Giving practical political advice would cost Adorno his own productivity

Evidence

If I were to give practical advice in the way that Herbert Marcuse has to a certain extent done, it would be at the cost of my own productivity. One can say much against the division of labour, but, as is well known, even Marx, who vehemently attacked it in his youth, later declared that without the division of labour nothing would work. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 655

Categorization

• DEFINE: Enunciates Adorno’s implicit theory of theoretical labour — a division between philosophy and praxis he conceded even while attacking the division of labour generally.
• APHORISMS: A rare, quotable statement about how intellectual life actually works: some people cannot both act and produce.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno prioritized completing his aesthetics work over political participation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2625; Adorno justified abstaining from political advice by citing the division of labor — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2626; Adorno demands intellectuals resist both external power and their own powerlessness — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 2286
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Adorno prioritized completing his aesthetics work over political participation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2625; Adorno justified abstaining from political advice by citing the division of labor — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2626; Adorno demands intellectuals resist both external power and their own powerlessness — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 2286

Broader Connections

• Adorno demands intellectuals resist both external power and their own powerlessness #complicates (0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 2286