Práxis formativa e indústria cultural em Th. W. Adorno: (im) possibilidades de resistência?

Abstract

The present work intends to discuss Adorno‟s considerations regarding the possibility or not of resistance of the cultural industry performance in the formation of individuals. It is a discussion from his writings of the 1940s, specifically Dialectic of Enlightnment and Minima Moralia. Initially the historical and theoretical assumptions of the Adornian perspective on the praxis practice in the administered world are presented. The relation between the war context and the supposed pessimism of Adorno is highlighted, due to the insufficiency of promise realization of progress against the domination reality exercised by instrumental reason. In addition, the main notions of Horkheimer‟s interdisciplinary materialism are considered, such as the fundamental principles of critical theory and its contribution as an alternative interpretation of the Marxist orthodoxy. Considering that critical theory has as its conceptual matrix, the analysis of capitalism presented by Marx, the second chapter has as its object of discussion three strategic categories that allow us to verify the points of convergence and divergence which resonate in Adorno‟s thinking. They are: praxis, alienation and fetishism. It is as part of this chapter the discussion on the estrangement problematic process concerning the form of labor in the capitalist production mode which favors the dehumanization of man and implies the world of things overlapping to the world of men. It is intended to understand the impoverishment of the subject notions and the commodity fetishism which reappear under a new guise, on the third chapter, with the schemes of cultural industry and its influence to the most ordinary gestures of life. Therefore, the objective is to make the relationship between cultural industry, enlightenment and domination as clear as possible, highlighting how the indicatives are configured for a possible resistance to the project of total integration. In order to do so, it is essential to emphasize the subject role, even though being a victim of the process of life fragmentation; the prejudiced subjectivity cannot be abandoned, since it constitutes an important element for the thesis of the hope of selfreflection of thinking that enlightens.