Pablo López Álvarez
Universidad Complutense de Madrid (pla@ucm.es; ORCID: 0000-0002-3101-6481).
Preservation as Self-Destruction: Updating a Critical Perspective from the Body and Work
Abstract: In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer analyze the self-negation of modernity’s normative content through an immanent framework: the pursuit of human freedom via absolute domination over nature generates conditions in which individual self-preservation manifests only as self-destruction. This article reassesses the enduring relevance of this framework – which might appear outdated amid the rise of neoliberal subjectivity and rationality – through the lens of contemporary forms of labor-related suffering. This approach yields significant theoretical, political, and normative implications.
Keywords: Work; Suffering; Body; Neoliberalism; Self.