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
real promise culture
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.
nature use humans
What human beings seek to learn from nature is how to use it to dominate wholly both it and human beings. Nothing else counts.
art states mass
Art respects the masses, by standing up to them for what they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.
love acceptance sacrifice
In myths the warrant of grace was the acceptance of sacrifice; it is this acceptance that love, the re-enactment of sacrifice, beseeches if it is not to feel under a curse.
life substance spheres
What the philosophers once knew as life has become the sphere of private existence and now of mere consumption, dragged along as an appendage of the process of material production, without autonomy or substance of its own.
thinking expression suits
Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.
sacrifice men culture
All testify to the coercion and sacrifice which culture imposes on man. To rely on them and deny the decline is to become even more firmly caught in its fatal coils.
art self law
The work of art still has something in common with enchantment: it posits its own, self-enclosed area, which is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which special laws apply.
art men form
The forms of art reflect the history of man more truthfully than do documents themselves.
mean sound jargon
Words of the jargon sound as if they said something higher than what they mean.
culture use triumph
The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them.
jargon language authenticity
The jargon of authenticity ... is a trademark of societalized chosenness, ... sub-language as superior language.
stupid intelligent errors
The basest person is capable of perceiving the weaknesses of the greatest, the most stupid, the errors in the thought of the most intelligent.
strong men intellectual
The taboos that constitute a man's intellectual stature, often sedimented experiences and unarticulated insights, always operate against inner impulses that he has learned to condemn, but which are so strong that only an unquestioning and unquestioned authority can hold them in check.