In the Hotel Abyss

In the Hotel Abyss: An Hegelian-Marxist Critique of Adorno (Leiden: Brill) 2014

This book is a critical analysis of a selection of Adorno’s work framed by four essential concerns: 1) Adorno’s method of analysis; 2) the absence of a theory of social change; 3) the relationship of his approach to the dialectics of Hegel and Marx, particularly, to others in and around the Frankfurt School (Benjamin, Kracauer, Marcuse), and in contrast to scholars such as Lukács and Bloch; and 4) Adorno’s use of his approach with respect to jazz, popular music, radio and pro-fascist propaganda of the 1930s and 40s as an instrument to disparage the working class. The argument is not an affirmation of Adorno’s work, but argues against the significance of aspects of his theoretical perspective.

CONTENTS

1 Introduction

Background and Context

The Orientation of the Present Study

Adorno’s Form of Presentation

Theory and Practice

The Management of Politics and Personal Relations

The Socio-Historical Context

2 Hegel, Marx, Dialectics

The Individual

Being and Self-consciousness

Becoming

Contradiction

Hegel’s Positivity, Critical Theory’s Positivism

A Note on Dialectical Logic

Mediation

3 Aspects of Adorno’s Method: Constellations and Images

Adorno’s Bilderverbot and the Negation of Messianism

4 Jazz, Radio and the Masses

The Masses and the Culture Industries

The Jazz Essays

Marx, Music and Relative Autonomy

Black Influence and Historical Materialist Analysis

Radio

5 The Masses and Pro-fascist Propaganda

Pro-Fascism and the Masses

Irrationalism as the Basis of Analysis

Lowenthal’s Anti-Fascist Writings

Adorno’s Study of Martin Luther Thomas

The Approach of Others to Antifascism

6 Mediation

Hegelian Mediation

Adorno’s Mediation

7 Negative Dialectic, Identity and Exchange

Negative Thought

The Positive Moment in Dialectics

Identity and Identity Thinking

Concept and Identity

Exchange

8 Conclusion