This article seeks to reconstruct the forgotten promise of art in the face of widespread processes of commodification of culture and aestheticization of reality. It employs the tools of critical theory, mainly drawing from the works of Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, to specify the nature of an aesthetic dimension and its significance for an analysis of the present. Through an actualization of their insights, it argues for the renewal of cultural sociology in light of a critical tradition which seems to have been forgotten in the name of sociological critique. The article delves into the need for sociological interpretation of the truth content of cultural works, the reconfiguration of the division between high and low culture, an understanding of the autonomy of art beyond the opposition between form and function, and a concept of metamorphosis as an alternative to the notion of revolution.
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