Society represses the negative and then reabsorbs the subversive art that resists it.
Evidence
In a later chapter, we shall see that this phenomenon is to be seen against the background of that vaster repression of the negative in present-day society of which Adorno’s colleague Herbert Marcuse is the leading theoretician. It manifests itself in the literary realm by the increasingly antisocial character of the greatest works, and by the accompanying attempt on the part of society to reabsorb and neutralize the impulses they release. Thus in Beyond Culture Lionel Trilling has underscored the contradiction between the institutionalization of such modern “classics” by the American university and the profoundly subversive spirit of the works themselves, which originate in a refusal and a negation of just such institutionalization in the first place. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 65
Categorization
- XREF: This anticipates Jameson’s later full treatment of Marcuse in One-Dimensional Man territory, and dovetails with Trilling’s institutionalization contradiction. — connects to: Society neutralizes art’s subversive force by absorbing its antagonistic content. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 292; A dissenting author’s critique ends up reinforcing the very system it opposes. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 342; Consumerist appropriation severs style from the social system that produces the underclass — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2862 (+4 more)
- SEED: The university canonizing the explicitly anti-institutional canon — a rich paradox for an essay on how institutions neutralize critique by enshrining it.
- DEFINE: Clarifies ‘repression of the negative’ as the broader Marcusean frame for Wagner’s shift to autonomous dissonance.
Broader Connections
- Society neutralizes art’s subversive force by absorbing its antagonistic content.
#corroborates(0.95) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 292 - A dissenting author’s critique ends up reinforcing the very system it opposes.
#corroborates(0.82) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 342 - Spiritual and countercultural protest gets absorbed harmlessly by the system
#exemplifies(0.80) - Art’s autonomy internalizes the very social domination it claims to escape
#expands(0.78) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 296 - Consumerist appropriation severs style from the social system that produces the underclass
#expands(0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2862 - Criticism and negativity secrete a phantom of reality that power needs
#complicates(0.72) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 91