Childhood and promise: notes based on the thought of Theodor Adorno

Abstract

Based on the thought of Theodor Adorno, this article aims to relate the concept of childhood with those of civilizational process and education. In view of the main diagnosis of the so-called “critical theory” of society – i.e., the one of the interlacing between myth and enlightenment throughout the process of development of the Western civilization – the intention is to demonstrate how childhood, through its specific dynamics, can be seen as a kind of promise that beckons to the possibility of a “right life” amidst the understanding that “there is no right life in the false one”. This reflection should also serve to point out some consequences of the perception of childhood in the Adornian idea of education.