Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno
Theodor W. Adornowas a German philosopher, sociologist, and composer known for his critical theory of society...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth11 September 1903
CountryGermany
fear self abandonment
The capacity for fear and for happiness are the same, the unrestricted openness to experience amounting to self-abandonment in which the vanquished rediscovers himself.
firsts principles ethics
The first and only principle of sexual ethics: the accuser is always in the wrong.
men earth enlightened
The Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant.
evil-people people evil
Very evil people cannot really be imagined dying.
art crime uncommitted
Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.
black-and-white choices would-be
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices.
life life-changing wrong-life
Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.
health sickness health-care
Exuberant health is always, as such, sickness also.
underdog splendid ends
In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so.
mother lying shelter
Indeed, happiness is nothing other than being encompassed, an after-image of the original shelter within the mother. But for this reason no one who is happy can know that he is so. To see happiness, he would have to pass out of it: to be as if already born. He who says he is happy lies, and in invoking happiness, sins against it. He alone keeps faith who says: I was happy.
giving-up symbolism band
The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.
way causes modern
On their way toward modern science human beings have discarded meaning. The concept is replaced by the formula, the cause by rules and probability.
order evil hatred
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.
knowledge limits creation
Knowledge, which is power, knows no limits, either in its enslavement of creation or in its deference to worldly masters.