Empirical time persists as long as domination lasts and re-enters even conflict-free art

Evidence

For empirical time, which is the most profound expression of the relations of domination within the field of consciousness, persists as long as domination lasts and lies embedded in art itself because art is constituted in the protest against the time of fate. While such time is excluded by the relationship of spatial simultaneity created by the ‘mounted’ scenes, it creeps into the conflictless succession of events. As long as drama in general remains bound to the principle of succession it becomes all the more subject to abstract time the more resolutely it refuses to wrap up time by means of the dramatic action. Mass culture which tolerates neither conflict nor any obvious form of montage must pay tribute to time in every one of its products. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 118

Categorization

• XREF: The key causal mechanism governing both avant-garde and mass culture: domination’s time cannot be excluded, so any art that abandons conflict merely submits to abstract time. Foundational for predicting where any given post-Adorno work lands.