Notes on Towards A New Manifesto
Towards a New Manifesto, by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno
--A free-flowing exchange of ideas by the two fathers of critical theory, focusing on the topics of theory and practice, labor and leisure, domination and freedom.
Useful quotes:
''Originally, the position of man is like that of a dog you want to train. He would like to return to an earlier state of being. He works in order not to have to work.'' -Horkheimer
'' It is just as if instead of worshipping their lover, they worship the house in which she dwells. That, incidentally, is the source of all poetry.''-Horkheimer
''To achieve the condition of an animal at that level of reflection--that is freedom. Freedom means not having to work.'' --H
''In the East they have realized that freedom of this sort [choosing your own work] is not such a big deal, and that's why they have chosen slavery instead.'' --H
''Your view is that we should live our lives in such a way that things will get better in a hundred years. That's more or less what the parson says too.'' --H
''Freedom is not the freedom to accumulate, but the fact that I have no need to accumulate.'' --H
''The opposite of work is regarded as nothing more than consumption.'' --H
''I find it repellent for people to believe that if only everyone could agree, something essential would be achieved. in reality, the whole of nature should tremble at the thought. The truth is, on the contrary, that all will be well only as long as they keep one another in check.'' --H
''Thus I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith...'' from Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason.
''The more superfluous a job of work is, the worse it become, the more it degenerates into ideology.'' --A
''I couldn't care less about sending a spacecraft to the moon.'' --H
''The radicality of a formulation deprives the statement of its radicality.'' --H
''The ability to think in isolation from the subject matter in question, and on the hand, the insight that comes from grasp of that subject matter. These two aspects are connected, but the usual concept of intelligence refers simply to the first, while the second, which is what counts, is dragged along under the label of intution or the like.'' --A
''Theory is theory in th authentic sense only where it serves practice. Theory that wishes to be sufficient unto itself is bad theory. On the other hand, it is also bad theory if it exists only in order to produce something or other.'' --H
''The happiness that would be brought about by practice finds no correlative in today's world apart from the behaviour of the man who sits in a chair and thinks. ''--A
''If one always refers back to the idea of measuring everything according to the image of how one would like things to be, one arrives at the concept of utopia, of a theory that does not lead to action.'' --H
''What irritates me so much about the entire relationship between theory and practice is something quite obvious, namely the experience that everything the Russians write slips into ideology, into crude, stupid twaddle, that culture is rubbish and that somewhere, at the very same spot as in Marx and Engels, there is an element of re-bararization.
''Your attitude has something of Don Quixote about it. You would like to omit whatever doesn't suit you, as if this culture could survive in present conditions without the injustice we both hate.'' --H
''Human beings live on horror. It's connected with eating meat. You 'beggar hurries to the gate'--that is the culture we live in.'' --H
''The horror is that we live in a world in which we can no longer imagine a better one.'' --A
''What links the two of us and separates us from other people is a kind of reluctance to say that twenty million are being murdered in China but soon there will be no more famines. What we reject is not practice but telling others what to do. Because we are still permitted to live, we are under an obligation to do something.'' -Horkheimer
Antinomy:
pernicious:
deliberations:
Constitutive: adj. Having the power to establish something.
constituent: adj. Being part of the whole. (2) Having the power to appoint or elect. Noun: (1) a member of a constituency. (2) A component part.
coolie: N.(dated) an unskilled native laborer in India, China, and some other Asian countries. (2) (offensive) a person from the Indian subcontinent or of Indian descent.
Dianoetic:
Ephemeral: adj. Lasting or used for a very short time.
Diffuse: v. to spread over a wide area.
Immanence:
Mendacity:
milieu:
Penchant: N. A strong liking of inclination.
Phenomenology:
rectify:
Semblance: N. The outward appearance or apparent form of something.
Tautology:
teleology: the explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes.
--A free-flowing exchange of ideas by the two fathers of critical theory, focusing on the topics of theory and practice, labor and leisure, domination and freedom.
Useful quotes:
''Originally, the position of man is like that of a dog you want to train. He would like to return to an earlier state of being. He works in order not to have to work.'' -Horkheimer
'' It is just as if instead of worshipping their lover, they worship the house in which she dwells. That, incidentally, is the source of all poetry.''-Horkheimer
''To achieve the condition of an animal at that level of reflection--that is freedom. Freedom means not having to work.'' --H
''In the East they have realized that freedom of this sort [choosing your own work] is not such a big deal, and that's why they have chosen slavery instead.'' --H
''Your view is that we should live our lives in such a way that things will get better in a hundred years. That's more or less what the parson says too.'' --H
''Freedom is not the freedom to accumulate, but the fact that I have no need to accumulate.'' --H
''The opposite of work is regarded as nothing more than consumption.'' --H
''I find it repellent for people to believe that if only everyone could agree, something essential would be achieved. in reality, the whole of nature should tremble at the thought. The truth is, on the contrary, that all will be well only as long as they keep one another in check.'' --H
''Thus I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith...'' from Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason.
''The more superfluous a job of work is, the worse it become, the more it degenerates into ideology.'' --A
''I couldn't care less about sending a spacecraft to the moon.'' --H
''The radicality of a formulation deprives the statement of its radicality.'' --H
''The ability to think in isolation from the subject matter in question, and on the hand, the insight that comes from grasp of that subject matter. These two aspects are connected, but the usual concept of intelligence refers simply to the first, while the second, which is what counts, is dragged along under the label of intution or the like.'' --A
''Theory is theory in th authentic sense only where it serves practice. Theory that wishes to be sufficient unto itself is bad theory. On the other hand, it is also bad theory if it exists only in order to produce something or other.'' --H
''The happiness that would be brought about by practice finds no correlative in today's world apart from the behaviour of the man who sits in a chair and thinks. ''--A
''If one always refers back to the idea of measuring everything according to the image of how one would like things to be, one arrives at the concept of utopia, of a theory that does not lead to action.'' --H
''What irritates me so much about the entire relationship between theory and practice is something quite obvious, namely the experience that everything the Russians write slips into ideology, into crude, stupid twaddle, that culture is rubbish and that somewhere, at the very same spot as in Marx and Engels, there is an element of re-bararization.
''Your attitude has something of Don Quixote about it. You would like to omit whatever doesn't suit you, as if this culture could survive in present conditions without the injustice we both hate.'' --H
''Human beings live on horror. It's connected with eating meat. You 'beggar hurries to the gate'--that is the culture we live in.'' --H
''The horror is that we live in a world in which we can no longer imagine a better one.'' --A
''What links the two of us and separates us from other people is a kind of reluctance to say that twenty million are being murdered in China but soon there will be no more famines. What we reject is not practice but telling others what to do. Because we are still permitted to live, we are under an obligation to do something.'' -Horkheimer
Antinomy:
pernicious:
deliberations:
Constitutive: adj. Having the power to establish something.
constituent: adj. Being part of the whole. (2) Having the power to appoint or elect. Noun: (1) a member of a constituency. (2) A component part.
coolie: N.(dated) an unskilled native laborer in India, China, and some other Asian countries. (2) (offensive) a person from the Indian subcontinent or of Indian descent.
Dianoetic:
Ephemeral: adj. Lasting or used for a very short time.
Diffuse: v. to spread over a wide area.
Immanence:
Mendacity:
milieu:
Penchant: N. A strong liking of inclination.
Phenomenology:
rectify:
Semblance: N. The outward appearance or apparent form of something.
Tautology:
teleology: the explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes.
telos: An ultimate object or aim.
qua: (conjunction) in the capacity of.
Further reading: Intelligence in the Modern World;
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