On Adorno S Aesthetic Theory
One of the dominant motifs of the "Situation" section, is the concept of the "new" (see also, the modern) and its relationship to the situation of art. This concept and its dialectical...complications/implications is absolutely fundamental to Adorno's philosophy in general, especially in relation to a motif of failed (or aborted) revolutions and their relation to what Adorno occasionally refers to as the aging of modernity. Whither Adorno’s account of the "resistance to the new”? For him, any and all traditionalisms, including the outright atavisms that he finds within fascism (the concomitant to its technology loving, industrialist supporting, even Futurist aspect) are tied to -- to quote the subtitle of Marshall Berman's excellent book All that is solid melts into air --The experience of modernity,. They are a modern response to a modern phenomenon. I quoted this last phrase (from the Communist Manifesto) in reference to what Terry Eagleton (glossing the same phrase), aptly calls the “universal acid” of capitalism. At the same time, the fact that anything (a particular work of art) lays a claim to novelty does not mean that it must be accepted as novelty. Thus, when someone claims (an artist, a producer, a website, an advertising agency, a theatre program) that something is radical, innovative or "the most important new work of the decade”, “explosive”, we can imagine Adorno *potentially* claiming that this particular work, is, in fact, undeserving of the name, i.e. that the novelty that it is putatively present is, in fact, illegitimately ascribed. On the other hand, one can equally imagine (and better, find examples) of Adorno doing the exact opposite, i.e. defending a work, or a movement, that others have written off as a pseudo-novelty, old wine in new bottles, a mere deference to some (alleged) cultural desire to grasp "the shock of the new", what he calls in the “Situation” chapter the “pharisaical” protest against the cupiditas rerum novarum (the