Dialectic of Enlightenment. Description Desc. Chapter 1. Table of Contents. Subjects: Literature — Literary theory and cultural studies. View all related items in Oxford Reference ». Search for: 'Dialectic of Enlightenment' in Oxford Reference ».
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Oxford Reference. Adorno was accused of being an academic mandarin toward the end of his life and I would contend that it was undeniable that he was an elitist in that he thought very few could educate and discipline themselves for that possible creative moment of aesthetic awareness. Art is the opposite of comfort for Adorno and if it is comforting, then it is not art. His is not an aesthetics supported in many museums, I suspect. And it was rejected by many committed students in the sixties.
Adorno's way was the way of many in the philosophical tradition: you need the conventions to get you up to snuff, and then you have to destroy them. To not fall back into another convention is the rub. Alienating art might be the start of a possibility. As with other works in continental philosophy, this book is punctuated with jargons and difficult metaphors esp. Nonetheless, the central thesis of the entire book can be summarised in few sentences: enlightenment, which envisions liberation of man from his self-imposed tutelage, forgets that 'reason', the main appendage of an enlightened mind, is never free.
There is a price - the 'sacrifice' - that we must pay to achieve enlightenment. If primordial societies use animals as sacrifices to their gods, us enlightened sacrifice our internal nature in order to tame the external nature notice the epistemological contribution of materialist philosophy : "Men pay for the increase of their power with alienation from that over which they exercise their power" DE, 9.
Reason - the main instrument of liberated mind - fades into the compulsory of our obsessive unconscious and emancipation drowns into the abyss of nihilism. Libido - the source of energy which opens a space for aesthetic emancipation - has been permanently incapacitated in its contact with capitalism; culminating in a schizophrenic world-order wherein objects are fetishised and tastes are dictated. DE intends to expose the irrationality of enlightenment and the contradiction inherent in its false promise to emancipate humanity.
As one of the earliest works that utilises Freud-Marx "sexuality-economic" framework, DE is definitely one of the most radical contemporary books on Ethics that is ever written. The epistemology of DE can be thought as an effort to cover the analytical deficiency in the argument of Marx, especially with regards to his theory of ideology, by seeking a refuge in psychoanalytic thought to schematise the trajectory of 'human nature' - if there exists any - that has been irrevocably purged by instrumental reason and stupefied by modernity.
The history of reason progresses not only through a dialectical materialist fashion, but also through a psychological confrontation with the nature notice that this is among the earliest application of Freudo-Marxism framework. In this stage, the need for mimetic act is abandoned as our fear of the nature has been overcome through reason. The world is now seen as a panorama filled with objects, unknowns, pandora, aporia, etc. The world is like a patient on the operating table waiting to be dissected by us intellectual surgeons using the tool of reason.
The key to meaningful life has been sacrificed in order to inaugurate the genesis of 'new' self, a self imbued with enlightened reason but devoid higher meaning essential for the realisation of emancipation think of Hegel, who theorises the journey of Spirit that discovers the ultimate understanding of the Absolute in the form of Art, Religion, and Philosophy.
The result is the banal face of our nature that resurfaces - fascism, commodity fetish, indoctrination, submission to the 'culture industry' DE Chapter 4. What can be delineated from this literary criticism qua philosophical text? Simply, and frankly; Enlightenment is a deception. The enlightened mind can never comprehend the source of "true" emancipation, that is to be found in the "aesthetic ecstasy" think of the feeling of seeing the birth of your children for the first time.
Instead, enlightened mind tries to logicise and dissect everything through logic instead of adoring the beauty of the aesthetic Absolute. Similarly, liberalism - the seemingly undisputed intellectual champion of human liberation - produces a false picture of emancipation as it foregone aesthetic in favour of "free will". However, is there such thing as "free will" that is completely free from politicisation?
Hence, only Aesthetic Mimesis: the antithesis of thinking being, the act of pure adoration of the purity of the nature, and the uncolonised manifestation of our subjectivity, is the "truest" source of emancipation. So where can liberation be found? Certainly not in the enlightenment. And it is not to be found in the social humanisation of labour through the realisation of communist society, as claimed by Marx and Engels. DE claims that liberation itself is a dialectical process of retraction - a retraction of the trajectory of human nature that has been purged.
Yet, such possibility has been shattered as the genesis of enlightenment implies that the way we think about this world has been made inseparable from our 'unconscious desire' to borrow Freud to seek meanings solely in 'instrumental reason' to borrow Weber.
This ethical dead-end; the rejection of the possibility of emancipation, is viewed negatively by the later generations of Frankfurt School; such as Habermas and Honneth. However, I argue that this ethical void is, at the same time, the strongest point of DE.
DE's main ethical endeavour is to illuminate the problematic when our subjectivity is hypostasised. The utilisation of psychoanalysis in reversing the conventional thinking of the domination of object by subject is original and influential in introducing a psychological dimension to Marxist thought, a permanent legacy that has left a distinctive analytical scar in the epistemology of Frankfurt School.
Indeed, before we even talk about subject-subject dialectic, a reconciliation of subject-object relationship is a must. Precisely, how subject's desire to dominate the object is libidinally reversed - culminating in the psychological domination of subject by the very object they aim to dominate. In conclusion, despite its failure to envision emancipation, DE is nevertheless an indispensable work in the history of continental philosophy.
Despite its obscurantist language that makes DE incredibly difficult to read by those without prior background in literature or philosophy me included when I first read this book , its status as one of the most celebrated works in the history of Critical Theory signals DE's integral scholarly contribution to the discipline. DE is an essential introductory reading for anyone who wishes to learn about critical theory or continental philosophy at an advanced level.
However, juvenile readers must be cognisant that comprehending this book is almost impossible without prior understanding of Marx, Freud, or Weber; whereas the understanding of the latter two thinkers can merely be rudimentary e. Feb 01, Andrew added it Shelves: theeeeeeory , frankfurt-school. This, I feel, is a statement superlative to the Minima Moralia in the Adorno catalog. The classist overtones that damage so much of that book are less ingrained here, and we get what I feel to be a much more open philosophy.
Whenever I read these old Frankfurt School dudes, there's this weird sense of tragedy, as if they were the last line of defense against the brutal forces of late capitalist alienation.
And I've never felt that stronger than in here. That said, this is also the Frankfurt School's coming-of-age statement, admitting the culpability of the Enlightenment in the society of mass destruction. So there's this weird sort of liminality to it, but that's one of the things that makes it so interesting.
Fuck that was tough. Sep 17, Steve rated it liked it. In my dogged pursuit of a self-issued advanced degree in intellectualism, a parchment many covet, yet few possess, I figured I must needs read this book, for what cravat and smoking jacket aspiring pedant hasn't?
It's a tough read, folks. Could the writing be more difficult to digest? An example, from p. Say what? I found a similar meaningless scrawl in one of Robert Parker's wine reviews, of a Hahn Lucienne Doctor's Vineyard, Black olives and forest floor aromas waft up from the glass.
Savory notes of dark fruit and dried sage attack the front of the palate while notes of black cherry and dark plum float on the long, elegant finish. I guess this style of writing is useful as a catalyst for a troupe of scholars seeking to tell the world what Horkheimer and Adorno really meant.
In this sense, this book has been quite profitable and no doubt sustained many a career. This writing is a mere introductory chapter for today and a preamble for tomorrow. Of course, Horkheimer and Adorno were writing in the midst of an upside-down world, which provided rich fuel for their discourse. A couple quotes worthy of note: Everyone can be like the omnipotent society, everyone can be happy if only they hand themselves over to it body and soul and relinquish their claim to happiness.
Enlightenment is totalitarian. Would this work be more understandable with a better translation? View 2 comments.
This translation, by John Cumming, is tough sledding - the textual equivalent of chopping onions, reducing the pungent-yet-aesthetically-Kremlinesque whole bulb into little blocky niblets that scatter and stick to the cutting board whilst still making your eyes water.
Jul 04, Buck rated it really liked it. A wonderful introduction to the critique of instrumental reason. It runs the risk of visualizing "state capitalism" as just the emergence of a "consciously willed" domination for the sake of domination.
Apr 22, Avery rated it really liked it Shelves: philosophy. Apr 27, Adam rated it it was amazing Shelves: durcharbeiten. New translation is a big deal to me. The old orange book was a great starter kit, but the care lavished on this edition is extraordinarily welcome, for neophytes and acolytes alike. Epochal and eye-opening, the ur-text of critical theory.
Just a short note: I cannot help but feel like all "culture industry" criticism is both a very long retort to utopian optimism of Walter Benjamin's Artwork essay, as well as theoretical revenge for the death of their friend hounded by fascists. While for Benjamin the destructive power of mass culture entailed the possibility of mass liberation - indeed, providing the masses exactly with material and cognitive equipment needed -, Adorno and Horkheimer invert almost all of Benjamin's theses, prese Just a short note: I cannot help but feel like all "culture industry" criticism is both a very long retort to utopian optimism of Walter Benjamin's Artwork essay, as well as theoretical revenge for the death of their friend hounded by fascists.
While for Benjamin the destructive power of mass culture entailed the possibility of mass liberation - indeed, providing the masses exactly with material and cognitive equipment needed -, Adorno and Horkheimer invert almost all of Benjamin's theses, presenting mass culture as a tool of mass self- control, obliterating any possibility of reflection. In all particulars their analysis is dated and in certain parts simplistic and incorrect, but it still feels more apt than Benjamin's dreaming of Communist art politicizing aesthetics thus combating Fascist aestheticization of politics at the end of Artwork essay.
And yet, I think that they ultimately overlooked that Benjamin's analysis can be read as ultimate - and ever-relevant - transcendental critique of the mass culture. And thus while Adorno's and Horkheimer's concepts are not really useful for similar critique of mass culture of digital era, Benjamin's techno-optimistic gesture is still applicable.
Apr 27, ozzy is reading added it. Ok so I hope we can be a bit more mature than flinging the jazz criticism about. I think we're all a little tired of that. Some of these essays are very wonderful and The Culture Industry is absolutely one of the best essays of the 20th century. I think I was a little intimidated by this book but its not quite so fearsome as it is sometimes described. Anyway the first essay - which establishes this principle of the dialectic of Enlightenment - is genuinely very impressive and original.
Adorno does Ok so I hope we can be a bit more mature than flinging the jazz criticism about. Adorno does pay due deference to Nietzsche but its certainly a meaningful expansion. Second essay is a rather novel reading of the Odyssey. Enjoyed that. Fourth and fifth are The Culture Industry fantastic, ever-relevant and the antisemitism piece which is also very impressive, and manages to broaden itself beyond recognising traits whether structural or individual to origins, psychoanalytic, and then circling back to the initial dialectic of Enlightenment itself.
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.
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.
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