INFORMATION ISSUED by the Assooanai W MOSH Nmrns M Aur Ormai
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Volume XXXI No. 11 November, 1976 INFORMATION ISSUED BY THE AssooAnai w MOSH nmrns m aur oRmai Hans I. Bach cepts not yet encompassed by the general pattem is the last hope for thought". At the very end of the book emerges the TWO JEWISH THINKERS OE OUR TIME religious core that kept this man struggling and alive: "The only philosophy which can Essays by Theodor Adomo Yet the subtitle "Reflections from Damaged be responsibly practised in the face of despair Life" is alerting. This damage may well be is the attempt to contemplate all things as they Theodor Adomo, bom in Frankfurt in 1903, reflected in the author's sternly materialistic would present themselves from the standpoint son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, outlook: "Inexorably, the thought of money of redemption ... in the messianic light. The studied modem music in the Schonberg circle and all its attendant conflicts extends into question of the reality or unreality of redemp but then, with a strong Marxist conviction, the most tender erotic, the most sublime tion itself hardly matters". turned to sociology and became associated with spiiritual relationships". Life itself seems for Max Horkheimer the Jew the Institute for Social Research in Frank him endangered: "Our perspective of life has furt. In 1933 he first went to Oxford, then passed into an ideology which conceals the It is interesting to compare Adomo's book to America where, together with Max fact that there Ls life no longer. The over with one by Max Horkheimer, his old friend Horkheimer, he revived the Institute. He whelming objectivity of historical movement and colleague in the direction of the Institute assisted Thomas Mann with the musicological in its present phase consists so far only in fur Sozialforschung at Frankfurt.'*'* It combines background to "Dr. Faustus"; however, Katia the dissolution of the subject, without yet Horkheimer's "Notes written between 1950 Mann, in her "Unwritten Memoirs", takes him giving rise to a new one". and 1969" with the reprint of his "Twilight- to task for boasting to have written these Notes in German", published in Switzerland Parts himself. After the war he returned The only entry on happiness is a childhood in 1934 under the pseudonym Heinrich Regius. to Frankfurt, transferred the Institute for reminiscence. In searching for a minimum of They all aim at a "sober xmmasking" of the Social Research and directed it up to his morality, one consoling thought might be most varied social phenomena of their respect death in 1969. that "people are even now better than their ive periods in the light of the author's "criti culture". cal pessimism". They deal with such topics "Minima Moralia",* the necessary "minimum All too often, however, the author's attitude of morals", written 1944-47 in America, con as "Belief and Knowledge", "Art and Orna is predominantly negative: "Every work of ment", "Types of Suffering", and many others, sists of just over 150 short pieces without art is an uncommitted crime". "The image any specific order: sociological and psycho but they are treated in the same way: the of undistorted nature arises only in distor author's materialist system of philosophy sees logical comments and meditations on a great tion as its opposite. The feminine charac variety of subjects, forming a cross-section every subject as yet another facet of the decay ter is a negative imprint of domination but of bourgeois civilisation. To the non-mater through modem life, views and traditions therefore equally bad". His mood may even seen with a strong left-wing bias. ialistic reader this is at times boring though border on despair, as when he speaks of it may be of interest to sociologists. "the shame of still having air to breathe, in hell". However, Horkheimer's pessimism is often Brilliance but little hope alleviated by a strong feeling of commitment The book abounds in brilliant, though often The Sickness of Contemporary Life and responsibility. To the question "What is depressive, analyses and remarks. To give religion?" his answer is "the impulse, main Some examples which may well be taken like Adorno does not paint a black and white tained against reality and yet not stifled that aphorisms on Nazism: "Perhaps the social picture, as one might expect, but condemns things shall be changed . and that every schematLsation of perception in antisemites is contemporary life wholesale: "The sickness thing will take a tum to faimess and free proper to the time" consists for him "precisely dom." such that they do not see Jews as human in normality. No science has yet explored beings at all ... In repressive society, the the inferno in which were forged the deforma In a 1940 essay on "The Jews in Europe" <^ncept of man is itself a parody of divine tions that later emerge to daylight as cheer (not his own heading), Horkheimer still spoke likeness." "It is part of the mechanism of fulness, openness, sociability, successful adap of the Jews in the cool and detached manner domination to forbid recognition of the suffer tation to the inevitable, an equable, practical of Marxist theory: they are the agents of the ing it produces". On economics and religion: frame of mind". Socialism, his own creed, distribution of goods who would stand no "The existence of bread factories, tuming the makes no exception: "Even solidarity, the chance in a totalitarian state. In his last notes Prayer that we be given our daily bread most honourable mode of conduct of socialism, he achieves a positive approach to Jewish into a mere metaphor and an avowal of des is sick". And rejection extends likewise to values and notes: "I moum the superstition peration, argues more strongly against the Freudian psychology on which he otherwise of a Beyond because the society which can do Possibility of Christianity than all the enlight leans heavily: "Freud's unenlightened en without it, recedes from the dream which ened critiques of the life of Jesus". lightenment plays into the hands of bourgeois alone makes life on earth bearable with every On the difference of generations: "Even the disillusion. Truth is abandoned to rela step with which it approaches an earthly para outdated, inconsistent, self-doubting ideas of tivity and people to power". dise. In pleasure, in the emphatic mood, the remembrance of paradise was still present." the older generation are more open to dialogue There is a deep chasm between intellect and than the slick stupidity of Junior". On feeling: the beliefs and customs which Adomo On the "Community of Jews" he writes: features of modem life: "We are forgetting analyses to shreds are secretly dear to his "An infinitely venerable history of remaining to give presents. The decay of giving is heart. I have rarely read a book at once so true to their creed in the face of hate and iiiirrored in the distressing invention of gift- startling and so saddening. One wonders how, persecution has kept the Jews free from the articles, based on the assumption that one with such an injury, "damaged life" could go resentment which at bottom fills the Christian does not know what to give, because one on at all, though there are glimpses into how masses who betray their creed. The relatively '"eally does not want to".—"Technology is this could be achieved. His power of observa small number of Jewish individuals in crimin faking gestures precise and brutal, and with tion becomes not only a defence but almost ality is one of the many consequences of this them men. It expels from movements all a redoubt: "To be still able to perceive any support, another is the capacity for happiness hesitation, deliberation, civility. Thus the thing at all, regardless of its quality, replaces in which sorrow and grief are not forgotten." ability is lost, for example, to close a door happiness, since omnipotent quantification has Horkheimer is critical of the State of Israel: quietly and discreetly, yet firmly. Those of "During thousands of years, the Jews have •^J^ and refrigerators have to be slammed ..." taken away the possibility of perception it self". A shy hope dares to come out at times: ** Max Horkheimer, Notizen 1950-1S69 und DSmmerung. * Theodor Adorno: Minima Moralla, Reflections from "A gaze averted from the beaten track, a Notizen in Oeutschland, ed. W. Breda, Frankfurt (S. "amagejj Life. Translated from German by E. F. M. Joph- Fischer), 1974. "^O". NLB, London 1974. £4-25. hatred of bmtality, a search for fresh con Continued on page 2, column 1 Page 2 AJR INFORMATION November 1975 TWO JEWISH THINKERS OF OUR TIME Guido Kisch (Basle) AN UNPUBLISHED MEMORIAL ADDRESS Continued from page 1 —idols, nations, the 'Leader'. Their mere BY DR. LEO BAECK existence, their being 'the People of God' kept together under persecution for the sake is a stumbling block. The more absolute a Im Rahmen der kurz nach ihrer Ein- of justice. Judaism did not mean state power, system presents itself, the greater is the urg wandemng von Emigranten aus der Tschecho but the hope of justice at the end of the ency to see them liquidated . ." The holo slowakei in New York neu gegriindeten B'ne- world. The Jewish people which has caust shook this seemingly detached writer to B'rith Loge entstand nach Kriegsende durch represented an indictment on the injustice of the core: "Complicity—^we must not complain die Initiative des Unterzeichneten mit Unter- all peoples, the individuals in whose words whatever may be coming, because we know stutzung seiner Freunde Dr. Frederick Fried and gestures the negative of what exists was that all hell has been let loose.