Explanation or barbarism: the fascism concept in T.W. Adorno

• Grant number: 19/14695-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2020
• End date: January 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Sinésio Ferraz Bueno
• Grantee: Taís Barbosa Manenti
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil

Abstract

It is intended to analyze, in this research, the conceptualization of fascism in Theodor W. Adorno's perspective to show to what extent the author conceptualizes fascism. The texts examined concern the period of theoretical production in which the author was, together with other members of the Research Institute of Frankfurt, exiled in the USA. During the 40s and 50s, Adorno sought to understand, by Freudian's psychoanalysis, the authoritarian ideological contents manifested in American democracy, the methodology by which they were disseminated and why people adhered to them, thus seeking to develop measures capable of fighting fascism in modern democracies. The increasing extreme-right leaders in power through broad adherence to biased and strongly authoritarian discourses and the consequent increase in world intolerance put all those are committed to the non-repetition of barbarism in the challenge of understanding fascism, therefore, to trace a route to overcoming it, so that human dignity is preserved in modern democracies. (AU)