More than anything, Said's work can, and ought to be, described as anti-authoritarian, that is to say, he remained skeptical of all kinds of authority, even the authority of other thinkers whom he admired.
In fact, the key to understanding Said and his use of theory and philosophy is ultimately not found only in drawing out his affiliations with past thinkers but in recognizing his hostility to any kind of slavish obedience, even to past masters. (2) While the sources and influences are unmistakable, it is important to underline, nonetheless, how the work remains always and altogether Said's own. (1) The list is long and distinguished, and it indicates Said's particular intellectual genealogy, one that largely combines a critical Marxist Humanism (found, say, in the work of Raymond Williams) with his own notion of worldliness, allowing Said to extend the reach of Marxist theory into the realm of imperialism and its culture. Throughout his work, Said freely names the philosophers, writers, and critics from whom he borrows certain ideas and concepts, and he then openly animates, assimilates, and-to use his word-affiliates himself to them in his own inimitable fashion. Said believed that true reconciliation-unlike that of the Oslo Accords-could only occur through the type of autonomous thought championed by Adorno, where intellectual autonomy refuses to trade away justice, equality, and human rights for false hope.Įven occasional readers of Edward Said's impressive and substantial oeuvre will recognize that he never suffered from a Bloomian anxiety of influence. While it is true that he is drawn to Adorno for his music criticism and his own reflections on exile, Said also finds much common ground with Adorno's warnings against instrumental reason and his prescription that philosophy must retain its autonomy in the world to remain committed to human rescue. It argues that Said's growing interest in Adorno derives substantially from his own political activism, particularly his principled opposition to the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Never use two note numbers at the end of a sentence.This article assesses the increasing importance of Theodor Adorno's writings on the work of Edward Said.
0 kommentar(er)
