>From Kelley's pop-cult page:
``Adorno: in der edition, text + kritik This German-language journal contains important links to publications from the Frankfurt Adorno Archives, including the "Frankfurter Adorno Blätter" V, which includes recently published essays by Theodor Adorno (auf deutsch) on "Das Problem des Idealismus" and Rolf Tiedemann's article on Adorno and myth.'' (see http://www.pulpculture.org/resources/theory.html)
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Here's a question for Dennis Redmond, Chris Doss, Michael Pollak, or others who can read German fluently---and who might have the time or interest to answer.
So what is the short form on Adorno's theory of the problem with idealism and its connection to myth?
I ask because I've more or less narrowed down a broad critical sketch of Strauss to consist of that problem. The problem begins as an intellectual mistake...that the (material) political world can be understood through political philosophy and what I would call an ahistorical idealism. In Strauss's case his political philosophy is derived from his readings of Jacobi (along with Kant and Hegel, i.e high German idealism), Spinoza, Hobbes, Rousseau and of course Plato and Aristotle. In other words he tried to understand his milieu through the lens of philosophical idealism.
This intellectual mistake was taken up by the US neocons and righwing who have adopted, in a broad and sloppy way, many of Strauss's (and others) interpretative readings, and have proceeded to re-construct US political discourse and policies under this generalized idealistic influence. In the meanwhile they completely ignore US history, facts on the ground, and a much more concrete and material understanding of government, with its implicit diversity of people and broad political culture.
In effect the neocons have imposed a fabricated idealism, a kind of propagandistic veneer to all their arguments, policy positions, and cultural critiques. Their idealism blinds them to and shields them (and more importantly their mass support) from the evident material and factual ground that directly contradicts these views. The necon and rightwing are convinced their ideals will work, no matter how many times these fail, no matter how many disasters they create, and no matter how many people they get killed.
For example, the necon ideology makes it possible to be absolutely convinced that wholesale arrests, tortures, and killings of Iraqis is for the greater good, because committing such atrocities is necessary in order to establish democracy to Iraq (ends justify means). Never mind the idiotic idea that the US needed to invade Iraq in the first place. I guess in the necon ideal world Iraq needed invading...
Probably the latest of these idealistically inspired stupidities is the idea that `Free Enterprise Zones' will fix New Orleans---merely facilitating the miracle of the `free market' to work its mythological magic will do the job.
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In a crude Cassirer-inspired mode I think a critique of idealism should outline the transformative link between philosophical idealism and the general propensity of any culture to create its own mythological foundations. Under this transformation the boundary between idealism and mythology is not a line at all, but rather a foggy spectrum (Cassirer). Within this fog, rationalism in and of itself can not distinguish between the two poles. So then in this context reason becomes a vehicle or medium through which to propagate either one or both in some blend (Levi-Strauss).
The intellectual and political antidote is a combination of pragmatism and empiricism---the appraisal of conditions as they are, rather than as they supposed to be. Hopefully what is to be done arises directly and `organically' from such an assessment, rather than from on high, where the theoretical value of some ideal solution can be presumed to be good in advance of any conditional understanding. In other words the solutions arise from practice in grabbling with the problems of the world (Marx)---and certainly not from theorizing solutions from out of the thin air of idealism.
The current marriage in hell between idealistic necons with idealistic neoliberals and their nuptial suppliants the Christian right, is full of examples that give the whole dance macabre the look and feel of a nazis-lite regime. The Patriot Act for example, protects us, makes us all safe for democracy---by violating every precept of said ideal. The transformation of a political idealism into a nationalistic mythology is how we have been transported into a 1984 nightmare world of newspeak bullshit where war is peace, tyranny is liberty, and the absence of any alternative is freedom.
The broad shift of the public mind toward idealism, motivated in this case by denial of concrete conditions which evidently contradict these ideals, sets up a way to understand the interconnections between the neconservatives, neoliberals and the religious right. They all share this emphasis on idealism in the face of contradictory facts, and they all insist that their self-proclaimed system of values or ideals should always take precedent over any array of mere facts.
They also share a broadly conceived anathema toward almost any form of empiricism particularly in the social sciences, biology, and history. These fields then possess the key tools to politically and polemically destroy the right.
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The deepest mistake the Frankfurt school made was to analyze its milieu (Weimar) through the same historical chain of ideas (intellectual history) following German idealism, filtered through Marx, Freud and others---none of whom were sufficiently empirical and materialistic in my view. I realize this complaint sounds odd, but we have accumulated a great deal more understanding of social, political, and economic processes and have at our disposal a far greater richness of empirical detail that attends these processes than Marx or Freud ever did. We need to use that empirical understanding and its concrete historical detail---a full century's worth---to its greatest advantage. (As a side note, the deepest problem of the post-modern critique is that it more or less replicated the Frankfurt mistake...and got blind sided by the right in a similar fashion...)
Notice for example that the rightwing think-tanks are usually very short on facts and big on policy positions. In effect they philosophize their way out of facing the empirical, material, and concrete facts of the world.
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>From the `religion bad for society' thread:
``According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems...''
Jim Farmelant comments: `` I suspect that the direction of causation may be different from, if not opposite of what the authors of this study are reported as claiming. That is that relatively healthy societies are less likely to be religious since they have alternative means for promoting community and social identity as compared to societies like the US where such means are lacking...''
I think the problem isn't religion per se, but all religions propensity to engage idealism through a mythological and metaphysical lens on the world. Such a view makes rational and more importantly an empirical understanding of social, political, and economic problems next to impossible. Without that material and concrete grounding in `reality' the available institutions can not functionally respond and provide the necessary material remedies.
In effect, Iraq is doomed whether the US necons prevail, or the Islamic sectarian prevail---for the same reason. Both will inhibit, through their respective ideologies, public institutions in Iraq from forming, responding, and acting on the concrete realities and material needs of the people...
CG