He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest. While he gropingly forms his own life in the frail image of a true existence, he should never forget its frailty, nor how little the image is a substitute for true life. Against such awareness, however, pulls the momentum of the bourgeois within him.
Theodor AdornoThe aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.
Theodor AdornoSuffering has as much right to be expressed as a martyr has to cry out. So it may have been false to say that writing poetry after Auschwitz is impossible.
Theodor AdornoThe task of art today is to bring chaos into order. Artistic productivity is the capacity for being voluntarily involuntary.
Theodor AdornoWhat can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.
Theodor Adorno