Subordinating theory to praxis historically reinforced renewed repression.
Evidence
For Marx, the dogma of this unity was animated by the immanent possibility of action which even then was not to be realized. Today it is rather the opposite situation that prevails. One clings to action because of the impossibility of action. But Marx himself reveals a concealed wound in this regard. He no doubt delivered the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach in such an authoritarian fashion because he was not at all sure of it himself. In his youth he had demanded the ‘ruthless criticism of everything that exists’. Now he mocked criticism. But his famous joke about the Young Hegelians, his coinage ‘critical criticism’, was a dud and went up in smoke as nothing but a tautology. The forced precedence of praxis brought the criticism which Marx himself practised to an irrational halt. In Russia and in the orthodoxy of other countries, the malicious mockery of critical criticism became the instrument that permitted the status quo to establish itself in such horrifying fashion. The only meaning that praxis retained was this: increased production of the means of production. The only criticism still tolerated was that people still were not working hard enough. This demonstrates how easily the subordination of theory to praxis results in the support of renewed repression. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 269
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Connects to Adorno’s broader administered-society critique and to the use of the eleventh Feurbach thesis by later activist traditions; also resonates with the reader’s purpose of testing culture-industry theses on new objects.
Related
- Demands to subordinate theory to praxis can turn resistance into repression (similarity 0.83)
- Horkheimer and Adorno reduced theory’s role to stimulating thought rather than progress (similarity 0.79)
- Adorno held that critical theory resists most effectively precisely where reality seems irresistible (similarity 0.78)