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Abstract |
The jargon of authenticity is a social disease and Adorno has set out to exterminate it. “Authenticity,” a characteristic term in the jargon which Heidegger shared with many politicians, theologians and conservative ideologues, abstracts from the social causes of discontent by giving contemporary feelings of meaninglessness an ahistorical formulation. Heidegger's writings, which try to conceal their promiscuous relation to reactionary, “merely ontical” forces, are infected with the ideological thrust of a vocabulary that thrives on ambiguity. Heidegger shirks responsibility for the claim inherent in the word “authenticity” to be presenting a positive doctrine of the good life when he insists that he is using the word as a value-free technical term, even while exploiting its fascination. That the alleged meaninglessness of life invalidates all principles of how to live serves in effect only to attract people to a certain way of life. Adorno's book analyzes this process whereby the concepts of the jargon manage to give the pretense of dealing radically with the crucial issues of life, society and philosophy, while they merely substitute the aura of connotation-laden words for the required content. Their false appearance has, according to Adorno, led to the surprising appeal of Heidegger's Being and Time and of the existentialism which it encouraged. |
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