Totalizing radicalism that promises everything through total change ends by sabotaging improvement.

Evidence

Furthermore, whoever resisted being convinced that it is necessary to bring on something ominously positive immediately is not going to be content to step aside shaking his head once he has taken stock of all these difficulties, simply because the objective possibility of anything better is blocked. The radicalism which promises itself everything by virtue of total change is abstract; for even within the changed totality the problems of the individual obstinately return again. Such radicalism loses ground as soon as its idea volatilizes into a chimera, dispensing every further effort toward improvement. Within itself, it then becomes an agent to sabotage something better. Excessive demand is a sublime form of sabotage. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 172

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Dense and paradigm-shifting: ‘excessive demand is a sublime form of sabotage’ is a dialectical move that inverts activist common sense — total change demand converts into its opposite, an instrument that blocks betterment.
• XREF: Connects to the standing-directive thread on small acts of decorum mattering more than grand gestures; also echoes Adorno’s wider objection to abstract utopianism.