«Mirabile mondo nuovo!» Adorno e Horkheimer lettori di Huxley
Journal title SOCIETÀ DEGLI INDIVIDUI (LA)
Author/s Eleonora Piromalli
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2025/84
Language Italian Pages 12 P. 167-178 File size 567 KB
DOI 10.3280/LAS2025-084013
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This article retraces the discussions Adorno and Horkheimer devoted to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. While the two Frankfurt School thinkers recognize the sharp critique Huxley offers in his dystopian novel – depicting a modern mass society where everything is smoothed over, pacified, and mediated by consumption, and where pervasive conformity erases any space for individual autonomy – they simultaneously distance themselves from the conservative framework through which the British writer formulates his analysis. Contrary to Huxley’s intentions, Horkheimer and Adorno seek to apply his critique of mass society not as a condemnation of technology, progress, or modernity itself, but rather of the domination these elements can foster. At the same time, they acknowledge that conservative or reactionary critics of modernity, precisely because of their disenchanted detachment from mass society, have often been better at exposing its shortcomings and degenerations than many progressives, whose superficial optimism prevents them from doing so.
Keywords: Adorno, Horkheimer, Huxley, critique of culture, Brave New World, progress
Eleonora Piromalli, «Mirabile mondo nuovo!» Adorno e Horkheimer lettori di Huxley in "SOCIETÀ DEGLI INDIVIDUI (LA)" 84/2025, pp 167-178, DOI: 10.3280/LAS2025-084013