• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.144
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• pp.141-166
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• 2017

Adorno's most important criticism in popular movement is the identity of revolutionary leaders and followers. The identification process has three characteristics. The first characteristic is to create a sense of solidarity within the group by creating an image more real than the antagonist and ensuring the distinction between the enemy and the comrades. Individual entities that resist the mass created by the sense of solidarity disappear, and only the subject identified with the group exists. The second characteristic is to present an optimistic utopia, which makes the public believe that salvation comes from transcendent values. This mass movement also leads to criticism of other groups or people who are deemed off-limits to their own solidarity. The third characteristic is that the public, whose individual subject disappears through the narcissism-based public hypnotic state, is identified with the conductors, and forces other subjects to hypnotize themselves. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Adorno criticizes the fascist violence of mass movements and analyze what this suggests about the task of mass movements.