348 Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional
who is the subject of whom we are saying that it is dead, here and
now?’^96
Back to America: horoscope analysis and TV researchMax, let’s go home!^97Adorno had so much work he did not know where to turn: teaching
obligations in the university, the day-to-day management of the institute,
advising on and implementing the research projects and, finally, the
publication of articles and books, contributions to radio programmes
and other cultural bodies. All of this testified to the need for him to stay
in Frankfurt. Nevertheless, despite these activities he felt unable to
commit himself definitively to settling in Germany. For the middle of
1952 was the deadline beyond which he could not stay outside the USA
without forfeiting his American citizenship. In addition, he could scarcely
reject the offer of director of research at the Hacker Foundation without
at least looking at the prospects there on the spot. It seems that his
journey was not entirely voluntary, but rather half-hearted from the
outset. He travelled there on behalf of Horkheimer, since the institute’s
financial future was opaque at the time. Moreover, Adorno’s own pro-
spects of an academic post in the Arts Faculty were still uncertain. So he
and Gretel temporarily decamped from the apartment in Kettenhofweg
in order to return to the old apartment in 803 Yale Street in Santa
Monica for ten months. On the way, he spent a few days in Paris in the
Hotel Régina, in the Place des Pyramides. Despite this luxury he wrote
a mournful letter to the then rector of Frankfurt University: ‘I am
travelling with an infinitely heavy heart.’^98
His ill humour was increased when a few days later he learnt about
his future tasks and conditions of work from discussions with Friedrich
Hacker.^99 He realized that he would be isolated in his planned research
activities, and would have to run research as a ‘one-man show’. In these
circumstances, he was only able to initiate and complete smaller pieces
of work. One was a content analysis of horoscopes in the daily papers,
which he did by taking a random sample from the astrology column of
the Los Angeles Times. He completed this in a period of two months.
‘The method I followed was that of putting myself in the position of the
popular astrologer, who by what he writes must immediately furnish his
readers with a sort of gratification.... The result was the reinforcing
of conformist views through the commercial and standardized astrology
as well as the appearance in the technique of the column writer... of
certain contradictions in the consciousness of his audience.’^100 By count-
ing and analysing certain constantly recurring ‘basic tricks’, Adorno
concluded that in many respects the ideology of the astrologers resembles
that of political demagogues and agitators.^101