Habits and Liberation in Menke and Adorno

Christoph Menke, in A Theory of Liberation, argues that servitude persists because it becomes habitual—the habit of identity leads subjects to internalize patterns of domination even after achieving formal liberation. For Menke, true liberation requires breaking away from habitual identity and embracing the unexpected. However, this raises a central question: Can liberation be an absolute rupture, or is it always shaped by the structures it seeks to escape? This paper explores this question by comparing Menke’s theory with Theodor Adorno’s critique of identity thinking. While Menke presents liberation as a radical new beginning, Adorno’s concept of mediation suggests that subjects and their capacities are always historically and socially conditioned. I argue that Menke’s notion of rupture ultimately risks reproducing the very structures it seeks to overcome. Instead, Adorno’s perspective suggests that liberation does not come from rejecting habitual determination altogether but from transforming it. By reconsidering habits as sites of both subjugation and possibility, we can rethink the relationship between freedom and repetition in a way that avoids the paradoxes of Menke’s account.