Reason and Horror: Critical Theory, Democracy and Aesthetic Individuality

"Have you bumped into moralists who condemn the 'aestheticization' of ethics and politics? Schoolman shows how they cut off their noses to spite their faces. Reason and Horror is thought provoking in its readings of Adorno and Nietzsche, and captivating in its uses of Whitman and Tocqueville. This is a lively and engaging work." -- William E. Connolly, Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
"...In a fascinating new study, Morton Schoolman marshals novel readings of each theorist to argue for the value of a democratic policy in creating and sustaining what he terms "aesthetic individuality," an ehical disposition toward the other that values difference as a resource in the ongoing project of forming the self." -- Shane Gunster, Ryerson University
"Reason and Horror has much to offer, and its core principle of aesthetic individuality offers an intriguing discussion of relevance of aesthetics to questions of ethics and politics." -- Shane Gunster, Ryerson University
"A provocative contribution to current efforts to better understand how the aesthetic dimension relates to ethical-political life. Schoolman takes us down a fascinating and surprising path toward the articulation of a notion of 'aesthetic individuality' that draws as much upon Horkheimer and Adorno as on Walt Whitman and de Tocqueville." -- Stephen K. White, Professor Political Science, University of Virginia
"Reason and Horror is not only instructive, it's stimulating. It stirs by its articulateness, by its profundity, and by a general spiritedness. I found the treatment of the Adorno-Nietszche aesthetics connection to be a triumph. Anyone interested in political, social, or cultural theory must find the work fascinating and enriching. Morton Schoolman has written a major book." -- George Kateb, Professor of Political Science, Princeton University
"The best account of Adorno and Horkheimer's thought available. Schoolman makes their thought come to life. Reason and Horror is of great value not only to understanding Adorno and Horkheimer, but to understanding the influence of the Holocaust on political thought in the latter half of the Twentieth Century." -- Shadia Drury, Professor Political Science, University of Calgary

Morton Schoolman is Professor of Political Science at SUNY Albany, and the author of The Imaginary Witness: The Critical Theory of Herbert Marcuse.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Reason and Horror; Part 1 Individuality Before the Holocaust; Chapter 2 Reason as a “Murderous Principle”; Chapter 3 Dialectic of Enlightenment as a Genealogy of Reason; Chapter 4 Aesthetic Individuality by analogy: Dialectic of Enlightenment and the Birth and Death of Tragedy; Chapter 5 Recovering Aesthetic Individuality from Art: Aesthetic Reason in Adorno’S Aesthetic Theory; Part 2 Surfaces; Chapter 6 An Ethic of Appearances; Chapter 7 Individuality as a Poetic Form of Life; Chapter 8 Democracy as an Aesthetic Form of Life; Chapter 9 Aesthetic Individuality as a Democratic Achievement; Chapter 10 Conclusion;