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To cite this Article Sherratt, Y.(2000) 'ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER'S CONCEPT OF 'ENLIGHTENMENT'', British
Journal for the History of Philosophy, 8: 3, 521 — 544
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British Journal for the History of Philosophy 8(3) 2000: 521–544
ARTICLE
Y. Sherratt
ENLIGHTENMENT CONCEPTUALIZED
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6 See for instance Bernstein, J. M. (ed.) The Frankfurt School: Critical Assessments (London,
Routledge, 1994), Bubner, R. Dialektik und Wissenschaft (Frankfurt, Suhramp, 1973),
Rosen, M. Hegel’s Dialectic and its Criticism (CUP, 1982).
7 There are very few texts that focus upon Adorno and Horkheimer’s use of Freud. Two possi-
bilities are Alford, F. C. Narcissism, Socrates the Frankfurt School and Psychoanalytic
Theory (New Haven and London: Yale U.P, 1988) and Whitebook, J. Perversion and Utopia:
A Study in Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory (London: MIT, 1995).
8 For example Gay, P. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 Vols. (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1967–9), Outram, D. The Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P, 1995), Porter, R.
and Teich, M. (eds) The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P, 1981).
9 See, as an example, the thinkers Outram (1995) selects as representative of enlightenment.
10 Adorno and Horkheimer, T.: All references of the original are to the Gesammelte Schriften,
ed. Rolf Tiedemann (20 vols. in 23, Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1973–86). Adorno
and Horkheimer, T. and Horkheimer, M. Dialektik Der Aufklarung: Philosophische Frag-
mente 2nd edn., Vol. 3 (1984). Adorno and Horkheimer, T. and Horkheimer, M. Dialectic
Of Enlightenment, trans. J. Cumming (London: Verso, 1979). Subsequent citations will use
the abbreviated DA and cite the original proceeded by the translation.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 523
for them, a span which ts well with the historians (DA.14–60/3–42).Adorno
and Horkheimer’s concept is, however, quite distinct from historical
Enlightenment for they use it in a way which extends it well beyond that
which any historians would accept. In fact, for Adorno and Horkheimer,
enlightenment has been present in some form ever since the dawn of
Western culture. For instance, they say of the Odyssey: ‘the poem as a whole
bears witness to the dialectic of enlightenment’ (DA.61/43). Moreover, they
regard enlightenment to span (in certain of its features) as far as the twen-
tieth century. Their concept is thus, in historical terms, very broad indeed
(DA.61–99/43 –80).
This historical breadth of Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept would
render it, by any historical criterion, so vague as to be completely useless.
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11 Young (1998) perceives that Adorno and Horkheimer stretch the concept of enlightenment
to incorporate ‘modernity’. Outram agrees, demonstrating that Adorno and Horkheimer
use the concept to include twentieth-century Europe (Outram, 1995) 9–10.
12 See for example Cassirer, E. The Philosophy of Enlightenment (Princeton, 1951), Hazard,
P. The Crisis of the European Mind, 1675–1725, (Hamondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963);
Goldmann, L. The Philosophy of Its Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1973). These
display a very wide range of conceptualizations within which they offer quite distinct
perspectives.
13 Shaftesbury’s Characteristics is discussed as a key text of English Enlightenment philosophy
by Lawrence Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural
Politics in Early–Eighteenth Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1994) and by J.
G. A. Pocock, ‘Clergy and Commerce: The Conservative Enlightenment In England’, in
L’eta dei Lumi: Studi Storici Sul Settecento Europa In Onore Di Franco Venturi (Naples:
Jorent Press, 525–62).
524 Y. SHERRATT
14 This is not, of course, to imply that historians are not interested in ideas or texts or indeed
that philosophers do not concern themselves with period. Ours is a heuristic division
enabling us to locate Adorno and Horkheimer’s project.
15 I use the term ‘critical theorizing’ rather than, say ‘critical theory’ because my purpose is to
illuminate Adorno and Horkheimer’s concept of enlightenment rather than discuss the
concept of a critical theory itself. For this latter see Benhabib, S. Critique, Norm and Utopia:
a Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory (New York: Columbia U.P., 1986), Kortian, G.
Metacritique. Trans. Raffan, J. Intr. Monteore, C. and Taylor, C. (Cambridge: Cambridge
U.P., 1980), or Rosen, M. (1983).
16 For a depiction of the early generation Frankfurt School’s notion of a critical theory see
Horkheimer, M. ‘Traditional and Critical theory’ in Critical Theory: Selected Essays. Trans.
O’Connell, M. J. O. et al. (New York: Seabury Press, 1972). See also Marcuse, H. One
Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968); Habermas, J. Theory and Praxis. Trans.
Viertel, J. Beacon, (1973).
Note that I only use the notion of ‘critical theorizing’ in the ‘strict sense’ to refer specically
to the Frankfurt School’s mode of theorizing developed from the ideas of Hegel and some-
times also Marx. It has been used in a much looser sense to include any theorist who criticizes
a phenomenon (for instance Foucault is sometimes referred to as a ‘critical theorist’).
17 See Rosen (1983) for a discussion of these from Hegel to the late Frankfurt School.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 525
18 See Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation Of The Public Sphere: An Enquiry Into A
Category Of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Burger, T. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989),
especially pp. 32 –3 wherein he depicts the beginnings of enlightenment c. 1688 with the
opening of the coffee houses which created a ‘public’ space for debate. For the generally
accepted interpretation of their views, see Outram on Habermas (Outram, 1995) 10–11.
19 Ibid. 9–11.
20 Many authors have also focussed upon a linguistic component to Adorno and Horkheimer’s
notion of ‘Enlightenment’. Their claim is that Adorno and Horkheimer consider ‘Enlighten-
ment’ to entail a sceptical demythologization which encompasses the loss of a mimetic com-
ponent in language. See, for example, Schmidt, J. ‘Language, Mythology and Enlightenment:
Historical Notes on Horkheimer and Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment
in Social Research, 65 (Winter 1998): 307–38. Although linguistic issues go beyond the scope
of this particular paper, it is important to take into account their signicance for Adorno and
Horkheimer: In this regard, I have outlined my view of Adorno and Horkheimer’s notion
of mimesis in relation to their concept of Enlightenment in ‘Negative Dialectics: A Positive
Interpretation’, International Philosophical Quarterly, XXXVIII,. 1 (149) (March 1998).
21 I am not claiming that this is the only focus, nor even the most important one, but that it is
both a distinctive and crucial one.
22 See Habermas, J. (1989).
23 See Geuss, R. The Idea of a Critical Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1981) or Rosen (1983).
526 Y. SHERRATT
Critical Theory
The belief was that ‘Late Modern’ society, in spite of its aspirations to
progress, was in fact characterized by social repression. From the earlier
Marxist belief that the source of this repression resided in social and econ-
omic factors, the Frankfurt School moved on to argue that the source of
societal repression lay in inadequate forms of reason. These were ‘objecti-
fying’, ‘reifying’, ‘instrumental’ and ‘rigid’, designed for survival not human
emancipation or indeed enlightened understanding of any kind.
The intention of the Frankfurt School was to oppose these objectifying
and rigid forms of reason. The early generation, in particular Horkheimer
and Adorno, believed they could achieve this, in fact, by developing self-
reective modes of reasoning which revolved around, on the one hand,
recognizing standards, and, on the other hand, demonstrating instances of
the failure to live up to those standards. To do this they offered a project of
critique which they termed ‘Critical Theory’.
An instance of a critical theory was their own Dialectic of Enlightenment.
Herein, they offered a critique which they believed would allow the
‘Enlightenment’ to see its own limitations: show how it failed to live up to
its own standards. This would allow enlightenment to become ‘self-reec-
tive’, they thought. In their words, they wanted ‘to enlighten the enlighten-
ment about itself’ (DA.11–18./xi–xvii).24
For the purposes of critical theorizing, Adorno and Horkheimer thought that
concepts should inherently be of a specic nature. These ‘critical–theoreti-
cal concepts’, must, according to their view, be both ‘open to’ and ‘conducive
of’ critique. There are many features that they would consider necessary to
achieve this.25 We can note the principal six.26
The rst feature of the critical–theoretical concept, for Adorno and
Horkheimer, is that it is always based upon a standard. In fact, they con-
ceptualize enlightenment as a particular series of aims. What is signicant
about a standard is that it is something that might or might not be attained.
Thus, in being founded upon a standard, the concept is dened in such a
way that it might or might not attain its own ‘identity’. With respect to
enlightenment, enlightenment is conceptualized as a series of aims which it
might, or might not, attain.
Secondly, the standard within the critical–theoretical concept is a nor-
mative one. In this respect, Adorno and Horkheimer would regard their
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The programme of the enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world; the
dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy.33
(DA.14/3)
32 This is a point that is often mistaken. Authors sometimes regard Adorno and Horkheimer
as considering that myth could potentially be redemptive.
33 Note that here Adorno and Horkheimer are paraphrasing what they believe is representa-
tive of Bacon and Voltaire.
34 Two points about terminology. First, Adorno and Horkheimer refer to the enlightenment’s
mode of knowledge acquisition with the terms ‘enlightenment knowledge’, ‘instrumental
knowledge’, ‘reason’, ‘conceptualization’ and ‘conceptual thought’. For our purposes, their
usage sufces and I do not need to distinguish between these categories, thus I have grouped
these together under the notion of ‘enlightenment knowledge’, but it should be noted that
the category of ‘knowledge acquisition’ is rather broad and somewhat vague in Adorno and
Horkheimer’s work. Second, I am not, of course, implying that they invented the term
‘animism’ themselves for it is, of course, used both by Freud and anthropologists before them.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 531
ENLIGHTENMENT CRITICIZED
35 Note that although Adorno and Horkheimer use the concept of myth in a very particular
way, to capture what they consider to be internal to enlightenment: it is Adorno and
Horkheimer’s view of the enlightenment’s view of myth. This is quite distinct from other
kinds of conceptualizations of myth and is one which certain authors, including Habermas,
fail to perceive. See Habermas, J. (1982) ‘The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: re-
reading the Dialectic of Enlightenment’, New German Critique, 26, Spring/Summer.
36 Inevitably, perhaps, in the context within which they wrote.
37 My claim is that this is one important strand only, not that it is the only strand nor even the
most important. For examples of readings of Adorno and Horkheimer which emphasize
different aspects of their critique of enlightenment see Jay, M. (1973), Kortian, G. (1980)
and Rosen (1983). For the few interpretations of Adorno and Horkheimer’s use of Freud
see Alford, F. (1988); Sherratt, Y. ‘Dialektik Der Aufklarung: A Contemporary Reading’,
in History of the Human Sciences 4, (1999).
532 Y. SHERRATT
jectivity, for Adorno and Horkheimer, was precisely that depicted by Freud.
To use Freud to analyse and criticize enlightenment, Subjectivity is, in
Adorno and Horkheimer’s view, important because it entails using a theor-
etical apparatus internal to enlightenment itself. By taking internal ideas
about Subjectivity they are thus in keeping with their critical–theoretical
mode of formulating concepts.
There are many distinct strands to Freud’s ideas, some of which Adorno
and Horkheimer deploy. One such important strand, and the one we shall
focus upon here, is that of the self, conceived by Freud as consisting of
certain drives.
Freud saw the self as consisting of the ego-drive and the id-drive.38 The
most signicant features of these drives are, rst, that both the ego and the
id drives are directed towards an Object. Secondly, this Object is predomi-
nantly external reality.39 Thirdly, through their Object, the drives can satisfy
an aim.40
The satisfaction of the Subject’s drives leads to very different conse-
quences for the nature of the Subject’s experience of the Object. This is due
to the quite distinct traits of the two drives. First, focussing upon the id
drive, this is regarded by Freud as primitive. It relates to the Object in an
uncontrolled, spontaneous, and pleasure seeking way.41 Through the id, the
self experiences Objects as pleasurable and also, importantly, as ‘meaning-
ful’. (Freud, 1930: 261–70). This kind of meaning from the id is, for Freud,
38 Freud, S.: All references are given to the Penguin Freud library, 15 vols., trans. James
Strachey, ed. Angela Richards (Harmondsworth, 1973–86). Specically see Freud, S. ‘The
Ego And The Id’, 11 (1923), 364. Note that he rst mentions these categories in Freud, S.
‘Formulations On The Two Principles Of Mental Functioning’, 11, (1911), 345 although his
full exposition is given in Freud, (1923) 357–408.
39 Although it could (sometimes abnormally) be the self or even ‘illusions’. Note that ‘Exter-
nal reality’ refers to objects in the world including other people, etc. The term illusion will
be dened later.
40 Freud writes: ‘the object of a drive is the thing in regard to which or through which the drive
is able to achieve its aim’ Freud, S. ‘Instincts And Their Vicissitudes’, 11, (1915b), 119.
41 Freud, S. ‘Civilisation And Its Discontents’, 12, (1930), 261–70 and 272.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 533
very distinct from that associated with the ego. An example of the kind of
meaning associated with the id can be found in the experience of falling in
love. The meaning imbued upon a ‘love object’ is quite distinct from, for
instance, the kind of meaning contained in the knowledge of how the human
organism functions (Freud, 1930: 261). The former, id-derived kind of
meaning could be considered ‘substantive’.42 On the other hand, the latter
meaning related to knowledge is, as we shall see, derived from the ego (and
is related to ‘instrumental’ meaning).43
Secondly, turning to examine the ego, this is construed by Freud as quite
distinct from the id. It is a highly-developed drive. It relates to the Object
with the aim of self preservation.44 Furthermore, the ego-drive exerts
control and this is the source of instrumental behaviour. Finally, it is the ego
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46 It is important to underline that Adorno and Horkheimer’s own emancipatory ideal also
consists in the formation of a strong and autonomous ego. Their ideal and what they per-
ceive to be the enlightenment’s aims are always identical (as should be clear from our dis-
cussion of a critical-theoretical approach on pp. 10–11). However, as we shall see during the
course of this essay, the enlightenment ideal of a strong ego precludes the id drive and in so
doing, causes the weakening of the ego itself. For Adorno and Horkheimer, a strong ego
cannot be achieved by excluding the id. In their view, this is the fundamental mistake which
the enlightenment makes. This is a point which we elaborate in some detail in the second
half of this essay.
47 This is in contrast to any trait of mythic subjectivity wherein, for Adorno and Horkheimer,
there would be no aims.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 535
ure in his fellow humans – in plugging the rowers’ ears so that they cannot
even hear the song. Odysseus also suppresses his own pleasure in rendering
himself unable to jump overboard and submerge himself in the music. In
being unable to respond to the Sirens, Odysseus receives only a diluted aes-
thetic experience. Both he and the rowers therefore (virtually) ‘know only
the song’s danger and nothing of its beauty’ (DA.51/34). The price of
Odysseus’s control, quite simply, is an impoverishment in the quality of pleas-
ure. Furthermore, Adorno and Horkheimer, following Freud, believe that
pleasure is accompanied by an experience of the Object as substantively
meaningful.49 Odysseus’s loss of pleasure in the world entails a loss of experi-
ence of the world as substantively meaningful (DA.78/59).
It is important to notice that this negative characterization of Odysseus
cannot amount to an internal critique of enlightenment. Although the loss
of pleasure and meaning are indeed, by any standards, terrible, they do not
amount, in and of themselves, to an internal critique of enlightenment. An
internal critique must demonstrate that it is the very aims internal to
enlightenment which it fails to attain. Herein enlightenment does not aim
for that which it fails to attain, namely pleasure etc. It aims for knowledge,
security and peace. Adorno and Horkheimer’s internal critique must there-
fore show that enlightenment Subjectivity is insufcient for enlightenment
to attain knowledge, security and peace.
Half Myth
48 Herein Adorno and Horkheimer focus upon very distinct issues from Habermas.
49 See Note 43.
536 Y. SHERRATT
50 More details are necessary for a complete understanding but this is beyond the scope of this
essay.
51 Freud, (1930), 268.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 537
to discriminate between the internal and the external. One aspect of this
lack of discrimination encompasses an inability to discern between sensa-
tions derived from Objects in the external world and the self’s own impulses
or wishes. The self in such a primitive condition simply wishes and then
satises its drives upon these wishes. In the ‘adult’ self this process can also
occur. It constitutes a regression in Subjectivity and thus a loss of maturity,
one of the enlightenment’s aims. Narcissism, for Adorno and Horkheimer,
is the psychological aspect of myth. Thus, in regressing towards narcissism
in one of the drives, enlightenment Subjectivity sees the onset of myth.
An instance of this regress of the id-drive towards narcissism is given by
Adorno and Horkheimer through their account of Odysseus’s experience
of the Lotus-eaters. The lotus is an obvious source of pleasure. Homer
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describes it as ‘sweeter than honey’. However (unlike the song of the Sirens)
the lotus, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, does not embody any
reality-content. Whereas the Sirens knew ‘everything that has happened on
this so fruitful earth, including the events in which Odysseus himself took
part’ (DA.49/33), the lotus is a pleasure which is wholly disconnected from
reality. It is a ‘kind of idyll, which recalls the happiness of narcotic drug
addicts reduced to the lowest level’ (DA.81/62). Because of this lack of
reality content in the lotus eaters’ experience, then the pleasure itself,
according to Adorno and Horkheimer, ‘is actually the mere illusion of hap-
piness’ (DA.81/63). The pleasure is the mere production of infantile wish
impulses and the satisfaction of the id upon these. This ‘condemns [the
Lotus-eaters] to no more than to a primitive state’ (DA.81/62). This regres-
sion encompasses a loss of interest in reality. ‘Whoever browses on the lotus
. . . succumbs . . . [to] oblivion and surrender of the will’ (DA.81/62).
Adorno and Horkheimer continue to quote Homer’s narration: ‘All who ate
the lotus . . . thought no more of reporting to us, or of returning. Instead
they wished to stay there . . . forgetting their homeland’ (DA.81/62).
For Adorno and Horkheimer, an even more problematic consequence
emerges from illusory pleasure. They follow Freud’s claim that there is an
interconnection between pleasure and meaning; for Freud, as we know, the
pleasure that emerges out of the satisfaction of the id-drives upon their
object is accompanied by a sense of the object as (substantively) ‘meaning-
ful’.52 According to Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis, when illusion
becomes the new source of pleasure, because pleasure is inherently linked
to substantive meaning, then illusion also of course becomes the new source
of substantive meaning. Illusions therefore come to replace reality not
merely as a source of pleasure but as a source of this kind of meaning. This
marks a further regress. Illusions, for Adorno and Horkheimer following
Freud, are infantile fantasies which are intrinsically meaningless. Therefore
when they become experienced as ‘meaningful’, that which is intrinsically
53 Note that the concept ‘delusion’ will be used throughout the text to refer to the notion of
either mistaken meaning or knowledge. In particular, it refers to meaning or knowledge that
is mistaken about its own nature or validity.
54 In the lm industry for instance, we have a growth in the technological systems of com-
munication, administration, production and distribution, see: (DA/120–68).
55 Adorno, T. Minima Moralia, Frankfurt am Main, (1973–86) Vol. 4, 241: henceforth, MM.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 539
This provides an example for Adorno and Horkheimer, of the way delu-
sion crosses over from the realm of pleasure to that of knowledge. This rep-
resents a more serious problem than the previous stage of decline because
the delusion, in this way, affects the realm of enlightenment ‘proper’. That
is to say, the enlightenment regresses not only in the sphere of pleasure,
which is its ‘external sphere’ and hence not a part of its aims, but in the
sphere of knowledge itself, that is its ‘internal sphere’, its self-declared aims.
With further ‘progress’, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, the
enlightenment worsens and enters a decline towards total myth.
In the stage of half myth the only set of drives engaged upon reality are
those of the ego. According to Adorno and Horkheimer, these as a result
grow more and more powerful and exert more and more control over the id.
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Eventually the id-drives become more restricted so that they become unable
to generate ‘wish objects’. That is, the enlightenment subject becomes
increasingly unable to generate illusions.56 Adorno and Horkheimer write:
With the technical easing of life the persistence of domination brings about a
xation of the drives by means of heavier repression. Imagination atrophies.
(DA.52–3/35)
However, the drive of the id, if weakened, persists. To what, therefore, can
it turn in order to attain satisfaction?
In fact, there is a readily available ‘Object’ with which the id can satisfy
itself. For example, in its predominance in the modern era, the ego has
generated a complex web of instrumental ‘knowledge’, a world of science,
logic, technical designs and processes. This complex technical system is a
readily available ‘Object’. The id in fact turns to this for satisfaction. Thus,
in this stage of enlightenment, the technological system produced by the ego
becomes the new object for the id. What are the results of this? We know
that the id has the characteristic of experiencing objects in terms of pleas-
ure; therefore when the ego’s products become the object of the id, instru-
mentality becomes a source of pleasure. Adorno and Horkheimer see this
phenomena as ubiquitous in the onset of total myth. Many examples of a
shift away from escapist fantasy towards an appreciation of ‘instrumental
systems’ themselves permeate the ‘culture industry’. For instance, Adorno
and Horkheimer depict a shift from the enjoyment of escapism provided by
the technology of ‘special effects’ in the cinema to an enjoyment of the
technology of the special effects themselves. Further examples can be found
in the realm of popular music. For instance, although initially Adorno and
57 Adorno and Horkheimer do not always regard this kind of pleasure as intrinsically regressive.
ADORNO, HORKHEIMER AND ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ 541
The feature of delusion that begins with the narcissistic satisfaction of the
id-drives spreads further into the sphere of the ego-drives.
The second feature to decline is that of maturity. In ‘totalization’, now
that the id has turned to worship the products of the ego, the relationship
between the self and the external world alters. The id-drives, which previ-
ously had satised themselves with reality, now satisfy themselves with the
ego:
[T]he libido that has been withdrawn from the external world has been directed
to the ego and thus gives rise to an attitude which may be called narcissism.58
From reality, to fantasy, to the ego, the self has turned increasingly away
from the external world as its source of pleasure and meaning, and towards
its own ego. The self is thus becoming increasingly preoccupied with itself.
This, Freud describes as a return to ‘a primitive objectless condition’,59
and it as such marks a regression in subjectivity.60 The feature of maturity
is thus undermined. This is a regression of the enlightenment subject into
the mythic counterpart.
The third feature to decline is that of freedom. In totalization the only
relationship with reality is through the ego. Thus the subject relates to
reality only through forms of control. This excess of control leads to a
relationship of domination. Domination can be considered the opposite of
freedom, a point exemplied by the following: freedom in the enlighten-
ment consists of two aspects according to Adorno and Horkheimer. First,
there is the freedom of the subject in terms of his drives, referring in this
case to the id-drives. Total control disallows this kind of freedom. An
instance of this is given when Adorno and Horkheimer write of ‘the self-
dominant intellect, which separates from sensuous experience in order to
This fear is at root a fear of difference: a sense that the different will
annihilate the self’s identity. It expresses itself in several ways. One is an
attempt to remove the threat. Adorno and Horkheimer believe that this can
manifest itself in a drive for the destruction of difference. It can be a drive
for the destruction of external reality or of any perceived Other.
Epistemologically, this manifests itself, Adorno and Horkheimer claim,
in the rigid closed systems of logic which are concerned with their own inter-
nal rules and reject all that lies without. These, Adorno and Horkheimer
argue, are a kind of megalomaniac dominance: ‘the system is the belly
turned mind . . . it eliminates all heterogeneous being’.65 It is a philosophi-
cal devouring, which leaves nothing outside of its own system: it equates
reality with itself thereby ‘exterminating’ any potential external (different)
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reality.
A brutal manifestation of this becomes inevitable, Adorno and
Horkheimer claim. They see this in anti-Semitism. ‘The fascists do not view
the Jews as a minority but as an opposing race, the embodiment of the nega-
tive principle’ (DA.192/168). This fear of the difference of the Jews is, on
the one hand, a narcissistic worship of the self: ‘The nationalist brand of
anti-Semitism . . . asserts that the purity of the race and the nation is at
stake’ (DA.200/176). On the other hand, it is a drive to exterminate differ-
ence. ‘The I am, which tolerates no opposition’ (DA.201/177) was of such
paranoid proportions that it resulted in the brutality of the Nazi concen-
tration camps.
The attempt to remove the threat of difference which emanates from the
paranoid, narcissistic self, results in brutality, in barbarism. The fth aim of
the enlightenment, peace, has thus regressed to mythic barbarism.
The failure of enlightenment to attain knowledge, maturity, freedom,
security and peace represents the failure to attain progress, the nal aim of
enlightenment. Delusion, immaturity, domination, fear and barbarism con-
stitute the nal feature of myth, namely, regression. Enlightenment has
declined to myth.66
CONCLUSION
Cambridge University
67 I would like to express gratitude to Robert Mayhew, Raymond Geuss, Michael Rosen and
Gareth Stedman-Jones for their extremely helpful comments at various stages of this essay.