Adorno and Environmentalism

Abstract Adorno often drew on nature images in composing the titles for his short vignettes in Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (published in 1951). This chapter provides the springboard for the author’s reflections on Adorno and environmentalism. Adorno lived during a time that experienced extreme forms of destruction from World War II and the Holocaust to the beginning of the nuclear age, and a growing awareness of the environmental effects of these devastations that defined his philosophical position as a reflection from damaged life. This chapter provides critical commentary on what the author considers perhaps Adorno’s most personal and, at the same time, most fragmentary project. It is in these subjective reflections that the kernel to Adorno’s guidance for today’s thoughts on environmentalism can be found. This chapter repositions Adorno’s thoughts about advanced capitalism and the vanishing of the (old) subject in a context that ties these ideas to environmental themes broadly conceived. The author offers close readings of select passages in Minima Moralia that could productively inform discussions in the environmental humanities of the twenty-first century.