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Reading this for class

I am still re-reading it, obsessing over paragraphs, taking notes and drawing diagrams, etc. Haven't worked this closely with an entire book before. Told myself I would wait until I have gained "enough understanding" of the text before I write a review, but I realize now that's not a smart goal to set. So here's a few sentences. This is a very dense text. You can read it multiple times and unlock new layers of meaning each time. Sometimes a little Nebensatz will contain multitudes. There's little dialectical movements to be found all over and it's always fun to spot them. The prose is beautiful and precise. I can't explain my current obsession with this book (and with Teddie in general) but it is what it is.

I didn't understand everything but I finished this book with a better understanding of the definitions of ideology, the history of the term and idea, and some specific things like the positivism dispute, than I had started it. So, full success. Will definitely revisit parts of it when needed, no need to ever re-read it back to back.

Interesting read, prose ok. One extremely funny recurring theme is how no one likes Adorno and how he calls everyone a fascist. I especially like the chapter where the author compares the theory of antisemitism in Dialectic of Enlightenment with Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism, shows the similarities and where they diverge. Made me want to read both of these works.

I don't have a lot to say about this book? I had a good time and learned a lot. It's interesting how similar in concept and in title it is to the "Existentialist Café" that I read just a few months ago. In comparison, this one is less entertaining, a bit more serious, and way less opinionated (author invisible). I like them both.

I guess the typical thing to focus on, and the reason why this lecture got made into a book half a century after it was held, would be how uncannily Adorno predicted certain developments, how prescient his analysis was, etc. I don't even want to argue against this reading, I just think it would be boring of me to point out the same things. It's partly true that Adorno makes some prescient points, and partly true that it's easy to make anything sound prescient in retrospect, that's why horoscopes are so popular. It's a good little text, Adorno's transcribed spoken word is easier to understand than his written works. It offers aspects of a theory of fascism, listing propaganda tactics. It's not groundbreaking but it's nice.