Adorno treated individual psyche as the locus where objective social laws operate.
Evidence
Adorno had a tendency to see the form of psychological analysis which he practised as simultaneously representing the sociological analysis required, or at least a decisive part of it. This attitude was analogous to his characteristic view that the deeds of a great artist, working as a monad, coincided with the objective movement of the timesa view he had taken since his earliest analyses of the New Music. … In Adorno’s opinion, psychoanalytic individual psychology registered those objective forces at work within the individual which were the most formative ones and which at the same time the individual was not aware of. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1838
Categorization
- XREF: The monad-artist analogy ties Adorno’s psychoanalytic optimism to ch13’s reading of Schoenberg’s music as demythologizing rationalization. — connects to: Adorno held that individuals were so socialized that psychology dissolved into sociology. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1815; Adorno declared belief that social existence determines consciousness. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 331; Adorno believed unconscious make-up mediates objective economic laws into prejudice — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1839 (+2 more)
- DEFINE: Explains Adorno’s methodological assumption that micro-analysis of individual psyches substitutes for macro-economic analysis of society.
Broader Connections
- Adorno believed unconscious make-up mediates objective economic laws into prejudice
#exemplifies(0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1839 - Adorno extends Marx by linking systemic antagonisms to every individual’s consciousness
#corroborates(0.90) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1389 - Adorno declared belief that social existence determines consciousness.
#expands(0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 331 - Adorno extended Marx’s species-concept by deriving individuality itself from economic relations.
#expands(0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1255