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From: John Ransom <ransom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 00:54:39 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 21 May 1997, malgosia askanas wrote:
> The leap into praxis will not cure thought from resignation as
> long as it is paid for with the secret knowledge that this
> course is simply not the right one.
>
> What??? This from the guy who (I was told) said that artists should aspire
> to the impossible in order to create models for the possible? Does he
> think that resignation should be the permanent state of artists, or does
> he think that there is such a thing as "the right course" in pursuing
> "the impossible"?
>
> -m
>
There is a conditional phrasing in the quotation from Adorno above--at
least that's what it says in the English translation. We might think that
artists have a better shot at the impossible than political actors do. The
essay is A's response to the charge that the Frankfurt School had
shipwrecked on the Reef of Quietism, and thus is specifically addressed (I
think) to the political sphere.
--John