Adorno Resignation
Adorno Resignation
Adorno Resignation
RESIGNATION
situ atio n, it is only through undiminished insight. The leap into praxis
will nOI cure thought from resignation as long as it is paid for with the
secret knowled ge that th is course is simply no t the right one.
Genera lly speakin g, pseudo-a ctivity is the attemp t to preserve
enclaves of imm ediacy in the midst o f a thoroughly mediated and
obd urate society. This process is rationali zed throu gh the acceptance
of any small change as one step on the long way towa rd total change.
The unfortunate mod el for pseud o-activity is the 'd o-it-you rself '
syndro me - activities that do that wh ich has long been done better
through the means of industr ial produ ction and wh ich arou se in
unfree individuals, hamp ered in their spo ntaneity. the confide nt
feeling that they are of central concern. The non sense of the 'do -it-
yourself' approa ch to the production of material good s and in the
making o f many repair s is eq ually obvious, However, it is not total. In
view o f the reduction o f so -called services - sometimes su perfluo us in
term s of techni cal standards measures taken by a private person fulfil
a semi-rational pur pose. In politics. however. the 'd o-it-you rself" atti-
tude is not of quite the same character. The society that confronts
human being s in suc h an im penetrable mann er is these humans
themselves. Confid ence in the limit ed action of small group s is
reminiscent of the spo ntaneity whi ch atrop hi es beneath th e encrusted
totalit y and without which this totalit y cann ot be transform ed into
something different . The administered world has a tendency to
strangle all spo ntane ity or at least to ch anne l it into pseudo- activity.
This. however, is not ach ieved so totally wi tho ut difficulty as the agents
of the administered world wou ld like to imagine. Nonetheless, spo n-
taneit y is not to be absolut ized - just as little as it is to be separated
from the objective situatio n and idoli zed in the same mann er as is the
administered world itself. Orherwtse the axe will break down the next
door in the hou se - a process wh ich never spares the carpe nter - and
th e riot squad will appear on the spo t. Political acts of violence can also
sink to the level of pseud o-activity, resulting in mere theatr e. It is
hardl y a wond er that the ideal of direct action and propaganda
glorifying the deed have been resurr ected, upon the heels of the will-
ing integration of for merly progre ssive organ izations that, in all lands
of the earth , manifest the chara cter of that against wh ich th ey were
once dir ected . Th is process . ho wever. has nor weakened the criticism of
202 T H E CUL TU RE I NDUST RY
NOTE
This sentence was recently used in DerSpiegel {1977. 4J as the head line
for a brief article on the relation s hip of the Frankfurt School to terror as recently
manifested in the German Federal Republic.