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    Dialectic of Enlightenment
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    Dialectic of Enlightenment
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    Dialectic of Enlightenment
    Ebook354 pages6 hours

    Dialectic of Enlightenment

    By Theodor W. Adorno

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    About this ebook

    A classic of twentieth-century thought, charting how society devours itself through the very rationality that was meant to set it free

    Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer are the leading figures of the Frankfurt School and this book is their magnum opus. Dialectic of Enlightenment is one of the most celebrated works of modern social philosophy and continues to impress in its wide-ranging ambition.

    Writing just after World War II and reflecting on the bureaucracy and myths of National Socialism and the inanity of the dawn of consumerism, Adorno and Horkheimer addressed themselves to a question which went to the very heart of the modern age: ‘why mankind, instead of entering into a truly human condition, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism’. Modernity, far from redeeming the promises and hopes of the Enlightenment, had resulted in the stultification of mankind and administered society, characterised by simulation and candy-floss entertainment. Tracing humanity’s modern fall to the very rationality that was to be its liberation, the authors exposed the domination and violence that underpin the Enlightenment project.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVerso
    Release dateSep 1, 2016
    ISBN9781784786809
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    Dialectic of Enlightenment
    Author

    Theodor W. Adorno

    Theodor Adorno was director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt from 1959 until his death in 1969. His works include In Search of Wagner; Aesthetic Theory; Negative Dialectics; and (with Max Horkheimer) Dialectic of Enlightenment and Towards a New Manifesto.

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    Reviews for Dialectic of Enlightenment

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    • 5/5
      Three things I love here, above all else: a) the collaboration, and the refusal to disentangle themselves from it when others demanded that Horkorno coalesce into two identities: of course reminds me of Deleuze and Guattari, but, for a medievalist, also Marty Shichtman and Laurie Finke; b) the refusal to update the text to reflect the current moment: in this insistence on preserving the text as an intervention into a particular historical moment, Adorneimer refuse to pretend to speak from a position of atemporality ("We do not stand by everything we said in the book in its original form. That would be incompatible with a theory which attributes a temporal core to truth")--this helps account for the problems with their famous Culture Industry chapter, which, even before the 'New Media,' could have grappled with, for example, samizdat; c) the antisemitism essay, and here, I'm totally annoyed with Zizek, 'Republics of Gilead,' and so on, for not doing our thinkers the honor of acknowledging that in many ways, they got there first. But I suppose in honoring the Frankfurt school, SZ would accidentally honor Habermas...or he's just plain sloppy.

      A favorite passage:

      "What many individual things have in common, or what constantly recurs in one individual thing, needs not be more stable, eternal, or deep than the particular. The scale of categories is not the same as that of significance....The world is unique. The mere repetition in speech of moments which occur again and again in the same form bears more resemblance to a futile, compulsive litany than to the redeeming world. Classification is a condition of knowledge, not knowledge itself, and knowledge in turn dissolves classification" (182).

      Overall, given my current interests--for readers of the blog, see my stuff on Shakespeare 'The Phoenix and Turtle'--this critique of Reason is perfect.
    • 4/5
      Pure and hearty intellectual soup. The density of some of the passages often insist on a double- or even triple-read, but Dialectic of Enlightenment is a goldmine of intellectual thought that's sure to enrich and reorganize some of your thinking. Would highly recommend reading, but actively, as I don't think an inactive or passive read would be very enjoyable here.
    • 5/5
      Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, both prominents of the Frankfurter Schule of critical theory, wrote this work during WWII. In their own words, the purpose of the book was to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism. Obviously their experiences as Jewish intellectuals fleeing for the national-socialist regime to the United States was a strong impulse for this view, but the book is not limited to a critique of nazism or even totalitarianism altogether. The main subject of the book, though that itself is already difficult to disentangle, is Enlightenment's betrayal of its own liberating capacity. Adorno & Horkheimer analyze this by means of various cultural metaphors, which in highly abstract, contradictory and aesthetic language (especially the parts by Adorno) trace the development of Enlightenment and its subsequent 'dark side' throughout an equally metaphorical history of culture and ideas. In a certain sense this may most remind readers not familiar with both authors of Foucault and his use of concepts like the Panopticon to express a view of power relations. The method of Adorno and Horkheimer is however not so much genealogical, as Foucault's is, as dialectical in its idealist form. The book consists of an introduction, two "excursions" and two chapters on the Enlightenment itself, as well as a series of aphorisms provided at the end as "notes and sketches". Each part of the book consists of a very abstract, very metaphysical and almost entrancing analysis of, in turn, the development of Enlightenment as myth out of earlier myth, the form of modern Enlightenment as instrumental reason and mass deception, and the limits of Enlightenment to its own rationality, in the form of anti-semitism. The language of the book is extremely difficult, even in English, and in the best (and worst) traditions of continental philosophy it contains a very great amount of layers and meanings, not all of which are free of internal contradiction. Readers familiar to Situationist works are perhaps best prepared for the effect, which is somewhat similar in method, if not in style, to Guy Debord. The introduction, "The Concept of Enlightenment", posits Enlightenment as thought liberating man from his natural shackles, and creating man as master of the earth. This process of liberation entails at the same time the possibility of man to protect himself from, and understand the workings of, nature, and also mankind's loss of being one with nature. In this process, the self is created as a subjectivity divorced from direct experience of the outside world. Man's memory of this is very vague and distant, but is present in everyone as a certain inchoate feeling of loss. This is also the main subject of the first Exkurs, "Odysseus, or Myth and Enlightenment". The story of the Odysseia is here used in many ways to provide metaphorical expressions for the role of myth in and against Enlightenment. Myths are primitive descriptions of the world, and in being so are already classifications used as a form of instrumental reason, which is the seed of Enlightenment. The role of sacrifice to the Gods, for example, is presented as manipulation of those Gods, and in so doing already expression of an Enlightened mind avant la lettre. Odysseus' adventure with the Sirens is metaphor for man's loss as described above: Odysseus, the Enlightened ruler, knows his loss but is constrained by his knowledge from acting on it; and the shipmates, the great mass of modernity, is only vaguely aware of the loss, and are not affected. But Circe, the Cyclops, and many other themes are used besides. The second Exkurs is "Juliette, or Enlightenment and Morality". The works of De Sade, in particular Juliette, here provide an expression of Enlightenments freeing and therefore contradictory character. Kant is contrasted with Juliette; where Kant is the restrained form of reason, reason as classifying and ordening power, Juliette is reason's destructive power of old orders. Because Enlightenment destroys the validity of any appeal to tradition, religion, etc., it falls pray to itself, in that Enlightenment's appeal to its own absolute values is undermined, in the same way that Juliette uses and is used by Catholicism in undermining it. The third chapter is "Enlightenment as Mass Deception", covering the subject of the culture industry. Here Adorno rants against all the vapid and degraded culture forms he perceives in the United States, although he never states it as valid only for the US, of course. There are many interesting insights and observations about modern culture and still valid ones too in this chapter, but Adorno's general tone is that of the "hochbürgerliche" bourgeois annoyed about the offenses against good taste he sees. Yet to dismiss it based on that would be superficial, even if we cannot agree with Adorno's hatred for radio and jazz. His observations on American movies are very poignant, and in between his cultural criticism he hits on certain relations between the capitalist mode of production, its Enlightenment ideology, and the cultural superstructure that are very worthwhile for a patient radical. The fourth chapter is called "Limits of Enlightenment", and addresses directly the subject of anti-semitism and fascism more generally. Fascism is posited as Enlightenment turned against itself (it must be noted Adorno & Horkheimer were among the first to state this, even if it is somewhat of a cliche now). Enlightenment's general instrumental reason knows only power as a measure of behavior. Therefore, it cannot tolerate the existence of groups that thrive, yet never have power, such as Jews and women. Whenever Enlightened society fails to satisfy the needs of its members, their anger is turned against such groups. The last chapter, "Notes and Sketches", is as said a series of aphorisms, familiar to people who have read situationist works, or for example Walter Benjamin's notebooks. Overall, this book is an extremely complex, but very worthwhile philosophical critique of modern culture, and a very pessimistic and negative analysis of Enlightenment and its possibilities. It is hard work to get to the bottom of it, but nevertheless rewarding for any student of philosophy.
    • 4/5
      Größtenteils sehr unterhaltsam. Hab mich beim Lesen des Kapitels über "Kulturindustrie" kichernd im Bett gekugelt. Den Rest habe ich nicht verstanden. Glaube ich.
    • 4/5
      The book "Dialectic of Enlightenment" one of the first books that topped the Frankfurt School library. It dates back to the era of the forties of the last century. It was written by Marx Horkheimer and Theodor V.adurno. However, the idea of the book and his concerns do not make us stand at a theoretical concern that its title might suggest. As it produced Kant in his well-known essay on the subject to him. Does not address the political sense of the word exchange where the book comes in a difficult political phase of the history of the Frankfurt School, and the history of persecution suffered by the owners of this school in that period. What most members carry it to leave Frankfurt and try again incorporation abroad, from Vienna to the United States. Which found its reflection in this book, especially in the chapter which relates to anti-Semitism. Mention, of course, the Jewish origin, which dates back to him, these two authors along with other colleagues at the Frankfurt School.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A difficult but worthwhile book, Dialectic of Enlightenment is unavoidable reading for anyone interested in modern social theory and critique, and in the heritage of the Enlightenment. Adorno and Horkheimer engage significantly with myth and epic (particularly--almost exclusively, in fact--the Odyssey), the works of the Marquis de Sade, and Nietzsche. The book finishes with some notes/drafts which are also very interesting, and helpful for working out the role A&H see for philosophy, "thought," critique, and politics; also some worthwhile reflections on the animal/human distinction.

      1 person found this helpful