Presupposing primary experience: Adorno, Huysmans, Benjamin

Abstract

Against Hegelian idealism and certain strands of Marxism, Adorno defends subjective, somatic, and affective experience, not as immediately true, but as a historically mediated reflection of objective social forces. Such experiences are historically caused, but they are also "primary" insofar as theory must presuppose them in order to gain critical traction. The article first looks at Adorno's criticisms of Hegel's mistrust of individuality and Lukács' privileging of objective economic analysis. Subsequently, through readings of Huysmans' Against Nature and Benjamin's Berlin Childhood, the article then shows how primary experience can fail or succeed, according to how it is taken up by critique: decadence fetishizes sensation and stalls in false alternatives, while Benjamin reveals how everyday images preserve missed historical potentials. The aim of the article is to show how primary experience functions as a fragile presupposition for critique and progress.