“Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence: knowing that one is nothing.”

German philosopher, cultural theorist, and music critic

Theodor W. Adorno was a German philosopher, cultural theorist, and music critic. A leading figure in the Frankfurt School of critical theory, he was a major voice in postwar European thought and a sharp critic of fascism and mass culture. His work is closely associated with the effort to read modern society through the ideas of Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and G. W. F. Hegel. He wrote influential books including Dialectic of Enlightenment, Minima Moralia, and Negative Dialectics, and his arguments against what he called the culture industry helped shape the European New Left.