Adorno faulted Benjamin for underestimating commodity-fetish power and dialectical mediations

Evidence

Adorno’s criticism of Benjamin rested basically on three complexes of factors: (1) In important matters, Benjamin was too archaic for him, or too involved in myth, or not dialectically transcendent enough, or not thoroughly dialectical enough. (2) With regard to the demystification of art' as a special case of the dialectical self-dissolution of myth, Adorno accused Benjamin of underestimating, on the one hand, the technological rationality of autonomous art and thereby the destruction of its own aura; and, on the other, of underestimating the immanent irrationality of everyday art and the reflexive’ character of its audience, the masses, including the proletariat. (3) In addition, he considered it a fatal error that Benjamin could regard a series of facts as being unrelated to the philosophy of history, as being `collective subjective phenomena’ of some sort. Benjamin was thus, in Adorno’s view, not able to account for the objective power of the commodity fetish, and was carrying out an un-Marxist form of psychologization which was dangerously close to that of C.G. Jung. This was preventing him from achieving the proper, thorough dialecticization of the commodity fetish, and from accounting adequately for the social mediation of the work of art. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 869

Categorization

• XREF: The Jung accusation — Benjamin’s ‘un-Marxist psychologization’ — contrasts sharply with how Jung’s collective unconscious was embraced elsewhere in Critical Theory discourse; ties to the Freud-vs-Jung fault line in Frankfurt School psychology debates. — connects to: Adorno’s critique of Benjamin charged him with un-Marxist psychologizing — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 869; Adorno read Benjamin’s arcades project as a radicalization of Marx’s commodity fetish — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 794; Adorno’s criticisms of Benjamin’s Marxism reveal his own conception of Marxian critique — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 221 (+6 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how did the Benjamin-Adorno debate over the dialectic of myth prefigure Adorno’s later rejection of Jung in favor of Freudian categories in works like Minima Moralia and Negative Dialectics?

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 rejected Benjamin’s equation of commodity with the archaic #exemplifies (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 617
• Adorno demanded inverting Benjamin’s imagery so reality, not fantasy, undergoes fetishistic inversion #exemplifies (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 249
• Adorno demanded Benjamin ground his commodity-soul thesis in Marx’s Capital chapter on fetishism. #exemplifies (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 290
• Adorno’s core concepts originate from Benjamin but his political economy developed against him #expands (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 294
• Benjamin located commodity fetishism in collective consciousness, contradicting Marxism #expands (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 241
• Adorno judged both Benjamin and Brecht ignorant of core Marxian theory #responds-to (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 226