Patterns of Withdrawal

Adorno and the Beats

Bibliographic Data

ID11341908
AuthorsVangelis Giannakakis (0000-0003-3714-6487, Goethe University Frankfurt, corresponding author)
Year2026
Publication date2026-03-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy & Social Criticism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-4537 • E-ISSN: 1461-734X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/01914537261425903
OpenAlexW7138870701
LanguageEN
References cited14

This essay explores the structural and historical parallels between Theodor W. Adorno’s theory of negative dialectics – the comprehensive critical-theoretical framework that underpins his analyses of culture, experience, and social integration – and the ethos of countercultural defiance embodied by the Beat Generation. Both emerged as radical responses to the social and ideological landscapes of post-World War II, united by a shared scepticism towards instrumental rationality and normative conformity in late capitalism. They are also linked by a mutual dedication to non-identity, dissonance, and withdrawal as modes of resistance. The paper argues that Adorno’s critique of late-capitalist reality and the Beats’ literary and performative rejection of bourgeois norms converge in a shared endeavour of critical disaffiliation, aimed at preserving experience from being subsumed under exchange relations and ideological closure. Through a meticulous examination of Adorno’s theoretical writings alongside pivotal interventions by Ginsberg and Kerouac, the essay constructs a comparative framework that elucidates how negation, refusal, and withdrawal function not as passive retreats but as active forms of critique against thoroughly administered, conformist societies

Bourgeoisie · Conformity · Dialectic · Ideology · Normative · Performative utterance · Rationality · Skepticism · Social theory · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Sound Studies and Aurality

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