A correspondent from the Netherlands sends this passage from Theodor W. Adorno's Minima Moralia: Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben. It is from the short essay, "Herr Doktor, das ist schön von Euch."
Noch der Baum, der blüht, lügt in dem Augenblick, in welchem man sein Blühen ohne den Schatten des Entsetzens wahrnimmt; noch das unschuldige Wie schön wird zur Ausrede für die Schmach des Daseins, das anders ist, und es ist keine Schönheit und kein Trost mehr außer in dem Blick, der aufs Grauen geht, ihm standhält und im ungemilderten Bewußtsein der Negativität die Möglichkeit des Besseren festhält.
Here is the essay in toto in Dennis Redmond's translation. The italicized portion is the translation of the above German. I have interrupted the flow of the text with some comments of my own. I want to use this text to convey to you something of the mentality and sensibility of an extremely erudite and sophisticated leftist and of leftists in general. It helps to bear in mind that Minima Moralia was published in 1951.
Doctor, that is kind of you. – Nothing is harmless anymore. The small joys, the expressions of life, which seemed to be exempt from the responsibility of thought, not only have a moment of defiant silliness, of the cold-hearted turning of a blind eye, but immediately enter the service of their most extreme opposite. Even the tree which blooms, lies, the moment that one perceives its bloom without the shadow of horror; even the innocent “How beautiful” becomes an excuse for the ignominy of existence, which is otherwise, and there is no longer any beauty or any consolation, except in the gaze which goes straight to the horror, withstands it, and in the undiminished consciousness of negativity, holds fast to the possibility of that which is better. Mistrust is advisable towards everything which is unselfconscious, casual, towards everything which involves letting go, implying indulgence towards the supremacy of the existent [Existierende].
After Auschwitz, nothing that exists can be simply enjoyed with a good conscience, not even a tree in bloom. Everything lies under a shadow of horror. Adorno intends this in a quite radical sense: after Auschwitz, the very Being (Sein) of beings (des Seienden) can no longer be credited with an affirmative character as metaphysicians traditionally have done from Plato and Aristotle on: nothing any longer has "a positive meaning or purpose." (Cf. Adorno, Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems, Polity Press 2000, p. 101.) For the medievals, for example, ens, verum, bonum were convertible notions: ens et bonum convertuntur. In other words, every being qua being is good. Beings are good just insofar as they are. To exist is good. Evil is privatio boni. But after Auschwitz, Adorno opines, no one can take this seriously. Indeed, anyone who does and adheres to "old-style metaphysics" is "inhuman." "To assert that existence or being has a positive meaning constituted within itself and orientated towards the divine principle . . . would be, like all the principles of truth, beauty and goodness which philosophers have concocted, a pure mockery in face of the the victims and the infinitude of their torment." (101-102)
There is a strange historicism at work here: the very structure of Being has suffered an alteration due to an historical event. How is such a thing possible? The structure of Being is arguably invariant. So either it was either always the case that Being had a positive meaning, despite horrendous events (which did not first surface during the 20th century) or it was always the case that being lacked a positive meaning. Adorno needs to explain how the structure of Being itself can suffer historical alteration. The mere fact that people like him can no longer believe something does not make what he no longer can believe false. Shades of what I earlier satirized as the Continental Shuffle, the confusion of the epistemic/doxastic with the ontic.
But let's proceed with Adorno's text:
The malign deeper meaning of comfort, which at one time was limited to the toasts of cozy sociability, has long since spread to friendlier impulses. When in the chance conversation with a man on the train, one acquiesces, in order to avoid a quarrel, to a couple of sentences which one knows ultimately certify murder, [it] is already an act of treachery; no thought is immune against its communication, and uttering it at the wrong place and in the context of a false agreement is enough to undercut its truth. Every visit to the cinema, despite the utmost watchfulness, leaves me dumber and worse than before. Sociability itself is a participant in injustice, insofar as it pretends we can still talk with each other in a frozen world, and the flippant, chummy word contributes to the perpetuation of silence, insofar as the concessions to those being addressed debase the latter once more as speakers. The evil principle which has always lurked in affability develops, in the egalitarian Spirit [Geist], into its full bestiality. Condescension and making oneself out as no better are the same. By adapting to the weaknesses of the oppressed, one confirms in such weaknesses the prerequisite of domination, and develops in oneself the measure of barbarity, thickheadedness and capacity to inflict violence required to exercise domination. If, in the latest era, the gesture of condescension is dispensed with, and solely adaptation becomes visible, then it is precisely in such a perfect screening of power that the class-relationship, however denied, breaks through all the more irreconcilably. For intellectuals, unswerving isolation is the only form in which they can vouchsafe a measure of solidarity. All of the playing along, all of the humanity of interaction and participation is the mere mask of the tacit acceptance of inhumanity. One should be united with the suffering of human beings: the smallest step to their joys is one towards the hardening of suffering.
Note the exaggeration and the universal quantifiers: "no thought," "every visit," "always lurked," "only form," "all of the playing along," "all of the humanity," "the smallest step." This is typically Continental excess.
But more importantly, there is the stock leftist attitude that what actually exists and provably works is valueless, oppressive, rotten to the core, ignominious, treacherous, something sinister despite its deceptive appearance, false, phony, a mask of hidden interests, 'ideological,' in no sense or aspect worthy of preservation or loyalty or respect or reverence — but exists only to be transcended, aufgehoben, smashed to pieces, 'liberated.'
But for what? For some utopian state that people like Adorno never manage to articulate. This inability to articulate is of course installed as the very essence of the emancipatory, and so a virtue is made of impotence.
I would also draw your attention to the quasi-religious totalitarian character of this sort of atttitude. Nothing can be enjoyed with a good conscience, everything is to be totally rejected, because everything is a 'moment' — that's Hegelian jargon — of the same rotten whole. Nothing escapes this totalitarian negative dialectic in which everything is internally related to everything else.