Perhaps a lesson for Liberals is buried in the observations of Horkheimer and Adorno: "One of the lessons of the Hitler period is the stupidity of cleverness. How many were the expert arguments with which Jews dismissed the likelihood of Hitler's rise, when it was already as clear as daylight. [. . .] And in any case, according to the clever people, fascism was impossible in the West. Clever people have always made things easy for barbarians, because they are so stupid. It is well-informed, farsighted judgments, the prognoses based on statistics and experience, the observations which begin: "I happen to be an expert in this field," it is the well-founded, conclusive statements which are untrue."
Continuing, "The medium of traditional bourgeois intelligence, discussion, is in decline. Even individuals can no longer converse, and know it; that is why they have turned card games into a serious, responsible institution that calls on all their powers, so that although there are no conversations, the silence goes unheard. It is no different on the big stage. A fascist does not like to be spoken to. When others have their say, he takes it as an impudent interruption. He is impervious to reason because he recognizes it only in concessions made by others."
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4 comments:
Nice quote. I love that book. Did you know that I work on Adorno.
jwb
Jimbo, I figured as much after recently taking a closer look at your profile. What else is an exciting overlap for me is that I've recently been doing work (including academic essays and ethnographies) through the medium of audio. I see that you do "sound design."
Yeah, I also do music, which is where Adorno first entered my thinking. Now, I've assimilated critical theory to such an extent that Adorno's thinking is reflected in almost every word I write, whether blogged and not blogged.
Here's one of my favorite bits from DE: "Something is given to all that none may escape." I riff on that quote all the time.
You know H&A really have a lot to say about Bushworld. In fact, I think they've pretty much become indispensable. I find that really depressing.
jwb
Right on. Same structural set of affairs, different players.
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