Individuals can still alter institutions through critical, conscious use of them.
Evidence
Therefore, the spontaneous consciousness, not yet totally in the grips of reification, is still in a position to alter the function of the institution within which this consciousness expresses itself. For the present, within liberal-democratic order, the individual still has sufficient freedom within the institution and with its help to make a modest contribution to its correction. Whoever makes critically and unflinchingly conscious use of the means of administration and its institutions is still in a position to realize something which would be different from merely administrated culture. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 177
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: This partial openness to individual agency qualifies the totalizing determinism often imputed to Adorno; an important nuance for applying his analysis honestly.