476 Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional
inconclusive discussions between the few supporters of this disruption
and their critics, the lecture hall emptied. The Grassroots Sociology
Group distributed leaflets with the title ‘Adorno as an Institution is
Dead’.
Adorno himself was unable to believe that of all lectures his should
have been singled out for ‘this propaganda of deeds’, this spectacular
happening. ‘To have picked on me of all people, I who have always
spoken out against every type of erotic repression and sexual taboo!
To ridicule me and set three girls dressed up as hippies against me in
this way! I found that repulsive. The laughter that was aimed at me
was basically the reaction of the philistine who giggles when he seesgirls
with naked breasts. Needless, to say, this idiocy was planned.’^137
Adorno was well aware that ‘the idiotic brutality of the left-wing
fascists’ would trigger ‘the malicious joy of all reactionaries’.^138 For this
reason, in his public comments on the brutal disruption of his lecture,
he took care not to play into the hands of the ‘reactionaries’ or to lend
them arguments that would help to blacken the anti-authoritarian move-
ment and their motives in attacking the defects of the education system.
For example, in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung at the end
of April, he spoke out clearly against the widespread view that ideas
he had defended were now being turned against him as people tried to
put them into practice. According to Adorno, this particularly popular
thesis was probably invented by people ‘eager to say “I told you so” in
the hope of paralysing critical thinking. I am no more tempted to suc-
cumb to this gesture than I am to cave in to the enforced solidarity of
the supporters of direct action.’ Merely because he had been attacked
in this way was no reason to behave like a broken man full of remorse.
In the interview, he emphasized that his own attitude was not one of
resignation, even if he could see that what the students were looking for
by resorting to practical demonstrations was a blind alley. Blind action
was obviously not the way out of the dilemma. To ‘absorb this objective
contradiction into his thinking and not try to remove it by force’ was in
his view a sign of strength. His relation to the students, moreover, ‘was
no more impaired than relations generally in the present climate of
conflict in the universities’.^139
The same picture emerged in a further interview shortly afterwards,
in May, on this occasion for the weekly magazine Der Spiegel. Adorno
refused to allow himself to be lured into a wholesale condemnation of
the protest movement.
spiegel: Herr Professor, two weeks ago all was well with the world...
adorno: Not for me.^140
He made use of this interview with Der Spiegel to modify a statement
he had made earlier. In a previous interview on television, he had let
drop the remark that he had never imagined that people might exploit
his ideas to justify using Molotov cocktails. On this occasion, he denied