Abstract

In The Jargon of Authenticity Adorno criticizes the jargon he argues is to be found amongst followers of Heidegger. He describes it as displaying a fetishizing of understanding as belonging, and as a ground for authenticity, meaning and identity. This article develops the idea that Adorno’s critique also allows us to understand certain aspects of contemporary discussions concerning phenomena such as global warming and the Anthropocene. A common reaction to these phenomena is that we have to make them graspable through stories that make facts comprehensible, and that tie us together in unity and enable understanding. But if we were to follow Adorno, we might, instead of continuing to believe in meaning and communication within a community of understanding that has proven itself to be the part of the problem, try to create poetry that imitates “the dead speaking of stones.” Understanding could then, perhaps, be something else.