The dialectics of modernity and tradition: Eliot and Adorno on individualism and the differentiation of spheres

Abstract EN

Modernity comes as a revolution against tradition in order to establish knowledge on a rational ground and set the individual free from its authority.

nevertheless, there is a strong anti-modern return to tradition among many modernist thinkers and writers.

both T.

S.

Eliot and Theodor W.

Adorno formulate the relation between modernity and tradition in dialectical terms.

this article argues that Eliot, on the one hand, forms the relation in a positive dialectical way to contain modernity through return to tradition.

this imposes its parameters on modern rationality and recreates the same kind of hegemonic society against which modernity revolts.

Adorno, on the other hand, analyzes the negative dialectical reversion of modern rationalism against itself and its liberatory potential which subjects all fields, including tradition, to its domination.

rather than imposing one on the other, this study proposes an unreconciled, non-coercive form of coexistence in a pluralistic culture in order to move beyond this impasse.

instead of subjecting one to the other, each may provide a critical perspective on the other.