Adorno’s appeal to a cultivated listening ear undercut his own critique of alienated domination

Evidence

Ultimately, Adorno’s challenging paradoxes appeared futile, in view of their repeated appeal to the existence of a cultured form of naturethe perceptive ear', the attentive ear’, the experimenting ear', the critical ear’, the `modern ear’, and so on. With forms of cultivated nature such as these, was the vision of humanity going weeping and singing into the alienated world not a piece of pointless sentimentality? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1279

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: Wiggershaus’s charge that Adorno’s ‘cultivated ears’ reduce his paradoxes to sentimentality — a legitimate interpretive critique to weigh against Adorno defenders.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno’s music theory ultimately appeals to a cultured composing ear — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2213