CONTRADICTION, CRITIQUE, AND DIALECTIC IN ADORNO A ...

More specifically, Adorno’s claim that the modern social order is structured by
antagonism can be broken down into the following claims:
(1) The dynamics of the modern social world are both locally (in terms of its
constitutive institutions) and globally determined by the principle of
exchange, which does not further human goals of happiness and freedom but
rather systematically opposes them (sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2).
(2) The dominant role that the principle of exchange plays in the social order is
built on the basis of antagonism against instinctual demands for satisfaction of
the pleasure principle of the id. This antagonism results in an increase in
unconscious resentment toward civilization and pent-up aggression, which in
turn threatens to destroy society through periodic outbursts of violence and
destruction (section 3.2.3).
The first thesis claims that every finite element of social life (and therefore also social life
as a whole) is ultimately regulated by the principle of exchange. This thesis points to the
internal heteronomy of social elements due to the primacy of economic relations. The
second thesis claims that the primacy of the economy as a whole is heteronomously
determined in accordance with unconscious and pathological dynamics. This thesis
points to a global heteronomy of the social order due to the primacy of “repressed nature”
over social dynamics. Adorno’s further claim that the modern social order is essentially
antagonistic corresponds to the idea that the phenomena of internal heteronomy and
global heteronomy described above are not accidental features of modern society but
rather constitute the fundamental character of the modern social order.
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