# A quote from Theodor Adorno



## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

"Art abhors not science, but science's rigid opposition to the particular." _Aesthetic Theory_, Theodor Adorno (1903-69)

Is this quote important? I think so -- posted it on my study wall. During his time in America, Adorno was did sociology- and psychology-related research, areas that are not surprising for a Frankfurt School Marxist. He was concerned with the situation of classical music in the USA, including the effects of radio and recording industries. From what I have read, his publications were qualitative and interpretive. One reason he went back to Germany after the war was his disagreement with the preponderance of "normalizing" quantitative research in American social science.

In my experience, scientific research on music for both individuals and groups can be valid, if the topics have to do with human behavior, abilities, preferences, and so on. But the likelihood of scientific criticism or evaluation of classical music (or of any art form) having any value is very low in my opinion, thought it has been tried many times. A work of art is in danger of being misunderstood if science becomes an "authority" in making substantive or prescriptive judgments.

Sometimes people are bedazzled by science without considering its appropriateness. Meanwhile, the disciplines of aesthetics or philosophy of music may be dismissed as antiquated or worse. Actually there is a lot of recent work in these areas that is valuable, and some that is even readable!


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

I think Adorno refers to the fact that art expresses the universal through the particular (a writer tells a universal truth through a story about particular people, a painter through the particular painting, etc) or even that art hallows the particular as such into something to worship (which is what e.g. Warhol expressed by putting a can of soup in a museum: a can of soup is not something to admire or worship unless it is labeled as art).

Schopenhauer said something like: science is the study of empirical facts to find universal laws and likewise philosophy is the study of art (as it's data) to find the universal truths.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Adorno was so freaked out by the Nazis that he mistrusted all mass media, and thought it would only manipulate the masses. Do I think that's true? I'm not sure, but suddenly I want some Pizza Hut pizza.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Science has nothing to do with establishing artistic value. What it can do is give us a better understanding of aesthetic perception and response. In doing that it definitely looks at particulars.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

This sort of thing never stops because the non-science or rather anti-science crowd thinks "science" (and by this is always meant: the core 'hard' sciences) has concocted an evil plan to take away all 'beauty', artistry, human freedom, mystical formation of ideas...yada yada.

It is essentially the fear that the loss of 'mystery' collapses humanity and leads to a sort of shallow, mechanistic existence. I wonder if they ever stop to think and assess the fact that scientific enquiry doesn't try to _destroy _things, but to illuminate them and offer _meaningful_ reasons. Not to _replace _e.g. aesthetic ideas with a set of quantifiable facts, like some sort of ready-reckoner for assessing your tastes, but to offer tools for better understanding it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

eugeneonagain said:


> This sort of thing never stops because the non-science or rather anti-science crowd thinks "science" (and by this is always meant: the core 'hard' sciences) has concocted an evil plan to take away all 'beauty', artistry, human freedom, mystical formation of ideas...yada yada.
> 
> It is essentially the fear that the loss of 'mystery' collapses humanity and leads to a sort of shallow, mechanistic existence. I wonder if they ever stop to think and asses the fact that scientific enquiry doesn't try to _destroy _things, but to illuminate them and offer _meaningful_ reasons. Not to _replace _e.g. aesthetic ideas with a set of quantifiable facts, like some sort of ready-reckoner for assessing your tastes, but to offer tools for better understanding it.


I agree with you completely, but I also understand the reason for people's uneasiness with science (and there are people who are overconfident about science's ability to contribute to our lives morally and spiritually).

Part of the disagreement comes down to people of different temperaments and values simply not liking each other: people who love science and people who love art not being able to understand each other. Within both groups there are provocateurs who exaggerate for effect. Of course both sides are ferociously jealous of any praise or funding that the other side gets. People who appreciate both are just stuck in the middle.

It's just like any conflict between different groups really.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

"Art abhors not science, but science's rigid opposition to the particular." Aesthetic Theory, Theodor Adorno (1903-69)
---
I’ve had a different experience of it. I view science as a predominately left-brain activity in the same way that the inspired creative force behind art is essentially right-brain. Science is an aspect of the study of principles that can help shape and manifest a creative idea. It’s part of the tools and resources of creation though it’s usually not referred to as science because it’s a cold word that’s usually not thought of as being connected to the arts. The study of the principles of harmony is an aspect of science because it necessitates logic and analysis, but using those principles effectlvely in an actual work of musical art comes through inspiration and unconscious forces rather than strict logic. These forces have been actively studied in the lives of great artists, writers and musicians, whether people want to reject the idea or argue about the realities of brain-hemisphere specialization that have been documented and studied. The brain hemispheres must communicate harmonious using a certain syntax of order to be creatively successful, and this can be deliberately cultivated to liberate one’s create potentials. It’s a matter of applying these principles yourself and not just reading about them. Those interested in this area of the brain and creativity can find out more in Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Rico that has plenty of before and after mind-blowing examples of the liberation of latent talent and untapped creativity. Fantastic book. 
.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I love both art _and _science so I guess I just don't get the need some have for them to oppose each other. Adorno made a lot of weird statements, so I never take any one of them as gospel. Science cannot -- and doesn't try to -- define aesthetics. At the same time, there's nothing about science that invites the hatred of artists -- nor should there be.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Romanticism can be seen as a reaction to the Enlightenment, so I think that right there demonstrates the differences, and that those should remain.
Science is one thing, but a "scientific outlook" is quite another.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> I think Adorno refers to the fact that art expresses the universal through the particular (a writer tells a universal truth through a story about particular people, a painter through the particular painting, etc) or even that art hallows the particular as such into something to worship (which is what e.g. Warhol expressed by putting a can of soup in a museum: a can of soup is not something to admire or worship unless it is labeled as art).
> 
> Schopenhauer said something like: science is the study of empirical facts to find universal laws and likewise philosophy is the study of art (as it's data) to find the universal truths.


Hmmm... I left out the conclusion: because art hallows the particular, science finds art some kind of religious humbug. For science everything is just a thing with a size and impetus: it doesn't grasp the absolute value of a person or an art work, i.e. as something inexchangable. As science only recognizes the objective, a human being is just a sack of blood and bones (with an onboard computer) and a painting just paint on a canvas. Science reduces the appreciation of art to mere psychology which dismisses the value of an art work in itself (likewise it reduces religion to a psychological need to believe in the illusion of a transcendent being). Of course there is nothing wrong with the scientific approach - the psychology - but it is quite an irrelevant aspect of art when we try to understand art.

This is how I understand Adorno's quote.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> Romanticism can be seen as a reaction to the Enlightenment, so I think that right there demonstrates *the differences*, and that those should remain.
> Science is one thing, but a "scientific outlook" is quite another.


I'm not sure I understand this. Part of 'Romanticism' was fear of the industrial revolution (and scientific ideas of both a practical and theoretical nature) and achieved by a sort of stoic fatalism and obsession with fantasy. In fact so much of a deliberate u-turn at times that it has a strain of foolish irrationalism running through it which wants to claim ownership of "authenticity" and "real".

In truth science just carried on and existed quite easily alongside 'romantic' culture. You can see the influence of the latter in particularly the growth of biological sciences as a gentlemanly pursuit (largely botany and naturalism) leading up to Darwin.

I think the differences are actually rather superficial.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I suspect one can enjoy a piece of music purely from a scientific standpoint. It would entail examining frequency graphs and such. One wouldn't even have to _hear_ a note of the music in order to do so. Graphic charts would say so much. I'm sure Mozart looks a lot different than does Beethoven or Tchaikovsky or Boulez on, say, graphs of frequencies, pitch relationships, and sound pressure levels. It's too bad my science background is weak in this area; I'll have to settle for simply listening to the compositions. Oh well ….


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

From my days in radio, I can say that the most attractive (prettiest) piece I have ever watched on an oscilloscope is the Mozart clarinet concerto.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm not sure I understand this. Part of 'Romanticism' was fear of the industrial revolution (and scientific ideas of both a practical and theoretical nature) and achieved by a sort of stoic fatalism and obsession with fantasy. In fact so much of a deliberate u-turn at times that it has a strain of foolish irrationalism running through it which wants to claim ownership of "authenticity" and "real".
> 
> *In truth science just carried on and existed quite easily alongside 'romantic' culture.* You can see the influence of the latter in particularly the growth of biological sciences as a gentlemanly pursuit (largely botany and naturalism) leading up to Darwin.
> 
> I think the differences are actually rather superficial.


Even beyond this, I see Romanticism as less a reaction to the Enlightenment than a creation of it. The "reason/emotion' dichotomy is superficial; the fundamental divide was between man as a subject whose place and destiny were determined for him by divine and earthly powers, and man as a free, self-directed, self-defining agent. Other aspects of what we consider a Romantic sensibilty presuppose that basic conception of human identity. In music, Classicism, Romanticism and Modernism express successive phases in the destruction of pre-Enlightenment ideological and social hierarchies.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Even beyond this, I see Romanticism as less a reaction to the Enlightenment than a creation of it. The "reason/emotion' dichotomy is superficial; the fundamental divide was between man as a subject whose place and destiny were determined for him by divine and earthly powers, and man as a free, self-directed, self-defining agent. Other aspects of what we consider a Romantic sensibilty presuppose that basic conception of human identity. In music, Classicism, Romanticism and Modernism express successive phases in the destruction of pre-Enlightenment ideological and social hierarchies.


I think it is problematic to assign any of these labels you are assigning to all music in given eras. Each age is represented by a plethora of different attitudes and outlooks, and only in hindsight are labels applied to help give us an understanding and a sense of order to this continuum. I don't think any two composers viewed the world in exactly the same way, and beyond that music is about much more than what can be described by looking at ideologies or social hierarchies. I don't think the fundamental musical concepts or the 'essence' of an age are ever destroyed, but continue to resurface in different ways in a cyclical manner. If we look at the music of the 20th century we see elements of essentially all the previous known ages of music resurfacing in different ways.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> the fundamental divide was between man as a subject whose place and destiny were determined for him by divine and earthly powers, and man as a free, self-directed, self-defining agent..


Essentially what this seems to be saying is that Enlightenment composers thought human beings have no free will, and Romantic composers did (think human beings have free will). What evidence do you have for this assertion?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

tdc said:


> Essentially what this seems to be saying is that Enlightenment composers thought human beings have no free will, and Romantic composers did (think human beings have free will). What evidence do you have for this assertion?


I have no evidence for that assertion, since that assertion is yours and not mine. 

EDIT: That would be an absurd notion, wouldn't it?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Romanticism can be seen as a reaction to the Enlightenment, in the sense that artists had a new role to play. Call that "free will" if you wish.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Romanticism can be seen as a reaction to the Enlightenment, in the sense that artists had a new role to play. Call that "free will" if you wish.


Artists had new roles in all of the eras though. I think these definitions I'm reading here are not any better than the reason/emotion definition, possibly even less accurate. I think art is influenced by but inhabits a world outside of social hierarchies and conditions. Art is able to distill a certain essence of things leaving out the impurities and becoming reflective of certain eternal truths. This is why the music stays fresh and relevant to us outside of its social context.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

tdc said:


> Artists had new roles in all of the eras though. I think these definitions I'm reading here are not any better than the reason/emotion definition, possibly even less accurate. I think art is influenced by but inhabits a world outside of social hierarchies and conditions. Art is able to distill a certain essence of things leaving out the impurities and becoming reflective of certain eternal truths. This is why the music stays fresh and relevant to us outside of its social context.


I'm at a loss to respond to the things you've been saying, because I can't see in them any attempt to understand the causes or significance of the changing forms taken by music (or by art in general, or by anything else) through the history of human society, a history in which ideas, sensibilities and ways of life have changed greatly over time. It's nice to think about what we believe to be universals in human life, and nice to say that art reflects them down through the ages, but it gets us nowhere in understanding the life and art of any particular moment in time.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I'm at a loss to respond to the things you've been saying, because I can't see in them any attempt to understand the causes or significance of the changing forms taken by music (or by art in general, or by anything else) through the history of human society, a history in which ideas, sensibilities and ways of life have changed greatly over time. It's nice to think about what we believe to be universals in human life, and nice to say that art reflects them down through the ages, but it gets us nowhere in understanding the life and art of any particular moment in time.


But how does your dichotomy really increase understanding?

Is art reflective of current social thought, or is it a reaction against it? I'm sure it can be both, even simultaneously.

"the fundamental divide was between man as a subject whose place and destiny were determined for him by divine and earthly powers, and man as a free, self-directed, self-defining agent."

This quote doesn't describe much about the music of the Enlightenment or of the Romantic era. Further "man as a free, self-directed, self-defining agent", doesn't describe social conditions of the mid 19th century. It is an interesting ideal, but in an absolute sense I'm not sure it can even exist. Humans must certainly have valued the concept of freedom before the 19th century.

Your dichotomy seems to me to show a bias towards Romantic sensibilities. It could be flipped around to "The real dichotomy is Enlightenment art which leans towards the universal, and Romantic art which leans towards the self-centered." Which I admit is just as bad.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

tdc said:


> But how does your dichotomy really increase understanding?
> 
> Is art reflective of current social thought, or is it a reaction against it? I'm sure it can be both, even simultaneously.
> 
> ...


A difference is not a dichotomy. "Dichotomy" implies mutual exclusion. I din't imply that. If there is a change, there is a difference: a before and an after. I spoke of movement, of evolution, not of dichotomy.

The centuries-long, difficult movement from hierarchical, authoritarian, religion- and custom-bound societies to secular, democratic societies based on individual rights and equality under law, in which humans regard themselves as self-justified and self-determining agents, is the basic story of the Western world. I'm surprised that this idea meets with misunderstanding or resistance. Perhaps I failed to state it well.

Just as this idea doesn't imply dichotomy, it doesn't imply the absence of an underlying human nature. Your search for the universal in art is valid - but if you don't see the trajectory of change and identify its inflection points, you will see no particular significance in Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or any other musical period, tendency, or style. What makes you so sure that my paradigm doesn't explain anything about music through the ages? I think it explains - or at least illuminates - a great deal about the artistic intention, form, and style of the music I hear. The particulars of that are, of course, objects for much study and explication.

When you say that your own suggestion of "the real dichotomy" is "just as bad" as my non-dichotomy, I would say that it isn't bad at all. Self-centeredness is a pitfall of Romanticism's emphasis on the importance of the individual's uniqueness and freedom; you're on to something real. It is certainly not fundamental or greatly explanatory, though. It's the fundamental movement underlying cultural, and artistic, phenomena and change that I'm trying to identify. I'm not posing dichotomies or excluding complicating factors. I'm just looking for the most basic nature of the changes hat happened. If you can show factors more basic and explanatory, I'm listening.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> A difference is not a dichotomy. "Dichotomy" implies mutual exclusion. I din't imply that. If there is a change, there is a difference: a before and an after. I spoke of movement, of evolution, not of dichotomy.


Ok well here:



Woodduck said:


> Even beyond this, I see Romanticism as less a reaction to the Enlightenment than a creation of it. *The "reason/emotion' dichotomy is superficial; the fundamental divide was between man as a subject whose place and destiny were determined for him by divine and earthly powers, and man as a free, self-directed, self-defining agent.*


In the above quote from earlier in the thread it seems like what you are describing was a dichotomy, you changed the word to "divide", which is a synonym of dichotomy.



Woodduck said:


> The centuries-long, difficult movement from hierarchical, authoritarian, religion- and custom-bound societies to secular, democratic societies based on individual rights and equality under law, in which humans regard themselves as self-justified and self-determining agents, is the basic story of the Western world. I'm surprised that this idea meets with misunderstanding or resistance. Perhaps I failed to state it well.


Narratives can differ from reality. The narratives that were received in earlier centuries were quite possibly different than the narratives that have been passed on to us. I know that is the narrative, but how much of it is a generalization and how closely does it describe reality? I think there is a grain of truth there, but it doesn't tell us that much. Humans were still ruled over, but the rulers took on a different form. Most Romantic composers continued to compose religious inspired works.



Woodduck said:


> Just as this idea doesn't imply dichotomy, it doesn't imply the absence of an underlying human nature. Your search for the universal in art is valid - but if you don't see the trajectory of change and identify its inflection points, you will see no particular significance in Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or any other musical period, tendency, or style. What makes you so sure that my paradigm doesn't explain anything about music through the ages? I think it explains - or at least illuminates - a great deal about the artistic intention, form, and style of the music I hear. The particulars of that are, of course, objects for much study and explication.
> 
> When you say that your own suggestion of "the real dichotomy" is "just as bad" as my non-dichotomy, I would say that it isn't bad at all. Self-centeredness is a pitfall of Romanticism's emphasis on the importance of the individual's uniqueness and freedom; you're on to something real. It is certainly not fundamental or greatly explanatory, though. It's the fundamental movement underlying cultural, and artistic, phenomena and change that I'm trying to identify. I'm not posing dichotomies or excluding complicating factors. I'm just looking for the most basic nature of the changes hat happened. If you can show factors more basic and explanatory, I'm listening.


I think pointing out attributes of the music is a good way of being more accurate, for example Classical forms were concerned with symmetry but also dramatic expression. They blurred the clear chord progressions found in the Baroque by using techniques such as alberti bass and were able to expand form itself with this technique and by developing musical phrases in contrasting ways. They used form itself as a highly dramatic device, and used tonal, rhythmic and dynamic contrasts within these forms. The music tended to be clearly articulated, developed, symmetrical and resolved.

Romantic music built on some of these attributes, but became more expansive, often blurred tonality and left things unresolved.

So do you think any of these attributes tie into what you were describing in your 'divide'?


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> I think Adorno refers to the fact that art expresses the universal through the particular (a writer tells a universal truth through a story about particular people, a painter through the particular painting, etc) or even that art hallows the particular as such into something to worship (which is what e.g. Warhol expressed by putting a can of soup in a museum: a can of soup is not something to admire or worship unless it is labeled as art).
> 
> Schopenhauer said something like: science is the study of empirical facts to find universal laws and likewise philosophy is the study of art (as it's data) to find the universal truths.


This interpretation gets to the core for me. In the OP, the key word in the quote from Adorno is "abhors," which indicates fear as well as opposition.

I am not anti-science -- in fact my parents were scientists and I have done scientific research. To me the problem is "what science sometimes is entangled with," not science itself. For example, I fear that the scientific research the technology of streaming services becomes prescriptive, feeding us back what we are said to "want" rather than taking informed aesthetics into consideration. What the majority wants only requires a short attention span, which works against much classical music. My abhorrence is of trivialized art.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm not sure, but suddenly I want some Pizza Hut pizza.


Does that make you one of the manipulated masses?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

tdc said:


> Ok well here:
> 
> In the above quote from earlier in the thread it seems like what you are describing was a dichotomy, you changed the word to "divide", which is a synonym of dichotomy.
> 
> ...


I'm not expecting you to agree with my specific ideas, but if you're rejecting the entire premise that the forms art takes have anything, or anything significant, to do with the culture in which they arise, then there's just nothing to talk about. "Pointing out attributes of music" is indeed a good way to begin such a discussion, but if you're stopping there then you're not having this discussion at all and there's no point in responding to me. Quibbling over specific words - especially when I've just told you how I'm using them - looks like mere stubbornness and goes nowhere.

Just forget it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Even beyond this, I see Romanticism as less a reaction to the Enlightenment than a creation of it. The "reason/emotion' dichotomy is superficial; the fundamental divide was between man as a subject whose place and destiny were determined for him by divine and earthly powers, and man as a free, self-directed, self-defining agent. Other aspects of what we consider a Romantic sensibilty presuppose that basic conception of human identity. In music, Classicism, Romanticism and Modernism express successive phases in the destruction of pre-Enlightenment ideological and social hierarchies.


Then my statement that Romanticism was a "reaction" to the Enlightenment is just another way of saying the same thing. I think this hair-splitting distinction between "reaction to the Enlightenment" and "created the Enlightenment" to be overly argumentative, unless you'd like to...elaborate.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> Adorno was so freaked out by the Nazis that he mistrusted all mass media, and thought it would only manipulate the masses. Do I think that's true? I'm not sure, but suddenly I want some Pizza Hut pizza.


I have to say I didn't look properly at this photo, but now I see it is some sort of pizza! Why is that crust so malformed and what is with that enormous amount of cheese?!


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

And where's the pepperoni?


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