Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Herder and Herder, New York, 1944.



Very much a product of its time, Dialectic of Enlightenment has remained a classic. Horkheimer and Adorno, both members of the Frankfurt School of theory and political refugees escaping Nazi Germany collaborated on the piece while in America. Dialectic is an exploration of modernism gone awry, with a conclusion that can be summed up in five words: “The Enlightenment lead to Nazism.” Their purpose for the book is quite personal; they experienced firsthand the terrors of Nazism, and wish to discover “why mankind, instead of entering into a truly human condition, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism.” (xi) The book also has Marxist undertones to its evaluation of consumerism as a product of the Enlightenment.

         The book is divided into five chapters beginning with an explanation of the concept of enlightenment. For Horkheimer and Adorn the Enlightenment is simply a continuation of myth that has been exalted into a status of supreme power, backed by rational. They write, “Myth turns into enlightenment, and nature into mere objectivity… Enlightenment behaves towards things as a dictator toward men. He knows them in so far as he can manipulate them.” (9) They see this intellectual movement as a totalitarian regime that uses logic to manipulate the masses into submission. Using logic as a continuation of myth, Nazi Germany was able to rationally explain that the Jews were an inferior race, and worthy only of extinction. The difference between the old myth and the new enlightenment discourse is the latter assumes more legitimacy and power because it is now explained using reason.

         Horkheimer and Adorno’s next chapter, “Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment” They link Homer’s Odyssey to the enlightenment, claiming that enlightenment discourse can be found as far back as this epic poem. They cite other intellectuals such as Nietzsche, who “Stressed the bourgeois Enlightenment element in Homer.” (44) They accuse others such as Borchardt of “failing to perceive what epic and myth actually have in common: domination and exploitation.” Horkheimer and Adorno explain that “Aboriginal myth already contains that aspect of deception which triumphs in the fraudulence of Fascism yet imputes the same practice of lies to the Enlightenment.” (45) For these two men the “reduction and malleability of men are worked for as progress”(44) aka modernity, which is worshiped from the standpoint of enlightenment discourse.

         Horkheimer and Adorno’s next section, “Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality,” questions how morality is established within the discourse of the enlightenment. They conclude that this way of thinking is flawed because rational is separated from nature, and experience, “Fact, however, belong to practice; they always characterize the individual’s contact with nature as a social object; experience is always real action and suffering.” (83) The Enlightenment falters because it allows for the pursuit of wealth or power and does not reflect on human suffering brought on by these pursuits. “The burgher, in the successive form of slave-owner, free entrepreneur, and administrator is the logical subject of the Enlightenment.” (83)

<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">         Next the men discuss the enlightenment’s roll in the rise of mass consumerism. They explain that in while striving for modernity, Western culture has degenerated into consumerism, which we cannot escape. Culture industry has actually robbed us of our freedom, “The way in which a girl accepts and keeps the obligatory date, the inflection on the telephone or in the most intimate situation, the choice of words in conversations, and the whole inner life as classified by the now somewhat devalued depth psychology, bear witness to man’s attempt to make himself a proficient apparatus, similar (even in emotions) to the model served up by the culture industry.” (167)

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">         Horkheimer and Adorno’s last and most powerful chapter “Elements of Anti-Semitism” tackles what they see to be the most damaging consequence of the enlightenment, anti-Semitism. They acknowledge that Nazism distains all minority races, but they separate all others then they say, “No one tells the workers, who are the ultimate target, straight to their face-for very good reasons; and the Negros are to kept where they belong: but the Jews must be wiped from the face of the earth, and the call to destroy them like vermin finds and echo in the heart of every budding fascist throughout the world.” (168) Horkheimer and Adorno explain that anti-Semitism was a tool used by the fascist ruling elite to manipulate the masses into surrendering their power for protection from this perceived enemy. Once again, the “rational” of the enlightenment has manipulate the masses, “All the rational economic, and political explanations and counter-arguments-however accurate they may be in part- cannot provide a justification,” (171) because the leaders of the fascist movements have made the people fear the Other, the Jews were the scapegoat.