Analyzing the Three
Interpretations in Terms of Style
The third interpretation above (about poetry as
particularizing) differs from the previous two (culture as purposeless and culture
as self-contradictory) in its scope. It conducts a closer reading of the
passage than the previous two, and thus it borders on a stylistic analysis of
Adorno (why he uses the terms he uses). A more detailed account of his
stylistic choices both supports and complicates the above readings. The phrase,
“To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric,” stands out, partly as a shorter
sentence than most of those that Adorno employs (indeed, in the German, it is
not even a full sentence [Rothberg 25]), and as one that appeals to
emotionally-weighted terms: “Auschwitz,”[1]
“barbaric,” and even “poetry.” In fact, the terms “Auschwitz”
and “poetry” do not appear elsewhere in CCS, so their sudden appearance is
jarring in a text that appeals consistently to certain key terms (“culture,”
“cultural criticism,” “society,” “ideology,” etc.). Not only are these terms
more particular (even as they are metonymies for more general concepts), thus
emphasizing the necessity of taking particulars into account, but “Auschwitz”
especially is also a term tied to a real, material place. Thus, that it is a jarring
phrase emphasizes culture's and cultural criticism's absurd self-expectations
that they be other than material reality. In this sense, without passages like
this one, CCS runs the risk of falling into its own criterion for failed
criticism. Indeed, there are several moments in CCS, unnecessary to the
argument, in which Adorno makes critical moves that he has criticized in the
text. For example, he cites Paul Valéry as the “greatest example of
[concentration on a subject which is absolutely one's own]” (23), and although
he later criticizes that concentration, his claim that Valéry is “the greatest
example” is an obviously transcendent claim, as if Adorno, from somewhere outside
of this contemporary moment, could objectively judge all possible examples of
it. Moreover, his overall style resembles the tradition from which he has
emerged and whose optimism he criticizes as complicit with society (German
Idealism), a style that contains long sentences, abstract terms, and a
non-linear logical flow.[2]
Thus, Adorno's style supports his overall claims about cultural criticism, that
even that which tries to avoid the pitfalls of traditional criticism, still
falls into them, but has the potential to, at least partly, avoid them
(with passages like the one with which this section is concerned).[3]
Another effect of Adorno's conformation to German Idealistic sentence
structures and word choices, along with his allusions to critical figures (like
Paul Valéry), is a historicizing of his text. These attributes emphasize its
position within a social and historical time period and thus also support
Hegel's assertion that philosophical thoughts do not exist in a void, and that
understanding them depends on understanding the context from which they come.
Adorno's use of metaphoric language in various places throughout CCS and his
other essays also supports this reading, since the metaphors resemble those
included by Benjamin (a contemporary of Adorno's whose work influenced him[4]).
We see that Adorno's metaphors are allusions to Benjamin's in that they are
often theological (i.e. “drive the devil out with Beelzebub” [CCS 21]), like
Benjamin's. Thus, Adorno's style throughout CCS supports the above readings:
that culture's purpose is impossible to fulfill (just as it is impossible for
Adorno even to escape from his own criticism); that culture is inherently
contradictory (just as CCS is itself steeped in contradiction); and that
particulars (like poetry) and totalities (like culture) are both
important, though particulars are being ignored in an overly totalizing society
(just as the particular moments in Adorno's style work to differentiate it from
the totality of German Idealistic style, even as it is steeped in that style).
Furthermore, because an analysis of style leads us to think about CCS in terms
of its own criticism, these conclusions in turn suggest that we should read the
passage about Auschwitz as having a historical
context,[5]
a society from which it comes, and the chilling possibility that it too will
serve that society.[6]
[1] Rothberg argues that the term “Auschwitz,”
when Adorno employed it in CCS, did not carry the emotional weight that it has
since gained, and (in fact) gained that weight in part because of Adorno's use of
it (Rothberg 45-6). At the same time, though, as we will see in the following
section, the term carries significant weight in Adorno's philosophy, so reading
it as emotionally weighty is not out of place. Furthermore, to ignore the
weight of the term “Auschwitz” in its present context is to assume that one
should read CCS from Adorno's context, whereas Adorno might claim, given his
thoughts about the ideology of culture, that it is impossible for us to escape
our own social context (in which the term carries weight) except on a surface
level, such that if we criticize those who give the term a certain weight that
Adorno, when writing CCS, might not have, then we still inadvertently give it
too much emotional weight by considering it an appropriate topic for thought.
[2] We see that Adorno's style is a response to
the German Idealistic movement specifically because Adorno employs certain
stylistic elements that, though not unique to German Idealism, are more
prevalent in that movement than texts written in German in other schools of
thought (such as the Vienna Circle). The most obvious of these elements is the
sentence structure that Adorno and several German Idealists (for example, Kant
and Hegel) employ for the majority of their sentences, a structure that includes
several layers of embedded clauses, such that the sentences that these authors
write end up being much longer than those found in other German philosophical
texts.
[3] The term “Auschwitz” itself, in Adorno's
formulation “after Auschwitz” (here for the
first time, but more common in Negative Dialectics, where it is a
section title [361]), supports this reading of Adorno's style. “Auchwitz” is
the Germanicized name of the Polish town, Oswiecim
(Rothberg 28), such that it fits both of Adorno's starting claims about
“cultural criticism.” It is rooted in two different languages and is also a
“flagrant contradiction” partly because, as we have seen, any attempt to
approach it is permeated by contradiction, but also because, as we will see in
the following section, to be “after Auschwitz” is to be, at the same time,
aware that we have not (and should not) move beyond Auschwitz. Arguing for this
same sentiment, Rothberg claims that the German for “after Auschwitz” (“nach
Auschwitz”) is the same as “to Auschwitz” (25f), such that the move beyond Auschwitz is at the same time a move towards it.
[4] We see the influence both in Adorno's essays
on Benjamin (i.e.: “Introduction to Benjamin's Shriften” and
“Benjamin the Letter Writer” in Notes to Literature: Volume Two) and in
the recurrence of Benjaminian concepts in discussions about Adorno (i.e.:
Tiedemann's use of “temporal core” [xviii] and Rothberg's discussion of
“barbarism” [25].)
[5] I owe the idea of analyzing specific
philosophical claims in terms of their historical contexts to Gellner's essay
“Sociology” (see especially 413-5).
[6] Rothberg claims that it has supported
society, arguing that “without a doubt, Adorno would be horrified to see his
own words on the Nazi genocide turned into an academic truism” (Rothberg 25).
In other words, Sicher's claim (that most discussions about writing after Auschwitz begin with Adorno) would be problematic for
Adorno because it shows that even his argument has been incorporated into an
industry that is complicit with society (namely, cultural criticism). That the
concept of Auschwitz itself has been incorporated into the culture industry is
implied by Rolf Tiedemann in his introduction to Can One Live After
Auschwitz?, in which he argues that the cold silence that Adorno feared has
been replaced by an equally cold culture, exemplified by the quotation,
“There's no business like Shoah Business” (Tiedemann xii). In other words,
remembrance of Auschwitz itself has become an excuse to avoid our society's
complicity in Auschwitz (including its
contemporary manifestation).
