Adorno’s listener theory condemned the very victims it was criticizing society for harming

Evidence

Taken as a whole, these essays of Adorno’s represent a position which, in spite of its trenchant criticism of society, condemned the victims of the social structure it criticized; and it passed sentence on those victims without making any attempt to address them, whether immediately or at an early opportunity. There was no let-up in his negative interpretation of the ways in which these victims expressed themselves, and Adorno was thus exposing himself to Lazarsfeld’s criticism that, by treating the explication of all the logical possibilities of a problem as superfluous, he was allowing himself to maintain his own prejudices. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 267

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how far did Lazarsfeld’s critique of Adorno’s method foreshadow the later Positivist Dispute in German sociology?
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s prior notes on Horkheimer/Adorno’s retreat from empirical research and their self-censoring of Marxist vocabulary for American funders.