. The promissory note which, with its plots and staging, it draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged; the promise, which is actually all the spectacle consists of, is illusory: all it actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached, that the diner must be satisfied with the menu.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Dialectic of Enlightenment
To those who no longer have a homeland, writing becomes home.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia