catastrophe, autonomy and the future of modernism in adorno
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CATASTROPHE, AUTONOMY AND THE FUTURE OF MODERNISM: Trying to UnderstandAdorno's Reading of "Endgame"Author(s): Matthew HoltSource: Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui, Vol. 14, After Beckett / D'après Beckett (2004),pp. 261-275Published by: Editions Rodopi B.V.
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CATASTROPHE,
AUTONOMY AND THE
FUTURE
OF
MODERNISM:
Trying
to
Understand
Adorno's
Reading
of
Endgame
Matthew Holt
Theodor Adorno's
essay
"Trying
to
Understand
Endgame"
never
refuses
the
challenge
to
interpret
Endgame
but
it
does
not
for
one
moment
pretend
that
theory
can
unlock the
meanings
of
an
aesthetic
object
without
putting
its own
processes,
concepts
and
style
into
ques
tion
-
a
challenge
that
is
posed
by
the aesthetic
object
itself
The
autonomy
of
Beckett's
art must
be
acknowledged
yet
at
the
same
time
be
seen
to
engage
in
the
most
demanding
questions
of
our
time.How
Adorno
manages
to
keep
the
critical
force of
these
axioms
together
is
the
subject of
this
essay.
Far
from being
rendered
irrelevant
by
post
modernism,
I
argue
in
the
conclusion that such
a
critical
project
pro
vokes the
question
of
the
future
of
modernism,
not
its
demise.
Adorno's
reading
of
Endgame
(Adorno, 1992)
is
a
crystallisation
f
his
approach
to
modernist
art
in
general:
it
attempts
to
retain
the
autonomous
and radical
aspects
of Beckett's
aesthetic
while
also im
puting
to
it
a
highly charged
constellation
of social and
political
meanings.
But
according
to
Adorno,
Beckett's
play
neither reflects
nor expresses any of these
meanings.
The relation between modernist
art
and the
political
and
social
world
in
which
it is
embedded
is for
Adorno
an
oblique
one;
it is
difficult,
nigmatic
(rdtselhaft)
nd,
moreover,
non-programmatic.
The theorisation
of
this
oblique
relation
too
is difficult. This is
because Adorno attends
to
the
problematic
and
complicated
nature
of
his
object
of
study
in
a
way
that
does
not
reduce
that
difficulty.
In order
to
understand
modernist
art,
theory
cannot
take
on
those
categories
of reflection
and
understanding actually
left
be
hind
by
modernist art. It can no
longer
rely
on the direct presentation
of
meaning.
As
such,
theory
has
its
own
autonomy
arising
from
its
responsibility
not to
falsely promise
reconciliation
and
atonement
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(Versohnung)
where there is
none.
Thus what Adorno
says
of the
awkwardness
of
interpreting
Beckett
goes
for his work
as
well:
Beckett
shrugs
is
shoulders
t
the
possibility
f
philosophy
today,
at the
very
possibility
of
theory.
The
irrationality
of
bourgeois society
in
its late
phase
rebels
at
letting
tself
e
understood;
those where
the
good
old
days,
when
a
critique
of
political
economy
of this
society
could
be
written
that
judged
it
in
terms
of
its
own
ratio. For
since
then the
society
has thrown its
ratio
on
the
scrap
heap
and
replaced
it
with
virtually
unmediated control. Hence
interpretation inevitably
lags
behind Beckett... One could almost
say
that the
criterion
of a
philosophy
whose hour has struck is that it
prove
equal
to
this
challenge.
(Adorno
1992,
244)
Adorno conceives
his
own
work
as
an
attempt
to
prove
equal
to
this
challenge.
But
this is
not
limited
to
a
dialogue
between
a
thinker
and
an
artist. This
is
a
challenge
for
the
interpretation
of
all
difficult works
of
art.
It
is also
a
challenge,
more
specifically,
for Beckett
studies
which,
akin to
nearly
all of
literary,
cultural and aesthetic studies to
day
has the
tendency
o
fall
into he
trap
f
merely
seeing
the
bject
of
study
as
a
depository
of
non-aesthetic
meaning:
there is little
proper
reference
to,
or
negotiation
of,
the
aesthetic form of the
object.
Rather,
form
not
only
mediates
the social
meanings
to
be found
in it
but,
in
fact,
is the first
(and last)
point
of
access
to
them.
In
other
words,
the
primacy
of
form is
paramount
and
must
be
taken
seriously
in
any
ex
amination of
'content'.
This 'axiom'
(of
the constitutive
difficulty
of the
object
of in
terpretation)
nd
this
'challenge'
(to
respond
to
that
difficulty)
lso
extends
to
the
analysis
of
the
social
and the
historical. In
other
words,
there is also
a
sociological
reason
for this
emphasis
on
the essential
opacity
of
modernist
works
of
art.
Society
too,
for
Adorno,
can no
longer
be
rendered
by
'clear
and
distinct'
concepts;
it
does
not
admit
of
rationality
ecause
it
is
no
longer
if
it
ever
was,
but this s
another
matter,
another
debate)
itself
rational.
Or,
to
be
more
exact,
if
society
can stillbe said tobe rational then it is a
rationality
hichAdorno
exhorts
us
to
critique
and
to
a
large
extent
abandon: for
this
same
ra
tionality
has
degenerated
into
the
total
administration
of
culture
and
262
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the total
reification
of
nature. In
this
situation,
one can
not
simply
rationalise the
irrational,
or
apply
administrative and reified
concepts
to
an
administered and reified
society
-
this would
be
to
deepen
the
tendencies of that
society,
not
resist
it
and
challenge
it.
In
order
to
formulate ideas about contemporary
society,
then, one has to intro
duce
concepts
which
are
themselves
cognisant
of
this
cynical
indiffer
ence
to
conceptualisation
on
the
part
of
society
and
also,
in
this
case,
the
mocking
indifference
to
interpretation
on
the
part
of
Endgame.
Such
concepts
would be themselves
opaque
and indirect. Adorno is
thus hard
to
read and Beckett
arduous
to
interpret.1
If
Adorno's
assessment
of
Endgame typifies
his
general
argu
ment
about the
difficulty
f
taking
social,
political
or
philosophical
position in regard to a modernist work of art, then how does he write
about the
play?
How
can
Adorno
find
in
Endgame
a
critique
of exis
tentialism,
a
testimony
to
the
destruction
of the
bourgeois
subject (and
any
philosophy
that
ttempts
o
resuscitate
t),
nd,
finally
nd
perhaps
most
importantly,
an
examination
and indictment of
post-Holocaust
culture? To
begin
to
answer
these
questions,
I
would like
to turn
first
to
thenotion of
catastrophe
hat dorno
imputes
o
the
play
(like
all
other
commentators)
and
which
organises
his
reading
of it.
But before
I do, a final word for this introduction: Adorno grows in importance.
If,
as
Richard Wolin
argues,
he has become
a
necessary
ballast
to
the
current
tendency
for
art to
be the
"uncritical mirror
image
of
the
happy
consciousnessof
late
capitalism",
Wolin
1990,
48)
then his s
also
true
in the realm
of
the social.
When
Adorno
writes
in
regard
to
the characters
of Nell and
Nagg
that
"Endgame
prepares
us
for
a
state
of affairs
in which
everyone
who lifts the lid of
the
nearest
trashcan
can
expect
to
find
his
own
parents
in
it",
(Adorno
1992,
266)
he
would notbe at all surprised ofind thattodaytheelderlywould be
lucky
to
even
get
a
trashcan.
And
perhaps
for similar
reasons
Beckett
too
is
assuming
a
new
importance.
The world is
certainly
absurd
enough
at
the
moment,
potentially
facing
new
catastrophes,
and
in
the
need of
"liberated
orm"
Adorno
1997,
2552).
1.
Catastrophe
For
Adorno,
Endgame
is traced
through
and
through
by
catastrophe.
In fact, there are a number of catastrophes he ascribes to the play, both
social
and
aesthetic
(and
he
would
have been well
aware
of
its
central
place
in
Aristotle's
theory
of
tragedy,
where
it
means
a
'change
in
263
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fortune').
But
importantly,
he
does
not
attempt
to
fix
a
sole
meaning
or
event to
the
catastrophe
that
the characters
constantly
refer
to
but
never
define.
First
there
is
a
literal but
unspecified catastrophe
that
forms
not
only the background to the play but is the constant shadow of all the
dialogue
and of all the action.
Some
event
of
utter
destruction
has
taken
place
of
which
the characters
in
the
play
are,
it
is
implied,
the
sole survivors. Adorno believes
it is
foremost
the
total destruction
of
nature.
He
writes:
The situation
in the
play
...
is
none
other
than that inwhich
"there's
no more
nature".
[Beckett, 16]
The
phase
of
com
plete reification (Verdinglichung) of theworld, where there
is
nothing
left
that has
not
been made
by
human
beings,
is
indistinguishable
from
an
additional
catastrophic
event
caused
by
human
beings,
in
which
nature
has been
wiped
out
and after which
nothing
grows
anymore.3
(245)
The method of and
reason
for this
destruction,
however,
is
not
re
vealed by the play. Thus Adorno can expand upon this theme to also
make
the
play
an
authentic
response,
as
it
were,
to
post-Holocaust
culture.
But
in
keeping
within
the obscure
parameters
of
Endgame,
Adorno does
not
refer
to
the
Shoah
in
a
consistent
manner,
assuming
that it
is
part
of the
play's
meaning
but
not
its
direct
content.
As
is
often
argued,
the
play
could
also
take
place
in
a
post-Nuclear
world,
though,
again,
there is
no
direct
evidence
for
this.
But
what
is clear is
that
there has
been
devastation;
of what
kind and for
what
reasons we
are not told. Furthermore, the play does not take place in a completely
wasted
space
(unlike
Waiting
or Godot).
The
action
takes
place
in
an
interior
which
echoes the
interiors of
bourgeois
drama.
There
are
win
dows
and
an
eyepiece
to
see
out
of
them. There
are
doors,
a
ladder,
a
toy.
Clov
can
come
and
go
between
rooms.
The
larder
is
accessible.
Nagg
and Nell still
have
lodgings,
however
ghastly.
In
other
words,
the
more
universal
disaster
which
the
play
obliquely presents
remains
refracted
through
what
is
in
many
respects
a
quite
traditional domestic
farce.
What is
more,
the
outside
disaster is
so
entwined with
the
'game'
that
exists
between
Clov
and
Hamm
that it
becomes
difficult,
264
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if
not
impossible,
to
separate
the
implied,
overarching
sense
of devas
tation from
the
obviously
well-versed and
repetitive
moves
of
those
two
characters.
Clov,
one
feels,
goes
to
the
window
everyday
to
tell
Hamm
-
after the
requisite
banter
-
that, outside,
everything
is
"corpsed". (Beckett, 25).
This is confirmed
when,
after a
pause,
Clov
continues:
"Well? Content?" The
pause
is
part
of the
dynamic
of their
relationship,
not
a
moment
taken
by
Clov
to
consider
the
immensity
of
the disaster.
In
this
sense,
Clov
never
really
looks outside:
his
atten
tion
is ever-bound
to
Hamm
and his
demands,
whether he
resists them
or
not.
Thus
it is
no
wonder that
perhaps
the
most
startling
evidence of
outside
catastrophe
occurs
inside. Not
long
after the
episode quoted,
Clov discovers
a
flea. Real distress
seems
to set
in.
CLOV:
{anguished, scratching
himself).
I
have
a
flea
HAMM:
A
flea
Are
there till leas?
CLOV:
On
me
there's
one.
{Scratching.)
Unless it's
a
crablouse.
HAMM:
{very
perturbed).
But
humanity might
start
from
there
all
over
again
Catch
him,
for the love
of
God
CLOV:
I'll
go
and
get
the
powder.
Exit Clov.
HAMM:
A
flea This
is
awful
What
a
day
Enter Clov with
a
sprinkling-tin.
HAMM: Let
him
have
it
(27)
This
one
of the
few,
if
only,
references
in
the
play
to
theHolocaust
(as
Adorno
too
notes
[270]),
if
indeed
that is what is
it
is,
for
the refer
ence is quickly set in the strange jelly of Beckett's humour: Clov's
flea
is
in
his
pants.
The insecticide
hat e
pours
into hem ill
kill the
flea
and
also,
metaphorically
at
least,
his
ability
to
propagate
-
to
lay
eggs.
Any
hope
that
ife could be
reborn
s
considered
by
both
Clov
and
Hamm
-
this is where
they
seem
to
depart
momentarily
from the
game
-
with
absolute
horror.
Once
the
prospect
has
passed,
they
re
turn
to
their rituals.
Second,
there
is
a
sense
of
philosophical,
metaphysical
catas
trophe. As Lambert Zuidervaart points out, Adorno interprets End
game
(Endspiel
in
German)
as
the
Endgeschichte
(the
final
history)
f
the
category
f
the
subject.
Zuidervaart,
56f)
The
play
for
Adorno
is
265
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a
much
more
thoroughgoing
exploration
of the destruction
of the
Cartesian
subject
which forms
the basis of modern
philosophy
than
that
of
contemporary
existentialist
philosophy.
It
is
also
a
much
more
important
testament
to
the
destruction
of
the
heroic
bourgeois subject
in and after the Second World War
(the
"atomic
age",
as he calls it
[245]),
than that
of,
for
example,
Sartre's
absurdist drama
with
its
emphasis
on
the
subjective
freedom
to act
even
without the
objective
conditions
to
allow such action.
Beckett
takes the
philosophical
(and
dramatic)
subject
all
the
way
to
its
most
pitiful
state
-
and
refuses
any
reconstruction of
it.
We
will
return to
these issues
in
more
detail later.
Third,
there is aesthetic
catastrophe.
The
play,
in
a
profound
but
nonetheless ambivalent
manner,
is
a
kind
of
catastrophe
of theatrical
convention,
indeed amore
genuine,
truthful
experience
of the crisis of
theatrical
form,
expression
and
tradition
than that of
expressionist,
dadaist,
surrealist
and,
above
all,
absurdist drama.
This
is
because,
according
to
Adorno,
all the
parts
of
the
play
relate
to
each other
-
there is
a
definite
coherency, especially
in
technique
-
but
nonetheless
its
overall
meaning
remains obscure.
An
overall
meaning
and
'con
tent' is
suggested
-
and
thus
a
'whole'
to
relate the
parts
-
but
it is
never
revealed.
It
is shut
up
like
a
"mollusk".
(246)
Here Adorno
leaves behind the convention that Beckett can be
lumped together
with other
absurdist
(and
existentialist)
dramatists,
as
if
Beckett
was
merely
reproducing
a
theme of the
day,
a
fashion
of his
time
(what
better
way
to
deny
the
true
absurdity
of the absurd?
What better
way
to
domesticate
the
anxieties
of
Endgame?).
Instead,
Beckett
cuts
through
such
comforting
categorisation. Endgame
not
only
denies
us
our
tools for
understanding
but blunts the
ones we
have
already
tried
on
it. But this
resistance
to
interpretation
is
not
willful
obscurantism
according toAdorno, but absolutely integral to the dramatic form of
Beckett's
play
and
to
Beckett's
modernism
in
general.
To
explain
this
further,
I
will
now
turn
to
Adorno's
reading
of
the
play
in
more
detail
and
explore
the
autonomy
of
meaning
(or
non-meaning)
and form
that
Adorno
ascribes
to
it.
266
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2.
The
Autonomy
of Form
Adorno first
argues
that
while Beckett's works share
much
with Sa
trean
existentialism,
predominately
the
notion of the
absurd
(and
its
attendant
notions of
isolation,
alienation and
nothingness,
etc.),
it
is
not an illustration of any category or thesis. The "literary method" of
Beckett,
as
Adorno calls
it,
is
not
one
in
which
an
ulterior
or
exterior
motive
or
concept
is
expressed.
"Whereas
in
Sartre",
he
writes,
"the
form
-
that
of the
piece
a
these
-
is
somewhat
traditional,
by
no
means
daring,
and
aimed
at
effect,
in
Beckett the
form
overtakes what is
ex
pressed
and
changes
it".
(241)
There
are
a
number of
consequences
Adorno draws from this notion that form exceeds
content
-
that
it
is
not
reducible
to
content
and that
it
does
not
express
it
but
I
will
con
centrate on the implications of the autonomy of artisticmeaning which
he
pits against
any
existential
reading
of
Beckett.
In
the face of
catastrophe
and
according
to
the
demands of
the
modernist work of
art to
operate
on
its
own
terms
and
not
merely
re
flect
either
the
concept
or
the
social,
form
withdraws into itself. But
Adorno does
not
consider this
a
continuation of
some
principle
of
/
art
pour
I'art,
even
less the
autonomy
traditionally
conferred
on
the
aes
thetic
category
of
beauty
nor
to
actual
objects
of
beauty.
This
particu
lar idea of art's self-immanence can only occur over and against an
onto-social
background
of
meaningfulness
-
of
being
able
to
give
sense
to
things,
whether
in
art
or
in
life,
or
both. He
writes: "The less
events
can
be
presumed
to
be
inherently meaningful,
the
more
the idea
of aesthetic
substance
(dsthetischen
Gestalt)
as
the
unity
of
what
ap
pears
and what
was
intended
becomes
an
illusion".
(242)
This absence
of
meaning,
or
at
least
privation
of
meaning,
is
expressed,
then,
on
two
levels:
that f form
tself
no
unity
in
life;
no
unity
in
art)
and in
intention (the desire to give unity or meaning is contrived and ulti
mately
illusionary
because the
intentional
subject
is itself
no
longer
unified).
The social
conditions
for
cogent,
coherent
and
enfranchised
art
are
no
longer
evident
and
viable,
and
categories
invented
to
illus
trate
this
-
like the
absurd
-
actually
reintroduce
sense-making
(a
new
ratio)
rather
than
doing
justice,
as
it
were,
to
the
true
brokenness
of
our
times. For
example,
the
absurd
explains
this
irrationality.
It
be
comes
a
category
or a
concept
for
it.
Beckett,
instead,
makes
the
ab
surd n absurdconceptand thepurity fhis form in thesense of its
simplicity,
its
lucidity,
but
also,
as we
have
said,
its
coherency
be
tween
parts)
is
in fact
impure
-
it is
damaged,
incomplete
and
frag
267
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mentary.
It
arcs
out
as
if
to
draw
a
unity
and
a
completeness
of
mean
ing
to
itself but it
never
achieves this.
It
necessarily
falls short of this
completion.
With
Beckett,
Adorno
insists,
there
is
then
no
transfigu
ration of
deprivation
into
meaning.
Beckett
stops
short of
this false
reconciliation, this
safety-valve
for our own disturbed conscience. In
Endgame,
this
is confirmed
(amongst
other
things)
by
the
staggered,
amputated
dialogue.
The maimed characters and their maimed lan
guage
reach for
meaning
but
are
consistently
frustrated;
indeed
they
even
show self-awareness of this
arbitrary
and
game-like
search for
meaning
and
react
as
if
it has been
forced
upon
them
(and
of
course,
this is the
joke
on
interpreter
and audience
alike):
"We're
not
begin
ning
to
...
to
...
mean
something?"
(27)
Hamm
asks Clov
in
a
slightly
worried tone. But forAdorno, Beckett's work is not the embodiment
of anti-sense
nor
anti-meaning;
rather,
it
speaks
from
a
place
where,
in
fact,
there is
no
sensible
or
meaningful place
from which
to
speak (or
to
interpret). Aphasia
and ataxia arise from
atopia.
There is
nothing
anthropologically
universal about this lack
of
a
place
from
which
to
make
sense.
It is
not
a
general
description
of
an
inevitable
'condition humaine\
Nor
is
it
a
dramatic
reenactment
of
the
roots
of French existentialism
-
primarily
Heidegger's
Being
and
Time (see 249, 252). Instead Adorno argues: "Modern ontology lives
off
the
unfulfilled
promise
of
the
concreteness
of
its
abstractions,
whereas
in
Beckett the concreteness
of
an
existence
that
is shut
up
in
itself like
a
mollusk
[...]
is
revealed
to
be
identical
to
the
abstractness
that is
no
longer
capable
of
experience".
(246)
What Beckett
ex
presses
without
expressing,
if
I
may
put
it
like
that,
is that
experience
can
no
longer
be
transmitted
meaningfully,
including
the
very
loss
or
privation
of
meaning.
In
the demise
of
ontological
surety
there is
no
restoration of the ontological nor any of its substitutes (like ground
lessness,
or
anxiety
or
nothingness):
this
would be
a
form of
negative
theology.
We
cannot,
then,
ascribe
to
Beckett the
"notion that
he
de
picts
the
negativity
f
the
ge
in
negative
form",
248)
for this
would
amount to
two
spurious positions:
first,
that
art
merely
reflects
society
(or
an
ontological precondition
of
society,
like
the
existential
notion
of
'anxiety',
or
even
'freedom')
and,
second,
that
society
is
itself
rep
resentable
(and
thus
inherently
cogent
and
meaningful).
Thus accordingtoAdorno there sno philosophicalsubjectivity
that
the
play
-
and
Beckett's work
in
general
-
displays
or
performs
as
theme
to
be
expressed,
nor,
as
we
have
intimated,
is
there
any
theatri
268
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cal
expression
of the notion of
the individual
as
the
absolute residue of
the
process
of Cartesian
reduction
(but
this time
around
in
Sartre's
anthropology,
reduced
not to
thought
nor
the
thinking
thing,
the
res
cogitans,
but
to
freedom):
The
catastrophes
that
inspire
Endgame
have
shattered
the
individual
whose
substantiality
and absoluteness
was
the
common
thread in
Kierkegaard, Jaspers,
and
Sartre's version
of
existentialism. Sartre
even
affirmed the
freedom of
vic
tims of the
concentration
camps
to
inwardly
accept
or
reject
the
tortures
inflicted
upon
them.
Endgame destroys
such
il
lusions. The individual
himself
is
revealed
to
be
a
historical
category,
both the outcome of the
capitalist
process of al
ienation
and
a
defiant
protest
against
it,
something
transient
himself.
(249)
Actually
I
could
envisage
Sartre
agreeing
with this
double
arrange
ment
-
or
derangement
-
of
the
modern,
uncertain
subject;
one
that is
both
deprived
of
subjectivity
(I
presume
Adorno
also
means
agency
here) and defiant against deprivation (and so always 'transient' be
tween
these
two
options
or
states).
Sartre would also ask: from where
does
one
remain
defiant
if
not
from
our
irreducible freedom and
our
condemnation
to
it?
But
Adorno detaches
this
arrangement,
this
de
stroyed
architecture of
subjectivity,
from its
remaining
support:
if
bourgeois society produces
a
torn
subject,
then
at
least
we can
avoid
this truth
and
ascribe
it
to,
as
he
argues
both
early Heidegger
and Sar
tre
do,
an
ontological
condition;
to
a
"figure
of
Being (Chiffre
es
Seins)". "But", Adorno argues, "this is precisely what is false". In
stead,
"Endgame
assumes
that the
individual's claim
to
autonomy
and
being
has lost its
credibility".
(249)
In
other
words,
the
subject
in
cri
sis
is
not
a
general,
ahistorical condition
of
either
Dasein
or
'man'
(some
condition
humaine)
but
has
a
historically
locatable
significance
and
fate: the
(self)destruction
of the
ratio of
bourgeois society.
This
is
not,
then,
an
ahistorical
argument
about
the
possibility
or
impossibility
of
representation,
rather
there is
a
sociological
reason
for this luck of representability of the social and the consequent cri
tique
Adornomakes of
any
philosophy
f
art
nd
any
art
that
ttempts
269
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to
either
ignore
this crisis
-
this
"catastrophe"
of
experience
as
he
calls
it
or
that
blithely
attempts
to
represent
it.
We
now
can
understand
Adorno's
problem
with
Sartre and
any
existentialist
reading
of Beckett
more
clearly.
For
Adorno,
Sartre
takes a theme, in this case the absurd, and writes a play about it. There
is
nothing
absurd about that.
The
sense-making
subject
retains its
po
sition;
it
is
not
affected
by
the
object
and, further,
either
s the
form
affected
by,
in
this
case,
the
absurd
-
the
style
of the
text
or
play
re
mains
classical
in
essence.
As
we
have
begun
to
see,
to
present
a
theme
or a
social condi
tion
in
art not
only
denies art's
autonomy
but
also
assumes
that
the
idea
or
social
condition
to
be
presented
is,
in
itself,
homogeneous
and
self-identical enough to be presented, displayed, etc., without contra
diction.
Hence
Adorno's
debate with
Lukacs and
the
denunciation of
socialist realism
(if
not
realism
per
se).
Realism
can
only
occur
when
there is
a
justified
belief in
the
real
-
only
then
can
it
be
'reflected'
in
art
without
mystification.
But
when the real
itself is
distorted
and irra
tional,
then
realism,
in
particular
social
realism,
truly
becomes
ideol
ogy:
it
falsely promises
or
evokes
the
reconciliation of social
and
ar
tistic
ends.
"An
unreconciled
reality",
Adorno
says,
"tolerates
no
rec
onciliation with the object in art", while "Realism ... only mimics
reconciliation".
(250)
"Today",
he
writes,
"the
dignity
of
art
is
meas
ured
not
according
to
whether
or
not
it
evades this
antinomy
through
lack
or
skill,
but
in terms
of
how
it
bears
it.
In
this,
Endgame
is
exem
plary". (250)
Here
we
approach
what
is essential
about
Adorno's
reading
of the
play
and
of
modernist
art
in
general:
art
bears
equivo
cation,
complexity,
antinomies
and
so
on;
it does
not
express
them,
reflect them
and,
most
importantly,
reconcile
them.
The autonomy of art forAdorno is a contradictory phenome
non.
On
the
one
hand,
it
is
immutable
and,
on
the
other,
impossible.
In
other
words,
autonomy
is
not to
be
understood
as a
formalist
attitude
or
device
which,
like
Clement
Greenberg's
thesis
concerning
the
vis
ual
arts,
is
to
hone and
perfect
the
defining
features
of
one's
particular
art-form
(two-dimensionality,
for
instance,
in
the
case
of
painting).
Nor is it
to
assert
the
purity
of
art
over
and
against
its
social
relations.
This is
no
Flaubertian
'religion
of
beauty'.
Rather,
autonomy
for
Adorno means a certain oblique relation that art has to its social
meaning
or
content,
and
that
obliqueness
not
only
has
a
historical
raison
d'etre
(the
loss
of
a
coherent
rationale
to
society
and
thus the
270
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lack of
an
fluent
connection
existing
between the
social
and
aesthetic
domains),
an
aesthetic
one
(modernist
art
is
defined
by
this
autonomy,
this
'self-rule')
but
also
an
ethical
one
(the
keeping
to
this
'self-rule'
requires
consistent
formal invention and
the
highest
degree
of
effort
and exactitude, harder than following any convention, any "custom
and
costume",
as
Malevich
would
say).
This is
because
the
rule of
one's
art,
or
one's
particular
work,
has
to
be
invented
at
the
same
time
as
the work
itself.
If
anything,
this defines the
modernist
artwork
and
distinguishes
it
from
both
premodern
works
(or
realist
works
in
Adorno's
understanding
of
the
term)
and,
perhaps, postmodern
ones.
This,
at
least,
is the
issue
to
which
we
will
now
turn.
3. The Future ofModernism
I
would like
to
retain
a
number of
aspects
of
Adorno's
arguments
epitomised y
his
reading
fBeckett
in
order
to
broach
the
subject
of
the
contemporary
relation
between
art
and
politics
and
art
and
society
and
thus,
inevitably,
the
subject
of
postmodernism.
First,
that
the
indi
rect
relation between
art
and the social is itself
an
historical
phenome
non
and
occurs
when
the
autonomy
of
art
becomes
part
of the self
understanding
of modern
art.
Second
and
intimately
related
to,
but
not
entirely
reducible to the first
point,
this indirect relation occurs when
society
itself
no
longer
has
coherency
-
a
ratio
-
which allows it be
understood,
or
at
least
immediately
understood.
(This
is Adorno's
primary
ontribution
o
thinking
he
difficulty
f themodernist
work
of
art.)
In
these
two
senses,
modern
art
is
necessarily post-realist
and
necessarily post-positivist
(in
the
Saint-Simonian,
Comtean under
standing
of
positivism,
which
aligns
social and artistic
progress
with
scientific
progress).
The
term
avant-garde
in
Adorno's
reframing
of
modern art retains little of itsmartial character, rather, it becomes a
witness
to
disaster
(to catastrophe),
albeit
a
witness whose
testimony
is almost
impossible
to
read. This
is the
political
'content'
of
such
works of
art
-
that
there
is
no
direct
political
programme
to
be
derived
from
them,
as one
would
derive
meaning
and
instructions
from
a
road
sign.
Such
a
situation,
however,
should
be conceived
as
a
spur
to
fur
ther
thought
and
action,
rather than
resignation
or a
retreat
from
re
sponsibility.
t
is
a
recognition
f
the essential
difficulty
f
things
ot
an elitist subjugation of the vita activa.
It
seems
to
me
that
this
notion of the
incoherency
of
the
social
which
Adorno
ascribes
to
modernity
is also
central
to
postmodernism
271
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and
in
fact
is the
most
common
definition of
it
(by
detractor
and de
fender
alike).
"Postmodern
theory",
Fredric
Jameson
writes,
"is
one
of
those
attempts
to
...
take
the
temperature
of the
age
without instru
ments
and
in
a
situation
in
which
we are
not
even sure
there is
so co
herent a
thing
as an
'age',
or
Zeitgeist
or
'system'
or 'current situation'
any
longer". (Jameson
1991,
xi)
If
this is
attempt
to
grasp
what is
difficult
to
grasp
is
more or
less Adorno's definition of the
responsi
bility
of
thought
and,
in
a
different
key,
that of
art,
one
wonders
why
it is then
specific
to
postmodern theory.
If
the
contemporary
social world is
without
coherency,
then
how
can we
claim
that
certain cultural artifacts
coherently
express
the
postmodern
condition
(Jameson's
examples
range
from architecture
through
contemporary
art to the fractured
group
politics
of
today)?
Is
it
any
wonder
then,
when
we
find lists
of ideas and works of
art
which
are
modern and those
which
are
postmodern,
the
postmodern
list
seems no
different
to
what
we
would
expect
from
a
modernist
one
(or
rather
it
appears
as
one
tendency
of
modernism,
rather
than
any
kind
of break from
or,
in
fact,
amplification
of
it).
For
Adorno,
Beckett
does
not
'represent'
his
age
nor
does his work
reflect
it
or
embody
the
'incoherency'
which
we
have
mentioned.
Rather,
his
form which is
difficult,
oblique
but also
rigorously
attentive and
just
to its own laws
-
makes
a
transversal
cut
through
the
tissue of
meaningful,
accessible
content,
thereby
obscuring
that content
but nonetheless
initiating
the
very
challenge
of
interpretation
itself
and therefore the
very
challenge
of
interpreting
the
society
we
live in.
In
this
distancing
of
content
that
the form of
modernist
art
produces
we
are
in
fact drawn
to
content,
to
interpretation:
as
Baudelaire exclaims in Les
fleur
du
mal
(CXXVI
-
Le
voyage,
VII):
au
fond
de
VInconnu
pour
trouver
du
nouveau
(This
'cut' produces the chiasmus between the
autonomy
of form - of art -
and that of
theory
which
I
have
suggested
is
Adorno's
'project'.)
Most versions
of
postmodernism,
including
Jameson's,
boil
down
to
defining
t
s
modernism
without
the
dialectical
struggle
rom
out
of
which the
new
emerges
(either
'naturally',
as
in
progression,
or
in
a
quantum
leap
or
change
of
state).
Insofar
as
dialectics
is
also
a
theory
of
history,
in
postmodernism
we
have
instead the
undialectical
appearance
of
phenomena
all
at
once
-
everything
occupies
the
same
zone of
appearance
without
change
or transformation over time.4 This
leads,
in
Jameson's
'celebrated'
formulation,
to
a
kind of
historical
and
aesthetic
and
social
"schizophrenia"
(not
to
be
confused with
the
272
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clinical
meaning
of
the
term
he
keeps
telling
us;
but
how could
it
not?).
Postmodernism is
a
timeless
time,
or a
time where
everything
happens
and
appears
at
once
(as
it
supposedly
does for the schizo
phrenic): "Everything
has reached the
same
hour
on
the
great
clock of
development
or rationalisation (at least from the
perspective
of the
'West')". (Jameson,
310)
The
past
has been
absorbed
into the
present
and
no
longer
appears
as
'past',
and the future is
always already
here,
as
it
were.
Future shock
no
longer
rushes
over
the
present
from afar.
It
is
already
in
the
present,
always
part
of
it,
forming
a
invariable force
of
anxiety
and doubt. Time
comes
to
resemble
space,
and
space
be
comes
neutral,
global, rendering everything equivalent
and instanta
neously self-present.
This is the condition of 'late
capitalism',
and,
despite
protestations
to the contrary, art in
postmodernity
is bound to
reflect this. Its
defining
motif,
then,
is
pastiche,
which is
interpreted
to
mean
the simultaneous
presence
of
any
and all
art
forms
(whether
in
the
one
work
or
across
the
globe
at
any
given
moment).
Beckett's
anatomy
of theatrical
form, however,
and
to
keep
to
what
concerns us
in
this
essay,
is
by
no means
understandable
on
the
horizon
of
postmodern
exhaustion of
invention,
nor on
the
pastiche
model which follows
it,
as
a
donkey
supposedly
follows
a
carrot.
A
critical relation to past forms and the desire to
expand
them and in
deed
invent
new ones
is
very
different from the
sigh
of the
fatigued
in
the face
of
a
totally
reified world
(a
notion
that Jameson retains
while
calling
for
an
art
beyond
realism and
modernism).
If
we were
to
put
in
Adorno's
terms,
in
Beckett
we
indeed have
an
oblique
and sustained
response
to
reification
and the loss of
nature,
a
partial recognition
of
it
and
a
partial
negation
of
it in form. Indeed
Beckett's
work
may
take
us
all the
way
to
the
edge
of
this
world,
discarding
all the
weighing
stations for our concepts, interpretations and our hopes along theway,
but
it
is
not
an
ultimately
bereft
and
meaningless
gesture
of
hopeless
ness
in face of
it. For
example,
and
moving
beyond
Endgame,
we
could
say
that the
increasingly
minimalist
nature
of his
works
are
tes
tament
to
that
spirit
of
invention
which
goes
against
such
an
interpre
tation;
this is
the
same
aspect
which Adorno
recognises
as
Beckett's
unwavering
commitment
and
autonomy.
Such
minimalism
is
actually
an
amplification
f form nd
technique
into
film,
the
use
of
sound,
tape, other means of presentation, etc.), not the running down of a
creative
clock
-
of
either Beckett
himself
or
of
modernism.
The works
become
shorter,
stranger,
because there
is still
so
much
to
do,
so
much
273
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to
invent,
so
many
possibilities
to
explore.
It
is
not
resignation.
End
game
is
not
the
endgame,
it
is
just
the
beginning.
I
would
like
to
suggest
that
the
term
postmodern
has
gained
such
currency
not
because
it describes
a
new
period
which
had
been
lacking
a
name,
nor even
a
significant
shift
in
history
or
culture,
but
a
weariness
in
the
face
of the
kind of tasks Adorno
offers
us as
true art
and
true
thought:
to
think
the
complexity
of
our
times
without
reduc
ing
that
complexity;
to
realise
that
the relation between
art
and
politics
(and
hence
politics
and
desire,
art
and social
meaning,
and
so
on)
is
oblique
and
refractory.
Far
from
abandoning
modernism,
we
should
endeavour
to
continue
this
task
which
Adorno
finds
so
compelling
displayed
by
Endgame:
that of
a
disturbed,
fractured
but nonetheless
potent
autonomy
of
form.
Notes
Cf. Adorno
(1997, 27)
where he writes: "Beckett's refusal
to
in
terpret
his
works,
combined
with the
most
extreme
consciousness
of
techniques
and of the
implications
of the
theatrical
and
linguis
ticmaterial, is notmerely a subjective aversion: As reflection in
creases
in
scope
and
power,
content
itself becomes
ever more
opaque.
Certainly
this does
not
mean
that
interpretation
can
be
dispensed
with
as
if there
were
nothing
to
interpret;
to
remain
content
with
that
is
the
confused
claim
that all
the
talk about the
absurd
gave
rise
to".
The full
context
of
the
phrase
"liberated form" is
as
follows:
"The
liberation of
form,
which
genuinely
new
art
desires,
holds enci
phered
within itabove all the liberation of
society,
for form- the
social
nexus
of
everything particular
-
represents
the social rela
tion
in
the
artwork;
this is
why
liberated form is
anathema
to
the
status
quo".
This sentence
can
be
considered
to
encapsulate
much,
ifnot
all,
of
Adorno's Aesthetic
Theory.
The
English
translation of
this
sentence
leaves
out
"die
perma
nente
Katastrophe"
which
follows and
qualifies
the
phrase
"...
where there is nothing left that has not been made by human be
ings,
..."
It
is
important
to
retain this
qualification
for it
is
essen
tial for
Adorno's
argument
that
the
more
obvious
catastrophe
that
shadows the entire
play
-
some
"catastrophic
event"
which
is
274
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never
named
-
also
accompanied by
a more
general
catastrophe
which does
not
take
the form of
an
event
but is
a
general
attribute
or
condition
of
society
itself
("complete
reification").
4. Here, unfortunately, I have to leave aside Jameson's sustained
engagement
with
Adomo,
including
his remarks in
Late
Marxism
(Jameson 1990)
that
Adorno
not
only
has become
increasingly
relevant
to
the
'postmodern
period'
but
also
challenges
some
of
its
central features
-
precisely
on
the issue of dialectics
(242ff).
Suf
fice
to
say,
in his well-known work
on
postmodernism,
before and
after this
book,
Jameson
does
not
tend
to
elaborate
on
these
pro
ductive assertions.
Works
Cited
Adorno, Theodor,
Aesthetic
Theory,
trans.
Robert Hullot-Kentor
(London:
Athlone
P,
1997).
-,
"Trying
to
Understand
Endgame",
inNotes
To
Literature,
Vol.
2,
ed.
Rolf
Tiedemann,
trans.
Shierry
Weber Nicholsen
(New
York: Colum
bia
UP,
1992),
241-275.
-, "Versuch, das Endspiel zu verstehen", inNoten zur Literatur, Gasammelte
Schriften,
Bd.
II,
ed. Rolf Tiedemann
(Frankfurt
am
Main:
Suhrkamp,
1974),
281-321.
Beckett, Samuel,
Endgame
(London:
Faber,
1958).
Jameson,
Fredric,
Late Marxism:
Adorno,
or,
the
ersistence
of
the ialectic
(London:
Verso,
1990).
-,
Postmodernism,
or,
the Cultural
Logic of
Late
Capitalism
(London:
Verso,
1991)
Wolin,
Richard,
"Utopia,
Mimesis,
and
Reconciliation:
A
Redemptive
Cri
tique of Adorno's Aesthetic Theory," Representations 32
(Autumn, 1990),
33-49.
Zuidervaart,
Lambert,
Adorno's
Aesthetic
Theory:
The
Redemption
of
Illu
sion
(Cambridge,
Mass.:
MIT
P,
1991).
275