Progressive thought should enlist reactionary cultural criticism against the West
Evidence
Not least among the tasks now confronting thought is that of placing all the reactionary arguments against Western culture in the service of progressive enlightenment. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 211
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School’s ambivalent critique of Enlightenment (Horkheimer/Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment) and to Herbert Marcuse’s borrowing of right-wing cultural critique.
- SEED: An essay angle: how contemporary right-wing critiques of liberalism (commodification, rootlessness, mass culture) are being recuperated by the left as anti-capitalist resources.