What is Pseudo-Individualism? | Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer | Keyword

In this episode, I present Adorno and Horkheimer's notion of pseudo-individualism.

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Twitter: @DavidGuignion
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[annly]

i like listening to your videos while i make coffee, its so calming and enlightening x

[masscreationbroadcasts]

6:00 All I heard when you said "I would get more if it was sold for me" is that it's not necessarily true because it doesn't have the brand recognition, etc. You can't guarantee by yourself the intangibles of a product without the company associated with it.

[rhizomaticmemer]

The last part of the video is very important for those that believe we simply need a sort of apocalyptic event to destroy the old world and build a new one.

Unless you thoroughly abolish and challenge the subjectivities, beliefs, desires etc. created by that old world, people will just reproduce the old world in their attempts to create a new world. Grand-scale macropolitical change alone isn't enough, micropolitical change has to come along with it.

To put it in deleuzian terms: We are desiring-machines coded by the relations that created the assemblage that we are, so our desires will reflect those relations unless those very codes that shape us and that become part of our program are subverted in us.

Good video David ❤

[marissaremillard]

The Jeep commercial that played before this has me worried…

[Meri_]

hi david, I was wondering if you could speak about the theory of solipsism eventually?

[piyushshrivastava]

Please discuss GIORGIO AGAMBEN's books.

[Zing_art]

Hi David. This rings very personal to me. I have had hours of contemplation on this earlier albeit on a superficial sense and in the context of the current cultural industry.
The way the States have co-opted with capitalist machines and as a result are somehow driving this fad of pseudo individualism by making citizens believe how they are empowered and that the responsibility of their well being lies upon themselves, the State has notoriously been shunning it's responsibility behind such narratives. Further, pseudo individualism shall also not lead to formation of stronger collectives because people are fragmented.

Also, we must understand that pseudo individualism/autonomy etc are all a matter of privilege. Only those that can afford the same, can live with the illusion of having the same.

Welcoming thoughts on this

[jeffheller]

Fine presentation! So I get the 'ca plus change' of most political action. But I'm curious whether you believe in the Kantian self-enlightenment per se, amplified as it were by Goethean and Hegelian bildung. My own sense is that modern psychology and in particular the therapy industry has gotten much mileage over the last century in propagating the, I think false, notion that they offer a path to individualism.

[saltandiron]

Have you ever heard of ‘Totalitarian Kitsch’?

[ashvazquez]

awesome video very intellect smart man thNk you

[tcmackgeorges]

13:20-13:38 what Adorno and Hork skepticism fails to consider, however, is how it’s political action that shapes thought. Some of the best thinkers are testament to this, Marx, Foucault, Davis, West, Fanon, and of course Marcuse, who Adorno and Horkheimer denounced for supporting the student protest from their lecture halls. They fail to remember Marx’s IV thesis on Feuerbach, that praxis is about ideas being “criticized in theory and revolutionary in practice” Ideas might not always fit the political situation but they can be transformed in political action and then be critiqued to work better. If we take them Adorno and Hork at their word all such skepticism does is envelope a question concerning how much “serious thinking” do we have to do before action, until there’s no action happening at all because we are to busy thinking lol; no praxis happening at all. This has materialized itself in the intellectualism of academy, which has a lot to say no doubt, but never does anything.

[ContrapuntalComposer]

This is very insightful of Adorno, Horkheimer, and Guignion (the person in the video). My take on this: Today's right-wing is obviously fascist, etc... so obviously so that we need not argue it here. However, today's left-wing, because of its lack of a comprehensive vision of individualistic liberation, packages and even romanticizes an oppressive system as something to which the participation in which the oppressed should aspire and even celebrate. A specific example: Capitalism has oppressed both persons who are considered "men" and persons who are considered "women". Feminists correctly identify the unfairness of the inequality of the particular gender-based roles within that system. Unfortunately, the mainstream of feminists then proceed to pursue equality of treatment of persons not by liberating what they consider to be "men" from their labor for corporations, but rather by enslaving what they consider to be "women" into the same roles that what they consider to be "men" have already been filling. This terrible error serves to portray the oppression of what they consider to be "women" as the liberation of women. Were feminism truly abut the liberation of what feminists consider to be "women", then it would seek to dismantle corporate employment altogether - which is not to say that such dismantling would be sufficient for comprehensive liberation, but that it would be a necessary aspect. Moreover, were feminism truly about liberation from the constructs of gender and from gender-based social roles, then it would seek to deconstruct the very idea of gender identity which it has adopted from the patriarchy, itself - and while I am well aware that some (a small subset of) persons who have been labeled as "feminist" advocate for gender deconstruction, it is simply illogical that an ideology can both advocate a gender-based nationality (which, by definition, is the essence of feminism) and sincerely seek to end the construct of gender, itself. But this is just one example of many! In terms of the politics of the USA, it is not the Republicans, with all of their transparent sexism, etc., whom I fear the most in the long-term, but the Democrats, who package a false alternative, still based in corporate capitalism, gender identity, etc., etc., etc., all whole-heartedly adopted (albeit expanded beyond binary terms) from the patriarchy that they pretend to oppose, and all still regarding persons not as individuals but as social objects whose only significances are their representations of collective identities - just as the patriarchy would have it! To the list of Adorno's and Horkheimer's terms beginning in "psuedo-", I will add "pseudo-liberals"! And, of course, when I try to explain this truth, I am bullied for so-called "mansplaining", etc. There is something truly sick in a culture that packages the oppression of women as the liberation of women and vice-versa... and, again, this is but only one example, for I could just as well cite much more obvious case of Republicans who see Trump as their liberator! Guidnion pointed out (correctly) that eliminating capitalism without eliminating other systems of oppression, such as (and not only) sexism, is insufficient. I completely agree and extend the claim: Eliminating any system of oppression, such as sexism (even if that were the aim of feminism), is insufficient without eliminating all other systems of oppression such as (and not only) capitalism. Any "ism" that is more narrowly targeted becomes an arm of oppression by other means, such as by selling oppression to us under the guise of "inclusion" in other systems of oppression.

[miat]

You know this make me think of meme culture way of bashing normies for thinking the same way when they themselves all think and express themselves in the same way.

[LesterBrunt]

I have a slightly different interpretation of their view on enlightenment, although I don't disagree with what you said. I think the main problem they see with enlightenment is that it indeed promises freedom from old forms of authority, and indeed people are still going to look for some kind of authority, but that the authority that people get behind is positivism, the idea that you can know how things 'actually' are through empirical science. That is what drives the economic systems that just want to turn out the same products over and over again, because the empirical date, economic growth, is the absolute authority over reality. But since it promises freedom, it needs to hide this tyranny behind a facade of individuality. We are a free people who can live any way we want, free from any authority, you just need to go to school, and then work 40 hours a week till your 60-70, marry and have children in the meantime, buy a home, a car, some stocks, climb the ladder into corporate work environments, wear the right clothes for your age, have the right hobbies, wake up at 5 to go to the gym every day, etc, but you are a free person because you can pick coke or pepsi, you can fly with UE or some other kind of airline company to whatever corporate resort/hotel you want, you can wear diesel or levis pants, you can drive a bmw or a tesla, You can be any manager you want, manager at a retail store, at a organization, at a restaurant. You can chose to work in an office in your city or another city, you can listen to Katy Perry or Bruno Mars while you drive to work, etc. etc. And there is no real choice in the matter, since decline to pick a side exposes the underlying scheme. You have to get a full time job, you have to get a car, you have to get a family, you have to enjoy popular media. Not only through material conditions are these norms strictly enforced, even if you manage to bypass those, you will simply be shunned as a weirdo/loser/crazy person. You don't need to work 40 hours a week? Lazy loser, throwing away your life potential. You don't enjoy popular media? That is so elitist and weird bro, no wonder everybody hates you. You don't desire making a lot of money, a big house, big car? That is just crazy, like seriously you might be depressed or schizophrenic, you are not doing fine if you are seriously thinking that, like you should go see someone and get on some serious medication to set you straight.

The sinister underpinning concept here is instrumental reason. It works by removing the human element, if you bypass the human eye, you can see bacteria and whatnot, if you bypass human perception, you can accurately describe models of reality, a computer can do thousands of math calculations in milliseconds, space telescopes can see billions of years in the past, etc. So this authority of empirical data drives the eradication of the human element. Subjectivity is seen as a hindrance, philosophy and art as a waste of time, only through cold hard instrumental testing that is completely purified from the inferior human interference, can we find the truth. If we can't explain why a piece of art is significant through empirical data, it must be discarded as invaluable, because otherwise it would undermine the legitimacy of the structure. You can't say it is true that Schoenberg was the best composer of all time, because there is no way to put that on a scale, to run it through a machine, there is no empirical proof for it. If you could say that Schoenberg being the GOAT is just as true as the 1+1=2, then anything can mean anything, then there is no truth at all. And that is not allowed, enlightenment is not true freedom of authority, it is simply replacing it with the authority of instrumental reason, but does so under the guise of freedom through pseudo-individualization.

[evgeny]

IMHO artists ( I am thinking visual) have a unique position in this theory as they oft are both laborers and sellers at the same time in 2 divergent ways to support themselves on 2 different levels both physically and psychologically still aimed at one goal - identity.… they rarely produce anything other than simulations of previous production never equal to their perceived identities.

[sambartlett]

Important to note that capitalism being a necessary stage for development is a contentious point from Marx and consequently Adorno and Horkheimer. This belief led to Marx not taking a firmly anti-colonial stance in some situations. Also it's easy to argue this is a major point Marx was wrong about as shown historically by large communist revolutions in more feudal nations with large participation from the peasantry than what was expected. Also the subsequent development and scientific advancement made by these countries sort of delegitimizes the idea that capitalism is needed for development and advancement.

[oraibiimabibo]

I’m about to become a capitalist and
Whoa 😮‍💨I love listening to this. I’ll be exploring tacit systems that uphold the structure im trying to innovate around. Thank you!

[satyasyasatyasya]

i didn't come here to be attacked...



by those biceps :D

[jamesferry]

That cat has absolutely no interest in what you're talking about. Something very interesting on the wall, though, apparently.

[cmbr]

I often think that notions of there being a choice-less society (wherein differentiation is largely a matter of negative degree without positive attributes) is in and of itself a big lie. In other words I challenge the idea that one's personality can successfully be separated from nature. It seems that the sentient being will always return to the scene of the crime; so to speak, the garden of death and rebirth. All efforts to elude such a simple reality as "act naturally" have produced hybrid and incomplete personality profiles that adorn (NPI) the historical landscapes of existence. I conclude that political action and/or speech does not shape our thoughts or our thinking. Marx may have been wrong to suggest that alienation was a negative capitalist result instead of the normal human reaction to failure. How can communism or democratism or capitalism automatically be negative factors in and of themselves? Isn't this really what Marx meant when he challenged his generation to recreate the good by jettison of the decay. It is our very real actions within those political systems that creates any sense of alienation from our natural selves or not. Yes we yearn for success and voice, but there comes a point in any effort where the win/loss vector becomes clear and the one's internal healthy dialog resumes. Political actions that become negative parts of the landscape never become the landscape itself. Those destructive political actions are merely the jagged edges of the historical page. The culture industry, absent any positive addition to the wellness of sentient beings, wethers. It dies within or out of our sight, but it must die if it is decay.