Minima Moralia Reflections from the damaged life by Theodor Adorno

7
They, the people. [in English in original] – The circumstance that intellectuals mostly
deal with other intellectuals should not mislead them into thinking they are worse than
the rest of humanity. For they encounter one another primarily in the most embarrassing
and degrading situation of all, that of competing supplicants, and are thereby nearly
always compelled to show their worst side to each other. Other people, especially the
simple folk whose virtues intellectuals are wont to praise, usually meet them in the role
of someone trying to sell them something, who doesnʼt have to worry about the
customer horning in on their turf. It is easy for the auto mechanic and the sales-girl at
the liquor store to remain free of impudence: friendliness is in any case mandated from
above. If on the other hand illiterates come to intellectuals in order to have letters
written, these latter may indeed make a reasonably good impression. But the moment
simple folk have to brawl for their share of the social product, they surpass anything in
the canon of envy and hatefulness displayed by literati or musical directors. The
glorification of the splendid underdogs [in English in original] ends up in glorifying the
splendid system which made them so. The justifiable feelings of guilt of those exempted
from physical labor ought not become an excuse for rural idiocy [famous phrase used
by Marx to describe the stagnation of peasant life]. Intellectuals who write solely about
intellectuals and give them their bad name in the name of that which is authentic
[Echtheit] only strengthen the lie. A large part of the prevailing anti-intellectualism and
irrationalism, all the way to Huxley, is set in motion by the fact that writers complain
about the mechanism of competition without themselves being able to see through the
latter, and so fall victim to such. In the field most their own, they have shut out the
consciousness of tat twam asi [“Thou art this”, quote from Upanishads]. That is why they
then rush into Indian temples.

This translation © 2005 Dennis Redmond. The original German text is available from
Suhrkamp Verlag as: Theodor W. Adorno. Collected Works. Suhrkamp Verlag, Volume
4. Part one of the translation begins below

تگ

این قول را به من بده، فرزندم . غیراخلاقی بودن دروغگویی در حمله به حقیقت مقدس نهفته نیست. توسل به
حقیقت به ندرت امتیاز ویژه جامع هاي محسوب م یشود که اعضایش را به زور وادار به هر چه بهتر اعتراف کردن
بر حقیقت جزئی (universal untruth) می کند تا به شکار آنان بپردازد. ناسزوار است که غیرحقیقت کلی
تأکید بورزد در همان حالی که بلافاصله آن را به ضد خود بدل م یکند. با وجود این، در (particular truth)
مورد دروغ چیزي مشمئزکننده وجود دارد و آگاهی از آن هرچند که با تازیانه باستانی، ملکه ذهن شود، هنوز چهره
زندانبانان را آشکار می سازد. خطا در صداقت افراطی نهفته است. آدمی که دروغ می گوید شرمنده است، چرا که
هر دروغ، به او پستی جهانی را م یآموزد که در حالی که او را وامی دارد تا براي زنده ماندن دروغ بگوید، بی درنگ
آوازي در مدح وفاداري و صداقت می خواند.  این شرم، دروغگویی افرادي را که سرشت منظمتر و ظریفتري دارند
برملا م یکند. آنان این کار را به شیوه اي بد انجام م یدهند، به نحوي که خود این کار حقیقتاً دروغ را به حمله اي
اخلاقی به ضد دیگري بدل می کند؛ این امر دال بر حماقت آن دیگري می شود و بنابراین به ابزار بیان اهانت بدل
می گردد. در بین کارپردازان خبره امروزي، مدتهاست که دروغ کارکرد صادقانه واژگون جلوه دادن واقعیت را از
دست داده است. هیچ کس به هی چکس اعتماد ندارد، هر کس همه چیز را می داند. دروغها فقط براي این گفته
می شوند که فرد به کسی بفهماند که نه به خود او نیازي دارد و نه به نظر مثبت او. دروغ که روزگاري ابزار لیبرالی
ارتباط بود، امروزه به یکی از تکنیکهاي وقاحت بدل شده است که هر فرد را قادر م یسازد که به دور خود فضایی
یخزده بگستراند تا بتواند در پناه آن رشد و نمو کند.

گزیده هایی از اخلاق صغیر
نویسنده: تئودور آدورنو
مترجم : لاجوردي، هاله

 Above all one thing, my child. – What is unmoral about lies does not consist of the injury
to the sacrosanct truth. No society which forces its compulsory members to hand
themselves over with language, in order to overtake them that much more quickly, has
the right to call on such. It does not befit universal untruth, to insist on the particular
truth, while nonetheless inverting the latter straightaway into its opposite. In spite of this,
something repellent clings to the lie, and though the consciousness of this was indeed
beaten into one with the old whip, this simultaneously said something about the master
of the dungeon. The mistake lies in all too much honesty. Whoever lies, is ashamed,
because in every lie they must experience what is degrading in the existing state of the
world, which compels them to lie, if they wish to live, while warbling “Be ever true and
honest” [song scored by Mozart] in their ear. Such shame saps the energy of the lies of
those who are more subtly organized. They do it badly, and only thereby does the lie
come to be genuinely unmoral for others. It suggests the former think the latter are
stupid, and serves to express disrespect. Among todayʼs cunning practitioners, the lie
has long since lost its honest function, of concealing something real. Noone believes
anyone, everyone is in the loop. Lies are told only when someone wants others to know
they arenʼt important, that the former does not need the latter, and does not care what
they think. Today the lie, once a liberal means of communication, has become one of
the techniques of brazenness, with whose help every single person spreads the iciness,
in whose shelter they thrive.

Minima Moralia
Reflections from the damaged life
by Theodor Adorno
This translation © 2005 Dennis Redmond

شریک فیوزیت

ما ننگ وجود روزگاریم 

عمری به نفاق میگذاریم

محنت زدگان بی قراریم

شوریده دلان بی قراریم

در مصطبه عور پاکبازیم

در میکده رند درد خواریم

جان باختگان راه عشقیم

دل سوختگان سوگواریم

ناخورده دمی شراب ایمان

از ظلمت کفر در خماریم

بویی به مشام ما رسیدست

دیریست که ما در انتظاریم

نه یار جمال مینماید

نه در خور دستگاه یاریم

نه پرده زپیش ما می افتد 

نه در پس پرده مرد کاریم

دردی که شمار کرد عطار 

تا روز شمار در شماریم

آگهی

the flood of precise inforormation and brand-new amusements make people smarter and more stupid at onc