Adorno grounded his twelve-tone analysis in a romantic-Marxist theory of species history.
Evidence
The philosophical interpretation of it was tied in to a conception of the development of the human species along the lines of Western civilization. This was a romantic-Marxist conception, which might be paraphrased as follows: to begin with, humanity was confronted with all-powerful nature. In the course of time, people learned how to become more powerful than nature, how to control nature. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 325
Categorization
- DEFINE: Labels the philosophical scaffolding of Adorno’s music writing as ‘romantic-Marxist’ — a useful handle for the whole nature-domination argument.
- XREF: Ties directly to the reader’s earlier highlight that Horkheimer and Adorno located culture’s decisive turning point in nature-domination, not capitalism. — connects to: Adorno saw twelve-tone technique as domination over nature that rebounds against its creators — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1269; Adorno extended Marx’s species-concept by deriving individuality itself from economic relations. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1255; Adorno read twelve-tone music through humanity’s domination of nature (+2 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Adorno saw twelve-tone technique as domination over nature that rebounds against its creators — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1269; Adorno extended Marx’s species-concept by deriving individuality itself from economic relations. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1255; Adorno read twelve-tone music through humanity’s domination of nature (+2 more)