Adorno, antinomy of individualism vs. social objectivism
example · Hegel ·
retold in 5 talks
Adorno refuses to synthesize the individualist and objectivist notions of society: their antinomy is not a problem to be resolved but is itself what characterizes our society, the antinomy is transposed from our categories into reality itself.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 5
“the truth is this antinomy is this antinomy itself”
“What is the very thing that appears to us as an epistemological obstacle — the gap between individual and collective — is something historically mediated that defines our society itself.”
“it's precisely this antagonism between individuality and anonymous system which characterizes our society. That's the basic Hegelian trick.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
pragmatic contradiction
×1
immanent normativity
×1
Hegelian totality
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Émile Durkheim4Jerry Brown1Reiner Schürmann1Joseph Campbell1Emmanuel Faye1Eduard von Hartmann1Norman Kemp Smith1Ferdinand de Saussure1
alongside works
Every retelling 5
Adorno refuses to synthesize the individualist and objectivist notions of society: their antinomy is not a problem to be resolved but is itself what characterizes our society, the antinomy is transposed from our categories into reality itself., illustrating contradictions in things themselves,the problem is its own solution,immanent normativity of reality
Adorno shows you cannot deduce society from individuals nor individuals from social totality, but rather than concluding we are trapped in antinomy, he performs the Hegelian trick: this very gap between levels IS what characterizes contemporary society., illustrating Hegelian dialectics,the obstacle is its own solution,society and individual
Adorno (in an early essay on 'Gesellschaft') shows that the individualist and Durkheimian organicist notions of society are irresolvable, but that precisely this antagonism characterizes our society. Žižek uses this as a parallel to Lacan's Real., illustrating the Real as constitutive antagonism,Hegel's dialectic,society
The irreconcilable split between an individualist and a holist concept of society appears as a Kantian antinomy blocking access to the thing-in-itself; the resolution is that this antinomy already IS the fundamental feature of contemporary society, an irreconcilable antagonism between totality and individual., illustrating parallax real,proof by impotence,problem-deadlock as its own solution
Adorno shows sociology oscillates irreducibly between individualism (society emerges from individuals) and organicism (individuals emerge from society). Rather than seeking a synthesis, he shows the antinomy itself is the basic feature of modern society, radical individualization alongside impenetrable objective processes., illustrating obstacle as solution,Hegel's dialectics,Kantian antinomies as ontological