Adorno, Foucault and the Critique of the West

Cook Deborah

Description

The alliance of critical theory between Frankfurt and Paris
Adorno, Foucault, and the Critique of the West argues that critical theory continues to offer valuable resources for critique and contestation during this turbulent period in our history. To assess these resources, it examines the work of two of the twentieth century's more prominent social theorists: Theodor W. Adorno and Michel Foucault. Although Adorno was situated squarely in the Marxist tradition that Foucault would occasionally challenge, Cook demonstrates that their critiques of our current predicament are complementary in important respects. Among other things, they converge in their focus on the historical conditions-economic in Adorno and political in Foucault-that gave rise to the racist and authoritarian tendencies that continue to blight the West. But this book will also show that as Adorno and Foucault plumb the economic and political forces that have shaped our identities, they offer remarkably similar answers to the perennial question: What is to be done?

Sujets

• Political Ideologies
• Critical Theory
• Movements
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Western philosophy
• Communism
• Social theory
• Frankfurt School
• Post-structuralism
• Communisme
• Foucault
• Adorno

Informations

• Publié par: Verso
• Date de parution: 27 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781788730808
• Langue: English

Extrait

Adorno, Foucault and the Critique of the West
Adorno, Foucault and the Critique of the West
Deborah Cook
First published by Verso 2018
© Deborah Cook 2018
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-082-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-080-8 (UK EBK)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-081-5 (US EBK)
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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Typeset in Minion Pro by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh Printed in CPI Mackays, UK
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Abbreviations
1. The Critical Matrix
2. Is Power Always Secondary to the Economy?
3. Notes on Individuation
4. Resistance
5. Critique
6. Remarks on Western Reason
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
Three chapters in this book are based on pilot essays that were subsequently expanded and extensively revised. An early version of Chapter Two , ‘“Is Power Always Secondary to the Economy?” Foucault and Adorno on Power and Exchange’, appeared in Foucault Studies , no. 20 (2015), pp. 180–98. The pilot essay for Chapter Three , ‘Notes on Individuation in Adorno and Foucault’, was published in Philosophy Today 58, no. 3 (2014), pp. 325–44. Chapter Five is based loosely on ‘Adorno, Foucault and Critique’, an article published in Philosophy and Social Criticism 39, no. 10 (2013), pp. 963–79. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of these essays for their astute commentary. I should also like to thank the anonymous reviewer at Verso whose criticisms improved this book by enabling me to reframe it.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) provided me with research funding which enabled me to consult the Foucault Archives at the Institut Mémoires de l’Edition contemporaine (IMEC). My research at IMEC brought me into contact with scholars from all over the world with whom I enjoyed sharing ideas over meals at the Abbaye Ardenne. The SSHRC grant also allowed me to hire one of my graduate students to search for journal articles. Staicha Kidd doggedly pursued quarry that was often difficult to find, and she did so with a smile and an infectious sense of humour. Thank you, Staicha.
Thanks too to James Swindal at Duquesne University; his early encouragement meant a great deal to me. Another debt of gratitude is owed to Stefano Giacchetti Ludovisi who has organized the annual Critical Theory conference at the Rome campus of Loyola University of Chicago since its inception a decade ago. Equally deserving of mention are Stefano’s colleagues at Loyola – David Ingram and Hugh Miller – along with other participants at the conference, especially Andrew Feenberg and Anne-Marie Feenberg-Dibon. For several years, Stefano, David, Hugh, Andrew and Anne-Marie helped me to improve my work by criticizing it. I have also been buoyed by many students at the Rome conference; their comments were always stimulating.
Parts of this book were presented at two other venues. In 2014, I presented a section of Chapter Two in a keynote address for ‘The Frankfurt School and the Critique of Capitalist Culture’, a conference in Vancouver that came about as the result of the collaborative efforts of Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, and Douglas College. At Ryerson University in Toronto, Meredith Schwartz invited me to speak in the Philosophy Department’s Distinguished Speakers series in 2015, where I presented a portion of Chapter Four . In both Vancouver and Toronto, I learned much from the thoughtful questions of those who attended.
Finally, thanks to my friend, musician Terence Kroetsch, for raising my sometimes flagging spirits with music and laughter. And thanks also to the painter John (Jack) Brown for his support during the years of love and loss in which this book was written.
Preface
This book will argue that critical theory continues to offer important resources for critique and contestation during this turbulent period in our history. To assess these resources, I shall examine the work of two of the twentieth century’s more prominent social theorists: Theodor W. Adorno and Michel Foucault. Although Adorno was situated squarely in the Marxist tradition that Foucault would occasionally challenge, I hope to demonstrate that their critiques of our current predicament are complementary in important respects. Among other things, these critiques converge in their focus on the historical forces – economic in Adorno and political in Foucault – that gave rise to racist and authoritarian tendencies in the West. They also offer remarkably similar answers to the perennial question: What is to be done?
With the wealth of primary material (including lectures, essays, interviews and translations) published over the last two decades, it was possible to approach Adorno’s and Foucault’s critical theories jointly and critically with a view to evaluating their work. Yet it was important to proceed with caution. As Friedrich Nietzsche once observed: ‘He who seeks to mediate between two bold thinkers stamps himself as mediocre: he has not the eyes to see uniqueness; to perceive resemblances everywhere, making everything alike, is a sign of weak eyesight.’ 1 I kept this passage in mind during this book’s gestation in order to avoid, or at least to mitigate, the charge that Adorno, Foucault and the Critique of the West offers a mediocre comparison because it perceives resemblances everywhere and fails to appreciate the uniqueness of Adorno’s and Foucault’s thought. Much to my chagrin, Nietzsche’s criticism was echoed by a student who, upon hearing a section of Chapter One that I had edited for a keynote address in Rome, effectively asked me – though not quite so bluntly – if I was planning to reduce Foucault to Adorno.
That I try to avoid conflating their ideas will, I hope, become apparent in the course of reading this book. For example, Chapter Two will contrast the respective targets of Adorno’s and Foucault’s critiques: where Adorno focused almost exclusively on exchange relations and the capitalist economy, Foucault studied power relations in the West. Moreover, Chapter Three will argue that Adorno and Foucault have very different ideas about the impact of Christianity on the formation of the individual. In Chapter Four , I shall contrast Foucault’s view that resistance to power is widespread with Adorno’s claim that resistance is not just sporadic, but weak and largely ineffective when it does occur. Chapter Four will also explain why Adorno thought that political action should be deferred. Finally, Adorno and Foucault agree that we apprehend the world through a prism of concepts, but Chapter Five will show that Foucault does not share Adorno’s aim of returning to things themselves.
Of course, it would be equally problematic to focus only on the differences between Adorno and Foucault. That their ideas are often complementary is hardly surprising. Chapter One will demonstrate that Adorno and Foucault were influenced by some of the same thinkers, and these shared influences help to account for the complementarity of their work. Although Adorno was more than twenty years older than Foucault, they were also shaped by similar economic, political and social conditions. 2 Equally important, they were affected profoundly by the same historical events. As I shall argue here, their experiences of fascism during the Second World War motivate their search for an Ausgang – a way out – of our current predicament. In fact, the similarities between their ideas are acknowledged by Foucault himself. By the late 1970s, Foucault recognized that he belonged to the Kantian tradition of critique that spawned the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. In the early 1980s, he also noted the parallels between Adorno’s work and his own.
I remain convinced that Adorno’s and Foucault’s critiques of the West have much to teach us about ourselves. They take us on a voyage of critical self-discovery, attempting to make us more self-aware so that we no longer find ourselves in the situation of Nietzsche’s seekers after knowledge who were unknown to themselves because they had never tried to find themselves. At the same time, and to cite René Char’s Partage formel – a paean to those who resisted the Nazis that effectively serves as a leitmotif in Foucault’s work – Adorno and Foucault invite us to ‘develop our legitimate strangeness’ by acquiring a better understanding of the forces that have shaped our identities and resisting them. 3 Indeed, given their concerns about a resurgence of fascism, this book will also argue that Adorno and Foucault have strong normative commitments to autonomy. If I succeed in conveying to readers at least some of the resistive force that animates these social theories, then the time that it has taken me to write this book will have been well spent.
Abbreviations BB Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics MM Adorno, Minima Moralia ND Adorno, Negative Dialectics SP Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’, Essential Works: Power STP Foucault, Security, Territory, Population
Full references to these works, and to works cited in the footnotes, appear in the bibliography.
Chapter 1
The Critical Matrix
Adorno visited Paris several times during the 1950s and 1960s, giving lectures at the Collège de France and the Sorbonne. 1 Yet he never referred (in published work