By Fabio Akcelrud Durão, State University of Campinas (Unicamp)

Adorno published Stichworte in 1969, the year of his death. The book appeared as number 347 of the series “suhkamp editions”, and in 1977 was issued, together with Eingriffe (1963), as volume 10.2 of his Gesammelte Schriften. The English translation, by Henry W. Pickford, appeared in 1998 by Columbia University Press as Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords.

The thirteen essays comprising Stichworte were composed for different occasions and bear the mark of their fortuitousness. As Rolf Tiedemann observes in the volume’s editorial afterword:

Adorno’s collections of essays were often the result of chance events, especially the publisher’s desire to obtain volumes for existing or planned book series; in addition, when it came to the inclusion or exclusion of individual texts, it was occasionally not the author but the publisher who had the last word. Nevertheless, Adorno always knew how to trick the external appearance of an occasion and to make what it demanded or pretended of him fruitful for his own intentions. [i]

The concept Adorno found to unite these otherwise unrelated essays is that of “critical models”, which was thus defined by Alex Demirovič in Modelle kritischer Gesellschaftstheorie (2003):

The model follows, to quote Jacques Derrida’s term, the logic of the supplement. Each model is like an extension of a theory that only unfolds within it, and which only achieves its prismatic diversity through ever new model analyses of particular experiences, conceptual constellations and contents. Thinking in models is itself an exercise in enlightened, emancipatory thinking, since it cannot rest content in having the ultimate concept that, like a key, opens the gate to the ultimate metaphysical secret, a concept to which the theory always reverts as a Logo. [ii]

Instead of subsuming example into thesis, of proceeding deductively from the general to the specific, or inductively from the individual case to the overarching rule or law, critical models respect the self-contained character of the object while endowing it with the potential for universality.

It is with this in mind that we can turn to the book’s subtitle and the idea of Stichworte, which is better translated as keywords or entries rather than catchwords [iii]. In fact, as we will see, Stichworte are the opposite of Schlagwörter [iv]. Adorno thus explains the title he chose to bring together this series of otherwise incidental texts:

The title Catchwords [Stichworte] alludes to the encyclopedic form that unsystematically, discontinuously, presents what the unity of experience crystalizes into a constellation. Thus the technique of a small volume with somewhat arbitrarily chosen catchwords [Stichworte] perhaps might make conceivable a new Dictionnaire philosophique. The association with polemics that the title conveys is a welcome one to the author. (p.126)

As a critical model, Stichworte are useful for a discussion of catchwords and catchphrases because they can be viewed as their exact opposite as far as their conceptual and discursive functions go. Adorno’s keywords and political catchwords thus form a binary opposition, in such a way that one term is capable of illuminating the other.

II

Not all widely repeated words and phrases become catchwords and catchphrases, though inversely the latter cannot emerge without insistent iteration. As opposed to normal lexicon items, catchwords and phrases have a plus, something extra, that triggers a process of recognition, which in turn may project in them an excess of meaning. In other words, catchwords and catchphrases signify more than their signifieds, because they are the result of a process of sedimentation of previous occurrences, which then act as a source of reference for new utterances. The meaning of political catchwords extrapolates the content of individual units incorporating in them a semantic inertia, as it were. The catchier the word or the phrase, the less will it signify in itself and the more it will rely on and point to this contextual sedimentation.

Needless to say, this mechanism works unconsciously, which does not prevent it from being manipulated. In authoritarian discourse, and here I draw on Jair Bolsonaro’s rhetoric, such a preexisting substratum can be so blurred, become so vague, that it verges on meaninglessness. In an extremely enlightening book by Rodrigo Nunes, Do transe à vertigem: Ensaios sobre bolsonarismo e um mundo em transição (São Paulo: Ubu, 2022), the three discursive matrixes of Bolsonarism are characterized thus:

There are those words which are restricted to a given group or class; those that are widely shared, but whose meanings remain constant independently of group or class; and those which are shared, but acquire different meanings depending on the position one occupies in the social structure. (p.29). [v]

A key factor for Bolsonarism’s success as a mass movement – and it is a popular, mass movement – lies in the flexibility of the third matrix. An innovative feature in Brazilian political rhetoric (at least as far as I can tell) lies in what can be characterized as a system of floating signifiers for a general structure of domination. Precisely because Bolsonarist discourse is so fuzzy and undefined in terms of its referent (the definition of terms used), and yet so clear in the gesture of separating friend and foe, “we” and “them”, that oppression acquires a kind of autonomy, a capacity to be transferred to different settings and contexts. In terms of its pragmatics, Bolsonarist catchwords and catchphrases work so as to allow individuals and groups to oppress those below them, as in a chain. A white male worker, while abused by his boss, may abuse a male black one, who can torment a female one, who can bully a native-Brazilian – ending with animals, who are on the bottom and can never retort. It is thus that in an authoritarian regime there is a democratization of oppression.

Nunes illustrates this semantic-pragmatic flexibility with the catchword “cidadão de bem” [upright citizen]:

Bolsonarism’s greatest feat was to manage that all these different elements – militarism, anti-intellectualism, entrepreneurism, anti-communism, economic libertarianism, anti-corruption discourse, social conservatism – converged around one single figure, the ‘cidadão de bem’. If there is an empty signifier representing the Bolsonarist base to itself, it is this. (p.37)

It is important to stress that this discursive freedom is supported by concrete political measures. When the Bolsonaro government approves 2,182 pesticides in 4 years [vi], when it weakens the policing powers of the Bureau of Ecological Control (IBAMA), pardons R$ 16 billion in ecological infringement fines [vii], or fosters economic deregulation, it is of course favoring specific interest groups supportive of the regime. But it is also, even if secondarily or indirectly, attacking the realm of legality as such (considered as a general principle for the public good) so that individuals are constrained from acting as they choose.

This is why Bolsonarism abhors human rights (the catchphrase here is “direitos humanos para humanos direitos” – human rights for upright humans). The government that most appeals to order, was the one that most went against it. (N.B. “Order” is a Bolsonarist catchword that together with “progress”, discussed below, figures in the Brazilian flag) When the sphere of abstract law and legality is weakened, and with it the principle of equality, prevailing relations of power at all levels tend to become naturalized and pass unquestioned.

Catchwords are precious instruments in this floating system of domination. I already quoted Nunes’s observations regarding the “cidadão de bem”; its opposite is “mamata” (scheme). If the former institutes the group, an “us”, which at bottom cannot be defined by substantive traits, but which performatively emerges together with its utterance, the latter presents the same logic when...

...it is a matter of identifying the enemy, being applicable to a range of thing from leniency with criminals to the exorbitant salaries of politicians and member of the Judiciary; from labor security in the public sector to sexual freedom and the challenging of traditional gender roles; from embezzlement of public money to policies of affirmative action at universities. (p.37)

All Bolsonarist catchwords and catchphrases work in this way (one more example is “Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos”). An interesting case is that of “isso aí” (all that), as in the sentence “vou acabar com isso aí” (I’m going to put an end to all that). It is not exactly a catchword though it shares its indeterminacy, and it became sufficiently notable to inspire a comic sketch by Porta dos Fundos title “Tudo isso que tá aí” (2018).

III

“Progress” is the third essay in Stichworte, consisting in 14 paragraphs with scrutinize the term from different angles in a succession of contradictions. The text’s opening words already set the tone:

For a theoretical account of the category progress it is necessary to scrutinize the category so closely that it loses its semblance of obviousness, both in its positive and its negative usage. And yet such proximity also makes the account more difficult. Even more than other concepts, the concept of progress dissolves upon attempts to specify its exact meaning. […] (p.143)

This is an argumentative gesture that takes the word from its ordinary circulation and introduces the work that is to follow. Here are some of the main features of progress as construed by Adorno.

It does not make sense from a partial perspective, one that focuses on separate social branches; it is only meaningful from the point of view of the social whole (“Everything within the whole progresses: only the whole itself to this day does not progress.” [p.149]). It is unintelligible if dissociated from the idea of humanity. In it one witnesses the tension between history and redemption; it is exhausted neither by sociology (empirical progress), nor by philosophy (the notion of progress). In Adorno’s words: “The fact that it can be reduced neither to facticity nor to the idea indicates its own contradiction.” (p.148) Progress partakes of the dialectic of enlightenment: domination of internal and external nature in order to avoid nature’s terror, reproducing such terror as second nature. Resistance to progress has its own dialectic in decadence, which tries to preserve happiness in the individual, but ends up “barter[ing] happiness away to the apparatus, the sworn enemy of happiness, whose only goal is the self-preservation, even where happiness is proclaimed to be the goal.” (p.151) Progress is imbricated in the dilemma of reason, in its internalization, in the contradiction of artistic practice, which can be said to progress only insofar as it dominates its materials, thus in a pact with universal domination. Progress cannot be dissociated from the dialectic of exchange, which inextricably unites equality and inequality:

Wherever bourgeois society satisfies the concept it cherishes as its own, it knows no progress; wherever it knows progress, it violates its own law in which this offense already lies, and by means of the inequality immortalizes the injustice progress is supposed to transcend. (p.159)

The most positive moment of Adorno’s essay is the end, when progress is deflated and ideally erased as such:

Progress is not a conclusive category. It wants to cut short the triumph of radical evil, not to triumph as such itself a situation is conceivable in which the category would lose its meaning, and yet is not the situation of universal regression that allies itself with progress today. In this case, progress would transform itself into the resistance to the perpetual danger of relapse. Progress is this resistance at all stages, not the surrender to their steady ascent. (p.160)

My intention in bringing up “Progress” is not to paraphrase or comment on the essay, or even explain its arguments; the text speaks for itself and any attempt to make it easier or more accessible would run against its thrust. The aim here is simply to show that, in sharp opposition to the lack of determination in Bolsonarist catchwords, the concept of “progress” is produced immanently. In other words, if “cidadão de bem” derives its meaning from the context in which it is uttered, Adorno’s “progress” produces the context that gives it meaning. This is why it is so uncatchy.

PS. “Progress” is a long-standing political catchword. It figures in the Brazilian flag’s avant-la-lettre slogan “Ordem e Progresso”, which is recuperated by Michel Temer’s government’s motto. Temer was Dilma Rousseff’s vice-president and chief planner of the parliamentary coup that overthrew her. The choice of his catchwords signals how Bolsonaro’s regime was but a continuation of his.

References

[i] Original text in German: Essaysammlungen verdankten sich nicht selten zufälligen Anlässen, vor allem dem Wunsch des Verlages, Bände für bestehenden oder einzurichtende Buchreihen zu gewinnen; auch sprach bei der Aufnahme oder dem Asuschluss einzelner Texte gelegentlich nicht der Autor sondern der Verlag das letzte Wort. Gleichwohl hat Adorno es stets verstanden, das Äusserliche eines Anlasses gleichsam zu hintergehen und, was dieser ihm abverlangte oder vorgab, für die eigenen Intentionen fruchtbar zu machen.” Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 10.2, p. 837.

[ii] Original text in German: “Das Modell folgt, nach einem Ausdruck Jacques Derridas, der Logik des Supplements. Jedes Modell ist wie die Ergänzung zu einer Theorie, die sich allein erst in ihm entfaltet, und die nur jeweils durch immer neue Modellanalysen je besonderer Erfahrungen, begrifflicher Konstellationen und Sachverhalte zu ihrer prismatischen Vielfalt gelangt. Das denken in Modellen ist demnach selbst schon eine Übung in aufgeklärtem, emanzipatorischem Denken, da es sich nicht darin beruhigen kann, über letzten Begriff zu verfügen, der wie ein Schlüssel das Tor zum letzten metaphysischen Geheimnis öffnet, ein Begriff, auf den die Theorie wie ein Logo immer wieder zusammenschnurrt.” Modelle kritischer Gesellschaftstheorie, p. 7.

[iii] One is entitled to wonder whether the existence of previous volumes with the title Keywords, as Raymond Williams’, might not have led to this editorial choice.

[iv] It is useful for our purposes here to highlight the difference involved in two plural possibilities of the German Wort: Worte implies that words are connected, whereas Wörte considers them as isolated units. The kernel of my argument is already here.

[v] Original text in Portuguese: “Há aquelas que são restritas a determinado grupo ou classe; aquelas que são amplamente compartilhadas, mas cujo significado permanece constante independentemente do grupo ou da classe; e aquelas que são compartilhadas, mas assumem significados diferentes dependendo da posição que se ocupa no interior da estrutura social.”

[vi] Bolsonaro releases 2,182 pesticides in 4 years, a record for the government since 2003 (4 Feb 2023, Globo) - Article written in Portuguese

[vii] Bolsonaro government acts to annul up to R$ 16 billion in environmental fines(29 Sep 2022, UOL) - Article written in Portuguese