Precarious Happiness

More than fifty years after his death, Theodor W. Adorno has not ceased to arouse great controversy. Many see him as a thinker of uncompromising negativity and gnostic darkness, whose critical perspective verges on totalising despair. In the public imagination, some of his more famous statements, such as »There is no right life in the wrong one« have hardened almost to the point of cliché.

Historian and philosopher Peter E. Gordon vehemently challenges this image. Adorno, he argues, must be understood not in purely negative terms but as a theorist whose practice of critique is oriented towards an unrealised norm of human flourishing – of precarious happiness in a radically imperfect world. Gordon identifies this norm as the unifying theme for all of Adorno’s work, from his sociological writings to his moral philosophy, from his metaphysics to his aesthetics and musicological criticism. Precarious Happiness casts Adorno’s legacy in a fascinating and unfamiliar light, revealing it as an indispensable resource for critical theory today.

»Peter Gordon’s confidently gripping and at the same time persistently subtle interpretation brings a new tone to the debate about Adorno’s negativism. Engaging with Adorno's lectures, Gordon shows how the negative dialectic, though eluding direct access to statements about the ›good life,‹ means to spell out the contours of a ›right‹ life. Within the enchanted bounds of a distorted whole, Adorno searches for traces of a failed happiness..From the despairing criticism of the world’s hopeless condition, the Hegelian nonetheless discerns a transcending impulse of hope that points far beyond the Kantian encouragement to use our rational freedom.« Jürgen Habermas

»Written in a captivating style, Gordon carefully analyzes the whole range of Adorno's writings to demonstrate that the philosopher grounds his critique of contemporary societies in an idea of human flourishing that he takes as being accessible only in small, easily overlooked fragments within our damaged form of life. By this, Gordon manages something at which almost everone else has failed so far: to give a coherent picture of the scattered pieces of Adorno's idea of morality.« Axel Honneth

»The latest book by American historian of ideas Peter E. Gordon deserves our attention. … [He] writes in an understandable fashion, and it is fascinating to watch how he allows an Adorno to speak that does not get bogged down in pessimism.« Stefan Müller-Doohm, Neue Zürcher Zeitung