Adorno, Benjamin, and Querying the Unreason in Contemporary Politics

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel seeks to put first generation Frankfurt School critical theorists Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno in conversation with our contemporary political reality at a moment characterized by social and political turmoil, the threat of authoritarian populism, political inaction on climate change, the reconceptualization of the culprit of environmental degradation under the aegis of a vague “anthropo-”, and the limitations imposed on political imaginaries and action by entrenched material society. These papers engage with Adorno’s discussion of “new right-wing extremism” in Post-War Germany, his interpretation of natural history, and his critique of historical progress; as well as Benjamin’s philosophy of history, discussion of “divine violence”, organized pessimism, and now time. These papers draw upon Adorno and Benjamin in asking what it means to live through a moment in which American so-called democracy has been deeply and profoundly challenged; who wins and who loses when the technocratic ecomanagerial class establishes the name and boundaries around environmental history; and the role of pessimism in motivating or stultifying political action. Drawing upon the work of the first generation of the Frankfurt School, Macdonald and Young attend to the “authoritarian horizon” endemic to advanced capitalism. Through engaging with Benjamin and Adorno, Luke challenges the use of the Anthropocene moniker as the harbinger of “true history”, asking which responses, narratives, and ideologies will be prioritized or suppressed, and how anthropogenic change will alter human and nonhuman life. Lipscomb notes how utopian possibilities are bound by our critical engagement with contemporary political reality, building on Benjamin and Adorno to theorize how this practice of “environmental ‘democracy to come’” can overcome the entrenched material organization of society. Finally, Witlacil uses Adorno’s critique of historical progress, and Benjamin’s conception of now-time to develop a theory of radical ecopessimism.

Sub Unit

• Division 42: New Political Science

Individual Presentations

• The Authoritarian Horizon: Critical Theory and the Scars of Democracy - Bradley J. Macdonald, Colorado State University; Katherine Young, University of Hawaii at Hilo

• The Anthropocenes Project: Critique of the Climatological Conception of History - Timothy W. Luke, Virginia Tech

• Critical Theory and Environmental Pessimism: On the Intractability of Justice - Michael Lipscomb, Winthrop University

• Pessimism and the Frankfurt School, Toward a Theory of Radical Ecopessimism - Mary Witlacil, Colorado State Univeristy

Chair

• Michael Forman University of Washington, Tacoma

Discussant

• Judith Grant Ohio University