Adornian Ahistoricity via Zorba the Greek

[Baden]

@Jamal

This makes it look like the artistic failure is caused by a theoretical failure. Wielding Adorno’s aesthetic theory, I would say that it’s more like a failure of artistic sensitivity, specifically a failure to register any dissonance where it matters. And though it’s tempting to say that the lack of awareness of his own ideological embeddedness is the reason for his failure to register any dissonance, then if that were the case, the best fix for bad art would be correct theory.

An acknowledgement or awareness of one’s own ideological embeddedness might work against one’s ability to let the non-identical show itself (or “give voice to suffering” in Adorno’s words), because theoretical sophistication in an artist can lead them to explain and resolve, prematurely closing what should stay open. Philosophical naivety might be better, because it leaves one more open to the forces at play in the material.

Having wound my way round this issue fairly comprehensively now, I would say this is where we ought to return re the genesis of the work strand. There’s a link to Adorno’s theoretical criticism, but it’s not a causal one. We ought not say K failed philosophically; he failed artistically. He created bad art. And the solution can’t be purely philosophical; that would, in a sense, just be to switch masters from ideology to philosophy.