I’m currently finishing my PhD on Adorno, and I’ve always found it quite sad how much of an alienating figure he can be on the left. He is commonly disregarded - often in other fields that philosophy - out of hand, on a surface level engagement with his cultural critiques. These often see him as on overly totalising or cynical thinker. However, most these critics don’t engage with his philosophical methodology, which is fascinating. It was based around trying to synthesise Marxism with what - at the time - was institutionalised philosophical doctrines. The negative dialectic is essentially an effort to try reconcile Ontology with dialectical materialism (with a little bit of Kantian epistemology thrown in the pot). Ie. Adorno - along with the whole Frankfurt school (who I don’t want to downplay, but he wrote the most rigorous text of the bunch) - paved the way for trying to create a truly Marxist philosophical foundation; a truly emancipatory philosophy. His efforts in this have been superceded, in some sense, by many of the French thinkers of the 60-70s, but I think it’s a damn shame how little credit he gets for what - at his time - was a hurculean task of synthesising philosophy with left wing politics.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself in my Adorno stanning, but the crux of my post is this: would anyone be interested in partaking in a reading group on Adorno? Weekly, fortnightly, monthly, whatever works. I’ve dedicated the last bloody 5 years of my life to this guy, and the least I feel I could do with that knowledge is share it with likeminded comrades online and try help people understand this truly amazing (yet difficult) thinker. If there is takers, I’m thinking we will begin with Dialectic of Enlightenment. He co wrote this with Max Horkheimer early(ish) in his career, and it is the best introduction to Adorno, and the thought of the Frankfurt school as a whole. Anyway, let me know what you think comrades! I love you all.