jazz, the wound: negative identity, culture, and the problem of weak subjectivity in theodor adorno's

30 Pages·2016·0.24 MB·English

ModernIntellectualHistory,13,2(2016),pp.357–386 (cid:2)C CambridgeUniversityPress2015
doi:10.1017/S1479244314000614
jazz, the wound: negative
identity, culture, and the
problem of weak subjectivity in
theodor adorno’s twentieth
∗
century
ericoberle
CollegeofLettersandSciences,ArizonaStateUniversity
E-mail:[email protected]
This essay addresses the emergence of theories of “identity” in twentieth-century
politics,aesthetics,andphilosophybyconsideringTheodorAdorno’sunderstanding
of“negativeidentity”asaformofcoercivecategorizationthatneverthelesscontains
socialknowledge.AhistoricalaccountoftheFrankfurtschool’srelationtoquestions
ofrace,anti-Semitism,andtheideaofculture,theessayanalyzesAdorno’sinfamous
jazzarticlesinlightofthetransatlantichistoryofMarxianpoliticaltheoryandits
understandingofracism,subject–objectrelations,andmodelsofculturalproduction.
Theresultisaninvestigationofthehistoryoftheconceptofidentity,itsemergence
alongsidetheriseofculturalstudies,anditsrelationtointernationalcultural–aesthetic
formationssuchasjazz.ThearticleconcludeswithanexaminationofAdorno’scritique
of idealism, cultural identity, and nationalism in light of the “wounded” political
subjectivityofthemodernera.
TheconceptsofidentityandnonidentitywerecentraltoTheodorAdorno’s
postwar writings. In Adorno’s thought, the concept of identity carried logical,
subjective, and objective valences, relating to persons, objects, and statements.
Butidentityalsogovernedoverthewhole.Adornodefinedhisowncriticaltheory
intermsofthe“identityofidentityandnonidentity.”1 Bythishedescribedthe
outcomeofaprocessbywhichsubjectsthinkthrough(identify)theaspectsof
thoughtthatare“nonidentical”tothemselves—thataremoreorlessthanwhat
theyclaimtobe—eitherbecausetheseharborhiddenpremises,orbecausetheir
∗ I would like to thank Keith Baker, Charly Coleman, Gerald Izenberg, Ken Moss, Paul
Robinson,JamesSheehan,andtheHistoryColloquiumatJohnsHopkinsUniversityfor
commentsonpreviousdraftsofthisarticle.
1 TheodorW.Adorno,GesammelteSchriften,ed.RolfTiedemann,20vols.(Frankfurtam
Main,1970),6:19(hereafterAGS.)Alltranslationsaremineunlessotherwisenoted.
357
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358 ericoberle
very use entailed them in a web of other concepts. In his formal philosophy,
Adorno used the concept expansively, writing about the nonidentical relation
existingbetweenego,id,andsuperego;thenonidentityofKant’stranscendental
egowiththeempiricalself;thenonidentityofapsychologicalmodeofanalysis
and a sociological one; the identity and nonidentity of subject and object, of
immanence to appearance, and of concepts to the material world. Though
explicitly invoking German idealism and its heady tradition of the dialectic,
Adornointendedthe“negativity”ofthislanguagetobringidealismdowntoearth,
transformingthelanguageofmetaphysicsintoatoolofanappliedsocialcriticism
capableofanalyzingtherealsufferingcorrelatedwithfalseidentity.Immanent
critique,thecentraltechniqueofAdorno’slatework,wroughtphilosophyoutof
falseidentitybymakingcritiqueofnonidentitythereflexofallclaimsofidentity,
truth,andself-assertion.
Negative Dialectics, the book in which these claims about identity are
articulated most fully, appeared in 1966, at a moment in which notions of
“identity” were emerging as the centerpiece of many theoretical traditions.
Mixingculturalandpsychologicalconcerns,thenewsenseofmodernsubjective
“identity”positedthepossessionofanidentityasakindofcureforwhatEmile
Durkheimcalledanomie.AsGeraldIzenberghasargued,thetwentiethcentury
embraced this new sense of self-identity as something akin to a first principle
of mental health.2 By corollary, both in serious literature and in the language
of psychology, the condition of not having an identity came to be considered
tantamounttolosingallsenseoforientationintheworld,andtheoristsbecame
interestedinthepossibilitythatthetruthof“objective”historicaldevelopments
wastobelocatedinthedramaofidentityformation.Alreadyin1958onecould
read, in Erik Erikson’s Young Man Luther, about how an individual’s “identity
crisis” gave birth to a movement as historically significant as the Protestant
Reformation.Inthe1970s,theoristswouldlooktothegenerativepowerofidentity
todescribeanyandallsortsofcultural-historicalprocesses—beginningwiththe
2 The concept of identity, which solidified around liberalism’s encounter with
multiculturalism, communitarianism, nationalism, cultural studies, and post-
structuralisminthe1980s,todayshapesidiomsusedfordescribingtheselfinrelationto
thepublicsphere,nationalism,andemancipatorysocialmovements.Importantaccounts
oftheroleofidentityintwentieth-centurytheoryincludeCharlesTaylor,Sourcesofthe
Self:TheMakingoftheModernIdentity(Cambridge,1989);AnthonyAppiah,TheEthics
ofIdentity(Princeton,NJ,2005);AxelHonneth,TheStruggleforRecognition:TheMoral
GrammarofSocialConflicts,trans.JoelAnderson(Cambridge,1995);ManuelCastells,
ThePowerofIdentity(Malden,MA,2004);AmandaAnderson,TheWayWeArgueNow:
AStudyintheCulturesofTheory(Princeton,2006).Ontheliterary-philosophicalhistory
ofidentityasaconcernforsubjectivityseeGeraldIzenberg,“IdentityBecomesanIssue:
EuropeanLiteratureinthe1920s,”ModernIntellectualHistory,5(2008),279–307.
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jazz,thewound 359
achievement of a self-conscious ego, and expanding outward to processes of
self-emancipation as varied as national independence, cultural self-expression,
gender and sexual liberation, and the formation of the new social movements
“beyond”class.
Adornodiedin1969,butthroughoutthe1970sandbeyond,hewouldcontinue
toexerciseconsiderableinfluenceasatheoristofculture,selfhood,andsociety.
Curiously,however,despitethefactthatinthe1980sand1990sthediscoursesof
identityexpandedasprolificallyasthelanguagesof“culture”towhichtheywere
related,Adorno’stheoryofidentitywasallbutneglectedrelativetohisworkon
cultural,musical,andliterarytheory.Thegeneralcriticalsuspicionhasremained
thatAdornodidnotappreciatethepowerofexpressiveidentity.
This essay seeks to reassess Adorno’s theory of identity and its place within
mid-twentieth-century philosophical and cultural discourse by exploring the
interaction of three sources for Adorno’s concept of identity: his theories of
culture,hisconceptof“wounded”orexiledsubjectivity,andhisunderstanding
ofHegelian“identity”theory.Indoingsoitseekstorefigureourunderstandingof
bothAdornoandthehistoryofcriticaltheorybyshowingnotonlythatAdorno’s
late, technical philosophical work on the dialectic was connected to his earlier
workonculturaltheory,butthatitwasmediatedbypersonalengagementwiththe
ideaofidentityinthesubjectiveandpsychologicalsensethathasbecomeastaple
oftwentieth-centurythought.Addressingtherelationshipbetweentwodifferent
stages in his career, this essay seeks to illuminate how some of the limitations
inAdorno’sprewarandwartimework—thedeadends,theproblemshecould
not work through—eventually pointed the way toward the most original and
ambitiousworkhewoulddolaterinhislife.Thecenterpieceofthisexamination
is his rewriting of the Kantian theory of subjective idealism into a concept
of wounded subjectivity, incomplete emancipation, and negative formation of
identity. This idea, I argue, emerged out of problems in his work as a cultural
criticthatwerethemselvesframedbythecomplexityofhispersonalexperience
asaGermanJewishMarxistinexileinthe1930sand1940s,andbythewaysthe
lessonsofAmericanexilewerereinterpreteduponAdorno’sreturntoGermany
inthe1950sasapromoterof“educationafterAuschwitz.”Asastudyofthetheory
ofidentity,thisessayispartphilosophical,partbiographical,parthistorical.The
meaning of Adorno’s concept of nonidentity becomes more understandable,
philosophically,whenitbecomesclearhowthisconceptwasframedinresponse
tohistoricalexperience.
This analysis will begin with an examination of one of Adorno’s first uses
of the concept of personal identity as negative identity, a 1956 essay on the
GermanJewishpoetHeinrichHeine.LookingathowthisexaminationofHeine
refigured Adorno’s return to post-Holocaust Germany, I will show how his
attempts to come to terms with the pasts of German culture and his own
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360 ericoberle
ambivalentJewishheritagebroughtaboutanewphilosophicalemphasisonthe
negativeandvulnerabledimensionsofsubjectivity.Asthisconceptofsubjectivity
becamecentraltohisphilosophy,Iargue,itregroundedAdorno’sideaofcultural
critique, transformed his aversion to biographical and culturalist explanation,
createdaframeworkuponwhichhecouldconstructasociologicalunderstanding
of collective individualism, clarified the application of the dialectic between
enlightenmentandbarbarismtoculturalandpoliticalevents,andreconfigured
his critique of commodity fetishism and class consciousness. Retrospectively,
this late interest in a philosophical analysis of identity and negative identity
casts light on Adorno’s most notorious failure as a cultural critic, his earlier
writingsonjazz,andonhisearlyconvictionsconcerningthenecessaryausterity
thataHegelian–Marxist–Kantianframeworkofanalysisneededtohavetoward
ethno-national and culturally particularist concepts of identity. Adorno’s own
late work, in other words, becomes one of the best tools for analyzing the
limitationsofhispre-identityphase.Thiscritiqueispursuedwhilearguingthat
Adorno’sprewarwritingsonjazzofferanincisivemeansofunderstandinghow
Adorno’s early intellectual development—in the course of which he translated
a theory of economic and cultural production into a self-reflexive practice of
culturalcriticism—wasrootedinhisexperienceintheWeimarRepublic,wartime
America, and postwar Germany, and specifically in the tension between the
processofcomingtotermswithhisownJewishnessandthewaythecategoriesof
raceandnationalculturewerebeingarticulatedincontemporaryAmericaand
Germany. Finally, by examining how Adorno’s confrontation with the concept
ofcultureandtheproblemsofclassandgroupconsciousnessinthejazzessays
containednotonlydiscernibleflawsbuttheseedsoftheirownlaterrevisionand
transformation, I explore the limitations in the prevailing concepts of identity
thenavailabletoAdorno,thusofferingahistoricalanalysisofthecareerofthe
identityconceptinthetwentiethcentury.
heine,exile,andwoundedsubjectivity
In1956,theyearafterTheodorAdornoreturneddefinitivelytoGermanyfrom
Americanexile,hepublishedanessayentitled“HeinetheWound,”whichasked
why the name “Heine” caused such irritation in Germany. Adorno knew the
simpleanswertohisownquestion.Heine,whosenamehadoncebeenadmired,
only to be redacted out of the public squares and schoolbooks—whose name
wasremovedfromhispoetrywhenthepoetryitselfcouldnotbedislodgedfrom
thenationalliterature—hadlongbeenaculturalsymbolfortheJewishheritage
thata“purifiedGermany”hadtriedtoerase.WhileAdornoacknowledgedthe
depthofGermananti-Semitism,hearguedthatthehatredofHeinecouldnot
be understood as simple hatred of Jews. Germans hated Heine for the same
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jazz,thewound 361
reasontheylovedhim:becausehisversionofthelyriccapturedandpreserved
thetraumaaswellasthepromiseofaGermannation.TheprospectofHeine’s
lyricallinelookedoutuponGermany’sriversandcountryside;hislanguagehad
mixedtheidiomsoftheVolkwiththoseofcommerceandthenewspaper;and
it did so in a way that did not falsify the complex and ambivalent relation of
the individual to the state and its violence. Any German reaction against the
“Jew”inHeinewasinfactanexpressionofhatredagainstapastthatwasalive
in the present, and was thus, Adorno argued, a failure to come to terms with
thecomplexquestionsofGermanintegrationthroughlanguage,commerce,and
the often violent powers of the state: in a word, hatred of Heine was German
self-hatred, identity only subconsciously aware of its nonidentity.3 Heine was
woundedGermanself-identity.
Adorno,whohadconsistentlyfoundalllanguageof“identity”problematic,
wasofcoursedoingmorethansimplyinvertingthevalencesofidentity,showing
how sadism was in fact rooted in masochism, how Germanness mutilated
itself in trying to separate itself from supposedly “foreign” impulses: he was
making a broader point about the relation between art, identity, and suffering
as dimensions of historical experience. For Adorno, it was no accident that
the Nazis, for all their brutality, could not expunge a poem like “Die Lorelei”
fromthenationalmemory.Thenonidenticalwasthesecretofart.Nineteenth-
centurynationsneededimpossibleanthems;thegreatnessofHeine’sfolksongs
wasdefinedbythefactthattheyincorporatedtheimpossibilityofpuritywithin
them.Theydrewthereadertotherealitiesthatcreatedthe“wound”withinthe
selfandtheworkinawaythatdrovetheviolentlymindedtodotoHeine’sname
whattheycouldnotdotohispoetry.Thenamecouldbehated,butthesuffering
thatanimatedtheartwasshared.ThewoundthatHeine’snamerepresentedwasa
markoftheinjuriesinflictedbyarealhistoricalprocess;assuch,itssensitivitynot
onlypointedtothehistoricalandsocialnatureofthelyricalself,butalsoopened
up possibilities for better understanding the material and social dynamics—of
nationalismandcommerce,powerandsecularization—outofwhichthelyrical
selfhadgrown.
For the sake of understanding the history of critical theory, it is significant
thatthecompositionof“Heine,theWound”coincidedwithAdorno’spermanent
returntoGermany.ItthusservesasamarkerofthebeginningofAdorno’slate
phase—aperiodwhenAdornoworkedtoreclaimtheelementsofatraditionin
whichhehadbeenborn,aviolentlydisrupted tradition thathefoundhimself
reimporting to Germany as a kind of foreigner. This experience of exile and
return became central to Adorno’s understanding of history, and the cultural
3 AGS11:95.
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362 ericoberle
ideaofexilecametobeseenbyhimasaphilosophicalproblem.Violenceforces
nonidentityuponidentityandrequiresthenonidenticaltomakethatwhichis
supposedtobeever-identicaltoitself—tradition—seemlikeitiseverythingifit
wishes to be anything at all. This historical fact and situation, moreover, must
be understood and expressed philosophically without fetishizing the so-called
“poetic”powerofviolenceasthatwhich“creates”history.Adornoremaineda
studentoftheEnlightenmentinthisway,believingthattheonlywaytocometo
termswiththisproblemwastostripidentityofitsculturalorcollectivelie:only
individuals—not cultures, nations, religions or ethnicities—could ultimately
emancipatethemselvesfromthepast.4
ThemetaphorofHeineaswoundwasforAdornoasymbolnotonlyofexile
andofnegativeidentity,butalsoofthemodernprocessesofalienationandthe
productionofhomelessness.PointingoutthatHeine’smotherwasnotentirely
fluentinGerman,AdornoarguedthatHeinewasestrangedfromhislanguage
inawaythatcausedhislyricalternatelytomockthelanguageandtoembrace
the idioms of folk songs, populism, and collective spirit with the mimetic zeal
ofaforeignerorasalesman.Thisironywasacentraldimensionofmodernism.
Heine’s lyricism was the necessary complement to Baudelaire’s, in that Heine
investedthelanguagesofselfhoodwithaself-reflexivityandnegativityparallelto
Baudelaire’schallengetothedoctrinesofaestheticformalism.InAdorno’sview,
aestheticismandlyricalirony,bothformsofnonidentity,servedEnlightenment
bydrawingattentiontotheexcessesofRomanticism.ButunlikeBaudelaire,who
would be sainted by the modernist movement, Heine was misunderstood and
evenreviled,especiallyamongtheGermans.Hisappealto“thepeople,”couched
asunrequitedlove,becameavulnerabilityforwhichhewasheldincontempt,and
thedislikeofHeinewascultivatedbyaristocraticcircleswhoviewednotonlyhis
workbuthisdescriptionsofhomelessnessascommercializedandlowbrow.The
NazisfedonthesemisperceptionsofHeine,but,arguedAdorno,theycouldnot
undothefactthattheGermanfolktraditionindeedexistedasastrangemixtureof
enlightenmentandhomelessness,commercialismandlongingfortranscendence:
Heine’ssensibilitieswereoftenmostpenetratingindescribinghowmuchhehated
theGermanyheloved.FewGermans,Adornoobserved,understoodthefullforce
ofHeine’swoundeddoublenessorthenegativeidentityinhislyriclineuntilthe
beginningofthetwentiethcentury,whencomposerslikeMahlertransformedthe
relationoflyricismandnationalisminawaythatrevealedthedivergencebetween
the existential longing for home and the nationalist notions of lyrical identity
and common feeling. Arguing that “the power of one who mocks impotently
transcends his impotence,” Adorno asserted that Heine’s ability to mock the
4 “Tradition”(AGS14:127–45)discussesrepetitionandemancipationthroughsociological
andphenomenologicalperspectives.
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jazz,thewound 363
manipulatorsofauthenticitysurvivedtheRomanticperiodandspokeagainin
the age of imperialism and world war.5 The wound of Heine’s poetry carried
a truth-value that did not become widely sharable until the dynamic between
power,subjectivity,andthesufferingofothershadrealignedtodiscloseit.
InthisincorporationofBenjamin’stheoryofthe“temporalkernel”(Zeitkern)
of works of art, Adorno proposed that Germans needed to become more
sophisticated in the way they considered the relation between aesthetic and
historicalanalysis.6Truthistemporallybounded,concealedinthesocialcoreof
objects.ThisapproachmadeitpossibleforAdornotouseaestheticinterpretation
as a means of thinking about subjectivity and historicity in general. The
idea of the wound and its association with emigration became in the Heine
essay part of a general theory of how critical thinking begins with failures
of assimilation to the group: just as “assimilatory language is the language of
unsuccessfulidentification,”soHeine’s“stereotypicalthemeofunrequitedlove”
is an “image for [the] homelessness that has become everyone’s homelessness,
as all human beings have been as badly injured in their beings and their
language as Heine the outcast was.”7 Describing the Holocaust as an event
that generalized homelessness, Adorno argued that Heine’s words stood in for
the general uprootedness that must seek out an “emancipated humanity” that
requires no other homeland than that of “a world that produces no outcasts.”
Thewaytoseekthis“reconciliation,”however,isnotintryingtoachieveaunity
ofbeingandlanguage,butinunderstandingthedissonanceinsidetheselfand
itsfraughtrelationtotheworldthatwoundsit.8
Adorno’sideaof“woundedsubjectivity”acknowledgedtheLuka´csiantheory
ofalienationandhomelessnessaswellastheHeideggeriannotionof“languageas
ahouseofBeing,”butitrejectedthepossibilityofapriorwholenessorunalienated
stateandremainedconsciousoftheviolencethatthosetwoapproachesentailed.
“Heine, the Wound” shows that Adorno’s philosophical logic grew out of a
theory of historical subjectivity, and that the idea of nonidentity as a logical
propertydevelopedaccordingtosocialtheory’sneedtoexplaintherepulsion–
attractionofindividualstogroupidentities.Thenotionthatknowledgeitselfis
awound,aformofalienationdevelopedunderparticularhistoricalconditions,
is grounded by the idea that though each wound is particular, each process of
healing is, like enlightenment itself, an individual undertaking that establishes
5 AGS11:98–9.
6 Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann
Schweppenha¨user,7vols.(FrankfurtamMain,1972)(hereafterBGS),5.1:578.
7 TheodorW.Adorno,NotestoLiterature,trans.ShierryNicholsenWeber,2vols.(New
York,1991),1:83.
8 SeeTheodorW.Adorno,Prisms(London,1967),122–32.
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364 ericoberle
a relation to universality. This concept of identity fits the twentieth century, a
centuryofnegativeidentitylikenoother,anditsconceptualoriginsareworth
understanding.
ThereweresituationalreasonsforthisturninAdorno’sthought.Inaddressing
Heine,Adornowasaddressing(auto)biographicalparticularity—hisownreturn
toGermany,theformativeandinescapablerelationship withGermanythathe
acknowledgedwiththisreturn,theJewishnessthattheNaziGermanshadforced
uponhim,theJewishnessthathewouldhenceforthdefinebyacceptingthework
of “education after Auschwitz.” In the decade after the war, Germany had by
andlargeonlyexamineditsNationalSocialistpastinnarrowlypoliticalterms,
ratherthanaddressinggenocideasamatterofculturalandsocialidentityand
continuity.Adornowouldworkinthe1950sand1960stodemonstratehowthe
Germanintellectual,philosophical,andculturaltraditionswereentwinedwith
the Holocaust, while putting the finger in his own wound, underscoring how
his own role as a cultural expert implicated him in the very culture that had
woundedhimandhumanity.ButAdorno’snewinterestinproblemsofidentity
wasalsoretrospectiveinnature,aprocessofreflectingupontheparticularityof
theAmericanculturehehadencounteredinexile.ForifAdornohadlongrejected
German appeals to the category of national culture, in America he had found
himselfresistingaverydifferentconfigurationofparticularityandauthenticity—
oneconstellatedaroundtheproblemofAmericanracerelationsandthepromise
of an expressive multiculturalism. This too had been formative for Adorno,
formativeinthequitedifferentsensethatAdornodidnotunderstandAmerica
untilhebegantoleave,andformativeinthattheGermanconceptsofraceand
culture were not fully congruent with those emergent in America. If we are to
understandhowAdornoturnedfromEnlightenmenttraditionsofphilosophyto
theorizingidentityandnonidentity,wemuststartwiththenonidentitybetween
thetwotraditionsofcultureheaddressedinhiscareerasaculturalcritic.
jazz,thewound
Ifthebodyofanyculturaltheoryisstructurednotjustbyitsrigor,butalso
bythequality—goodorbad—ofitsaper¸cu,thentheworkofTheodorAdorno
isundeniablymarkedbyawound.Theword“jazz”namesthiswound;andlike
the wound that was Heine, the wound of jazz is defined by problems of race,
culture, identity, violence, and discrimination. The mere mention of Adorno’s
jazz writings serves as an irritant in the world of critical theory, provoking a
disheartenedsighinanyonetryingtocometotermswithAdorno’sthought,and
a sort of joy to those who dislike Adorno and all that his name stands for. All
ofthecardsinthisgamehavebeenplayed:Adornohasbeenaccusedofracism,
of Jewish self-hatred, of Teutonic bigotry, of Eurocentrism, and of personality
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jazz,thewound 365
flawsrangingfrommanicdepressiontosadism.9 Andthoughalloftheselabels
distortapersonwhonotonlyforsookpersonalcomforttoreturntoGermany
after World War II, but who counts among the twentieth century’s pioneering
critics and analysts of racism and cultural bigotry, there is no doubt that the
jazz question must be taken seriously as a limitation that reflects much about
Adorno,bothbiographicallyandasaphilosopher,sociologist,andculturalcritic.
ThewaytounfoldthisrelationistolookatAdornothewayAdornolookedat
Heine:theconceptualissuesmustberelatedtothematerialandsocialconditions
of the world, to the problems they were hoping to solve, and to the way in
whichthoseideasnecessarilystruckagainsttheirlimits—limitswithwhichthe
individualthinkerhaddifficulty,andwhichhecoulddolittleelsebutinternalize.
If the category of jazz points to an element of Adorno’s thought that seems
nonidentical to itself, a historical reflection on the changing understanding of
identityandcultureinthetwentiethcenturyhelpsconcretizethisdynamismin
theoreticalterms.
Adorno wrote approximately six articles on jazz (depending upon how one
countsthem),allroughlywithintheperiodofthegreatestimmediacyofdanger
for him as someone who—whatever his own thoughts about the matter may
havebeen,andtheywerecomplex—wasperceivedasaJew.Thefirstpublished
documentofAdorno’sthatusedtheword“jazz”isfrom1932,andborethetitle
“ZurgesellschaftlichenLagederMusik”(OntheSocialSituationofMusic).In
1933 appeared “Abschied vom Jazz” (Farewell to Jazz). In 1936, as Adorno was
movingbetweenEnglandandFrance,butwascontemplatingatriptoAmerica,he
wrotehisfirstmajorpieceexplicitlyonjazz,“U¨berJazz,”whichwaspublishedin
theZeitschriftfu¨rSozialforschungthatyear.In1938,shortlyafterhisarrivalinthe
UnitedStates,andduringhisworkatthePrincetonRadioProject,hepublished
“U¨berdenFetischcharakterderMusikunddieRegressiondesHo¨rens”(Onthe
FetishQualityofMusicandtheRegressionofListening).Shortlyafterthis,while
studyingEnglish,hewroteamedium-lengthreviewessayofthescholarshipinthe
Zeitschrift.By1941,whenAdornowasfinallycapableofwritingaproperacademic
articleinEnglish,hepublished“OnPopularMusic,”alsointheZeitschrift(bythat
timerenamedStudiesintheSocialSciences),whichlargelydroppedthelanguage
of“jazz”andanalyzedthevariousformsof“highandlow”radioand“popular”
music;then,in1946,hewroteasmallarticleentitled“Jazz”foramusicological
9 HeinzSteinert’sDieEntdeckungderKulturindustrieoder:WarumProfessorAdornoJazz-
Musiknichtausstehenkonnte(Wien,1992)typifiestheculturallogicofthemostaggressive
attacksonAdorno’sjazzarticles,arguingthatAdornodidnotunderstandbutsecretly
hatedthedeepcommunalbasisofgreatartineitherHarlemorVienna.Steinertseeslittle
reasonforaGermanJewishe´migre´in1937tobewaryoftheoriesoforganic,communal
authenticity.
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366 ericoberle
encyclopedia. Finally, in 1953, during the first years in which Adorno could be
saidtohave“returned”toGermany,butbeforehewasdefinitivelytheretostay,
hepiecedtogetherargumentsfromtheearlieressaysinto“ZeitloseMode:U¨ber
Jazz”(“OnJazz:TimelessModalities,PerennialFashion”),theessaythatismost
commonlyreadtodayaspartofthecollectionPrisms.10
The dates of these articles alone have led many to surmise that there was
something“raciallycharged”inAdorno’swritingsaboutjazz.Thisisundoubtedly
true, but saying so is not the same as saying that Adorno’s writings about jazz
wereracist.Rather,thejazzessaysmarkthepointatwhichthetraditionswhich
had shaped the young Adorno and the modes in which Adorno’s early work
hadbeendone—thenineteenth-centuryGermanJewishtraditionofhumanist
anduniversalistculture,theaestheticpoliticsofthe1920savant-garde,andthe
explicitlyantiracistmodeofMarxiansocialcritique—ranupagainsttheveryreal
anddestructivepowerofracialandidentitythinkinginthe1930s.
As a public dispute, Adorno’s “jazz controversy” began in 1953, when the
German critic and impresario Joachim-Ernst Berendt, reviewing the 1953 “On
Jazz: Timeless Modalities, Perennial Fashion,” accused Adorno of being a self-
hatingJewwhoturnedhismusicalexpertiseandhiswittotearingdownthegreat
artofAmericanpluralism,anarttheNazishadsimilarlyhonoredintheirattempts
toeffaceitalongwithHeine’sname.Adornoreactedtothischargewithhorror,
expressingshockatthe“grotesqueness”ofthechargeofracismbeingaimedat
someone“whohadescapedHitler ... andwhohadjustpublishedacritically
acclaimedstudyontheproblemofracialprejudiceintheUnitedStates.”11Thereis
everysensethatAdorno’sshockattheaccusationwasgenuine.Havingmadethis
protest,however—andstronglywishingtobracketanyrace-inflectedculturalist
readingofjazz(notwithoutgoodreasoninGermany,c.1953)—Adornoinsisted
oncarryingforththedebateasapurelytechnicalargumentconcerningclaimsthat
Berendt(amongothers)hadmadeconcerningjazz’ssuperiormusicaloriginality
relativetotheclassicalormodernisttraditions.Somewhatpedantically,Adorno
drew upon his extensive knowledge of the history of composition to show the
baselessness of Berendt’s claims. He argued, for example, contra Berendt, that
prior to jazz’s innovations, improvisation had long been part of organ music,
thatpolyphonyhadbeenexploredbyWagnerandBrahms,thattheinnovative
neutral thirds and tonal voids that jazz critics proclaimed as jazz’s invention
had in fact served as entire compositional frameworks for composers such as
Barto`k,andthatthetensionbetweenmelodicrhythmandfundamentalrhythm
10 AllpublicationdatesfromAGS.RichardLeppert’scommentaryinTheodorW.Adorno,
EssaysonMusic,trans.SusanH.Gillespie(Berkeley,CA,2002),providesaninvaluable
narrativeoverview.
11 AGS10.2:805ff.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244314000614 Published online by Cambridge University Press