Dialectic of the Enlightenment is acollection of essays by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno.
In view of the triumph of fascism and monopoly capitalism as new forms of rule that society did not offer any effective resistance, the authors subjected the Enlightenment concept of reason to a radical criticism. They formulated the thesis that already at the beginning of human history, with the self-assertion of the subject against a threatening nature, an instrumental reason prevailed, which became dominant over external and internal nature and finally institutionalized solidified rule of people over people.
Based on this “dominant character” of reason, Horkheimer and Adorno observed an upswing in mythology , the “return of enlightened civilization to barbarism in reality”, which manifests itself in different ways in contemporary society. This "intertwining of myth and enlightenment" (Habermas) did not set a process of liberation, but rather a universal self-destruction process of the Enlightenment in motion. To put a stop to this process through "self-reflection" and self-criticism of the Enlightenment was a central motive of the Adorno and Horkheimer.
In Dialectic of Enlightenment Horkheimer and Adorno justify the thesis that the failure of the Enlightenment is based on the "unity of formal and instrumental reason" of their thinking. The authors trace this “specifically occidental type of rationality aimed at self-preservation and domination” back to the beginning of human history. The once mythical one access to the world is rationally enlightened, but with the gradual perfection of the mastery of nature, Enlightenment strikes back as "rule over an objectified external and the repressed internal nature" even in mythology. "Just as myths already enlightenment, so enlightenment becomes entangled with each of its steps deeper into mythology", in a mythology that culminates in the positivism of the factual, which depicts the existing social conditions as necessary and which "individual [... ] completely annulled vis-à-vis the economic powers ”.
With their writing, Horkheimer and Adorno reacted to the “enigmatic readiness of the technologically educated masses” to embrace despotismof totalitarian ideologies and forms of rule, and rated this behavior as the “collapse of bourgeois civilization” and sinking into a “new kind of barbarism”. In spite of all their radicalism, they do not make the "liquidation of enlightenment their own particular cause". The criticism of the Enlightenment in no way rejects its idea, but rather wants to "prepare a positive concept of it that will free it from its entanglement in blind rule".
In view of the triumph of fascism and monopoly capitalism as new forms of rule that society did not offer any effective resistance, the authors subjected the Enlightenment concept of reason to a radical criticism. They formulated the thesis that already at the beginning of human history, with the self-assertion of the subject against a threatening nature, an instrumental reason prevailed, which became dominant over external and internal nature and finally institutionalized solidified rule of people over people.
Based on this “dominant character” of reason, Horkheimer and Adorno observed an upswing in mythology , the “return of enlightened civilization to barbarism in reality”, which manifests itself in different ways in contemporary society. This "intertwining of myth and enlightenment" (Habermas) did not set a process of liberation, but rather a universal self-destruction process of the Enlightenment in motion. To put a stop to this process through "self-reflection" and self-criticism of the Enlightenment was a central motive of the Adorno and Horkheimer.
In Dialectic of Enlightenment Horkheimer and Adorno justify the thesis that the failure of the Enlightenment is based on the "unity of formal and instrumental reason" of their thinking. The authors trace this “specifically occidental type of rationality aimed at self-preservation and domination” back to the beginning of human history. The once mythical one access to the world is rationally enlightened, but with the gradual perfection of the mastery of nature, Enlightenment strikes back as "rule over an objectified external and the repressed internal nature" even in mythology. "Just as myths already enlightenment, so enlightenment becomes entangled with each of its steps deeper into mythology", in a mythology that culminates in the positivism of the factual, which depicts the existing social conditions as necessary and which "individual [... ] completely annulled vis-à-vis the economic powers ”.
With their writing, Horkheimer and Adorno reacted to the “enigmatic readiness of the technologically educated masses” to embrace despotismof totalitarian ideologies and forms of rule, and rated this behavior as the “collapse of bourgeois civilization” and sinking into a “new kind of barbarism”. In spite of all their radicalism, they do not make the "liquidation of enlightenment their own particular cause". The criticism of the Enlightenment in no way rejects its idea, but rather wants to "prepare a positive concept of it that will free it from its entanglement in blind rule".
