"With Adorno, beyond Adorno"

Jessica Benjamin's intersubjectivity in the critical analysis of contemporary authoritarianism

Abstract

Although several scholars have recently pointed out that the first publications of critical theory offer invaluable resources for understanding the current global authoritarian context, this theoretical production also carries significant impasses. The main ones are related to the patriarchal implications of the model; the nostalgia of the liberal bourgeois individual and the liberal bourgeois family; and the limited belief in the possibility of getting out of the paradoxes of reason. In short, for the first generation of the Frankfurt School, the struggle against authoritarianism would be possible only through its prior individual internalization. The recognition of these problems has led several contemporary theorists to avoid the Freudian orthodox model, seeking other psychoanalytical references to support an alternative critical analysis. However, one of the most important voices in criticizing the first generation's impasses, that of psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin, is not usually considered as a whole to positively support an alternative model. Suspecting that this is due to her excessive hope in the possibility of harmonization between subject and object, or due to the author's mild consideration about human aggressiveness, we argue that these aspects have been softened throughout her production, finding the closest proximity to Freudian negativity in her late understanding about the fantasy that “only one can live”. Thus, her theory presents an interesting resource for updating critical theory in the current context, maintaining the depth of the Frankfurtian diagnosis, but also going beyond certain theoretical impasses.