Ascetic restraint now resists profit-economy madness more than hedonism resisted liberal repression

Evidence

The cause of amorality has been espoused by the same Darwinists whom Nietzsche despised, and who proclaim as their maxim the barbaric struggle for existence with such vehemence, just because it is no longer needed. True distinction has long ceased to consist in taking the best for oneself, and has become instead a satiety with taking, that practises in reality the virtue of giving, which in Nietzsche occurs only in the mind. Ascetic ideals constitute today a more solid bulwark against the madness of the profit-economy than did the hedonistic life sixty years ago against liberal repression. The amoralist may now at last permit himself to be as kind, gentle, unegoistic and open-hearted as Nietzsche already was then. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 111

Categorization

• SEED: Could seed an essay on voluntary simplicity as resistance in late capitalism — Adorno’s inversion making asceticism the radical rather than the conservative posture.
• XREF: Sharply parallels Christopher Lasch’s ambivalence toward the culture of narcissism — but from the opposite direction. Also touches themes in the reader’s sacrifice scholarship. — connects to: Asceticism grants pleasure more rights than society’s instalment payments do — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 186; The last twenty-five years ran on controlled desublimation rather than open repression — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 983

Broader Connections

• Asceticism grants pleasure more rights than society’s instalment payments do #expands (0.92) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 186