Tragic Pessimism

There is nothing innocuous left. The little pleasures, expressions of life that seemed exempt from the responsibility of thought, not only have an element of defiant silliness, of callous refusal to see, but directly serve their diametrical opposite. Even the blossoming tree lies the moment its bloom is seen without the shadow of terror; even the innocent 'How lovely!' becomes an excuse for an existence outrageously unlovely, and there is no longer beauty or consolation except in the gaze falling on horror, withstanding it, and in unalleviated consciousness of negativity holding fast to the possibility of what is better [. . .] It is the sufferings of men that should be shared; the smallest step towards their pleasures is one towards the hardening of their pains.

-Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, trans. Edmund Jephcott, pp. 25-26

There is something profoundly heroic in the refusal to be reconciled, in the insistence that one be allowed to remain inconsolable in the face of unspeakable horror. But the question that has been occupying me recently is whether this stance leaves any room for praxis, for emancipatory struggle. I fear that Adorno's stance is mere (if such a thing can be mere) dignified dying.