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Engaging Adorno: Critical security studies after emancipation

Carolin Kaltofen
Security Dialogue 2013 44: 37
DOI: 10.1177/0967010612470392

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Article

Engaging Adorno: Critical security

studies after emancipation

Security Dialogue
44(1) 3751
The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0967010612470392
sdi.sagepub.com

Carolin Kaltofen

Department of International Politics, University of Aberystwyth, UK

Abstract
Even though its focus on emancipation purposefully intends to build upon the intellectual legacy of the
Frankfurt School, critical security studies has thus far only interpreted the Frankfurt tradition in a circumscribed
manner. That is to say, it selectively drew on some concepts from critical theory that are most associated
with Jrgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. However, as a result of this emphasis, Booth and Wyn Jones the
original proponents of critical security studies give too little attention to thinkers such as Theodor W.
Adorno. This article demonstrates that a re-engagement with Adornos work not only provides a more
complete appraisal of the Frankfurt Schools thought, but also might reinvigorate critical security studies as a
critical approach to security. It proposes that such a result can be achieved by employing Adornos ethics of
resistance and through the development of the philosophical construct of a constellation of security.

Keywords
security, critical theory, Adorno, emancipation, the ineffable, security constellation

Introduction
Since the end of the Cold War, the study of security has been subject to several significant changes
(Floyd, 2007: 327; Wver, 2004), and especially in Europe new security theories have been particularly progressive (Floyd, 2007: 328). An important text entitled Security, Strategy, and
Critical Theory was published in 1999 and introduced security studies scholars to the critical social
theory of the Frankfurt School. In this seminal work, Richard Wyn Jones (1999) argues that the
writings of critical theorists such as Jrgen Habermas and Alex Honneth provide the discipline of
international relations with an alternative conceptual framework to that of the traditional study of
security in which the state is the primary referent object. In collaboration with Ken Booth and
under the designation of critical security studies or the Welsh School (hereafter referred to as
critical security studies), the work of Habermas and Honneth offered the critical approach to security a number of advanced concepts that promised to develop a new paradigm for the theory and

Corresponding author:
Carolin Kaltofen
Email: cak4@aber.ac.uk

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practice of security (Wyn Jones, 1999: ix). Most influential has been the concept of emancipation,
which critical security studies argues is at the heart of a critical theory of world security (Booth,
2007: 100).1 Not only does emancipation seek to secure people from those oppressions that stop
them from carrying out what they would freely choose to do (Booth, 2007: 112), but, when considered in a wider sense, it is primarily an approach to international politics.
However, amid the enthusiastic adoption of an emancipation-orientated paradigm in the light
of Frankfurt School critical theory (Wyn Jones, 1999: ix), those working within critical security
studies have only engaged selectively with key works of the Frankfurt School. Such a claim can be
substantiated through reference to two key points: First, Wyn Jones provides only a partial treatment of Theodor Adorno in fact, only using him in conjunction with Max Horkheimer which
leads to a premature dismissal of the author. This is problematic as it makes critical security studies
theoretically vulnerable to the scrutiny of social theorists, undermining its own critical theory
foundations. Second, a consequence of this is Booths overemphasis on emancipation. Although,
as Booth (2007: 41) himself concedes, his work adopts Frankfurt School thought for convenience
and as a practical orientation, the selective application of critical theory leads to the theoretical
dead-end of an overfocus on, or reification of, emancipation.2 However, this does not have to be
the case. As this article will show, Booth and Adorno share key premises, so that Booths research
can enter into fruitful dialogue with Adornian thought and avoid the pitfalls of emancipation.
This dialogue offers scope for exploration of the limits of Wyn Joness and Booths interpretation. Moreover, it might provide avenues through which critical security studies can engage with
pressing questions in the current study of security, in ways that might not be possible if emancipation is seen as the sine qua non of its research agenda. For example, there are questions about reified security knowledge and the role of security professionals (including academics), about the
relation between security and liberty, and about the disciplinary boundaries of security studies
itself. The investigation of the problem of emancipation will lead the article to raise substantial
doubts about the way in which the Frankfurt School tradition has been appropriated by critical
security studies. With regard to the first point above, Wyn Jones dismisses the use of Theodor
Adorno and Max Horkheimer on the basis of a reading of their Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno
and Horkheimer, 1997) and Horkeimers (2002) Traditional and Critical Theory. However, this
article contends that an engagement with other works on and by Adorno leads to different conclusions, which actually strengthen the theoretical foundations of critical security studies.3 In this way
and in respect to the second point described earlier, the article will show that a more sustained
application of Adornos thought can overcome the problem presented by the conceptual dominance
of emancipation.
With these arguments in mind, the article will briefly outline why the partial treatment of Adorno
by Wyn Jones and Booth is problematic. Then in two steps it will propose that critical security
studies engages with Adornos thought. First, by arguing that despite prevalent criticisms that
claim that Adornos work leads to aporia, negativism and irrationalism, it is possible to bridge the
gap between Adornos philosophy and the possibility of the good life or, in this context, security.
This can be achieved by employing Adornos ethics of resistance (developed in the writings of
James Finlayson) as an alternative to the all-consuming concept of emancipation. Second, in line
with a core principle of Adornos work non-identity thinking his ethics of resistance is used to
derive the philosophical construct of a constellation of security, as opposed to a concept of security.
Not only is this more attuned to critical social theory, but it also brings out and strengthens the
central claims made by critical security studies. Furthermore, this proposed Adornian approach
opens up a new and timely research agenda for critical security studies.

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39

Questioning technological determinism

The problem at hand is not Wyn Joness reading of Adorno as such, but the choice of Frankfurt
School texts with which Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory engages. As others have argued
before, the prevalent interpretation of the Dialectic of Enlightenment is to reduce Adorno and
Horkheimers argument to the selection of key quotations [which] risks serious damage and to
ignore that it is actually an incomplete work, initially published under the title Philosophical
Fragments (Peoples, 2009: 1114). The understanding and argumentation of technological determinism is a case in point and central to Wyn Joness misreading of the Dialectic of Enlightenment,
allowing him to charge Adorno and Horkheimer with a paralysing relativism in relation to politics
(Wyn Jones, 1999: 40). In addition to the use of decontextualized quotes that simplify the ideas of
Adorno and Horkheimer,4 this also renders the authors into mere technological determinists.5 This
is mainly due to the equation of Adorno and Horkheimers notion of instrumental reason with
Andrew Feenbergs conception of Heideggerian technical thinking (Wyn Jones, 1999: 87;
Thomson, 2000). The latter is already problematic in itself. Critics have claimed that Feenberg
exaggerates Heideggers fatalism about technology owing to his idea of a technological essentialism in Heidegger (Thomson, 2000: 203). By contrast, what Heidegger is criticizing is the instrumental treatment of nature that leads to the technological thinking of human beings and the
externalization of, and domination over, nature. Contrary to Feenbergs claim, Heideggers analysis of technology is not restricted to what we might conventionally call technology; instead, his
notion of technological enframing refers to a way of approaching/looking at the world, a mode
of revealing (Lovitt, 1995: 225). Wyn Jones uses Feenbergs line of reasoning opposing instrumental with substantive approaches to technology a reading that he finds in Horkheimers (2002)
earlier writings on technology in Traditional and Critical Theory (Wyn Jones, 1999: 85). This
reading is predicated on the notion that technologies are tools that enable their users to meet certain ends more effectively (Horkheimer quoted in Wyn Jones, 1999: 86). Thus, tools are taken to
be neutral in themselves and subservient to societies needs (Wyn Jones, 1999: 858). However,
this is problematic, as Horkheimer drastically revised his view on technology once he had started
working with Adorno (Wyn Jones, 1999: 2930). In distinguishing between an instrumental and a
substantive approach to technology and wanting to arrive at a dialectical understanding of it (Wyn
Jones, 1999: 858), reading Adorno and Horkheimer through Feenbergs technological fatalism in
this way is to disregard the Dialectic of Enlightenments wider sociocritical claims. Instrumental
reason/rationality is a much wider notion and not restricted to technology. Indeed, the latter is only
a secondary dimension of (wo)mans separation from nature, which drives humankinds selfdomination and ever-greater enslavement.
Instrumental reason is primarily concerned with general domination over nature. In Adorno and
Horkheimers understanding, human beings (not only in their labour but also in their thinking processes, emotions, inner nature) are caught in the dialectic between being of nature and being
external to it. This is an important point, not only in making the distinction between instrumental
reason and technological determinism, but because instrumental reason leads to humanity enslaving itself (inner nature) and not just the domination of outer nature, as argued by Wyn Jones and
Feenberg. Although Wyn Jones mentions the distinction between inner and outer nature, he does
not discuss their relation to the notion of instrumental reason and how this differs from technological determinism.6 The latter rests on the premises that technology possesses a certain degree of
autonomy from the source that created it and is presented as an independent force.7 However, the
stance that Adorno and Horkheimer are taking is that technology is just the materialized form of

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instrumental reason and thus cannot possess a logic of its own. Therefore, to claim that Adorno and
Horkheimer are deterministic is misleading, ignoring their actual critique of the inner rational self.
Yet, the critique of the rational self is of vital importance to critical security studies, as it cuts
to the core of what the referent object is and what it might be threatened by. The critique of rationality questions whether the individual is endangered by the technology that surrounds it or
whether the danger does not actually stem from the referent objects instrumental rationality
itself. That is to say, the individual is its own source of insecurity. Arguably, it is only at the latter
individual level that it is possible to conceive of security threats that are not framed in terms of
national security and interest. Accordingly, the subsequent deepened and broadened security
agenda as developed in Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory, and by critical security studies
more generally,8 which seeks to establish the individual as primary referent object,9 has no theoretical foundation in a philosophy based in conceptions of external nature. Therefore, threats that
emerge on the individual level, precisely the level of Booths ultimate referent object, remain
unaccounted for. In fact, by adopting Max Horkheimers initial arguments about emancipation,
Wyn Jones implicitly undermines his own call to incorporate inner nature into security studies via
the concept of emancipation.
More precisely, to recognize that what it means to be human is a central aspect of the constitution of security and political communities, and that existing oppressive structures need to be questioned, stands in stark contrast to Wyn Joness (1999: 23) idea that emancipation is the more
rational and purposeful utilization of already existing forces of production in order to bring nature
under rational human control. Such a conception perpetuates the dichotomized thinking that
humans are external to nature and in the position to dominate. This, however, only gives rise to the
oppressive structures that Wyn Jones and Booth wish to emancipate individuals from in the first
place.10 Arguably, to leave such a contradiction unaddressed, diverting attention by stating that
none of Adornos arguments have been satisfying enough for critical security studies critical theory grounding, seems quite a harsh dismissal on the part of works that engage with Adorno in
such a partial way.11 Addressing inner and outer nature through Adornos notion of instrumental
reason supports the mounting criticism that critical security studies rests on a shaky theoretical mix
of varying Frankfurt School thinkers and fails to flesh out the full implications of linking the study
of security to the Frankfurt School tradition, as indicated by Peoples (2011: 1115). Indeed, when
we take a closer look, the inherent contradictions of the theoretical make-up of critical security
studies become apparent, among which emancipation is the one that is debated the most by critical
security studies interpreters and critics respectively.

The problem of emancipation

The overconcentration within critical security studies on emancipation as the prime motivation for
transformative change in world politics has attracted justified criticism from both within and outside critical security studies.12 Perhaps the biggest problem arising from critical security studies
appropriation of emancipation is the latters conceptual dominance due to its equation with security. The argument holds that emancipation is problematic because it makes it impossible to conceive any social transformation or progress independently of security reasoning (Aradau, 2004:
397). In practice, this always turns the struggle for emancipation into a struggle for security
(Peoples, 2011: 1120; Aradau, 2004: 398). Such a circular definition deprives emancipation of its
true potential and puts it outside a vision of freedom, instead developing emancipatory conduct
around a particular notion of order (Neocleous, 2008: 45; Aradau, 2004: 3978). Some have gone

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as far as to claim that security and oppression are two sides of the same coin (Neocleous, 2008:
45).13 This criticism of critical security studies use of emancipation has been outlined in greater
detail by Columba Peoples (2011), Claudia Aradau (2004), Mark Neocleous (2008) and Hayward
Alker (2001). The salient point that can be retained from this critique is that critical security studies
needs to engage with critical theory seriously and to take this engagement beyond a narrow focus
on emancipation.
This has certainly already been attempted by Peoples (2011), who, drawing on Herbert Marcuses
reflections on violence and resistance, analysed and questioned the connections between emancipation and security. Peoples investigates the apparent paradox of the possibility of insecure, painful
and dangerous emancipatory processes. With the help of Marcuse, this leads him to question the
equivalence of emancipation and security, and his analysis provides an indispensable and helpful
critique by a critical theory proponent. However, Peoples account is problematic because it fails
to address the analytical difficulty of terrorism. More precisely, Peoples Marcusian reconceptualization of emancipation meaning that at times emancipation from violence is violent can be
used easily as a blueprint for legitimizing various forms of terrorism that is nonetheless perfectly
coherent with the overall critical security studies tenor.14 Through acceptance of the possibility of
Marcuses violence of liberation in order to get away from the idea of emancipation as security,
acts of terrorism become legitimate, given that forms of terrorism can be seen as violent efforts
against the system in order to quash the systems inherent violence.15 Thus, Peoples addresses the
crucial yet problematic relation between forms of terrorism, social movements and violence, as
well as liberation, but seems unable to revise critical security studies and its current use of emancipation. Instead, his approach contributes to Jeroen Gunnings (2009: 161) research agenda of
broadening terrorism research: putting the context back into violence. Pointing this out does not
deny the perceived emancipatory goal of some terrorist activities, but evoking the idea of violent
emancipation is a crucial and controversial move by Peoples (at least in terms of the academic
opposition it generates) that needs to be addressed more specifically.16
However, what becomes even more apparent through Peoples article is that critical security
studies use of emancipation, specifically Booths emancipatory realism, filters the Marxian origins of the Frankfurt School notion of emancipation through Kantian idealism, where the focus lies
on gradual reforms as the only means of approaching the supreme political good (Immanuel
Kant in The Metaphysics of Morals, cited in Booth, 2007: 87). It can be argued that this is quite a
reductionist view, as it conceives of emancipation as a final goal and sine qua non of critical security studies, which stands at odds with Wyn Joness statement that emancipation is a process
rather than endpoint.17 As a consequence, there is a serious danger that critical security studies
can itself become a prisoner to emancipation, or at least to the equivalence of emancipation with
security (Peoples, 2011: 1133). This is not remedied by Booths (2007: 113) claim that there exists
false emancipation, as the problem is the theoretical hegemony of the concept of emancipation
itself. Therefore, critical security studies needs to be revised in a way that does not run the risk of
either an overconcentration on emancipation or the equation of emancipation with security. Peoples
(2011: 1134) suggests turning to Michel Foucault and his work on resistance, as this is the appropriate vocabulary in critical security studies. Indeed, resistance seems a viable alternative. Yet, the
subsequent section of this article will show that this vocabulary can be found in Adorno, which
renders it unnecessary to deprive critical security studies of its Frankfurt School foundations. An
Adornesque approach makes it possible to translate emancipation into various components, and
thereby preserves the initial premises of critical security studies while significantly enhancing and
strengthening it at the same time. Ultimately, using Adornos work, in particular in reference to

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practices of resistance a prime concern in Booths (2007: 112) formulation of security enables
the conception of security as constellation.

Engaging Adorno
This section of the article will argue that Adornos ethics of resistance allows us to think security
anew. In particular, it allows us to develop an approach to security that does not merely avoid harm,
but returns to the Aristotelian question of politics, and explores how practices and theories of security might be oriented towards the good life without falling prey to the perils of instrumental
reason. This is in opposition to the prevailing interpretation of Adorno in critical security studies,
which suggests that Adorno has nothing to offer to this problem (Wyn Jones, 1999: 52).

Problematizing the good

Wyn Jones and Booth argue that Adornos supposed philosophical negativism stands most at odds
with critical security studies emancipatory project because his work rules out any conceptualization of progress and emancipation after Auschwitz (Wyn Jones, 1999: 4952). Indeed, Adornos
negative theology entails an extreme difficulty in accessing the good. Central components of
Adornos work, such as identity thinking, suggest that it is impossible to conceptualize the good.18
In other words, it is impossible to have a positive conception of universals like the good, freedom or security, because to conceptualize is to submit to the logic of identity thinking, subsuming particular instances under a general concept (Rose, 1978: 45). Thus, rationality must treat
unlike (unequal) things as like (equal) (Bernstein, 1991: 6) so that various particular instances
infinitely substitutable for one another can be captured by one general concept (Rose, 1978:
445). In this way, meanings are fixed and stabilized (especially in the social sciences) in order to
make it possible to predict and control certain phenomena.19 As a result, any concept, including
those of security and emancipation, is an instrument of mastery and domination. Peoples (2011: 8)
implicitly voices similar criticism, suggesting that emancipation has become equally totalitarian.
Consequently, to advance any conception of the good life (or notions such as security) is to
falsify/identify it. More precisely, it is to misconstrue and standardize it by conceptualizing what a
good life is and thereby to lose the particularity of the individual everyday life. Further, this mere
process of identity thinking is conceptual domination and evil according to Adorno (1973a: 234).
This has led many critics and defenders of Adorno to label him deterministic, void of any normativity (Finlayson, 2002: 5).20 Most pertinently to critical security studies, Booth and Wyn Jones
(1999: 534) have lamented that Adornos philosophy does not provide any practical orientation
that is to say, that it is completely politically withdrawn.
However, one must not use Adornos claim that the social world is fundamentally evil21 and his
negation of a positive conception of the good as evidence for arguing that there is no room for
progress and morality in his work. Even though his thesis that there is no way of living a false life
correctly22 was used to picture Adorno as determinist (Seel, 2011), it also provides for an alternative, opposite interpretation.

On social unfreedom and insecurity: An ethics of resistance

By evil, Adorno refers to forms of institutionalized unfreedoms. Arguably, this is precisely Booths
understanding of insecurity: oppressive structures that stop people from carrying out what they

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would freely choose to do (Booth, 2007: 112). False life and the evil (administered) social world
can be understood in two ways. First, there is no certainty that we can know and do the morally or
politically right thing. It is beyond humans reach to know that their benign activities generate positive outcomes (Finlayson, 2002: 2; Bernstein, 2001: 4074). In an echo of the Dialectic of
Enlightenment, Finlayson and Bernstein suggest that processes that were emancipatory at first can
always turn out to produce even greater domination and enslavement. For example, outcomes of
security practices are far from certain. Second, and crucial to understandings of security, Adornos
thesis means das Leben lebt nicht [life does not live]23 there is no real living in a false life and
the administered world. Owing to the commodification and administration of the social world,
people are unfree subjects because they adjust and accept socially given norms and pursue socially
constituted ends (Finlayson, 2002). This leads Adorno to argue that one is not living but only surviving in the late-capitalist world. Worthwhile and valuable ends have been systematically removed
and replaced by the means of self-preservation. In this context, it means that security that is, the
good life has been replaced by seeking the absence of insecurity obeying and surviving. Indeed,
this is echoed by Booth, who suggests that in the contemporary world means are confused with
ends (Booth 1991: 319; see also Wyn Jones, 1999, 1147; Bernstein, 1991: 5). More precisely,
Booth (1991: 319) argues that human individuals security should come before the states security,
but that in the neorealist conception of security people are merely treated as means and that the
state has become the end.
According to Adorno, this can be overcome. Specifically, his ethics of resistance suggests dismantling social mechanisms of unfreedom, which had previously been identified as aspects of
insecurity. However, in order to access his ethics, it is imperative to outline how it is possible to
think about security, approximating the good life, in Adornos work. If we start from his criticism
of the institutionalization of social unfreedom, what drives unfreedom or insecurity in this context
is identity thinking, which amounts to conceptual dominance. Adorno suggests that our thoughts
and actions need to be arranged in a way that enables self-conscious non-cooperation with institutionalized unfreedom. Commenting on this reconstruction, Finlayson argues that three virtues
that allow for moral progress can be found in Adornos work: the first prerequisite is autonomy
(Mndigkeit), which refers to the capacity to take a critical stance and to act on it; the second is
humility (Bescheidenheit), which is the consciousness of ones own fallibility; and the third is
affection or the capacity to be moved by ... the fate of others (Finlayson, 2002: 68; see also
Freyenhagen, 2011: 2). Transferred, this means that through the cultivation of these three prerequisites for a good life, security materialized as the intention to abstract oneself from social control
and heteronomy can be thought and practised. These virtues resonate in the biological materialism discussed by Linklater, which refers to the utopian potential in the organization of the libidinal and emotional dimensions and collective selves (McCarthy and Linklater quoted in Linklater,
2007: 188). Being of a normative moral status, these characteristics make it possible to overcome
social unfreedom, oppression and insecurity because they go against the grain of identity thinking,
which Adorno saw in norm conformism, obedience and indifference (Finlayson, 2002: 78).
Furthermore, it is crucial that these are personal characteristics, as they directly respond to critical
security studiess ultimate referent object, the individual.
Only as an autonomous (mndig) citizen and through the concrete denunciation of the inhuman can one criticize and resist the administered world, the institutionalized bad, the countless
forms of morality imposed from outside (Adorno, 2010: 260). Here, Adorno follows Plato to the
extent that untruth is an aspect of the bad and this untruth is embodied in the social world.24 In
contrast to the prevalent conception of Adorno, it is possible to make such criticisms within a

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negative-dialectical framework. Even though Adornos work provides a positive conception neither
of humanity nor of absolute goods and absolute norms, we nonetheless can and do know
intuitively what inhumanity or insecurity is (Finlayson, 2002: 8; see also Adorno, 2010: 2602). In
this vein, Andrew Linklater argues that human beings may not know what counts as the
absolute good, but they have reached some shared understandings about inhuman behaviour
and about conceptions of the bad life that should be resisted and opposed (Linklater, paraphrasing Adorno, in Linklater, 2007: 185). This quite strongly resonates in Booths (2007: 101) Theory
of World Security when he argues a fundamental point that we can understand what security is by
knowing how insecurity feels. Despite the fact that Booth uses the same derivative method as
Linklater, the knowledge that the social world is false or insecure does not presuppose knowledge
of what a good and secure world would be like, in much the same way that our immediate knowledge that pain or suffering is bad presupposes no antecedent knowledge of what is pleasurable
(Finlayson, 2002: 8).25 Yet, in a similar fashion to how Linklater uses Adornos stress on human
vulnerabilities (Linklater, 2007: 23), the injurable animal and a new categorical imperative
(Linklater, 2007: 185) as a starting point upon which to ground inquiry into distant suffering and
cosmopolitan responsibility, as well as a sociology of global morals, Adornos pledge can be used
to revise critical security studies.
So far, what is troubling about the negative strategy of security that has been described here is
that for the good life it is not enough to merely prevent the worst, barbarism.26 Up to this point,
Adorno opens the possibility of the good life here security by drawing out what should be from
the traces of its reflection in the existing untruth/insecurity of what should not be (paraphrasing
Finlayson, 2002: 10, see also Adorno, 2003a: 15; 1973a: 370). This inverted Hegelian dialectic to
ensure the moral minimum of never again Auschwitz is sufficient in terms of our argument that
we need to reconsider the application of Adorno within critical security studies (Finlayson, 2002:
21). It is not enough, however, to move towards a revised version of critical security studies and
security. Indeed, Adorno (1973b: 45) himself came to find the inverted Hegelian optimism oddly
inconsistent and insufficient, as this simply prescribes that not wrong or not bad (not insecure)
does not equal right or good (secure). Thus, in Negative Dialectics (Adorno, 1973a,b) he presents
an alternative way of making the good accessible for his normative ethics of resistance. This work
is primarily concerned with thinking the ineffable.27 For Adorno, philosophy in general is first and
foremost concerned with the ineffable because, in order to avoid being conceptually dominating
and thought controlling, it needs a non-discursive or non-conceptual way of accessing the good
(Schaap, 2000: 1356). The argument goes that the hidden good life which Adorno referred to as
redemption, reconciliation, emancipation, utopia is located in the ineffable, in what cannot be
captured by concepts. Crucially, this means that the good/secure life that is free from oppression
cannot be captured by a concept of security either.

Security and the ineffable

Given the above, instead of trying to conceptualize what security is, what being secure means and
what the good life is, the philosophy of security can only seek to provide an understanding of these
questions through the attempt to think the ineffable. Despite the paradoxical nature of such an
attempt, philosophy can access a kind of goodness in this way (Finlayson, 2002: 11). An Adornian
approach to security accepts that finite categories or concepts cannot capture the infinite nature of
security. Arguably, it is the attempt to articulate security without being conceptual that challenges
rational thought. More importantly for critical security studies, the process reveals the limits of the
knowledge we can have of security.

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The advantage of treating security in terms of ineffable insight is that the latter can only be
gained or experienced individually. This corresponds with critical security studies level of analysis and referent object that is to say, because ineffable knowledge cannot be said and communicated, it only resides in the individual instances of experiencing security or insecurity. This
goes back to Booths (2007: 101) initial claim that we only know of security through our experience of insecurity. Arguably, Adorno and Booth are getting at the same point, which is that ineffable knowledge of security does not depend on saying, representing, defining, conceptualizing
security, but rather on experiencing security or insecurity. Adorno explicitly and Booth implicitly acknowledge that there is a danger in giving in to the temptation to think that if the good life
or security exists, this would mean that one could say what it consists in. However, that would
be identitarian thinking. Instead, Adorno proposes that by gaining ineffable insight into security,
individuals relate self-consciously to what actually cannot be said, presented or conceptualized
(security).28 This is a valuable experience not because it eventually leads to a conception of the
good, secure life, but because a self-conscious receptive relation to a particular situation is a
valuable experience in itself (Finlayson, 2002: 16). This is because gaining ineffable knowledge
may lead to practices of resistance, given that knowledge is used to initiate purposeful action
(Moore, 1997: 185). The core principles of critical security studies, as articulated by Booth, logically derive from such a statement. First, ineffable knowledge can form the philosophical
anchorage that Booth is referring to. Second, such knowledge is a basis for a theory of progress. Third, it enables practices of resistance that are attempting to actualise both nearer-term
and longer-term emancipatory goals (Booth, 2007: 112). Hence, what Booth (2007: 105) terms
the instrumental value of security goes back to what Adorno (2003a) describes as the instrumental value of ineffable knowledge.
Ultimately, individual ineffable experience is crucial, since it is the only conceivable way in
which individuals can think security for themselves. In choosing a type of emancipation and
strategies of resistance for themselves, individuals can secure themselves rather than being
rendered secure. Thinking of security in terms of the ineffable is of vital importance not only
because it avoids conceptual dominance, but also because it identifies the individual as the
security actor not merely as the ultimate referent object and restores individual human
agency. Arguably, any security move that does not emerge out of individual insight and personal decisions about resistance cannot be considered an actual increase in security, but is
rather a form of control and governing remembering Booths (2007: 113) false emancipation
can come in many guises.
Therefore, individual practice leads to individual insight and understanding, but the value
lies in experience becoming self-consciously receptive to situations of security/insecurity that
cannot be represented in, or by, instrumental reason. Accordingly, there is some intrinsic moral
value in the experience of gaining ineffable knowledge because it is a way of being autonomous
(mndig), self-consciously receptive and able to say no, rather than passively accepting and
conforming. The practical manifestation of this experience is in the form of acts of emancipatory resistance. It is at this point that critical security studies can adopt and contribute most
fruitfully to Adornos ethics that is, the project of enhancing active resistance to institutionalized forms of oppression. Arguably, Gramscian wars of position led by organic intellectuals as
proposed by Wyn Jones (1999: 1538) are precisely forms of resistance that emerge out of
ineffable insight. Thinking about security in this way circumvents the apotheosis of emancipation as security, placing emphasis on various elements that shape experiences and thus form the
ineffable.29

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Towards a security constellation

Crucially, approaching security through the ineffable is not an instance of identity thinking, as it
does not reduce security to categorical understandings but maintains the tension between the
universal and the particular, between human vulnerabilities and individual ineffable insight
into instances of insecurity. This correlates with Adornos idea of the constellation, which he
understands to be a dynamic interdependence between concepts (Begriffe) that in their conjunction illustrate an idea that is not a concept itself.30 More precisely, through reciprocal assignation
and alternating critique, concepts are brought into contextual motion, thereby losing their identitarian, fixed meanings (Adorno, 1973a: 556; Schaap, 2000: 136). The argument, then, is that
security is better thought of not as a concept, value or good, but rather as a constellation. As
such, it signifies a cluster of changing elements that resist reduction to a common denominator,
essential core, or generative first principle, such as emancipation (Jay, 1984: 1415).
More importantly, the ceaseless contextual movement between the constitutive elements
demands self-reflexivity of the individual parts. Situating this within critical security theory/practice is not an easy task, however, given that the constellation is a continuous attempt to say what
cannot be said. What is at stake in the constellation of security is to approximate the content of the
thing, which is still and always will be concealed, ineffable (Schaap, 2000: 136). To never reach
this thing is precisely the point, because philosophy cannot simply replace one conceptual identity with a new one. That is to say, even though the security constellation emerges through the
juxtaposition of various ideas related to security, this will not yield a positive conception of what
security is. Hence, a security constellation can be seen as a therapeutic process in which a concept
such as emancipation or resistance, for example is constantly working against itself.
Significantly, the concept never ceases to be important for the constellation as such, because therapy cannot happen without concepts, for only concepts can achieve what a concept prevents.31 It
is the immanent cohesion between the constitutive elements, such as individual understanding,
resistance and emancipation, that characterizes the constellation. Importantly, since a security constellation is a reciprocal, reflexive process, the individual elements do not refer to definite fundamental terms that present units to create a whole. A constellation is not a deductive construction/
building. Hence, it is not a security system:
Constellation is not system. Not everything conciliates, not everything works out even in it, but one sheds
light on the other, and the figures, which built the individual moments, are a clear symbol and legible
script. (Adorno quoted in Schaap, 2000: 136)

Therefore, the security constellation is driven by an anti-systemic impulse, because ineffable

insight, resistance and emancipation cannot be derived from one another, but rather activate and
render each other more precise. Furthermore, a security constellation is not fixed, but new elements such as freedom and liberty can enter. Thus, critical security studies revised in the light of
Adornos philosophy works with the constellation of security, which can be described as a dialectical interplay of various components such as experience, ineffable insight and practices of
resistance.
Furthermore, grounded in the particularity of experience, security as constellation does not and
cannot assume that security is either good or bad. It is the experience of gaining ineffable insight
that is valuable in itself and gives rise to a dream of existence without shame (Adorno, 2003a: 97)
and by shame Adorno refers to domination, mastery and restraining governance. This implies
that the notion of a constellation does not take a teleological approach to security. Even though the

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47

changing elements, especially resistance, are ways of not cooperating with the false social world,
these practices may well lead to frustration, alienation, isolation and despair.32 Despite the unique
experience of the ineffable, efforts that emerge out of the security constellation may remain unsuccessful or even have the opposite effect of insecurity. For example, there is always a possibility that
violent or peaceful resistance might change existing social structures in such a way that individuals
end up being more restrained than they were before. This nonetheless leaves core principles of
critical security studies untouched such as the possibility of moral progress or that the increase
of one individuals security can decrease someone elses.
Ultimately, the practical manifestation of ineffable insight and constellation is Adornos ethics
of resistance. Moreover, this is a normative ethics, as claimed by Finlayson.33 Instead of merely
stating what not to do, it entails what should be done. However, as the problem of unsuccessful
resistance just highlighted, this ethics does not imply certainty. Instead, it maintains multiple strategies to self-consciously resist institutionalized patterns of social unfreedom and heteronomous
behaviour, guided by virtues of Mndigkeit, humility and affection:
The only thing that can perhaps be said is, that the good life today would consist in the shape of resistance
against the forms of a false life, which has been seen through and critically dissected by the most
progressive minds. (Adorno quoted in Finlayson, 2002: 6)

The intrinsic moral value in this ethics lies in the experience of the ineffable. Despite this moral
footing, Adornos ethic differs from the common use of ethics in a Kantian sense.34 The latter
would not be compatible with Adornos critique of instrumental reason, since Finlayson (2002: 19)
remarks that Kantian ethics makes the mistake of trying to stand morality on the sure footing of
pure reason. The value of the ineffable is derived not from the philosophical exercise that leads to
the insight in the first place, but through the experience of the unpresentable. In other words, the
value is not transferred from the practice of reasoning, which is only the means. In the end, it is in
the ineffable that Adorno finds the promise of progress, in the realm of the possible that exceeds
the real and the conceptual (Finlayson, 2002: 18; Adorno, 2003a: 253).

Conclusion
It was the aim of this article to open up new ways of thinking about security by overcoming the
conceptual limits associated with emancipation. In particular, it was the intention to rework and
strengthen critical security studies theoretical framework, using different aspects of Frankfurt
School critical theory. The challenge for critical security studies, it seems, is to approach security
and the study of it in a way that acknowledges the infinite nature of security, but is still able to
maintain its analytical value, without producing specialist knowledge or identitarian concepts of
security. This article proposed an avenue that could lead to such a new approach to security. First,
it was argued that critical security studies should be revised in the light of Adornos work, in order
to show how to overcome the impasse created by an overemphasis on emancipation. The focus
was shifted to practices of resistance that emerge out of ineffable knowledge. This theoretical
move retains critical theory principles of progress, normativity and resistance, but avoids identity
thinking by rejecting the concept of security. Second, it was argued that security should be seen
as a constellation, rather than a concept, with the key aim being to maintain the particularity of
individuals and their experience and understanding of security. While this article views ineffable
experience as particularly important not only because it pays attention to the individual as

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referent object, but also because it provides a framework within which the role of individual and
collective agency can be developed the ineffable points to a considerable gap in current critical
security studies debates.
Revising critical security studies along Adornian lines provides it with the philosophical foundations necessary for asking questions that have so far only been put forward by proponents of the
Paris School in security studies. The interdisciplinary and poststructural approach taken by this
school of thought allows for the analysis of issues related to the categorization and fragmented
interpretation of social reality through academic disciplines (Bigo and Tsoukala, 2008: 1). For
example, there are questions about the disciplinary boundaries of security studies, international
relations monopoly of the meaning of the term security, the reification of security as a body of
knowledge, the fetishization and bureaucratization of security by security professionals, the
subjectobject problem in the study of security, and the categorization and numerical treatment of
individuals.35 Fundamentally, these concerns can be found in the Frankfurt tradition.36 Yet, they are
inaccessible to critical security studies in its current configuration and without its full engagement
with Adornos work. Therefore, an Adornian approach can not only revise and strengthen critical
security studies theoretical grounding, but also open up a new research agenda.
Funding
The article is in part supported by the ESRC +3 studentship.

Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.

5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

See, for example, Booths (1991) influential article Security and emancipation from as early as 1991.
As put forward, for example, by Peoples (2011) and Aradau (2004).
For example, Adorno (2003a, 2005, 1973a,b).
Such as nothing complicitous in this world can have any truth or no universal history leads from savagery to humanitarianism, but there is one leading from the slingshot to the megaton bomb, to mention
just two examples in Wyn Jones (1999: 36). For contextualization, see Jameson (2009: 28081). For
critique, see Peoples (2009: 14).
See, for example, Wyn Jones (1999: 39, 44).
See, for example, Chapter 5, Technology: Reconceptualizing Strategy, in Wyn Jones (1999).
Ironically, it is Habermas (1970: 5860), the author Wyn Jones draws on in order to overcome Adorno
and Horkheimers supposed technological determinism, who actually sustains a level of technological
determinism.
See, for example, Booth (2007: 14981).
Booth (1991: 319). This, however, does not imply that critical security studies would not take national
security seriously; see Booth (2007: 96).
Interestingly enough, these oppressive structures are at the centre of the critique of instrumental
rationality.
See, for example, Wyn Jones (1999: 52, 90).
See, for example, Peoples (2011); Aradau (2004); Reis Nunes (2005). The appropriation of emancipation
for critical terrorism studies has been criticized in similar ways; see, for example, Heath-Kelly (2010).
Neocleouss claim stands in contrast to Booths (1991: 319) premise that security and emancipation are
two sides of the same coin.
See, for example, Peoples (2011: 11223, 12267).
Peoples quoting Marcuse (Peoples, 2011: 1126, 1123) and Richard Kahn (Peoples, 2011: 11267).
In addressing this problem, it is not sufficient to merely mention that Marcuse shifts from a phenomenology of resistance the identification of points of resistance and liberation movements within society to
metaphysics of resistance the valorization of the principle of resistance itself. See Peoples (2011: 1131).

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17. Wyn Jones (1999: 126). For further elaboration of this argument, see Peoples (2011: 1133).
18. Identarian thinking says what something comes under, what it exemplifies or represents, and what,
accordingly, it is not itself (Fagan, 2005). Adorno criticizes identity thinking as systematically and
necessarily misrepresenting reality by subsuming specific phenomena under general, more abstract classificatory categories through which the phenomenal world is cognitively understood. Further, Adorno
claims that this way of representing reality provides for the manipulation of the material environment
(outer nature) as well as inner nature (i.e the mind, free will, etc.). Thereby, the specificity of any
given phenomenal entity is lost; everything becomes a mere standardized exemplar. This also leads to
the elimination of qualities or properties that are inherent in any given object but that are conceptually
excluded from view. In consequence, identity thinking misrepresents its object. Adornos understanding
and use of identity thinking provides a genuine grounding for his philosophy and underlies most of his
writing. See Fagan (2005).
19. Adorno (1973a: 23; 1993: 100).
20. For recent reinvestigation into Adornos work that seeks to dismantle the image, which has haunted his
legacy since the 1960s, see Finlayson (2002); Hammer (2006).
21. Adorno does not shy away from using expressive language such as absolute evil and the bad the
element of exaggeration is not only a rhetorical means, but inherent in Adornos thought; see Djassemy
(2002: 87).
22. Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen (Adorno, 2003a: 43).
23. See Adornos (2003a: 19) choice of motto for Minima Moralia, taken from Ferdinand Krnberger.
24. This he derives from Hegel, whose idea of untruth aims at bad actuality; see Theunissen (1983: 42).
25. For further elaboration of the epistemological question of how we know what inhumanity is in Adornos
work, see the discussion between Ulrich Kohlmann and Finlayson, in Finlayson (2002: 21).
26. At this point, is has to be mentioned that Adorno wrote in a period that he viewed as a situation of moral
emergency or of ongoing moral catastrophe. Thus, the ideal of never again Auschwitz is a kind of
absolute moral minimum (Finlayson, 2002: 8). See, for example, Adorno (2003b: 1936) on Education
after Auschwitz.
27. Other terms of reference are the non-identical or the non-conceptual; see Finlayson (2002: 11).
28. Ineffable insight is not an instance of identity thinking because it is not a conception of something and
avoids the cunning of reason; see Adorno (1973a: 22); Rose (1978: 101).
29. Yet, the focus is still on practices of resistance, which can be emancipatory. Furthermore, this use of
emancipation does not preclude political violence as emancipatory resistance.
30. Using concepts is possible because philosophy is the effort of a concept to heal wounds [Philosophie
ist die Anstrengung des Begriffes, die Wunden zu heilen] (Adorno, 1973c: 556).
31. Adorno quoted in Schaap (2000: 1367). Here, Adorno is going back to Hegels claim in Phenomenology
of Spirit that cognition heals the wound it is itself (Schmaus, 1999: 802; see also Adorno, 1993: xxiii).
32. However, they cannot lead to nihilism, for every act of resistance bears the potential that things might be
different; what remains is a perverse, dislocated bit of hope (Adorno, 1973b: 369).
33. Taking into account Freyenhagens (2011: 20) subsequent criticism, in this context one could adopt what
might be called a context dependent approach to accounting for normativity.
34. For moral grounding in Kant, see, for example, Chapter 6, The Moral Motive, in Acton (1970) vis--vis
Lecture 11 in Adornos (2000) Problems of Moral Philosophy.
35. See, for example, Bigo and Walker (2007); Bigo and Tsoukala (2008).
36. See, for example, Christian Heine and Benno Teschkes (1996) criticism.

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Carolin Kaltofen is an ESRC Doctoral Candidate.

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