{"id":138,"date":"2014-10-02T22:20:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T22:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobbr.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2022-03-13T10:42:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-13T10:42:29","slug":"an-adorno-letter-to-sohn-rethel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jacobbr.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"An Adorno letter to Sohn-Rethel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a little translation of a letter from Adorno to Sohn-Rethel (related to the letter from Horkheimer to Adorno<\/a> that I published here a few months back.) Again, I am putting up the German as well so if anyone has suggestions for corrections\/amendments please get in touch. The German is taken from Theodor W. Adorno und Alfred Sohn-Rethel Briefwechsel 1936-1969<\/em>, ed. Christophe G\u00f6dde, (M\u00fcnchen: Edition Text + Kritik, 1991).\u00a0As a stylistic note, one of the central sentences of the letter breaks into an extended parataxis, not unusual for Adorno’s style, which I have preserved in an equally broken English sentence structure. As a technical note, I have translated the word “Ersch\u00fctterung” as convulsion – the word has a rich philosophical history and plays an important role in Adorno’s writing, particularly in the late aesthetics, but also needs to be distinguished from the word “Schauer”, which is usually translated as “shudder”. I am not convinced that convulsion is quite the right translation, but the English “to shake” is too weak, while “to quake” today exists mainly in the ugly idiom of quaking in one’s boots. Suggestions for alternative translations would be appreciated. I’ll be trying to put up a critical essay\/close reading of this letter in the coming weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

——————-<\/p>\n

Merton College,
Oxford.<\/p>\n

17. November 1936.<\/p>\n

Dear Alfred, I do not believe I would be exaggerating if I said to you that your letter brought about in me the strongest spiritual convulsion that I have experienced in philosophy since my first encounter with the work of Benjamin – and that was in 1923! This convulsion registered the enormity and power of your conception – but it also registered the depth of an accordance, which went much further, incomparably so, than you could have suspected, or indeed I myself suspected. And only the consciousness of this accordance, of which you may have only observed traces in the concept of false synthesis in my work on jazz, but which is essentially in the critical-immanent transition (= dialectical identification) of idealism in dialectical materialism; in the cognition that it is not truth which is contained in history, but rather that history is contained in truth; and consists of an original history of logic in the essay – this immense and affirmative accordance is all that bars me from describing your work as ingenious – the anxiety that what I describe might in the end be my own. No words are needed to describe how after reading it I long to meet with you. Just as Leibniz must have felt when he heard of the Newtonian discovery [of calculus] and vice versa. Do not consider me crazy. I now certainly believe what I had for a long time assumed in my efforts: that the explosion of idealism will succeed not through the \u201cabstract\u201d antithesis with praxis (as was still the case in Marx) but from idealism\u2019s own antinomy. And that would be – but what that would that be, I would now rather not say. But I would like <\/em>to say – and after all of that this sounds comical – that I will do everything<\/em> in my powers for your work at the Institute!<\/p>\n

Please come if at all possible on Saturday<\/em>, around midday, and let me know the exact details soon<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In friendship,<\/p>\n

Teddie<\/p>\n

——————-<\/p>\n

Merton College,
Oxford.<\/p>\n

17. November, 1936.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lieber Alfred, ich glaube nicht zu \u00fcbertreiben, wenn ich Ihnen sage, da\u00df Ihr Brief die gr\u00f6\u00dfte geistige Ersch\u00fctterung bedeutete, die ich in Philosophie seit meiner ersten Begegnung mit Benjamins Arbeit – und die fiel ins Jahr 1923 – erfuhr. Diese Ersch\u00fctterung registriert die Gr\u00f6\u00dfe und Gewalt Ihrer Konzeption – sie registriert aber auch die Tiefe einer \u00dcbereinstimmung, die unvergleichlich viel weiter geht als Sie ahnen konnten und auch als ich selber ahnte. Und nur das Bewu\u00dftsein dieser \u00dcbereinstimmung, von der Sie Spuren im Begriff der falschen Synthesis in der Jazzarbeit m\u00f6gen bemerkt haben, die aber im wesentlichen in der kritisch-immanenten \u00dcberf\u00fchrung (= dialektischen Identifikation) des Idealismus in dialektischen Materialismus; in der Erkenntnis, da\u00df nicht Wahrheit in Geschichte, sondern Geschichte in Wahrheit enthalten ist; und im Versuch einer Urgeschichte der Logik besteht – nur diese ungeheure und best\u00e4tigende \u00dcbereinstimmung verhindert mich, Ihre Arbeit genial zu nennen – die Angst, es m\u00f6chte es dann am Ende auch die eigene sein! Wie ich danach unsere Begegnung herbeisehne, bedarf keines Wortes. So h\u00e4tte es Leibniz zumute sein m\u00fcssen, als er von der Newtonischen Entdeckung h\u00f6rte, und vice versa. Halten Sie mich nicht f\u00fcr wahnsinnig. Ich glaube nun gewi\u00df was ich schon lange von meinem Versuch annahm: da\u00df es uns konkret<\/em> gelingt den Idealismus zu sprengen: nicht durch die \u00bbabstrakte\u00ab Antithesis von Praxis (wie noch Marx) sondern aus der eigenen Antinomik des Idealismus. Und das w\u00e4re – aber was das w\u00e4re, das will ich nun lieber doch nicht sagen. Aber sagen m\u00f6chte\u00a0<\/em>ich, was danach l\u00e4cherlich<\/em> klingt – da\u00df ich beim Institut alles<\/em> f\u00fcr Ihre Arbeit tun werde was ich vermag!<\/p>\n

Bitte kommen Sie wenn irgend m\u00f6glich schon Samstag<\/em>, gegen Mittag, und geben Sie mir rasch<\/em> genauen Bescheid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Freundschaft Ihr,<\/p>\n

Teddie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a little translation of a letter from Adorno to Sohn-Rethel (related to the letter from Horkheimer to Adorno that I published here a few months back.) Again, I am putting up the German as well so if anyone has suggestions for corrections\/amendments please get in touch. The German is taken from Theodor W. Adorno […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_eb_attr":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translations"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"yoast_head":"\nAn Adorno letter to Sohn-Rethel - Jacob Bard-Rosenberg<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jacobbr.com\/?p=138\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Adorno letter to Sohn-Rethel - Jacob Bard-Rosenberg\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s a little translation of a letter from Adorno to Sohn-Rethel (related to the letter from Horkheimer to Adorno that I published here a few months back.) 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