Radicalism among critics is reduced to abstract prestige within an allotted pattern

Evidence

What they subjectively fancy radical, belongs objectively so entirely to the compartment in the pattern reserved for their like, that radicalism is debased to abstract prestige, legitimation for those who know what an intellectual nowadays has to be for and what against. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 228

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Marcuse’s repressive tolerance and the Frankfurt School’s account of administered society absorbing its opposition; also anticipates contemporary critiques of ‘activist branding’ and corporate performative politics. — connects to: Critics internalize the highbrow canon until they stop desiring anything beyond it; Self-styled radical critics today are actually liberals in weak form — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 462; Increasing theoretical radicalism coincided with growing political pessimism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 772 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Self-styled radical critics today are actually liberals in weak form #corroborates (0.82) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 462
• Critique reduces to critiquing the social process itself #expands (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1107
• Increasing theoretical radicalism coincided with growing political pessimism #corroborates (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 772