Loyalty to childhood and the vicious circle of angry citizens

It was 1966 when the German sociologist Theodor W. Adorno addressed all teachers in the country on the radio:

«The demand that Auschwitz not be repeated is the very first educational demand. [...] The fact that the demand raises questions [...] shows that the monstrosity has not penetrated people, [...] that the possibility of repetition still exists.»

This is how the famous «Education after Auschwitz» lecture began, in which Adorno spoke to the conscience of an entire generation of teachers that the primary goal of all education must be to never let something like the Holocaust happen again.

Only those who can reflect on their own actions develop the strength to lead a self-determined life.

Adorno

And the fact that he has to justify why this should be important at all is an expression of precisely the kind of thinking that needs to be prevented. It is a short text.

I began to read. As we all know, it's easier to slam a revolving door than to read Adorno. But this text is worthwhile. At its core, there are two aspects that are important for «education after Auschwitz»: Autonomy and empathy.

I didn't know him. My wife brought him to my attention. In view of the return to nationalism that can be observed in many places, in view of the increase in reactionary ways of thinking, in view of Brexit and Orban and Trump, perhaps we should not only study Remo Largo when it comes to education, she said, but also Adorno.

How do we prevent the cold from getting hold of us?

Adorno understands autonomy as the ability to reflect and self-determine. Only those who can reflect on their own actions develop the strength to «not participate» in a self-determined way. By empathy, on the other hand, he means the ability to sympathise and suffer with other people. As Adorno explains, the murderers in Auschwitz were incapable of saying «no» and were characterised by a fundamental lack of empathy, an emotional coldness.

This coldness is the result of an early childhood experience and a social order that «produces and reproduces coldness». So when we ask how we can prevent Auschwitz, we are actually asking: How do we prevent this coldness from affecting our children - and ultimately ourselves?

As Adorno explains, you cannot educate the cold away. But you can try to protect yourself a little from it by «remaining faithful to childhood». It's a strange way of putting it.

Resignation and a lack of utopian ability result in indifference, hardness and even coldness towards ourselves and others.

Adorno

In another speech to students of education, Adorno explains it as follows: "By loyalty to childhood, I mean that you [meaning the students] must not allow the dream of complete happiness to wither away for yourselves and for everyone [...]. The concept of man himself clings to the idea of what is more than people and their existence today, and what must ultimately be realised, to utopia.

I don't want to encourage you to rave about it [...], but that imponderable subtle feeling that what is is not the whole truth, that it could and should be completely different, must accompany every realisation of what is; otherwise it is not a realisation, but the dull repetition of mere existence."

We must not rob our children of what they have ahead of us

Don't be discouraged by the complicated sentence structure and somewhat idiosyncratic grammar; it's worth reading the paragraph again slowly and aloud and then tattooing it on your forearm.

Because what Adorno writes there is, I believe, a kind of key to life: We must not rob our children of what they have ahead of us, namely the «dream of complete happiness for themselves and for all».

The belief that the world is only bad leads to know-it-all behaviour, to permanent indignation.

Adorno

Sometimes we say: «Life is not a concert of wishes.» We say this when we want to explain to children that not everything is possible, that not everything always turns out the way you want it to. We can say this with great conviction because we ourselves have had the bitter experience that life can be unfair and hard.

With the metaphor of «fidelity to childhood», Adorno now reminds us that there is actually great power in the childlike, primordial utopian belief that what we wish for must be within the realm of possibility. Don't we adults - despite all our negative experiences - actually wish for a happier world, not just for ourselves, but for everyone?

From permanent indignation to the call for authority

It is therefore a plea against resigning ourselves to the way the world is. Because according to Adorno, resignation and a lack of utopian ability trigger indifference, harshness and even coldness towards ourselves and others.

It is the vicious circle of angry citizens: the belief that the world is only bad leads to know-it-all behaviour, to constant indignation and ultimately to the call for authority, even to the longing for a leader to «fix it». With radical, violent and destructive consequences.

Or to put it another way: if you only see the world as a bad place, you become susceptible to the cold. If everything is bad anyway, it doesn't matter, then you might as well join the devils.

«Those who give up their childlike naivety are susceptible to the cold.»

Mikael Krogerus.

Adorno counters this with «loyalty to childhood». I thought while reading that pessimism and bad moods are not something you have to take part in.

The most beautiful passage from the text is the invitation not to forget «that imponderable subtle feeling that what is is not the whole truth, that it could and should be completely different».

To continue Adorno's thoughts, this means not forgetting that utopia is already real to some extent and does not lie in the distant future. That we are already capable of living and realising it - at least to some extent.

We all know that delicate feeling. It's the feeling that flows through us when we want to save the life of a little bird that has fallen out of its nest. When we manage not to push ourselves to the fore, but let others shine.

Or when a friend visits us because we are important to them, even if they don't actually have time. Whenever something like this happens, there is always that «fine feeling» that the world is perhaps a little better than we actually thought.

That it is not just a place of calamity and «dull existence» (Adorno), but that there are things here and now that are worth standing up for. Anyone who thinks this is naïve, and even more: anyone who abandons this childlike naivety in themselves is susceptible to the cold.

This is the subject of Theodor W. Adorno's lecture «Education after Auschwitz».