Tuesday, November 28, 2017

NEGATIVE DIALECTICS IN A NUTSHELL


"What appears as the positive is essentially the negative, i.e. the thing that is to be criticized." Adorno, Lectures on Negative Dialectics, pg.18 (Polity Press: 2008)

I contend that we have not even entered the realm of thought until we have the courage (and ability) to probe beyond the giddy atmosphere which so mindlessly sustains us. But this is not a truth that the world is ready to hear.

This act of criticism (which constitutes a form of intellectual integrity) is what separates a thinker from a conformist.

"The concept of positivity in itself, in abstracto, has become part and parcel of the ideology today. ... Critique has started to become suspect, regardless of its content." Ibid. pg.20


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