A Precarious Happiness

This is a review of Peter E. Gordon’s A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity (University of Chicago Press), a book which invites the reader to reconsider the conventional interpretation of Adorno. Gordon argues that Adorno’s reputation as an irredeemable pessimist and negative thinker, while understandable in some regards, fails to account for his complex view of human potential, which includes the possibility for transformation, even though this possibility is always framed within the harsh reality of societal contradictions. Accordingly, Gordon’s ambition is to offer a corrective whose central thesis argues that Adorno’s work is animated by a normative commitment to happiness or human flourishing. This review summarizes the key points of Gordon’s highly original monograph.