THE BURDEN OF NEGATIVE DIALECTICS

"Everything different will appear divergent, dissonant, negative, as long as consciousness is compelled, by its very formation, to press towards identity, as long, that is, as consciousness measures against its claim to totality anything not identical to it. Dialectics holds this up to consciousness as a contradiction." Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Introduction, Section 2, "Dialectics Not as Standpoint," Translation by Christian Thorne and Matthias Menda*

Psychologically speaking, this is the situation in which we all find ourselves. Divergence from the familiar has to be learned, it will not occur naturally, precisely because of the ego. The conclusion that primitive, monological identity draws, is that what is different is "immoral," "unintelligent" or "lacking" in value, not being able to discern the authentic dialectical quality that lies beneath appearance. There is a danger of missing the future (of missing a more advanced quality), we must not fool ourselves, thinking we are immune from this simplicity... quite the opposite. When higher quality presents itself to us, it will likely transcend the categories of the familiar, which will make it suspect, by default our psychology will work to condemn it. Advanced quality has an advanced set of presuppositions, it proceeds from the foundation of a higher consciousness, that of totality. That something assaults my common sense is not proof (as our intuition would have us believe) that it is therefore, automatically lacking in value. To be carried higher, we must be capable of seeing the stupidity we mistake for intelligence. We must be able to condemn it by standards that transcend the presuppositions that led us to validate its quality in the first place. But woe to those who dare to think in terms of dialectics:

"Anyone who submits to dialectical discipline will, no doubt, pay a bitter sacrifice in the qualitative variety of experience. The dialectical impoverishment of experience, however, so scandalous to hale and hearty opinion, is ultimately in keeping with the abstract monotony of the administered world. The agony of dialectics is agony over that world, raised to a concept." Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Introduction, Section 3, "Reality and Dialectics" 

Those who are mindlessly convinced by the administered world, taking on the discipline of dialectical thought, they are inevitably bound to lose the delusion of its comforts. Beyond this psychological sacrifice, there is also a social sacrifice; those who expose delusions are persecuted by those who love them. To take upon oneself the discipline of dialectical thought, is in some sense, masochistic. Is it not better to divide the world in terms of black and white logic, thereby reducing everything to simplicity? What is the motivation, why should a thinker take this burden upon themselves, why shatter one's sense of well being? The answer is because only dialectics offers the probability of greater comprehension, thereby leading to more powerful solutions. The answer is because of the kind of power dialectics offers man, as a tool by which to shape, the quality of his existence in terms of transcendent intelligence.
   



*https://sites.williams.edu/cthorne/theodor-adorno-negative-dialectics/

-
-
-

ADORNO ON IDEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY

"The magnetic power which ideologies exert over human beings, while they have become entirely threadbare, is to be explained beyond psychology, in the objectively determined decay of logical evidence as such." Adorno, Minima Moralia para.71

If Adorno is here correct, it means psychology is conditioned by logical considerations (as that logic interprets the objects presented to it). To "decay" the authority of "logical evidence" means to poison the well against it so that it no longer has any bearing on psychological conclusions. Even if evidence is presented to the psyche that evidence is rendered irrelevant a priori, which is to say, ideology eradicates resistance by preconditioning the psyche against relevant opposition, against that which has the power to obliterate it. In this way ideology establishes itself without ever having to justify itself.  

Pre-psychological conditioning has to do with environment, but there is another sense in which it has to do with biology. It seems Adorno here speaks of it, as to what psychology will permit in terms of influence. The power ideology exerts over human beings in this sense, is explained by its control over the categories that condition judgment: ideology vitiates to condition the categories which condition everything else.

If the decay of "logical evidence" is what accounts for the "magnetic power" of ideology over humans (and not psychology) then this facet is a foundation which preconditions psychology. It is not "the decay of logic," but the preconditioing of the human psyche (poisoning of the well) against the objective consideration of logical evidence... in other words, thought is rendered irrelevant, incapable, deceptive, untrustworthy, suspect, before it even has the chance to exercise itself as thought, as critique, as cross examination of appearance, before it even begins to ponder the evidence, be it conceptual or concrete. 

..."logical evidence" is a reference to polemical thought which refutes the authoritarian premisses of ideology. If this process of thinking is not permitted, because ideology has preconditioned psychology, then no matter how shallow or easily refuted, ideology will remain without the possibility of falsification, because the preconditioning will not permit the process of thought.

"The castration of perception, however, by a controlling authority, which refuses it any desiring anticipation, thereby compels it into the schema of the powerless repetition of what is already familiar. That nothing more is actually allowed to be seen, amounts to the sacrifice of the intellect." Minima Moralia, para.79       

-
-
-

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

"...stupidity is... [not a]... natural quality, but something socially produced and socially amplified." Adorno, Minima Moralia, paragraph 69.

In a democratic system what does it mean when the masses cannot comprehend multi-layer thought? This would imply that one could neither comprehend themselves or society, it would imply that one was defenseless against emotional premisses that give the appearance of totality. It would imply the threat of barbarism in the form of tyranny against culture, against a sophistication which remains necessary for the realization of quality (sophistication which is necessary in order to transcend the oppressive attributes of one's psychology, the ego's primitive defenses of self deception).   

A society without abstract capacity is one that can only advance by hard experience. This is the slowest path to progress, the slowest way to learn. It means that society cannot fathom the danger of totalitarian or fascist polices, but must directly experience the violent outcome of these ideologies. Only after many atrocities have occurred, only after death, suffering, and systematic violence have become common place, only then do the masses learn to resist, only then do they possess the intelligence to realize the danger. All in all this is a manifestation of social stupidity, a sure sign that the masses have been repressed and deprived of education. The entire hope for qualitative democracy is a matter of qualitative education.  

-
-
-  

A SHORT NOTE ON TYRANNY

There is a sense in which tyranny has become abstract... in this case, how does one fight a phantom? The first task is to demarcate the questions that matter... to a species totally captivated by ego this is itself a revolutionary task, but we never think of it this way. Man is always asking the wrong questions, specifically those that cater to the vanity of his ego. This psychology is so subtle that nearly all miss it... the result is that the ability to ask the right questions (questions that pertain to the objectivity of value) is deformed throughout the species. What man has is confusion mistaken for value, a destructive subjectivity which validates itself through mere assertion. Abstract tyranny hides itself behind the abstraction, this makes it exceedingly difficult to resist and overcome, precisely because it must first be identified within the intellectual domain. Fighting abstract tyranny, at the point of its concrete manifestation can be futile, because it has its origin in the ideology of false values.

-
-
-