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| Theodor Adorno |
I can't believe it's been over a year since I've posted on here! Anyway I was reading Theodor Adorno's
Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life for one of my classes, which is insightful and at times frustrating, but a really fun read (I'm aware there's a lot of irony involved in calling Adorno "fun" in any way). I stumbled upon the following quote, which seems appropriate in light of recent incidents of police brutality:
"The mindless tasks imposed by authoritarian culture on the subject classes can be performed only at the cost of permanent regression...The barbarians engendered by culture have, however, always been used by it to keep alive its own barbaric nature. Domination delegates the physical violence on which it rests to the dominated. In being allowed the satisfaction of exercising their distorted instincts in collectively approved and proper ways, they learn to do those things which the noble need for the continued indulgence of their nobility. The self-education of the ruling clique, with all its concomitant discipline, stifling of spontaneous impulses, cynical scepticism and blind lust to command, would not be possible if the oppressors did not themselves submit, through hirelings among the oppressed, to a part of the oppression they inflict on others. . . Domination is propagated by the dominated." (117, "Il servo padrone.")
