Why is this book the definitive statement on aesthetics?

>Aesthetic theory
>His last name is "Adorno"

¿Cómo es posible?

that office is aesthetic as fuck tho. music is shit however

I was being part-cheeky but part-honest. I myself actually kinda like the sad-bastard wah-wah effect of Adorno's music, but it has a spicy connotation through its sheer association with a man who, as your own choice affirms, hates fun. It's easy to hate, but in fact I like lots of sad, grimdark stuff, and so his music does fit somewhere in there for me. Cue a scathing criticism of my bourgeois consumption of music.

Further, one might even admire the clean, spartan lines of Adorno's office, there. But this is bridge too far. There is not a single painting, or picture. It is a masculine room, but the room's effect is to put the lie to a man's ability to judge beauty. How can you live through the second world war and not want a comforting image of some kind, a /literal/ image?

>How can you live through the second world war and not want a comforting image of some kind, a /literal/ image?

"Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as a tortured man has to scream; hence it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz you could no longer write poems. But it is not wrong to raise the less cultural question whether after Auschwitz you can go on living--especially whether one who escaped by accident, one who by rights should have been killed, may go on living. His mere survival calls for the coldness, the basic principle of bourgeois subjectivity, without which there could have been no Auschwitz; this is the drastic guilt of him who was spared. By way of atonement he will be plagued by dreams such as that he is no longer living at all, that he was sent to the ovens in 1944 and his whole existence since has been imaginary, an emanation of the insane wish of a man killed twenty years earlier. (Negative Dialectics, 362-363)"

reclamation of the possibility for aesthetic experience (the 'literal image') is a theme in his works.

spoiler: he's not optimistic

Anyone here ever read Adorno's dream journal? It has some real funny moments.

"I was talking with my girl-friend X about the erotic arts with which I thought her conversant. I asked her whether she had ever done it par le cul. She responded very frankly, saying that she could do it on some days, but not on others. Today was a day when it was quite impossible. This seemed quite plausible to me, but I wondered whether she was speaking the truth or whether this wasn't just a prostitute's pretext for refusing me. Then she said that she could do quite different things, more beautiful, Hungarian ones, of which I had never heard. In reply to my eager questioning, she said, 'Well, there was Babamüll, for example.' She (15) started to explain it to me. It soon turned out that this supposed perversion was in reality a highly complicated, to me entirely opaque, but evidently illegal finance operation, something like a safe way of passing worthless cheques. I pointed out to her that this had nothing to do with the erotic techniques she had promised me. However, she stuck to her view and replied in a supercilious tone that I should pay close attention and be patient - the rest would come of its own accord. But since I had completely lost track of the connection, I despaired of ever finding out what Babamüll was."

Speaking of aesthetics:

Should I take a course on aesthetics or epistemology? They are to be instructed by the same woman, and only have one offering. The aesthetics course is 300-level while the epistemology course is 200-level.

I cannot make decisions for myself, so please, make this one for me.

what is your major? what thinkers/issues are you interested in? what do you want to think about?

imo epistemology is much drier than aesthetics but it is really the best way to give yourself a structure and grounding for thinking with philosophy

that said learning to understanding artistic experience is invaluable. it will give you points to argue with your stupid uncle at thanksgiving who says that art is useless

The only criticism you can make about his music is that it is too derivative of Schoenberg's music (not because it is serial, but because it uses literally all the compositional tools Schoenberg used; in that sense is, for example, extremely different when compared to Hindemith's music).

That said, being unable to appreciate serialism is an aesthetic failing of yours. Once you understand atonality in general serialist tunes will literally become the worst earworm in music, you will simply be unable of getting them out of your head.

Also keep in mind that Adorno listened briefly to Jazz only in the '20s (he wrote those critics in those years too). I'm pretty sure that most educated musicians would have held his same opinions, had they listened to proto-jazz.

>How can you live through the second world war and not want a comforting image of some kind, a /literal/ image?
On the matter he said ''No poetry after Auschwitz'', and explained through 40 years of philosophical and aesthetical discourse his views on the subject (wich are, surprisingly, more often than not quite reasonable, to the point where it sounds almost like truism).
I'm pretty sure that here you're the one who is using an unexamined, deeply biased aesthetic model.

kek

par de cul means in the butt

Hibdimeth fucking destroyed serialism forever and for good. Fucking kys if u feel otherwise.

Philosophy/Religion.

My main interest is in theistic Satanism and conceptions of Satan (and similar figures) in general.
I don't mention this to anybody though, because I know I'll look like a chuuni.

Note that I'll be taking an art tour in Germany the summer before, so I'll have that to work with.
However, I also have a philosophy of science course planned for the following term, so having a more formal understanding of epistemology would be very useful.

I actually don't care about epistemology or philosophy of science, though, but there's so few options.

that is false

hindemith is a footnote compared to arnie

read Dr Faustus - tows the line btwn art and god. certain parts of it effectively ghost written by adorno

i would recommend aesthetics, friend. sounds like it would make sense

Hindemith, like all the other big shots in serialism (Schoenberg, Berg and Webern) was a true maestro and a expert craftsman.
There is no need to compare them, their music is already as good as it gets.

Regardless, Hindemith could be remembered only for his composition books and still be hailed as one of the greatest musicians in the Western canon.

to stay IT: a fugue that Adorno appreciated by Hindemith
youtube.com/watch?v=xXI6H1YodNw

I'm thinking that too.

lol how's that music for use going for him?

what?

>I actually don't care about epistemology or philosophy of science, though, but there's so few options.

Could you be any more of a pleb? Why do you even like philosophy?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebrauchsmusik

Adorno's composition is beautiful, the second video, not so much.

It's not listening music, it's background music. Sure, I'd prefer it at a lively party or during a large dinner, but I would not dedicate my own time to it.

this is a friendly thread, get out

Hey bucko I'm the one published here.

I have opinions on both, but do not consider either really worth my time.

>Waah why isn't everyone interested in the exact same things I am!

I don't know why did he specifically write the three sonatas, nor do I know if in 1936 he still believed in it, if that's what you're asking.

>epistemology
I've studied enough epistemology to know that it is a dead field, or at least it is a dead field for people like me, who
a) are not smart enough to come up with a new epistemological system
b) are not driven enough to care deeply about minute nuances of the field

>philosophy of science
Same as above.

All the low-hanging fruit have already been picked, my man.

Materialists are annoying.

was Adorno materialist when it came to aesthetic theory and art?

Fuck off Dumbledore

This has always intrigued me to the point I think the prevalence of adornian aesthetics over heideggerian in Brazil must come from this, you're already subconsciously associating him with some pretty trinket before you even read (despite the fact he's one of the ugliest motherfuckers I've ever seen and literally jealous of my husbando Benjamin)

Aesthetics is p. cool and relatively important in the german tradition.

Yes of course, he'd have been laughed out of the Frankfurt School otherwise

Can you expand on it?

tell me those lifeless doe eyes don't make you weak at the knees

I'm also learning German for a variety of reasons, which according to several professors, is an amazing idea.

What's there to expand on? He poised himself primarily as a Sociologist in an older understanding of the term. All of his work were predicated on traceable socioeconomic basis inspired directly from the tradition of dialectic materialism

did anhyone say anything about cultural marxism yet itt

The Peterson child was close to it

thank god. since i made the thread i've been waiting for the trolls

welcome

So in other words, and by your own admission, you prefer Ella for events that relate to social, human life, which is supposed to be a direct concern of Adorno and other serious thinkers of his *ahem* school, one way or the other, while you would have the good sense to save the quiet sad-bastard stuff for your personal time.

wah-wah blah-blah the ovens were real things I am a serious man pay attention to me I am right

It is a banality, but a true one (to a point, I think there is a room for objectivity in here somewhere, just not your pretended objectivity): aesthetics are subjective. This is what puts the lie to your authority and finality . All it takes is, hm, some foreign culture to dominate, and simply do away with what had been important to the predecessor. I wonder if anything like this might be ongoing now...

Specifically, the folowing quite valid criticisms can be made: it is boring, it is stilted, you can't dance to it (a social activity, exactly the type of thing that 20th century marxist thinkers are supposed to be concerned with, and if they aren't, then there is no need to pay them any heed).

peterson has a healthier, deeper, and more life-affirming view of art

That's a whole lot of spooky shit you got there

Damn, I never saw young hot Adorno, I always assumed that gruesome manbaby was his form from birth.

>you prefer Ella for events that relate to social, human life, which is supposed to be a direct concern of Adorno and other serious thinkers of his *ahem* school, one way or the other

This does not make sense. Is Ella better than Adorno because she does exactly what Adorno criticized in his music essays?

>aesthetics are subjective
Then let's NEVER again talk about art and aesthetics (even if Adorno very rarely talked about nebulous concepts such as beauty, focusing instead more often than not on the effect that the music has on the listener: he wasn't shitting on jazz because it was not beauiful enough)

>All it takes is, hm, some foreign culture to dominate
Yet the music that he was promoting had his foundations in the refusal of old traditions (while still respecting them).

>it is stilted, you can't dance to it (a social activity, exactly the type of thing that 20th century marxist thinkers are supposed to be concerned with, and if they aren't, then there is no need to pay them any heed).

Ah, it was bait all along.

This faggot was a bad writer DESU.

>image?

Blocks your path. My walls are bare. Too little is made of the emptiness of mind that aids composition. Ashbery, I know, I know, considers its virtues, and that, perhaps, is neither nor there, or to the point. But if one overprepares, as Adorno did, and as H. James recommended one do, what need of clutter? Helen Vendler's an apostle, and that's good enough for me.

>''No poetry after Auschwitz'',
Maybe not for his generation. But why would anyone else care?

I do not have a single picture, mirror, anything hanging from my walls.

Better off learning art history for art. Epistemology for your major.

u can't take ur mom seriously? bc i just did her LOLE xD

There are still lots of atrocities, if anything we're more connected with them than ever.
The only difference between us and Adorno is that we don't have to deal with the survivor guilt.

That cover is way too cluttered to take seriously.

shut up, meg

No, I'm stating I prefer that of the two, if given the choice, for a social event because it is the less 'alienating' of the two.

It also requires more attention.

What does 'it' mean?

He's trying to talk about dancin and partying while referring to Adornian aesthetics. Don't even bother.

Why do you think that? I have no interest in it.
The specific video linked. Or if you want, jazz in general (besides equally alienating jazz.)

Jazz requires more attention?

No, less.

The Jazz he reviewed (swing in the '20s) required zero attention and was highly formulaic.
We have no accounts of him listening to the masterpieces of the genre (not even stuff as famous as Coltrane, Mingus and Coleman)

>It also requires more attention
>implying he would have changed his mind if he did
fuckin stravinsky wasn't good enough for him

>fuckin stravinsky wasn't good enough for him

Cut him some slack, Stravinsky was the ultimate bourgeois composer, and in the big scheme he was the main opposer of the emerging avant-gards. I can't find the original source, but 30 years before Warhol he was already saying that making money is, in itself, a form of art, and fueled this conviction by composing music directly for the US elites, turning to serialism only in the '50s.
He had strong motivations to oppose him, but those motivations don't apply to the big Jazz names (very few of them can be, in fact, considered commercial).

I don't think that it still makes sense to agree with him, since these critics were the result of their time and we're now past that, but at least try to understand Adorno's point of view (wich, by the way, was shared by most serialists of those times)

There were two its, each relates to a distinct video linked by the OP.

>it's better for a social event, it also requires more attention (I am now talking about something else)
good writing

I wrote it moments before driving to class and about 10 minutes after waking up

good life

>Parataxis
I hope tuchulcha drags you away from your keyboard before this thread dies.

OP here

addy and i appreciate your willingness to have such a good adorno thread

and remember: wrong post cannot be posted rightly!

Give me tips to understand his psychotic style of writing in Dialegticts of Enlightment brah

I get the main narrative thought but damn if it isn't burried under some fucking prose

yeah its a pretty dense read

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parataxis

>favors short, simple sentences
i'm p. sure the sentences are medium to long in length and def. not simple, lel.

had already read that page about it.

idk what the hell i quoted lol

I'm wondering what your specific question is about the 'psychotic' style. I remember the first time I read it I had no idea what was going on. A lot of his stuff is this way; Negative Dialectics is almost impossible to get through.

That said I think certain chapters are quite straightforward (if not written very floridly) esp the Odysseys and the Culture Industry chapters

It's hard to pinpoint my grievance with it for now, I have not read him previously (not that I recall) It reads out like stream of conscious slam poetry philosophical text or some such.

>All mystical union remains a deception, the impotently inward trace of the forfeited revolution, but while enlightenment is right in opposing any hypostatization of utopia and in dispassionately denouncing power as division, the split between subject and object, which it will not allow to be bridged, becomes the index of the untruth both of itself and of truth.

It's a massive sentence and takes like 10 minutes to digest and even then leaves you asking wdhmbt. Wish i wasn't such a brainlet after all this reading tbqhwyf.

I'll never be able to read Adorno in a non-slam voice again

Have there ever not been atrocities?

I could before. Now that you mention you can't, I can't either.

wev.

No, but even if we can not live them directly we can still research them on fucked up sites such as liveleak and in a few seconds see the worst that humanity has to offer.
At times, just like Adorno, I can't see why I should play, even when I'm alone in my room, beautiful music. It immediatly sounds to me as a farce, something profoundly dishonest.
In this sense I completely understand Adorno's point of view, especially when I keep in mind that he has been closer to true horror than me.

It's reasonable, as long as you're self-aware.

Still easier than Kant and Hegel, desu

>. It immediatly sounds to me as a farce, something profoundly dishonest.

Only if you are pretending to be Jesus Christ with all the sins of the world on your shoulders. That's gotta border on egoistic and narcissistic shit.

>Only if you are pretending to be Jesus Christ with all the sins of the world on your shoulders.
This has nothing to do with my post, you're just projecting here.

>That's gotta border on egoistic and narcissistic shit.
To seek sincerity in your art is egoistic and narcissistic?

Kant's difficult because he wasn't much of a writer, no?

Hegel isn't "difficult" in that sense, as in, his writing being hard to understand (before even understanding the idea he is trying to convey with his writing.

in my opinion.

>listening to a Schoenberg fan about aesthetics
Shiggy

this edition (put out by Minnesota i believe?) actually shows the edits and changes in wording that ad and hork made between drafts. it was extremely meticulously written.

i'll take a stab at interpreting that sentence: Enlightenment's inaugural gesture, cogito ergo sum, is something that cannot be taken back. The late 19th century 'crisis of faith(Kierk, Nietz, Hegel) registers something it does not yet realize: that the barbarity of civilization is a (((necessity))), and that reality as such is at odds with human freedom. The divine kingdom may not be established on earth but that does not mean that one forfeits the hope of a better world. This effects all aspects of philosophy, theology and politics and all of these deal, in some measure, with the pursuit of objectivity, truth, the absolute.

check out minima moralia. it is basically his curmudgeonly diary - although it is one of the bleakest things he wrote

watch out people this guy is gonna tell us about good music

I've understood that much -what you wrote is basically my understanding of the book's narrative red line so far, but dear lord I couldn't extract it from that quote itself.

>the split between subject and object, which it will not allow to be bridged, becomes the index of the untruth both of itself and of truth.
Is where I lose myself.

Stanford Uni Press is my version, I'll check yours for comparison's sake then

Sure, tell us how Swans are the best band in the world.

nvm. I just got it I must've been tired af. last night.

that is one of the tricky and tedious things with him and with F school in general: every sentence, book, article is a different way of saying the exact same thing