Adorno’s mastery-of-nature ideal straddled orthodox Marxism and Benjamin’s controlled mastery

Evidence

The idea of complete mastery of nature moved ambiguously between the orthodox Marxist conception of a releasing of productive forces and the concept drafted by Benjamin in the final aphorism of One-Way Street, a controlled mastery of nature. The application of this concept to the new music made it possible for Adorno to make the practice of composition serve as the vanguard, prosecutor, agent or representative of social practice, just as he wished, and to pursue a musical theory which presented itself as Marxist, although it did not attempt to analyse any concrete sociological mediations between music and society. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 367 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

To conceive of growth in the forces of production and in material wealth as progress is itself the product of a conception of history which Adorno refuses to abide. As long as human beings must dominate nature, it will also dominate them, for in their attempt to elevate themselves over nature, socialised individuals only become further entangled in it. If nature no longer needed to be dominated, humanity would no longer stand powerlessly at its mercy. At that point, nature, the progenitor of the human being which ‘posits’ itself as non-nature, would perhaps be reconciled as totality in such a way that human being – who would now be an element of nature instead of an appendage – could shape nature’s history, which would no longer be prehistory, in accordance with a reason no longer conceived of as distinct from and opposed to nature. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1585 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The idea of complete mastery of nature moved ambiguously between the orthodox Marxist conception of a releasing of productive forces and the concept drafted by Benjamin in the final aphorism of One-Way Street, a controlled mastery of nature. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 367 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The mastery-of-nature ideal sat between orthodox Marxists and Benjamin’s controlled mastery. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 367; Adorno’s criticisms of Benjamin’s Marxism reveal his own conception of Marxian critique — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 221; Adorno rejects mastery of nature as progress because domination entangles humanity in nature — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1585 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The mastery-of-nature ideal sat between orthodox Marxists and Benjamin’s controlled mastery. #corroborates (0.98) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 367
• Adorno rejects mastery of nature as progress because domination entangles humanity in nature #complicates (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1585
• Adorno’s new-music theory borrowed Benjamin’s controlled nature-mastery, not orthodox Marxism. #complicates (0.76) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 367
• Horkheimer and Adorno replaced Marxian capitalism critique with a rational domination of nature thesis #complicates (0.74) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1369
• Adorno’s criticisms of Benjamin’s Marxism reveal his own conception of Marxian critique #expands (0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 221