A reflection on everyday existence in the 'sphere of consumption of late Capitalism', this work is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece.
read full description
reviews
Dec 13, 2011
Chris
rated it: 
This is a strange book, one in which the removed tone of the text belies the personal sources from whence it was derived, and whose elegantly difficult style and aethereal buoyancy prevent it from succumbing to the chthonic gravity of postwar stodginess and cracked dais condemnation. Well-nigh every sentence can stand alone as an object to be admired and marveled over for its aesthetic grace, though its nonporous exterior and taut configuration repels the casual effort to penetrate its meaning,
More...
3 comments
like
(3 people liked it)
Apr 03, 2011
Sebastian
rated it:
My thoughts on this from the bottom up are a bit scattered, but the short summary is that if you are reading this and are at all curious about trying Adorno, you should do it.
4/2/2011 update. I finished. A considerable challenge throughout, but one that I believe was worth the time investment. Even if I only was able to absorb 20% of Adorno's sentences, that 20% was made up of provocative, downbeat and penetrating encapsulations of our culture and the way we live now.
More...
4/2/2011 update. I finished. A considerable challenge throughout, but one that I believe was worth the time investment. Even if I only was able to absorb 20% of Adorno's sentences, that 20% was made up of provocative, downbeat and penetrating encapsulations of our culture and the way we live now.
More...
3 comments
like
(4 people liked it)
May 14, 2007
rishi
rated it:
proof of just how negative negative dialectics can be--a potent dose of precision grumpiness. take as needed.
0 comments
like
(5 people liked it)
Dec 14, 2010
Lacey
rated it:
I read this book for my class on Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. We slogged through it 10-15 aphorisms at a time for about 12 weeks, and in the end I have to say it was really rewarding. I think it would be a formidable text if we hadn't broken it down. For each section, pairs from the class presented on an aphorism or two and related it back to other sections from earlier in the book or to other Frankfurt School readings from the course. From an academic standpoint, it was a really ric
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Dec 16, 2009
Andrew
rated it: 
Amazing, especially the opening and the ending. One can of course do without the sexism and the psychoanalysis, and even for me the negativity goes too far sometimes. But his aesthetic heart is in the right place, and he writes like no one else.
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Sep 27, 2010
Bradley
rated it: 
It is really strange how influential Adorno is within Marxist circles. He is such a neg-head downer... After I read this text I truly ran to the bookshelves and tried to lift myself out of this book's funk by Re-reading Epictetus and Seneca. Give me Greek Philosophy over this trite bitch-fest any day. Please, if you are thinking of killing yourself, DO NOT READ ADORNO! READ GREEK PHILOSOPHY INSTEAD (and get outside and play)
Probably the biggest angst-ridden crock of shit since Nausea More...
Probably the biggest angst-ridden crock of shit since Nausea More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Sep 12, 2010
Ian
rated it:
I first tried reading this as an undergrad, and I must confess that I didn't understand much of it at all. Adorno alludes to literature, history and philosophy with a deftness and frequency that requires a reader who already has a substantial background in one or more of these areas.
I took this up again, casually, a couple of years ago, and found that in the interim I had acquired enough of a background to finally understand it. I also found that, now that I could understand it, I a More...
I took this up again, casually, a couple of years ago, and found that in the interim I had acquired enough of a background to finally understand it. I also found that, now that I could understand it, I a More...
Jan 22, 2012
Well, that wasn't easy. A cultural critique that could easily seem, almost demands to seem dated, stodgily cryptic, but Adorno's elliptical allusions and dense reflections carry surprisingly easily forward from the darkened years of postwar America into the gaudily lit and frenetically bustling showiness of our modern electro-hyrdrocarbonic era. Poor Adorno: imagine believing that you were witnessing the crystallization of an abhorred economic system into an overwhelmingly triumphant and dominan
More...
May 29, 2011
Lance
rated it:
Parts of this book were profound, intelligible and interesting. I only occasionally suspected that Adorno didn't know what he was talking about, but the same was not true of me. If Adorno ever read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" it made little impression on him. His dense, jargon-laden sentences tend to curve round and attack themselves like Ouroboros. But I think I can sum up the central themes of this book. 1) The dominant culture destroys what is human in human beings.
More...
Jan 18, 2011
Joe
rated it:
This took me some time, and I'm not sure why. I admire Adorno a lot and even might be one of the few who think he's more interesting than Benjamin, yet, after slogging through this over the course of some three months I can honestly say that Illuminations trumps Minima Moralia. The fragmentary aspects are what drew me to this work and I'm sure that the issues with this text are all my own and also due to the long gestation period and therefore an inability to connect a few of the connective thre
More...
Jul 28, 2011
Hard to surpass this one in terms of subtle philo-socio-historical insights, rants, polemic,
and disgust. Practically overturns everything we think we know about our own environment and lifeways. Imagine what he would think about our current situation! There is no better line than...'every time I go the the cinema I am more stupid and worse." Can we not say exactly the same thing about ADS?
Recomendation: If you love MM, but you need more existential self-flagellation, read Pessoa's "T More...
and disgust. Practically overturns everything we think we know about our own environment and lifeways. Imagine what he would think about our current situation! There is no better line than...'every time I go the the cinema I am more stupid and worse." Can we not say exactly the same thing about ADS?
Recomendation: If you love MM, but you need more existential self-flagellation, read Pessoa's "T More...
Aug 13, 2011
Azzief
rated it:
Not the easiest book to get through—E.F.N. Jephcott's translation is a bit old-fashioned—but incredibly rewarding for the reader who perseveres and is not afraid of re-reading sentences and aphorisms a few times in order to digest what Adorno's really trying to say. Adorno's thought is significantly easier to understand if one has some basic knowledge of the philosophies of both Karl Marx and G.W.F. Hegel; while it's entirely possible to read Minima Moralia without any knowledge of philosophy or
More...
Sep 29, 2007
Brad
rated it:
Written in brief sections in a very aphoristic style.
Open to any page and find brilliance.
Open to any page and find brilliance.
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Apr 17, 2010
Yuval
rated it:
Adorno has shaped the way I've thought about music and its role in society for the past 10 years of my life, but I've only ever read ABOUT his "pure philosophy" or negative dialectics rather than reading it first-hand. This was my first foray into his non-music writing, and while I can't deny the intellectual rigor and intensity of Adorno's thought, with some ideas so intense and uniquely and poetically formulated that I know I will come back to this book again and again--I didn't know
More...
Aug 26, 2011
Adrian
rated it:
A languorous howl of despair and anger - but who would not feel these things in the ashes of Germany 1945?
I was surprised by how fierce Adorno can be - I've heard horror stories of his impenetrable style. Here, I was surprised, both at the crispness of his style, and the depth of his cultural references. If anyone wants to start with him, here's a place to do so. His barbed aphorisms will remain with you, vicious and snarling, a rabid dog tearing into your leg.
This book offer More...
I was surprised by how fierce Adorno can be - I've heard horror stories of his impenetrable style. Here, I was surprised, both at the crispness of his style, and the depth of his cultural references. If anyone wants to start with him, here's a place to do so. His barbed aphorisms will remain with you, vicious and snarling, a rabid dog tearing into your leg.
This book offer More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Apr 18, 2010
Ein Review zu schreiben, wenn man anfängt zu lesen, ist auch nur sehr kontraproduktiv. Bislang gelernt: Adorno weigert sich, klare Sprache zu sprechen. Die Gesellschaft macht alles Kaputt. Frauen, die betrogen werden, sind die glücklichsten?
Nov 25, 2008
Blake
rated it:
Didn't really dig it that much. It's philosophy full of ambiguous aphorisms. Allegedly it's profound and powerful, but in truth I didn't get it. Maybe I just missed something... or maybe it was the ambiguity.
Dec 04, 2010
Nick
rated it:
Imagine your grandfather complaining about how the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. Then, imagine that your grandfather is the most well-read and erudite German bro. That's what this book is.
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jul 29, 2011
I tried reading this in college and I definitely wasn't ready for it then. At first Adorno seems like little more than an unapologetically condescending snob, but as I worked into it, I found myself consistently blown away by his bleak, piercing observations about modernity. And they are made all the bleaker by the odd format of this, which gives you little glimpses into a mind that was obviously supremely unhappy in fleeing from European fascism to the schizoid, hyper-capitalism of Los Angeles.
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Oct 04, 2009
Tyler
rated it:
adorno's best zine! should be renamed as "rants and raves on alienated culture from a grumpy old man."
Dec 05, 2007
آدورنو در اين كتاب با نشان دادن جنبه هايي از خرد ابزاري مدرنيته و نقش آن در صنعت فرهنگ سازي حكومت توتاليتربه نقد مدرنيته مي پردازد.بيان آدورنو در اين كتاب بسيار ناميد تر از ديالكتيك روشنگري است و هم چنين تاثير فرهنگ سازي همسان حكومت هاي بعد از جنگ در ساختن اخلاق مورد دلخواه حكومت را نشان مي دهد
More...
Nov 27, 2010
David
rated it:
Update: Finally to the end. But not done. Immediately I begin again. Rich, challenging, intricate. If nothing else (though there's plenty else) each sentence is mental exercise. I love it.
------------------------------
Haven't finished it, but I suspect once I do I'll just move the bookmark back to the beginning again. Certainly Adorno is pessimistic, but so much of what he points out holds true. Some of it seems even more apt now than when he wrote it. He's got a wicked slashing w More...
------------------------------
Haven't finished it, but I suspect once I do I'll just move the bookmark back to the beginning again. Certainly Adorno is pessimistic, but so much of what he points out holds true. Some of it seems even more apt now than when he wrote it. He's got a wicked slashing w More...
Jan 18, 2012
Amari
rated it:
Wonderful but quite dark; I need an intermission. My view of life is negative enough without so many well-constructed arguments to support it.
Months later... yes, I am still reading. Adorno is right about everything, but I must say once again that the blackness of the whole enterprise can be quite overwhelming. Of course, one expects blistering political and social commentary given the years in which this was written (1944-47). Nonetheless, it doesn't make it any easier to bear.
Months later... yes, I am still reading. Adorno is right about everything, but I must say once again that the blackness of the whole enterprise can be quite overwhelming. Of course, one expects blistering political and social commentary given the years in which this was written (1944-47). Nonetheless, it doesn't make it any easier to bear.
Aug 30, 2008
Adorno's writing style, while initially difficult, eventually becomes more lucid. It just takes some time. However, he provides, again and again, smart observation after smart observation. The little essays in here are also remarkably personal, and we get a very good sense of Adorno-the-individual. My sole major reservation is the overwhelmingly classist overtones. While a critique of mass culture is indeed necessary, it probably shouldn't be this condescending.
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Sep 26, 2010
piratemoon
rated it: 
Thought provoking. Of it's time, but there are certainly still worthwhile things to be taken from this.
Aug 30, 2010
Jesse
rated it:
Reading this for the second time, it's been about 10 yrs since I first read it. Wonderful, subtle writing about a wide variety of topics--Adorno's famous dissection of the Culture Industry is on full desplay here. What a thinker.
