‘Minima Moralia’ took some time and effort to read. It deserves four stars for content but I’m giving it three for my own inadequacy. There were quite a few sentences (especially those involving Nietzsche) that took me four readings to parse, let alone comprehend. To be honest, I can only claim to have understood about a fifth of the book. My grounding in philosophy is weak and patchy; I’ve never actually studied it. However, the fifth that I did understand I greatly appreciated. Notably, many insights seemed strangely contemporary. The book was first published in 1951 and was largely written during the Second World War. It is structured in many short chapters, each making a particular point. Although some overarching themes could be discerned, I did not detect a singular linking narrative or message that ran through the whole thing.

The parts of the book that will stay with me concerned gender politics, an apparent indictment of hipsters, and the corrosive influence of mass production capitalism, which equates exchange value with any value at all. The latter point is made in many different ways, each with a differing emphasis. My favourite example of the former is chapter 24, titled ‘Tough Baby’ and deserves an extended quote:

’There is a certain gesture of virility, be it one’s own or someone else’s, that calls for suspicion. [...] It’s archetype is the handsome, dinner-jacketed figure returning late to his bachelor flat, switching on the indirect lighting and mixing himself a whisky and soda: the carefully recorded hissing of the mineral water says what the arrogant mouth keeps to itself: that he despises anything that does not smell of smoke, leather and shaving cream, particularly women, which is why they, precisely, find him irresistible. [...] The pleasures of such men, or rather of their models, which are seldom equalled in reality, for people are even now better than their culture, all have about them a latent violence. [...] It is in fact violence against himself.’

Suck on that, Hemingway. Even now the tedious macho archetype pervades popular culture. I can’t locate the indictment of hipsters right now, but was amused that included a comment about people who wear clear-glass spectacles in order to appear more intellectual. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. More seriously, Adorno says some very interesting things about the role of intellectuals in society, the toxicity of fascism, and the psychological implications of mass consumption. Just don’t ask me to explain them all. My favourite chapter, though, was number 106 ‘All the Little Flowers’. This cautioned against treating memories as inviolable artefacts from the past, as they are modified and mediated by the present. Adorno explained this with especial elegance. ( )

I'm not going to say I understood all of this, because I didn't, but if that Philosophy 101 class I took freshman year started with this instead of this instead of some stuff about whether or not deities exist, I might not have dropped it. This book is weirdly delightful and beautifully written. It's not positive, fluffy, transcend everything kind of philosophy writing AT ALL, but when tearing apart the negative sides of, well, everything, you really get to see the good stuff out there. There's some kind of relief after all the negativity.

That's my takeaway from this book. Don't float above everything like some enlightened master. Get down in it. Punch it in the face. Stare into the abyss. Tear the shoulds and falseness off of modern culture, then roll around in the rest. Just me?
( )

This book read more as a list of densely rendered pessimistic thoughts by a very cynical person than anything else. Clearly, Theodor was not a happy camper living in exile after WWII. ( )

A languorous howl of despair and anger - but who would not feel these things in the ashes of Germany 1945?

I was surprised by how fierce Adorno can be - I've heard horror stories of his impenetrable style. Here, I was surprised, both at the crispness of his style, and the depth of his cultural references. If anyone wants to start with him, here's a place to do so. His barbed aphorisms will remain with you, vicious and snarling, a rabid dog tearing into your leg.

This book offers a damning critique of all of society, from fascism to door handles - although, at times it feels like the ramblings of a grumpy old man, who offers not even the hint of a solution, and despairs that all is lost. The theory and practice of despair. Not for everyone. ( )

Adorno somehow convinces me that it's possible-- and worth it-- to go on, in spite of it all. ( )