Real society is a system that is abstract and non-organic in unification.

Evidence

Reality is not a system insofar as it is not a reconciled whole in which each element ‘receives its function and derives its meaning’. However, society is a system’inthesenseof arealyetabstractassemblageof whatisinnowayimmediately or “organically” united’. In place of successful mediation between the universal and the particular, which would require observance of the qualitative, the implementation of this system consolidates the individuals who maintain it into a ‘radically societalized society’. Theoretically formed systems are therefore not simply methodologically questionable depictions of reality, but rather manifestations precisely of ‘[b]ourgeois ratio, as an exchange principle’, which ‘brought reality closer and closer to the system, leaving less and less outside’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1171

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes two senses of ‘system’ — reconciled-organic whole versus real-abstract assemblage — central to Adorno’s dialectical reading.
• XREF: Links Adorno’s opposition of dialectical contradiction to system-form to the critical-theory critique of identity thinking. — connects to: Society’s institutions constitute a real whole abstraction from which falsifies data. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 692; Society is a concrete generality neither reducible to individuals nor abstract — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 274; Humanity functions as an organizing idea, not a concrete entity — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 215 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Society is a concrete generality neither reducible to individuals nor abstract #contradicts (0.92) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 274
• Humanity functions as an organizing idea, not a concrete entity #expands (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 215
• Abstract systems do not colonise the life-world but interact dialectically with it #contradicts (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 347
• Marxism conceives society as overdetermined relatively autonomous levels, not a simple unity #complicates (0.72)