Beyond Pseudo-Culture? Reconstituting Fundamental Political Concepts

In: Telos, Heft 95, S. 3-14

Abstract

Reflections are offered on the reconstitution of basic political concepts in the course of discussing Theodor Adorno's theory of pseudo-culture (see abstract in this section of SA 42:3). It is argued that pseudo-culture, which refers to the permanent crisis of the totally administered society, is not so much an epiphenomenon of capitalism as a symptom of modernity's dependence on centralization & massification. The degradation of concepts such as "law" & "democracy" is discussed. The corruption of political theory via its complicity with statism & New Class ideology is examined, & it is suggested that communitarian & libertarian challenges to this ideology are likely to open a new phase in the history of democracy by demanding the reconfiguration of institutions along participatory democratic lines. W. Howard