Nature Becoming Conscious of Itself

Abstract

Wir sind uns unbekannt, wir Erkennenden, wir selbst uns selbst: das hat seinen guten Grund. Wir haben nie nach uns gesucht-wie sollte es geschehn, das wir eines Tages uns fanden? Friedrich Nietzsche During Nurnberg trials, defendants argued that they were only following orders when they murdered and tortured their victims. In an appalling reminder that those who do not remember history condemned to repeat it, this defence of morally indefensible has recently been used again by some of Americans who tortured and murdered detainees in Abu-Gharib Prison. Their attempt to deny and deflect responsibility for their actions raises important issues about individual autonomy; some of these issues were discussed by Theodor W. Adorno as early as 1940s. If Nurnberg judges famously deemed those who carried out orders of their superior officers to be morally responsible for their actions, Adorno took opposite route, charting loss of autonomy in West that helped to explain why so many Germans had simply followed order to commit atrocities. He also made disturbing observation that authoritarian character traits prominent in Nazi Germany were visible in other Western countries as well. The Authoritarian Personality revealed that Americans were potentially fascistic to extent that they tended blindly to submit to authority figures out of fear and resentment, engaged in stereotypical thinking, and exhibited a readiness to attack those perceived as weak whom they considered to be members of an out-group. In fascism, aggression towards authorities one unconsciously fears is directed away from these authorities towards a substitute object (Jews, blacks, communists, etc.) defined in rigid and stereotypical terms as outcast, evil. Adorno devoted much of his work to understanding social, political, and economic conditions that had contributed to making these authoritarian traits so alarmingly pervasive. Unfortunately, much of his analysis remains relevant today. Speaking again about totalitarian movements in his lectures on metaphysics, Adorno noted that trademark of these movements is to monopolize so-called sublime and lofty concepts, such as freedom, justice, and democracy, while terms they use for what they persecute and destroy-base, insect-like, filthy, subhuman and all rest-they treat as anathema.' Yet, he also offered a solution to this problem in conclusion to The Authoritarian Personality when he wrote that, to counter totalitarianism, it is not only imperative to understand damage inflicted on individuals by exchange relations, but concomitantly, to increase capacity to see themselves and to be themselves.2 Believing that people are continuously molded from above in order to maintain the over-all economic pattern, Adorno claims that the amount of energy that goes into this process bears a direct relation to amount of potential, residing within people, for moving in a different direction.3 This potential is inextricably linked to people's capacity to see themselves. To become more fully autonomous, reflection is needed on how our ideas, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours have been shaped both by societies in which we live and by instincts and needs. Critical self-reflection may reveal extent to which our activities and beliefs merely reflect prevailing opinions and views of authority figures, materialist values of our exchange-based society, and our accommodation to existing states of affairs in interest of survival. Because self-reflection fosters capacity to think for oneself rather than merely parroting others, it represents a form of political maturity that is essential for more substantively democratic polities.4 Given widespread loss of autonomy and freedom in West today-the craven submissiveness of individuals to powers-that-be, their adaptation and adjustment to way things are, along with their propensity simply to follow orders-it is all more urgent to examine why Adorno recommends self-reflection as a solution. …