Archive of Minima Moralia

An interview with director of the Institute for Social Research, Stephan Lessenich, about the tradition and future of a critical theory of society.

Books that deal with the rise of fascism around the world, and how to defend ourselves against it.

No work of art, no thought, has a chance of survival, unless it bear within it repudiation of false riches and high-class production.

When we are hoping for rescue, a voice tells us that hope is in vain, yet it is powerless hope alone that allows us to draw a single breath.

The logic of the day, which makes so much of its clarity, has naively adopted this perverted notion of everyday speech. Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.

In a real sense, I ought to be able to deduce Fascism from the memories of my childhood. Now that they, officials and re­cruits, have stepped visibly out of my dream and dispossessed me of my past life and my language, I no longer need to dream of them. In Fascism the nightmare of childhood has come true.

To find out whether a person means us well there is one almost infallible criterion: how he passes on unkind or hostile remarks about us.

"In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so."

The most powerful person is he who is able to do least himself and burden others most with the things for which he lends his name and pockets the credit.

Solidarity was once intended to make the talk of brotherhood real, by lifting it out of generality, where it was an ideology, and reserving it for the particular, the Party, as the sole representative in an antagonistic world of generality.