Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life

The lives of émigrés before they migrated are “annulled” (46). Everything they have that “cannot be counted or measured, ceases to exist” (47). It is all reduced to the category of “background” (47), along with age and sex.

Adorno reflects upon how elderly women from England gave him some books in English as gifts. Due to their pictures and the inaccessibility of the language, Adorno thought of the books as “advertisements” (47). He still thinks modern culture “displays its character as advertising” (47). For example, the words of a German poem have been translated into English and used to promote a hit song.

Adorno notes that “sex and language are intertwined” (47). This is proven by the fact that one does not need a dictionary to understand pornographic literature, such as the writings of the French author the Marquis de Sade in another language.