September 11 is the anniversary of the birth of Theodor Adorno, who was born in Frankfurt in 1903. As an example of how much the world has changed, just in the past century, Frankfurt was at the time part of Prussia and in the German Empire. Adorno was born Theodor Wiesengrund, and as a child “Adorno” was added at his mother’s request (Adorno was her family name), so he was Theodor Wiesengrund-Adorno. That’s the name on his early publications. He became “Theodor Adorno” when he became a US Citizen and they “americanized” his name. He’s probably lucky they didn’t change the spelling!
If you’ve heard of Adorno, it may be because he’s often mentioned prominently in Sociology 101 classes in colleges. But he probably did more work in the field of music and musicology than in Sociology — although it may be too fine a distinction, because he would have said he worked in the “sociology of music.” Except he probably wouldn’t have stated it that clearly. One of the things about Adorno’s work in music criticism, sociology, and philosophy is that it’s annoyingly difficult to read. Partly because he was dealing with very abstract ideas, but also because he had a dense, academic way of writing. For example, this is a passage where he’s discussing “twelve-tone technique” in music:
Twelve-tone technique alone is nothing but the principle of motivic elaboration and variation, as developed in the sonata, but elevated now to a comprehensive principle of construction, namely transformed into an a priori form and, by that token, detached from the surface of the composition.
Um, okay then. Anyway, Adorno was a child prodigy in music, and was playing difficult classical pieces on the piano as a preteen. He received encouragement from his mother and aunt, both of whom had been well-known singers and pianists. He was brilliant in other areas as well, and graduated at the top of his class. His study of music, which informed his approach to other fields, continued at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. At the same time, he was studying philosophy intently, particularly Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant (another exemplar of incredibly dense prose). He next studied philosophy, psychology, and sociology at Goethe University, also in Frankfurt. While still an undergraduate, he began publishing music reviews in the distinguished German musical journals of the day. He promoted avant-garde music and slammed modernist pieces and composers like Igor Stravinsky.
In 1924 Adorno moved to Vienna to be immersed in the music scene there. He both composed and performed music, and received his doctorate there. In Germany, as well as several other European nations, there is a higher-level academic degree than a PhD: a “habilitation.” Adorno took the next several years to write his habilitation manuscript, The Concept of the Unconscious in the Transcendental Theory of the Psyche. And at the same time he composed several pieces of music that were performed in a number of venues.
He concentrated on music for the next few years, and that’s when he wrote that dense analysis of “twelve-tone technique” I quoted above. And in his spare time he published articles in philosophy that earned him a position as a lecturer in philosophy. But it was by then the early 1930s, and Hitler seized power in Germany on the very same day Adorno received his habilitation. As a member of the avant-garde in music and philosophy, and even worse, a Marxist (sort of), Adorno became a target of the right-wing Nazis. He lost his job, his office and home were searched, and his activities were restricted “as a non-Aryan.” Adorno left Germany, first for England and then emigrated to the US.
In the US, Adorno expanded his work in psychology and sociology, and conducted a number of field studies that pioneered social research methods. He also developed the “F-scale personality test.” The “F” stands for “fascist,” and the test evaluated “authoritarian personality traits.” But when the US entered World War II in 1941, Adorno was classified as an “enemy alien” because he was German. Until he became a naturalized citizen in 1943, Adorno was not allowed to leave his house from 8pm to 6am, and wasn’t able to travel more than five miles from his home.
He returned to Germany after the war ended, in 1949, and was a leading voice in shaping the new political culture of West Germany. He was one of the founders of the “Frankfurt School” of sociology and philosophy, and continued his study of authoritarianism, both political and psychological. One of his best known works is The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950. He also became a media personality and social critic, and railed against what he called the “culture industry,” which included popular music. His criticism was primarily that the culture industry is simply a tool to sustain capitalism by making it more “agreeable.”
It’s probably impossible to encapsulate Adorno, his wide range of work, and his expansive influence; in everything he explored he seemed to become one of the most prominent writers and practitioners. His work criticizing commercial media capitalism has been continued by many scholars — if you pick up The US Empire’s Culture Industry by Tanner Mirrlees, that’s a pretty pure extension of everything Adorno was saying. And to be frank, almost anybody else’s expression of Adorno’s ideas is likely to be more understandable than Adorno’s originals. Which, to be fair, are written in a German idiom that’s said to be very difficult even for native speakers to understand, and especially problematic to translate. But he was one of the most influential public intellectuals of the 20th Century, and definitely worth some study.
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