Concepts as mini-institutions that vouch for both stability and revolution: in his farewell lecture in Frankfurt, philosopher Christoph Menke gives a taste of the art of turning concepts against themselves.
By Christian Geyer
In a television program broadcast by Westdeutscher Rundfunk in 1967, Theodor W. Adorno and Arnold Gehlen engaged in what was billed as a “sociological debate” on the subject of “Freedom and Institution”. The Frankfurt philosopher and director of the Institute for Social Research had already met the professor of philosophy, who taught at the TH Aachen, on several occasions in this broadcast format. The institutional dispute was not only highly political due to the fundamental upheaval of the times, but it was also an example of dialectics, complexity and enigma, three modes of the non-linear to which Adorno and Gehlen often explicitly referred in their conversation.
Even if each of the two discussants naturally set their own accents, it is not dissent but consensus that forms the style. The phrase “I concede that to you” is heard from both sides on several occasions, and they only allow themselves to oppose each other with a degree of linguistic subtlety that lacks all harshness. There is no harshness. For example, when it comes to the question of whether institutional guidelines seem alien to the human consciousness, something that is basically not appropriate. This should not be assumed “without further ado”, Gehlen objected. Adorno was quick to reply: “Not without further ado, but with further ado”. Unmoved distinction dominates the expressions of both, Adorno perfectly formed to the point of mannerism, Gehlen occasionally appearing somewhat deranged with restrained impulsiveness.
Pleasure in subjective settings
Both see the institutional, each with a different emphasis, as a fundamental condition for the possibility of freedom. Neither Gehlen nor Adorno see maturity as an a priori counter-concept to the institution, but rather outline a field of tension between “relief” and “oppression”, in which the individual mediates with the institution, however differently this may succeed depending on the type of person and institution.
When the philosopher Christoph Menke, a pioneering thinker in the third generation of the Frankfurt School, gave his farewell lecture last week under the heading “Apology of the Institution”, he referred to the early television conversation between Adorno and Gehlen. First of all: Menke would have been the ideal third man in the 1967 dispute if there were a time machine that would make this practically possible. For him, enigmatism is synonymous with thinking in general, as can be seen most recently in his “Theory of Liberation” (2022), a book that does not allow itself to present a thought until it has been thought through in all its relevant ramifications and is then expressed in writing.
Am I watching the wrong movie?
The desire for subjective, non-linearly derived settings, paired with an ironic counter-brushing, undermining of well-rehearsed, possibly over-academicized concepts, also stands for Menke’s way of thinking and writing, for his linguistic awareness of form, which understands concepts as mini-institutions that should be defended “not in the name of stability, but in the name of history, politics, change, revolution”, to take up a phrase Menke coined for institutions in general from his farewell lecture. What Menke stated against populist attacks therefore applies here in a double sense: Institutions are more than shells.
But how does someone with a background (Menke) then come to assume that two other people with a background (Adorno and Gehlen) are simply opposed to each other, even if only for the time being? Menke takes “Adorno’s harsh rejection of Gehlen’s celebration of subordination and classification” from the program available on YouTube; according to Gehlen, freedom in institutions is “made possible in a limiting way”, according to Adorno it is “destroyed in a repressive way”. But that’s not true at all, you might say. It’s all much more profound, more complex, more dialectical in both of them! Am I watching the wrong movie? Go on, go on, read on: Menke himself formulates what Adorno and Gehlen agree on, as evidenced by their conversation, but he formulates it against them, starting from the false premise of their simple opposition – as if they first had to be taught about their consensus in an imaginary time machine.
According to Menke, freedom and institution are “in a more complex relationship than either authoritarian relief or suppression of freedom”. Yes, indeed! Was this not precisely the statement that Adorno and Gehlen emphasized in their mission, not without further ado, but with further ado? What did the prudent Menke let slip in which of his backgrounds? Yes, the picture quality of the program was poor, but the sound was flawless. A hyperdialectical conceptual revolution at the end, the background of which cannot be clarified? Was this a sample of the art of turning concepts against themselves? Well, perhaps less profundity is sometimes simply more.
By Christian Geyer from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 18, 2025 © All rights reserved. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH, Frankfurt. Provided by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Archive