Im-maturity: from the liquidation to the maturity of the individual in Theodor W. Adorno’s thought

Abstract

In Adorno’ and Horkheimer’s interpretation of the Aufklärung, reason becomes irrational and individuals find there their liquidation. The example is Odysseus, the prototype bourgeois individual, who managed to go back home only sacrificing himself and his instincts, his world and his men. At the same way, the modern individual has to sacrifice its freedom, in order to became mature. Its maturity is its integration under late capitalism. However, near to a negative meaning of maturity as sacrifice, total integration and liquidation of the individual, Adorno seems to conceive another sense of it. Only becoming aware of it, it can improve its qualities and re-built a new anthropology, psychology and sociology. The new human type needs also a new social order, a social order of im-maturity as well as a social order of an Enlightenment not enlightened.

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