130 Part II: A Change of Scene
mythical dimension of existentialist philosophy back into the picture
world of the nineteenth century. Benjamin concluded his review with
a perceptive remark. ‘This book contains much in a small space. The
author’s subsequent writings may some day emerge from it.’^42 We shall
be able to see the accuracy of his prognosis when we present Adorno’s
philosophical writings of the 1960s, above all his magnum opus, Negat-
ive Dialectics.
Adorno himself published an essay in 1966 that looked back at his
Kierkegaard book. He observes that in fact it contains tracks that he
subsequently retraced step by step in the course of his philosophical
studies. In this brief retrospective, he recapitulates his objections to the
conception of the unique individual as well as to Kierkegaard’s sublim-
inal ontologizing of subjective truth. He goes even further than in the
book when he emphasizes the extent to which Kierkegaard misunder-
stood the category of mediation. ‘For Hegel, mediation passes through
the extremes. Kierkegaard, however, simply mistook Hegelian media-
tion for a middle term between two concepts, a moderate compromise.’^43
At the same time, Kierkegaard’s philosophy was in the right against
Hegel ‘when it came to the defence of the non-identical, the element
that was not absorbed into the Hegelian concept.’^44 In addition, he
underscored the importance of Kierkegaard’s insistence on the indi-
vidual as an absolute because this idea mirrored the false totality as
an absolute. Finally, Adorno achieves an almost total personal iden-
tification with Kierkegaard when he writes: ‘By judging the whole,
whether as totality or system, to be an absolute deception, Kierkegaard
throws down the gauntlet to the totality into which he has been im-
pressed, as have we all. That is what is exemplary about him.’^45 As it
was for the author of those words.
When Kracauer wrote his review he felt the need to justify his
venturing to review a book that had been dedicated to him. He argued
that ‘côteries based purely on personal relations are pernicious’, but he
thought it necessary for ‘people who have identical or similar interests
to demonstrate their solidarity’.^46 That was an unambiguous statement
in an age when solidarity was anything but self-evident, as Kracauer
soon found out in his dealings with his employer, the Frankfurter Zeitung.
Like Benjamin, Kracauer concentrated on reconstructing Adorno’s crit-
ical analysis of Kierkegaard’s concept of inwardness, which in his view
had been conducted in the light of sociological insights. Kierkegaard’s
retreat into inwardness ‘is explained with reference to the emerging
epoch of high capitalism in which all things and values are becoming
increasingly commodified.’ From a philosophical point of view, it be-
comes clear that Kierkegaard’s ‘inwardness without objects... cannot
establish contact with commodified objects.’ It is rightly decoded as
a natural and mystical concept. Kracauer explicitly draws attention to
the fact that Benjamin’s philosophy of history had acted as godfather
to Adorno’s own approach. With hindsight, Kracauer’s review, which