/lit/ - Literature

>yfw this guy is seen as the source of identity politics and degeneracy, when in fact he BTFO identity politics in accordance with Hegelian dialectics.

>Nonidentity is the secret telos of identification. It is the part that can be salvaged; the mistake in traditional thinking is that identity is taken for the goal. The force that shatters the appearance of identity is the force of thinking: the use of “it is” undermines the form of that appearance, which remains inalienable just the same. Dialectically, cognition of nonidentity lies also in the fact that this very cognition identifies — that it identifies to a greater extent, and in other ways, than identitarian thinking. This cognition seeks to say what something is, while identitarian thinking says what something comes under, what it exemplifies or represents, and what, accordingly, it is not itself. The more relentlessly our identitarian thinking besets its object, the farther will it take us from the identity of the object. Under its critique, identity does not vanish but undergoes a qualitative change. Elements of affinity — of the object itself to the thought of it — come to live in identity.

>To define identity as the correspondence of the thing-in-itself to its concept is hubris; but the ideal of identity must not simply be discarded. Living in the rebuke that the thing is not identical with the concept is the concept’s longing to become identical with the thing. This is how the sense of nonidentity contains identity. The supposition of identity is indeed the ideological element of pure thought, all the way down to formal logic; but hidden in it is also the truth moment of ideology, the pledge that there should be no contradiction, no antagonism. (Negative Dialectics, pg. 149)

http://thecharnelhouse.org/2013/11/01/on-the-term-identitarian/

>muh complicity

>implying the ivory tower is for faggots

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/30161947?uid=3739256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101762896293

>>2999342

lol. yeah adorno was probably the biggest snob to ever walk on earth.

>>2772899

No I think this is a bad starting point.

IMO, the way to go is:

1) Traditional and Critical theory
>It's by Horkheimer, but very concisely summarizes what (early) Critical theory is about. It's really short, you can read it in one sitting.

2) Dialectic of Enlightenment
>The most important book, written together with Horkheimer. Adorno said everything he published later were basically just additions to this.

3) Minima Moralia.
>This is optional. But it is a very good read. Collection of aphoristic, short texts that contain some peaks of Adorno's writing. Also excellent literary value, IMO.

4) Negative Dialectics
>His major work as a solo author. It's the essential outline of his theory.

5) Aesthetic theory.
>Well, you know what it's about now.

These are the major works, there is also a ton of other stuff to read, mostly collections of shorter essays on Culture Industry, music, literature, social phenomena etc., but it depends on what fields you're interested in.

Adorno is a fucking don.

>>2618576
>>2618576

I agree (partially).

IMO, religion - at least in the christian form, and some others - is a legitimate attempt at overcoming rationality. The core concepts of Christianity (love thy neighbour etc.) are essentially means to overcome the coldness of human intercations. 20th century (and it's theoreticla products, i.e. post-modernism, Frankfurt School) has schown us how dangerous it can be to just rely on rationality, at least rationality as we know it. True conclation between humans has yet to be realized and rationality hasn't yet managed to provide a real solution to this. So why not rely on seemingly irrational notions until then?

Also, who knows, if you take Feuerbach's assumptions for example - that God is something in which man's unconscious deficiencies or his inner longings are manifested - religion might actually be a way to access the actual essence of human potential and thus an anticipation of "utopia" in the broadest sense (yeah it sounds bold).