Adorno’s core concepts originate from Benjamin but his political economy developed against him

Evidence

Adorno doubtlessly owes more to Benjamin than anyone else (more indeed than even to Horkheimer). ‘Every comparative reading of their writings makes evident the heretofore insufficiently researched degree to which Adorno took up concepts and motifs of thought from his older friend. These are reflected only indirectly by Adorno’s texts with their anti-academic renunciation of footnotes and references. Adornian concepts such as nucleus of time (Zeitkern), truth content (Wahrheitsgehalt), myth (Mythos), monad (Monade), guilt-context (Schuldzusammenhang), language (Sprache), writing (Schrift), redemption (Erlösung), remembrance (Eingedenken), natural history (Naturgeschichte) and mimetic comportment (mimetisches Verhalten), originate - regardless of how they are altered - from the context of Benjamin’s writings’. Nevertheless, it is also the case that a development in Adorno’s critique of political economy - one in which he was able to explicate and substantiate his own insight as a Marxist philosopher - took place in direct confrontation with Benjamin, and that studying the writings of Benjamin was not instructive for him in this development. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 294

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the revisionist historiography in this volume countering the ‘pessimistic cul-de-sac’ reading; also to the broader Benjamin-Adorno intellectual debt literature. — connects to: Adorno rejected Benjamin’s equation of commodity with the archaic — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 617; Benjamin valued distraction and habit in perception where Adorno required concentration. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 632; Adorno’s reservations blocked publication of Benjamin’s Passagenarbeit section — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 616 (+13 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s criticisms of Benjamin’s Marxism reveal his own conception of Marxian critique #expands (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 221
• Adorno judged Benjamin’s Marxism an unwitting productive misreading, not orthodoxy #expands (0.82) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 297
• Adorno made instrumental reason a transhistoric urge rather than a capitalist product #expands (0.80) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 380
• Adorno held that economic primacy existed always but varied in strength #expands (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1177
• Adorno judged both Benjamin and Brecht ignorant of core Marxian theory #expands (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 226
• Adorno and Benjamin independently converged on the same cultural-critique objects from opposite directions #complicates (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 348