Adorno demanded Benjamin ground his commodity-soul thesis in Marx’s Capital chapter on fetishism.
Evidence
By way of example, Adorno refers to the following passage from Benjamin’s essay: ‘If there were such a thing as a commodity-soul (a notion that Marx occasionally mentions in jest), it would be the most empathetic ever encountered in the realm of souls, for it would be bound to see every individual as a buyer in whose hand and house it wants to nestle. Empathy is the nature of the intoxication to which the flaneur abandons himself in the crowd’. Regarding this claim, Adorno suggests that Benjamin ‘once again pay particularly careful attention to this theory and compare it with the chapter on commodity fetishism in the first volume [of Capital]’. In other words, here again, another self-proclaimed Marxist thesis of Benjamin’s ‘must be documented with appropriate passages’ from the man who first articulated the fetish-character of commodities. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 290
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the commodity fetishism chapter of Capital, the theoretical anchor of Adorno’s critique of political economy. — connects to: Adorno’s criticisms of Benjamin’s Marxism reveal his own conception of Marxian critique — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 221; Benjamin located commodity fetishism in collective consciousness, contradicting Marxism — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 241; Adorno demanded theoretical mediation between superstructure and substructure in historical materialism. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 280 (+9 more)
Broader Connections
- Adorno’s criticisms of Benjamin’s Marxism reveal his own conception of Marxian critique
#responds-to(0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 221 - Benjamin located commodity fetishism in collective consciousness, contradicting Marxism
#responds-to(0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 241 - Adorno rejected Benjamin’s philological method as trapped between magic and positivism.
#responds-to(0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 620 - Adorno demanded theoretical mediation between superstructure and substructure in historical materialism.
#expands(0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 280