The Stars Down to Earth shows us a stunningly prescient
Adorno. Haunted by the ugly side of American culture industries he
used the different angles provided by each of these three essays to
showcase the dangers inherent in modern obsessions with consumption.
He engages with some of his most enduring themes in this seminal
collection, focusing on the irrational in mass culture - from
astrology to new age cults, from anti-semitism to the power of
neo-fascist propaganda. He points out that the modern state and
market forces serve the interest of capital in its basic form.
Stephan Crook's introduction grounds Adorno's arguments firmly in the
present where extreme religious and political organizations are
commonplace - so commonplace in fact that often we deem them unworthy
of our attention. Half a century ago Theodore Adorno not only
recognised the dangers, but proclaimed them loudly. We did not listen
then. Maybe it is not too late to listen now