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 AdornoLies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.
Theodor AdornoLife has changed into a timeless succession of shocks, interspaced with empty, paralysed intervals.
Theodor AdornoKitsch evokes a future utopia looking back at a past that is selectively (mis)remembered, thereby helping to stabilize the present toward which kitsch is otherwise deeply anatagonistic.
Theodor Adorno