The Dialectic of Enlightenment was written by Horkheimer and Adorno during World War II while they were exiled in Los Angeles. A lot of people say that it was the most influential thing to come out of the Frankfurt School, a bastion of critical theory. People tend to focus on the first and fourth chapters. In the below, I provide a brief summary of the book, though you’ll note that my main references are to the fifth chapter.
Even after reading the Dialectic of Enlightenment, it’s hard to say exactly what the book is. Though it shares the bombastic style of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality, the intention behind it is less clear. In chapters two and three, it seems like an analysis of literature as allegory – but an allegory to what? In chapters four and five, it looks like a cultural critique without any of the concrete details that would tie it to a specific culture.
Maybe the best thing to do is to take the book at its word: the topic of the book is the “dialectic of Enlightenment.” For Adorno and Horkheimer, the term “Enlightenment” does’t refer to a historical period in Western thought; rather, it’s a reference to a process that, though it takes place throughout history, is identified with the enlightenment. (The fact that it occurs throughout history is brought home by the discussions of two older texts: Odysseus and Juliette). The dialectic is the cyclical process by which an individual (in the good case) cognizes or conceptualizes the world that she perceives – the way in which she orders her raw sense data into concepts (204, 205). These concepts are specifically “rational” as opposed to “mythical.” [1] Adorno and Horkheimer point out that conceptualization requires that the individual project herself – the system of concepts she already has – onto the world she sees around her and then iteratively modifying or correcting her projection based on reflection (187, 189). This back-and-forth iterative process is the “dialectic of Enlightenment” (204).
Horkheimer and Adorno identify totalitarianism as the point where the dialectic stops – when a concept ceases to be modified by the particular instances it is used to describe, and instead becomes “unchanging” (194). The concept can be of an non-living thing – as in the sciences – or of a type of people. At that point, the process is better called “replication” or “false projection” (187, 189).[2] This kind of static representation is “mental violence” (193). In many ways, such a characterization is familiar: stereotypes are bad because they don’t respect the nuances of the individual.
One question to ask about this picture is why it comes about: why do we turn to totalizing systems of reason? Adorno and Horkheimer start by explaining why we turn to Enlightenment. They argue that, by helping us understand nature, our systems of reason – our systems of concepts – allow us to exploit nature (9, chapters 1 and 2). However, in doing so, we bear three costs.
Two of those costs seem to always be present, regardless of whether we buy into the Enlightenment or not. First, we become alienated from nature (9, 18, chapters 1 and 2). This alienation is generated by the process of conceptualization alone – whether we identify winter with a myth or with a scientific definition, we look at a year’s winter as a repeated event rather than a unique one (27). Second, if we are under a capitalist system, we cannot enjoy labor. The proprietor cannot enjoy his labor because he is at a distance from it; the laborer cannot enjoy her labor because she is doing it for another (35). (Why move to a capitalist system? Adorno and Horkheimer’s answer is not clear).
The third cost seems to be unique to the Enlightenment, if the Enlightenment is a process of rational conceptualization. We conceptualize nature in order to exploit it. In doing so, however, we acknowledge our own weakness in comparison with it.
How then do we move from the Enlightenment to totalitarianism? The authors offer a couple of answers. One is capitalism, specifically in the entertainment industry: capitalism encourages companies to reach the largest possible audience; the cheapest form of production is unmodified replication (121).[3] The second is the value inversion of Christianity: individuals naturally value themselves and their self-preservation (177, potentially 97-99) Christianity inverts the value: it shifts the value from the individual to the Christian God (176-178). This simultaneously perverts nature and generates religious hatred. (What explains the rise of Christianity? I’m not yet clear on Adorno and Horkheimer’s interpretation).
The final question, of course, is how we can resist totalitarianism? (and earlier on: how can we resist alienation from our labor? how can we reconcile ourselves with nature?). On this, Adorno and Horkheimer are silent.
Notes:
[1] I’m not yet clear on how to explain these terms of “myth” and “reason”. (These summaries of the first chapter suggest that the key point is: though Enlightenment wants to distinguish itself from myth, “Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology”). Another term of interest that I’m not clear on: self-preservation.
[2] Note that this analysis actually seems self-defeating in some ways. The analysis itself is unchanging and meant to apply to every instance of totalitarianism – does this mean that it itself becomes totalitarian? Perhaps because of issues like this one, Adorno was famous for arguing against taking action based on his writings — he thought that the thinking and theorizing should continue indefinitely. (Consider, for instance, what he says in the short essay Resignation). Of course, thinking is itself a form of action, so the statement doesn’t quite get him out of hot water.
[3] Interestingly, this has the upshot that a patronage system of art was better, if less accessible. (135)
Reference:
Horkheimer, Max and Adorno Theodor. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans: John Cumming. New York: Continuum, 1994. Print.
Other summaries (not consulted for this work), in order of quality:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/
http://www.arasite.org/adhkdofe.htm
A summary of Adorno and Horkheimer’s quite interesting and staggeringly pretentious views on Art
ksdanne 