Adorno posited a subterranean history of suppressed possibilities beside manifest history.

Evidence

But this was only one of the lines the presentation took. The point of the first chapter had been the self-destructiveness of enlightenment. What was that to mean if all enlightenment remained compliant with nature from the start, and if their formulation `the cyclical nature of the advance of history’ was intended seriously? Did talk of the self-destructiveness of enlightenment not presuppose that there had originally been real progress, a step beyond compliance with nature, which had then been lostfor instance, by continuing to cling on to something which, under changed conditions, was no longer progressive? Or was history to be seen as a continual gambling away of chances, a continual missing of opportunities? In that case there would be, alongside manifest history, a kind of subterranean history, a history of possibilities which had been suppressed and excluded. This might even be seen as analogous to the increase in value achieved through exchange, although the whole meaning of history would then depend on whether such an exchange was one day cashed in or not. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1388

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘subterranean history of suppressed possibilities’ anticipates Benjamin’s theology of history and resonates with later utopian Marxism. — connects to: Adorno held that inwardness serves reification by denying real history. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 260; Adorno’s theory aimed to grasp the whole to recover what it suppressed — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2389; Horkheimer and Adorno rejected history as autonomous substance and grounded theory in social material — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 186
• QUESTION: When is the ‘exchange’ of suppressed possibilities ever ‘cashed in’? This reformulation begs exploration of how Bloch’s principle of hope or Benjaminian messianism respond.

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s theory aimed to grasp the whole to recover what it suppressed #expands (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2389
• Adorno held that inwardness serves reification by denying real history. #expands (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 260
• Horkheimer and Adorno rejected history as autonomous substance and grounded theory in social material #exemplifies (0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 186