ABSTRACT

Theory and praxis in Adorno have often been considered as incompatible, to the point that being Adornian has become synonymous with being a mandarin, far removed from reality and its contingencies. From Lukács's “Grand Hotel Abyss” 1 to Bertolt Brecht's character of “Tui,” 2 even the closest areas of influence for Critical Theory in Marxism condemned Adorno's philosophy as a typical, sterile bourgeois condemnation of capitalism which is incapable of offering revolutionary alternatives. Adorno, in fact, was not a revolutionary in Marxist terms; he did not envision an antagonistic social class (whether the proletariat or a more generic class of the “oppressed”) that can finally construct a free and truly democratic society. But ever since class consciousness has been turned into the most passive acceptance of capitalist ideology, who can expect a Marxist revolution today? Adorno's most systematic works, Negative Dialectics and Aesthetic Theory, seem to support this pessimistic perspective, leaving art as the only form of practical resistance.