Authoritarian, anti-democratic, stuck in the past: these are the attributes that are currently assigned to cultural pessimism. In a world of globalized modernity, its representatives are at best seen as party poopers. While a cultural pessimistic stance based on critical analysis was still a matter of course for anyone trained in Adorno's thought in the 1970s, today the spokespersons of the zeitgeist embrace almost everything that claims to be "culture" without distinction and elevate even the most trivial to a worthy good. When every cultural expression is considered sacrosanct, cultural criticism becomes obsolete. Because our society has turned its back on any serious form of cultural criticism, it welcomes its own cultural decline as progress. However, a culture that no longer sees itself as b.