Reason and horror : critical theory, democracy, and aesthetic individuality

BOOK COVER HALF-TITLE TITLE COPYRIGHT DEDICATION CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ONE INTRODUCTION: REASON AND HORROR INDIVIDUALITY BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST Formal and Aesthetic Reason Aesthetic Reason, Aesthetic Individuality, Aesthetic Sensibility Reading Dialectic of Enlightenment Aesthetic Individuality and the Aesthetics of Tragedy From a Genealogy of Reason to Aesthetic Theory SURFACES Individuality as an Aesthetic Problem Adorno: A Sensibility to Violence, Creativity without Form—Nietzsche: Creativity with Form, without a Sensibility to Violence Whitman: The Aesthetic Problem from the Point of View of the Artist (the Creator) Aesthetic Individuality in Democratic America INDIVIDUALITY AFTER THE HOLOCAUST TWO REASON AS A “MURDEROUS PRINCIPLE” DIFFERENCE AND THE BIRTH OF THINKING DIFFERENCE AND MAGICAL THINKING DIFFERENCE AND MYTHICAL THINKING DIFFERENCE AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF MODERN TIMES THREE DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT AS A GENEALOGY OF REASON RHETORICAL OVERLAY VERSUS LINEAR HISTORICAL NARRATIVE INDIVIDUALS IN POSSESSION OF OURSELVES A Conflict of the Faculties, Its Hierarchical Resolution, and Identity as Self-Contradiction Self-Identity and the Triumph of Formal Reason An Ideal Form of Aesthetic Individuality Methodological Reflections on the Possibility of Aesthetic Individuality Modern Subjectivity and Artless Thinking Aesthetic Individuality as Art “THE TERRIBLE BASIC TEXT HOMO NATURA…THE ETERNAL BASIC TEXT HOMO NATURA” The Task of Translation Equivalence Sublation Forgetting and the Rise of Enlightenment as a System of Domination The Autonomy of Formal Reason and Social Order Genealogy, the Universalization of Formal Reason, and Private Property Capitalism and Violence to Difference FOUR AESTHETIC INDIVIDUALITY BY ANALOGY: DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF TRAGEDY “SPREAD OVER POSTERITY LIKE A SHADOW THAT KEEPS GROWING IN THE EVENING SUN” The Birth of Tragedy and the Concept of Aesthetic Individuality Analogy from the Apollinian and the Dionysian: Art Deities and Forms of Thought Analogy from the Greek Dionysian Festival: Aesthetic Form and Forms of Thought Analogy from Attic Tragedy: The Ideal of Aesthetic Individuality Analogy from “Aesthetic Socratism:” Socratic Reason and Enlightenment as “Murderous Principles” RECONCILIATION AND THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN KANT AND HEGEL, OR HEGEL WITHOUT THE ABSOLUTE, KANT WITHOUT… AESTHETIC INDIVIDUALITY AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWS FIVE RECOVERING AESTHETIC INDIVIDUALITY FROM ART: AESTHETIC REASON IN ADORNO’S AESTHETIC THEORY THE AESTHETICS OF DARKNESS Beauty and the Unknown Trace and the Unknown Rationality, Mimesis, and the Unknown Spirit and the Unknown Expression and the Unknown REASON AND DARKNESS NO TRESPASSING THE GREAT DIVIDE “A MUSIC WHOSE SOUL KNOWS HOW TO ROAM AND BE AT HOME AMONG GREAT BEAUTIFUL SOLITARY BEASTS OF PREY” NIETZSCHE’S DREAM, ADORNO’S NIGHTMARE THE MARRIAGE OF LIGHT AND DARK SIX AN ETHIC OF APPEARANCES UP FROM THE DEPTHS, ONTO THE SURFACES OF THE WORLD NIETZSCHE’S PURE SURFACES THE CREATIVE WILL AND ITS DESTRUCTION OF DEPTH INTO THE UNKNOWN Nonidentity and the Unknown Perspectivism and the Unknown God and the Unknown AN ETHIC OF APPEARANCES Mystery, Wonder, and Delight in Appearances Appearance and Difference The Sufficiency, Equality, and Uniqueness of Appearances An Intimacy with Appearances SEVEN INDIVIDUALITY AS A POETIC FORM OF LIFE A POETIC FORM OF LIFE EVERY EXISTENCE HAS ITS IDIOM The Distant Brought Near REPRESENTING A WORLD Representing Surfaces Descriptively Representing Surfaces Metaphorically PRESENTING A WORLD Forcing Surfaces and Depths Attachment and Self-Creativity Discontinuity A Constitutive Interest in Difference The Aesthetic Value of Surfaces and Nietzsche’s Marriage of Light and Dark EIGHTH DEMOCRACY AS AN AESTHETIC FORM OF LIFE TECHNOLOGY, MODERNITY, AND DIFFERENCE DEMOCRACY, MODERNITY, AND DIFFERENCE DEMOCRACY, DIFFERENCE, AND POETRY DEMOCRACY AND AESTHETIC EDUCATION DEMOCRATIC TIME, DEMOCRATIC SPACE NINE AESTHETIC INDIVIDUALITY AS A DEMOCRATIC ACHIEVEMENT TOCQUEVILLE’S AESTHETIC SENSIBILITY TOCQUEVILLE’S BLINDNESS TO DEMOCRATIC DIFFERENCE The Large Differences of Aristocratic Societies The Small Differences of Democratic Society THE AESTHETICS OF SMALL DIFFERENCES Democracy’s Mimetic Dimension—Self-Creativity and Aesthetic Presentation as Imitation, or Individuality From the Point of View of the Artist (the Creator) Representing Difference: A Sensibility to Violence in the Aesthetics of Individuality Individuality’s Orientation to the Surfaces of Small Differences Individuality’s All-Inclusive Orientation to Small Differences Individuality’s Orientation to the Equality, Sufficiency, and Uniqueness of Small Differences Individuality’s Receptivity to Small Differences Attachment and Intimacy Individuality’s Indifference to Difference in Its Depths, the Unknown, and the Indeterminacy of Surfaces The Logic of Identity “as” Difference AESTHETIC INDIVIDUALITY AS A DEMOCRATIC ACHIEVEMENT TEN CONCLUSION: INDIVIDUALITY AFTER THE HOLOCAUST A MORALLY DISTINCTIVE DEMOCRATIC INDIVIDUALITY THE MORAL AND THE AESTHETIC NOTES INDEX What is it that makes humankind capable of genocide? What can we do to create a world without large-scale crimes against humanity? In Reason and Horror, Morton Schoolman labors to find an antidote to the relentlessly destructive and seemingly irreversible path of violence on which the history of enlightenment placed modernity. Offering a fascinating new interpretation of Horkheimer and Adorno's monumental study, Dialectic of Enlightenment, their classic written during the Holocaust, Schoolman reconstructs their arguments about individuality before the Holocaust, and then develops their ideas through the great works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Walt Whitman, and Alexis de Tocqueville. Schoolman shows that it is democracy that fosters the aesthetic qualities Horkheimer and Adorno believed necessary to oppose the enlightenment rationality responsible for genocide. Schoolman's stunning and controversial solution for avoiding crimes against humanity is that nations must foster a democratic way of life, because the aesthetic form of individuality able to stem the violence of genocidal extermination can flourish only under democracy.