Communication is never neutral but embeds constitutive historical power relations

Evidence

In language, bourgeois coldness condenses as an indifference towards every interaction, which stems from the fact that no instance of speech, regardless of its substance, is presumed to be any different from any other. … Communication is itself shot through with the coercive principle of like for like even when it presents itself as non-coercive and free from domination, given that ‘[t]he word communication itself implicitly contains a neutralization which makes it appear to refer to nothing more than that some people communicate something to others, inform them of something, regardless of the fact that in the forms of this communication the entire historical relationships of power are constitutively contained’. The hypocrisy of communication, ‘what is deceptive about dialogue’, results from the ideology of free togetherness ( freies Miteinander). — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 996

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that neutrality-of-communication is itself a deceptiveness — that power is constitutively encoded in forms of exchange — is dense enough to sit with: it undercuts all dialogic ethics at once.
• XREF: Directly counters Habermas’s theory of communicative action and discourse ethics; also resonates with the earlier discussion of laws of exchange neutrality masking force. — connects to: Seemingly apolitical online communication still resembles democratic politics. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 47; Said conflates power relations with communicative discourse — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 31; Seemingly neutral mechanical communication introduced a modern political metaphysics (+8 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies what Adorno means by the critique of communication: the form of exchange is not mere container but constitutive carrier of domination.

Broader Connections

• Seemingly neutral mechanical communication introduced a modern political metaphysics #expands (0.85)
• Communication infrastructures and racial inequity are co-constitutive across American history #exemplifies (0.82) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 1160
• Said conflates power relations with communicative discourse #qualifies (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 31
• Power as a medium frees influence from contingent motivational and historical preconditions #complicates (0.78)
• Social systems reproduce through self-referential communication, not individual will #expands (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 20
• Communication constitutes reality rather than merely representing it #expands (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 382