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| Authors | Max Horkheimer Theodor W. Adorno |
|---|---|
| Original title | Dialektik der Aufklärung |
| Translator | John Cumming (1972) |
| Language | German |
| Subjects | Philosophy,social criticism |
Publication date | 1947 |
| Publication place | Germany |
Published in English | 1972 (New York:Herder and Herder) |
| Media type | Print (pbk) |
| Pages | 304 |
| ISBN | 0-8047-3633-2 |
| OCLC | 48851495 |
| 193 21 | |
| LC Class | B3279.H8473 P513 2002 |
Dialectic of Enlightenment (German:Dialektik der Aufklärung) is a work ofphilosophy andsocial criticism written byFrankfurt School philosophersMax Horkheimer andTheodor W. Adorno.[1] The text, published in 1947, is a revised version of what the authors originally had circulated among friends and colleagues in 1944 under the title ofPhilosophical Fragments (German:Philosophische Fragmente).[2]
One of the core texts ofcritical theory,Dialectic of Enlightenment explores thesocio-psychologicalstatus quo that had been responsible for what the Frankfurt School considered the failure of theEnlightenment. They argue that its failure culminated in the rise ofFascism,Stalinism, theculture industry andmassconsumer capitalism. Rather than liberating humanity as the Enlightenment had promised, they argue it had resulted in the opposite: intotalitarianism, and new forms of barbarism and social domination.[3]
Together with Adorno'sThe Authoritarian Personality (1950) and fellow Frankfurt School memberHerbert Marcuse'sOne-Dimensional Man (1964), it has had a major effect on 20th-centuryphilosophy,sociology,culture, andpolitics, especially inspiring theNew Left of the 1960s and 1970s.[4]
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In the 1969 preface to the 2002 publication, Horkheimer and Adorno wrote that the original was written, "when the end of theNational Socialist terror was in sight."[5]: xi One of the distinguishing characteristics of the newcritical theory, as Adorno and Horkheimer set out to elaborate it inDialectic of Enlightenment, is a certain ambivalence concerning the ultimate source or foundation ofsocial domination.[5]: 229
Such would give rise to the "pessimism" of the newcritical theory over the possibility of humanemancipation andfreedom.[5]: 242 Furthermore, this ambivalence was rooted in the historical circumstances in whichDialectic of Enlightenment was originally produced: the authors sawNational Socialism,Stalinism,state capitalism, andculture industry as entirely new forms of social domination that could not be adequately explained within the terms of traditional theory.[6][7]
For Adorno and Horkheimer (relying on economistFriedrich Pollock's thesis[8] on National Socialism),[9]state intervention in the economy and the increasing concentration of capital had concealed the contradiction within capitalism between the coerciverelations of production and the level ofproductive forces—a tension that traditional theory expected to be resolved through a proletarian revolution. The liberal market economy, once associated with individual autonomy and competition among private entrepreneurs, had evolved into a system ofcentralized planning.[5]: 38
[G]one are the objective laws of the market which ruled in the actions of the entrepreneurs and tended toward catastrophe. Instead theconscious decision of the managing directors executes as results (which are more obligatory than the blindest price-mechanisms) the old law of value and hence the destiny of capitalism.
— Dialectic of Enlightenment, p. 38
Because of this, contrary toMarx's famous prediction in his preface toA Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, this shift did not lead to "an era ofsocial revolution," but rather tofascism andtotalitarianism. As such, traditional theory was left, inJürgen Habermas' words, without "anything in reserve to which it might appeal; and when the forces of production enter into a baneful symbiosis with the relations of production that they were supposed to blow wide open, there is no longer any dynamism upon which critique could base its hope."[10]: 118 For Adorno and Horkheimer, this posed the problem of how to account for the apparent persistence of domination in the absence of the very contradiction that, according to traditional critical theory, was the source of domination itself.[4]
The problems posed by therise of fascism with the demise of theliberal state and the market (together with the failure of asocial revolution to materialize in its wake) constitute the theoretical and historical perspective that frames the overall argument of the book—the two theses that "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology."[5]: xviii
The history of human societies, as well as that of the formation of individual ego orself, is re-evaluated from the standpoint of what Horkheimer and Adorno perceived at the time as the ultimate outcome of this history: the collapse or regression ofreason, with the rise ofNational Socialism into something resembling the very forms ofsuperstition andmyth out of which reason had supposedly emerged as a result ofhistoricalprogress or development.
Horkheimer and Adorno believe that in the process of Enlightenment, modern philosophy had become uncritical and an instrument oftechnocracy. They characterize a key part of this process as the historical transition ofrationality intopositivism, referring to both thelogical positivism of theVienna Circle and broader trends that they saw in continuity with this movement.[11] Horkheimer and Adorno's critique of positivism has been criticized as too broad; they are particularlycritiqued for interpretingLudwig Wittgenstein as a positivist—at the time only hisTractatus Logico-Philosophicus had been published, not his later works—and for failing to examine critiques of positivism from withinanalytic philosophy.[12] However, Adorno's later contributions toThe Positivist Dispute in German Sociology present a more differentiated critique of positivism, including attention to internaldebates andmethodological tensions within thetradition.[13]
To characterize this history, Horkheimer and Adorno draw on a wide variety of material, including thephilosophical anthropology contained in Marx's early writings, centered on the notion of "labor;"Nietzsche'sgenealogy of morality, and the emergence ofconscience through the renunciation of thewill to power;Freud's account inTotem and Taboo of the emergence of civilization and law in murder of the primordial father;[14] andethnological research onmagic andrituals in primitive societies;[15] as well asmyth criticism,philology, andliterary analysis.[16]
Adorno and Horkheimer argue thatantisemitism is a deeply rooted,irrationalphenomenon that stems from the failure of the Enlightenment project and the inherentcontradictions ofbourgeois society. They argue that Jews serve as a universalscapegoat onto which individuals and societies project their deepest fears, anxieties, andneuroses. According to their analysis, the complex and often contradictory nature of modern life generates a sense ofalienation, powerlessness, andpsychological distress. Unable to confront these feelings directly, people seek to externalize them by identifying a tangible "other" to blame for their problems. The Jews, with their historicallymarginalized status and perceived association with the disruptive forces ofmodernity, become an ideal target for this projection.[1]
Adorno and Horkheimer suggest thatantisemitic stereotypes, such as the Jews' alleged greed, cunning, androotlessness, are not based on any objective reality but rather reflect the unconscious fears and desires of the antisemites themselves. By attributing their own negative impulses to the Jews, they are able to maintain a sense ofpsychological coherence and moral purity. Thisirrational, projective hatred is further reinforced by economicresentment andnationalisticideology, which provide a broader social framework for antisemitism. Ultimately, Adorno and Horkheimer see the persecution of the Jews as asymptom of the unresolved contradictions andpathologies ofmodern society, which can only be addressed through a radical critique of the Enlightenment project and thesocial conditions that sustain it.[1]
The authors coined the termculture industry, arguing that in a capitalist society,mass culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods—films, radio programmes, magazines, etc.[17] These homogenized cultural products are used tomanipulate mass society into docility and passivity.[18] The introduction of the radio, amass medium, no longer permits its listener any mechanism of reply, as was the case with the telephone. Instead, listeners are not subjects anymore but passive receptacles exposed "in authoritarian fashion to the same programs put out by different stations."[19]
By associating theEnlightenment andTotalitarianism withMarquis de Sade's works—especiallyJuliette, inexcursus II—the text also contributes to the pathologization ofsadomasochist desires, as discussed by historian of sexuality Alison Moore.[20]
The book was first published asPhilosophische Fragmente in New York in 1944, by theInstitute for Social Research, which had relocated from Frankfurt am Main ten years earlier. A revised version was published asDialektik der Aufklärung in Amsterdam byQuerido in 1947. It was reissued in Frankfurt byS. Fischer in 1969, with a new preface by the authors, in whichGretel Adorno's contribution to the theoretical development of the text was acknowledged.[21]
There have been two English translations: the first by John Cumming (New York:Herder and Herder, 1972; reissues byVerso from 1979 reverse the order of the authors' names), and another, based on the definitive text from Horkheimer's collected works, by Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).
Culture today is infecting everything with sameness. Film, radio, and magazines form a system. Each branch of culture is unanimous within itself and all are unanimous together. Even the aesthetic manifestations of political opposites proclaim the same inflexible rhythm...All mass culture under monopoly is identical... Films and radio no longer need to present themselves as art. The truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce.
...The standardized forms, it is claimed, were originally derived from the needs of the consumers: that is why they are accepted with so little resistance. In reality, a cycle of manipulation and retroactive need is unifying the system ever more tightly.
The step from telephone to radio has clearly distinguished the roles. The former liberally permitted the participant to play the role of subject. The latter democratically makes everyone equally into listeners, in order to expose them in authoritarian fashion to the same programs put out by different stations. No mechanism of reply has been developed...
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