Frasi di Theodor W. Adorno
31 frasi che rivelano la saggezza profonda sull'amore, la libertà e l'arte

Scoprite la profonda saggezza di Theodor W. Adorno attraverso le sue stimolanti citazioni, che esplorano temi come la natura della libertà, il potere dell'amore e l'impatto dell'arte sulla società. Scoprite la sua prospettiva unica in 200 caratteri o meno.

Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno è stato un filosofo, sociologo, musicologo e musicista tedesco. Fu esponente della Scuola di Francoforte e criticò in modo radicale la società e il capitalismo avanzato. Oltre ai suoi scritti sociologici, Adorno trattò anche tematiche morali ed estetiche, nonché fece studi critici sulla filosofia di Hegel, Husserl e Heidegger. Oltre alla sua riflessione filosofica-sociologica, ebbe una carriera significativa come musicologo.

Studente all'Università di Francoforte, Adorno strinse amicizia con Max Horkheimer che lo introdusse all'Istituto di ricerche sociali di Francoforte sul Meno. A causa dell'avvento del nazismo fu costretto a emigrare dapprima a Oxford e successivamente negli Stati Uniti d'America. In America si dedicò ad attività sociologiche innovative come il Progetto di Ricerca Radiofonica e soprattutto all'indagine sulla personalità autoritaria.

Dopo il suo ritorno in Germania nei primi anni cinquanta, le sue lezioni all'Università di Francoforte ottennero sempre più partecipanti e la fama del seminario da lui tenuto con Max Horkheimer sulle tematiche hegeliane cresceva in Europa.

✵ 11. Settembre 1903 – 6. Agosto 1969   •   Altri nomi Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno, Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno
Theodor W. Adorno photo
Theodor W. Adorno: 121   frasi 29   Mi piace

Theodor W. Adorno frasi celebri

“Le atrocità sollevano un'indignazione minore, quanto più le vittime sono dissimili dai normali lettori, quanto più sono "more", "sudice", dago. Questo fatto illumina le atrocità non meno che le reazioni degli spettatori. Forse lo schema sociale della percezione presso gli antisemiti è fatto in modo che essi non vedono gli ebrei come uomini. L'affermazione ricorrente che i selvaggi, i negri, i giapponesi, somigliano ad animali, o a scimmie, contiene già la chiave del pogrom. Della cui possibilità si decide nell'istante in cui l'occhio di un animale ferito a morte colpisce l'uomo. L'ostinazione con cui egli devia da sé quello sguardo – "non è che un animale"”

si ripete incessantemente nelle crudeltà commesse sugli uomini, in cui gli esecutori devono sempre di nuovo confermare a se stessi il "non è che un animale", a cui non riuscivano a credere neppure nel caso dell'animale. Nella società repressiva il concetto stesso dell'uomo è la parodia dell'uguaglianza di tutto ciò che è fatto ad immagine di Dio. Fa parte del meccanismo della "proiezione morbosa" che i detentori del potere avvertano come uomo solo la propria immagine, anziché riflettere l'umano proprio come il diverso. L'assassinio è quindi il tentativo di raddrizzare la follia di questa falsa percezione con una follia ancora maggiore: ciò che non è stato visto come uomo, eppure lo è, viene trasformato in cosa, perché non possa confutare, con un movimento, lo sguardo del pazzo. (n. 68, Gli uomini ti guardano)
Minima moralia
Origine: Riferimento al titolo del libro di Paul Eipper Le bestie ci guardano

Theodor W. Adorno Frasi e Citazioni

“Comunque agisca, l'intellettuale sbaglia.”

Minima moralia

Theodor W. Adorno: Frasi in inglese

“Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.”

Section 10
Culture Industry Reconsidered (1963)
Contesto: The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them. They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured. Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.

“There is no right life in the wrong one.”

Origine: Minima Moralia: Reflections from a Damaged Life

“Regressive listeners behave like children. Again and again and with stubborn malice, they demand the one dish they have once been served.”

Origine: On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening (1938), p. 290

“The occupation with things of the mind has by now itself become “practical,” a business with strict division of labor, departments and restricted entry. The man of independent means who chooses it out of repugnance for the ignominy of earning money will not be disposed to acknowledge the fact. For this he is punished. He … is ranked in the competitive hierarchy as a dilettante no matter how well he knows his subject, and must, if he wants to make a career, show himself even more resolutely blinkered than the most inveterate specialist. The urge to suspend the division of labor which, within certain limits, his economic situation enables him to satisfy, is thought particularly disreputable: it betrays a disinclination to sanction the operations imposed by society, and domineering competence permits no such idiosyncrasies. The departmentalization of mind is a means of abolishing mind where it is not exercised ex officio, under contract. It performs this task all the more reliably since anyone who repudiates this division of labor—if only by taking pleasure in his work—makes himself vulnerable by its standards, in ways inseparable from elements of his superiority.”

Theodor W. Adorno libro Minima Moralia

E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 1
Minima Moralia (1951)
Contesto: The son of well-to-do parents who … engages in a so-called intellectual profession, as an artist or a scholar, will have a particularly difficult time with those bearing the distasteful title of colleagues. It is not merely that his independence is envied, the seriousness of his intentions mistrusted, that he is suspected of being a secret envoy of the established powers. … The real resistance lies elsewhere. The occupation with things of the mind has by now itself become “practical,” a business with strict division of labor, departments and restricted entry. The man of independent means who chooses it out of repugnance for the ignominy of earning money will not be disposed to acknowledge the fact. For this he is punished. He … is ranked in the competitive hierarchy as a dilettante no matter how well he knows his subject, and must, if he wants to make a career, show himself even more resolutely blinkered than the most inveterate specialist. The urge to suspend the division of labor which, within certain limits, his economic situation enables him to satisfy, is thought particularly disreputable: it betrays a disinclination to sanction the operations imposed by society, and domineering competence permits no such idiosyncrasies. The departmentalization of mind is a means of abolishing mind where it is not exercised ex officio, under contract. It performs this task all the more reliably since anyone who repudiates this division of labor—if only by taking pleasure in his work—makes himself vulnerable by its standards, in ways inseparable from elements of his superiority. Thus is order ensured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game.

“The power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness. The order that springs from it is never confronted with what it claims to be or with the real interests of human beings.”

Section 14
Culture Industry Reconsidered (1963)
Contesto: The power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness. The order that springs from it is never confronted with what it claims to be or with the real interests of human beings. Order, however, is not good in itself. It would be so only as a good order. The fact that the culture industry is oblivious to this and extols order in abstracto, bears witness to the impotence and untruth of the messages it conveys. While it claims to lead the perplexed, it deludes them with false conflicts which they are to exchange for their own. It solves conflicts for them only in appearance, in a way that they can hardly be solved in their real lives.

“Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.”

Theodor W. Adorno libro Minima Moralia

Kunst ist Magie, befreit von der Lüge, Wahrheit zu sein.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 143
Minima Moralia (1951)

“Humanity had to inflict terrible injuries on itself before the self, the identical, purpose-directed, masculine character of human beings was created, and something of this process is repeated in every childhood.”

Furchtbares hat die Menschheit sich antun müssen, bis das Selbst, der identische, zweckgerichtete, männliche Charakter des Menschen geschaffen war, und etwas davon wird noch in jeder Kindheit wiederholt.
E. Jephcott, trans., p. 26
Dialektik der Aufklärung [Dialectic of Enlightenment] (1944)

“The straight line is regarded as the shortest distance between two people, as if they were points.”

Theodor W. Adorno libro Minima Moralia

Nun gilt für die kürzeste Verbindung zwischen zwei Personen die Gerade, so als ob sie Punkte wären.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 20
Minima Moralia (1951)

Autori simili

Hermann Hesse photo
Hermann Hesse 279
scrittore, poeta e aforista tedesco
Martin Heidegger photo
Martin Heidegger 39
filosofo tedesco
Walter Benjamin photo
Walter Benjamin 33
filosofo e scrittore tedesco
Ernst Jünger photo
Ernst Jünger 277
filosofo e scrittore tedesco
Elias Canetti photo
Elias Canetti 197
scrittore, saggista e aforista bulgaro
Hannah Arendt photo
Hannah Arendt 40
filosofa, storica e scrittrice tedesca
Pitigrilli photo
Pitigrilli 46
scrittore e aforista italiano
Edith Stein photo
Edith Stein 19
religiosa e filosofa tedesca
Gilbert Keith Chesterton photo
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 253
scrittore, giornalista e aforista inglese
Ramón Gómez De La Serna photo
Ramón Gómez De La Serna 112
scrittore e aforista spagnolo