In Search of a Career 109jazz, through hit songs, to operetta. He proposed that such music should
be discussed without condescension. Kitsch, he suggested, should be
defended against the degenerate ideals of personality and culture, but
criticized for being ideological and musically retrograde. ‘The defence
of kitsch should not be undertaken in the spirit of naive approval, but as
it were despite itself. ... Kitsch is an object of interpretation, but one of
the greatest significance. I would be happy to propose guidelines for the
detailed treatment of the problems of kitsch.’^50 He did not leave matters
at the level of guidelines; he soon made it his task to develop an entire
theory of mass culture.
The concept of ‘guidelines’ conveys the flavour of Adorno’s pro-
gramme as a whole. His aim was nothing less than to use the journal
as a weapon to promote the music of the Second Viennese School and
the type of music criticism he advocated, without paying much heed to
the possibility that this programme might conflict with the interests of
Universal Edition. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to discover that
little of this forward-looking plan was adopted in practice.
The sheer quantity of Adorno’s plans, ideas and activities shows that
he remained undaunted by the failure of his Habilitation, the rejection
by Ullstein or his car accident, and that he would not allow himself to
be deflected from his path. On the contrary, he persisted in his efforts
to reapply for the Habilitation at Frankfurt University. However, this
time, too, he found obstacles in his way. At the suggestion of Kracauer
and Horkheimer, he first thought of approaching Max Scheler, who had
succeeded to Cornelius’s chair (instead of Horkheimer, the favoured
candidate). However, the change of professor meant that ‘working con-
ditions’ had changed for Adorno as well. Scheler had been influenced
by phenomenology and had made his name with his ethical theory of
material values. Would he be willing to take on Adorno? Such ques-
tions soon turned out to be otiose, since Scheler died unexpectedly
during his first term in Frankfurt.
Adorno now faced the necessity of looking for an alternative super-
visor, and the likeliest candidate was Paul Tillich. Tillich was appointed
to the chair in philosophy early in 1929, despite the initial opposition
of the faculty. He stood for a type of Marxist thought with humanist
overtones. It was equally remote from Cornelius as from Scheler, and
the only person to have a certain affinity with Tillich was Horkheimer.
A philosopher of religion, he was chiefly interested in the interface
between the different arts disciplines.^51 By the time he was appointed in
Frankfurt, he had already written numerous books, including the Ideas
on a Theology of Culture, then Kairos: The Situation and the Direction
of Mind in the Present, and The Protestant Era. Adorno basically had no
one but Tillich to turn to, at least in Frankfurt, and he was under no
illusions about this. His realism expressed itself in the speed with which
he now abandoned his earlier project and turned to a new one. Instead
of attempting to persevere with Freud, he immersed himself in the works
of a philosopher who was no stranger to him: Søren Kierkegaard.