The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’ Radio Addresses

The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’ Radio Addresses
Author: Theodor W. Adorno
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2000
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780804740036

This study was written in English in the 1930s when Adorno, one of the 20th century's most influential thinkers, was living in the United States. It is a pioneering analysis of a member of what we now call the Radical Right—the now-forgotten Martin Luther Thomas, an American fascist-style demagogue who used the radio to appeal to and to manipulate his adherents.

Adorno

Adorno
Author: Theodor Adorno
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2002-09-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1134845782

A collection of key articles on the irrational in mass culture, relevant to the understanding of phenomena such as astrology and New Age cults, the power of neo-fascist propaganda and the psychological basis of popular culture, showing Theodor Adorno at his brilliant and maddening best.

The Stars Down to Earth

The Stars Down to Earth
Author: Theodor Adorno
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2020-09-23
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1000159051

The Stars Down to Earth shows us a stunningly prescient Adorno. Haunted by the ugly side of American culture industries he used the different angles provided by each of these three essays to showcase the dangers inherent in modern obsessions with consumption. He engages with some of his most enduring themes in this seminal collection, focusing on the irrational in mass culture - from astrology to new age cults, from anti-semitism to the power of neo-fascist propaganda. He points out that the modern state and market forces serve the interest of capital in its basic form. Stephan Crook's introduction grounds Adorno's arguments firmly in the present where extreme religious and political organizations are commonplace - so commonplace in fact that often we deem them unworthy of our attention. Half a century ago Theodore Adorno not only recognised the dangers, but proclaimed them loudly. We did not listen then. Maybe it is not too late to listen now.

Stations of the Cross

Stations of the Cross
Author: Paul Apostolidis
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2000-06-02
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780822325413

DIVAnalysis of the nationally broadcast radio program "Focus on the Family" that argues that the Christian right's popularity stems from its resistance to the increasing influence of market forces in the welfare state, the electoral system, and the/div

Crossing the Psycho-Social Divide

Crossing the Psycho-Social Divide
Author: George Cavalletto
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2016-07-22
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1317156900

The prevailing view among social scientists is that the psyche and the social reside in such disparate domains that their proper study demands markedly incompatible analytical and theoretical approaches. Over the last decade, scholars have begun to challenge this view. In this innovative work, George Cavalletto moves this challenge forward by connecting it to theoretical and analytical practices of the early 20th century. His analysis of key texts by Sigmund Freud, Max Weber, Theodor Adorno and Norbert Elias shows that they crossed the psycho-social divide in ways that can help contemporary scholars to re-establish an analytical and theoretical understanding of the inherent interconnection of these two domains. This book will particularly interest scholars and students in sociology and social psychology, especially those in the fields of social theory, the sociology of emotion, self and society, and historical sociology.

Critical theory and demagogic populism

Critical theory and demagogic populism
Author: Paul K. Jones
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2020-11-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1526151529

Populism is a powerful force today, but its full scope has eluded the analytical tools of both orthodox and heterodox ‘populism studies’. This book provides a valuable alternative perspective. It reconstructs in detail for the first time the sociological analyses of US demagogues by members of the Frankfurt School and compares these with contemporary approaches. Modern demagogy emerges as a key under-researched feature of populism, since populist movements, whether 'left' or 'right', are highly susceptible to 'demagogic capture'. The book also details the culture industry’s populist contradictions – including its role as an incubator of modern demagogues – from the 1930s through to today’s social media and ‘Trumpian psychotechnics’. Featuring a previously unpublished text by Adorno on modern demagogy as an appendix, it will be of interest to researchers and students in critical theory, sociology, politics, German studies, philosophy and history of ideas, as well as all those concerned about the rise of demagogic populism today.

Adorno and Democracy

Adorno and Democracy
Author: Shannon L. Mariotti
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2016-07-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 081316740X

In Adorno and Democracy, Shannon L. Mariotti explores how philosopher Theodor Adorno's fifteen years in the United States prompted a concern for and commitment to democracy that shaped the rest of his oeuvre. She analyzes the extensive and undervalued works Adorno composed in English for an American audience and traces the development of his political theory during the World War II era. Her unique study examines how Adorno changed his writing style while in the United States in order to directly address the public, which lay at the heart of his theoretical concerns. Despite his apparent contempt for popular culture, his work during this period clearly engages with a broader public in ways that reflect his deep desire to understand the problems and possibilities of democracy as enacted through the customs and habits of American citizens. Mariotti incisively demonstrates how Adorno's unconventional and challenging interpretations of U.S. culture can add conceptual rigor to political theory and remind Americans of the normative promise of democracy. Adorno and Democracy is an innovative contribution to critical debates about contemporary U.S. politics. -- from back cover.

Group Experiment and Other Writings

Group Experiment and Other Writings
Author: Friedrich Pollock
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2011-02-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674048466

During the occupation of West Germany after the Second World War, the American authorities commissioned polls to assess the values and opinions of ordinary Germans. They concluded that the fascist attitudes of the Nazi era had weakened to a large degree. The author and his colleagues, who returned in 1949 from the United States, were skeptical. In their view, public opinion is not simply an aggregate of individually held opinions, but is fundamentally a public concept, formed through interaction in conversations and with prevailing attitudes and ideas "in the air." In this book, they published their findings on their group discussion experiments that delved deeper into the process of opinion formation.

The Distance Cure

The Distance Cure
Author: Hannah Zeavin
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2021-08-17
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0262365782

Psychotherapy across distance and time, from Freud’s treatments by mail to crisis hotlines, radio call-ins, chatbots, and Zoom sessions. Therapy has long understood itself as taking place in a room, with two (or more) people engaged in person-to-person conversation. And yet, starting with Freud’s treatments by mail, psychotherapy has operated through multiple communication technologies and media. These have included advice columns, radio broadcasts, crisis hotlines, video, personal computers, and mobile phones; the therapists (broadly defined) can be professional or untrained, strangers or chatbots. In The Distance Cure, Hannah Zeavin proposes a reconfiguration of the traditional therapeutic dyad of therapist and patient as a triad: therapist, patient, and communication technology. Zeavin tracks the history of teletherapy (understood as a therapeutic interaction over distance) and its metamorphosis from a model of cure to one of contingent help. She describes its initial use in ongoing care, its role in crisis intervention and symptom management, and our pandemic-mandated reliance on regular Zoom sessions. Her account of the “distanced intimacy” of the therapeutic relationship offers a powerful rejoinder to the notion that contact across distance (or screens) is always less useful, or useless, to the person seeking therapeutic treatment or connection. At the same time, these modes of care can quickly become a backdoor for surveillance and disrupt ethical standards important to the therapeutic relationship. The history of the conventional therapeutic scenario cannot be told in isolation from its shadow form, teletherapy. Therapy, Zeavin tells us, was never just a “talking cure”; it has always been a communication cure.