ABSTRACT
The inconsequence of T. W. Adorno thought lies in the fact that he does not want to confess to the theological origin of his concept of totality and spell or to identify it openly with “original sin.” Rather, he attempts to pin it down as an empirical category and identifies it with the law of exchange. Adorno does not broach such subjects as whether there was a spell before the law of exchange and whether a prehistory without spell is conceivable. Hence his negative dialectics seems more and more like a critical irrationalism albeit quite often without the critical impulse suppressed by his dogmatic absolutizing. The unexamined and dogmatic pronouncements about the absolute validity of the spell seem to suggest that they were written by a paranoid or a neurotic. There may be something else at work here which could only be illuminated by our more thorough knowledge of Adorno conscious and subconscious relationship to Jewry.
