Adorno treated artistic modernism as anticipating a free society

Evidence

Adorno’s interpretation was not really much more of a social one, since it was dominated by the idea from the Dialectic of Enlightenment that greater precision in the methods of artistic expression had been both forcibly introduced and made possible by an ambivalent form of social progress. But this did give Adorno’s literary-theoretical works a degree of social relevance, an interest in topical events and a momentum of commitment to the project of modernism in art as an anticipation of a free society that was lacking in most other publications on literary theory during the 1950s. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2229

Categorization

• XREF: Builds directly on Dialectic of Enlightenment’s nature-domination thesis from earlier chapters. — connects to: Adorno located society’s crucial problems within autonomous art as a model of salvation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 875; Adorno’s modernism was historicist, not prescriptive about art’s future — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 59; Adorno’s negative dialectics located emancipation’s hints in modern art’s distortion — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 380 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno located society’s crucial problems within autonomous art as a model of salvation #corroborates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 875
• Adorno’s negative dialectics located emancipation’s hints in modern art’s distortion #expands (0.82) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 380
• Adorno read modernist music’s technical conflicts as symptoms of social disorder #expands (0.78)
• Adorno’s modernism was historicist, not prescriptive about art’s future #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 59