The concept of identification in Adorno's thought: between social adjustment and resistance towards a more human existence

Abstract

This article discusses Adorno's use of the concept of identification. Therefrom, we seek to emphasize the theme of criticism and the negation of culture made possible by the author's appropriation of psychoanalysis. The application of the concept allows us to analyze the assimilation process of the individual in late capitalism, since culture is transformed into merchandise, and thus absorbs the identical and repetitive rhythm of mechanized production, which is transmitted to individuals through the products they consume and the celebrities with whom they identify. In this context, the feeling of individual impotence grows, generated by a model of social organization that conceals its contradictions from the individual's identity with culture. And it reveals the union between progress and barbarism that promotes the decline of the individual as was exposed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment. As Adorno suggests, faced with the irrationality of modern culture, education is responsible for the task of critical self-reflection and the enlightenment of individuals, in order to invite them to think about the false reality in which they are inserted and to contrast powerlessness with autonomy.