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What exactly is the relation betweeen artworks and communism, for Adorno?

I have read the beginning of Negative Dialectics, and some of Aesthetic Theory, as well as a analysis of the latter, and there seems to be the idea (paraphrased in) that the realization of philosophy, in communism, lives on (past the point where it should have already occurred but failed) in art.

Does that mean that apolitical art, like Schoenberg's, actually fulfills the function that political artists assume their work has? Or does successful art only work to liberate or nearly liberate individuals, with no relation to the social whole in those terms?

Of course, I'm looking for an answer from before he gave up on Communism. I'd also ike to know of any philosopher who takes the above sort of attitude, if they draw from Adorno (and how would they not?).

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    I thought this was an interesting book on Marcuse: Lukes, Timothy J.: The Flight Into Inwardness: An Exposition and Critique of Herbert Marcuse's Theory of Liberative Aesthetics (Cranbury, N.J., London, and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1986). – Gordon Jul 9 at 5:26
  • This is from memory, but this was a political science dissertation turned into a book. So if we might say Marcuse was attempting something more positive than Adorno, then Lukes does a test of this power of art compared to just plain political agitation. But before he gets to the test, he gives a very nice exposition of Marcuse's "art theory". – Gordon Jul 9 at 5:36

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