Dialectic of Enlightenment How could Marx have gotten it so wrong? Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer Dialectic of Enlightenment

Their thesis: The path to our liberation, that was promised by the Enlightenment, leads instead to our own domination

"Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity. Enlightenment’s program was the disenchantment of the world.” Adorno and Horkheimer – first sentence of Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947)

"Technology is the essence of this knowledge…What human beings seek to learn from nature is how to use it to dominate wholly both it and human beings. Nothing else counts."

“Enlightenment stands in the same relationship to things as the dictator to human beings. He knows them to the extent that he can manipulate them.”

“Enlightenment stands in the same relationship to things as the dictator to human beings. He knows them to the extent that he can manipulate them.” If enlightenment follows the logic of self-preservation through knowledge and if our path to self-preservation is in manipulation of and power over the objects of knowledge (e.g., nature, the human mind) then we are in big trouble. 

“Enlightenment stands in the same relationship to things as the dictator to human beings. He knows them to the extent that he can manipulate them.” If enlightenment follows the logic of self-preservation through knowledge and if our path to self-preservation is in manipulation of and power over the objects of knowledge (e.g., nature, the human mind) then we are in big trouble.  Rationality is linked to tyranny.

"Humans believe themselves free of fear when there is no longer anything unknown. This has determined the path of demythologization, of enlightenment…Enlightenment is mythical fear radicalized.”

Art and Memory

Perhaps art can show us a way out of this spiral. Art and Memory Perhaps art can show us a way out of this spiral.

Perhaps art can show us a way out of this. Art and Memory Perhaps art can show us a way out of this. BUT : Art has also been colonized by Rationality Art can be used as a tool of domination

From Autonomy to The Total System of Art

Potentially worrisome elements in the concept of autonomous art Autonomous from what? Social function? External meaning / structure? Human ears / minds?

Autonomy -> Unity -> Systematization -> loss of authorial autonomy, subjectivity in a totally unified, systematized serial piece the composer loses the ability to insert bursts of intuition that are outside of the system.  [e.g. Webern can’t arbitrarily decide to throw in a dramatic cymbal crash in the Symphonie and still have the piece be totally unified, systematized]

Unity -> Purity To say that everything in a piece is unified is to say that it is purified of anything that does not fit in the system / that resists unification.

System absorbs composer's subjective choice / responsibility In a systematic composition the composer creates a system that ‘spits out’ the actual musical events of the piece Once the system is set up, the composer and performers do not have to make musical or expressive choices, the system does it for them.

Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality of Evil Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality of Evil