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1999 12: 35History of the Human SciencesYvonne Sherratt

The Dialectic of Enlightenment: a contemporary reading

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The Dialectic ofEnlightenment:

a contemporary readingYVONNE SHERRATT

ABSTRACT

The importance of the concept of subjectivity has been underestimatedin the work of Theodor Adorno. In order to address this lacuna wemake an interpretation of Adornos text Dialectic of Enlightenment, inthe form of an idealized narrative of enlightenments historical declineinto its self-conceived opposite, namely myth. Within this narrativewe unravel the Freudian assumptions underlying Adornos work. Wedepict the form of subjectivity that Adorno regards as inextricably con-nected to enlightenment reason. We then analyse his argument for theinevitable regression of this kind of subjectivity, and the resultant col-

lapse of reason and enlightenment themselves. In so doing we demon-strate that, in Adornos view, the enlightenment concept of subjectivityis seriously flawed and entails an inevitable regression which, in the end,encompasses the very death of the Subject.

Key words Adorno, enlightenment, Freud, myth, subjectivity

INTRODUCTION

It is known that Adorno criticizes the Enlightenment believing that its epis-temological traits underlie its failure:1 Habermas writes that the Dialectic of

HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 12 No. 3 1999SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) pp. 3554[0952-6951(199908)12:3;3554; 009912]

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the Enlightenment offers hardly any prospect of escape from the constraintsof instrumental rationality (Habermas, 1982: 18).2 However, the question, inturn, as to what underlies its epistemological failure has not been sufficiently

explored.3 To do this we need to give a systematic account of the Freudianbasis to Adornos epistemological theory. Hereby we can reveal a narrativeof the Enlightenments decline wherein Adorno demonstrates that myth is itsfinal and most degenerate stage.

ENLIGHTENMENT

It is important to note at the outset that there has been a certain amount of

criticism of Adornos use of the term Enlightenment. Enlightenment is oftenused by historians to refer to a specific period (circa 16601800 from thefoundation of the Royal Society to Kant) which emphasized a certain set ofvalues let us refer to this as the historical concept of the Enlightenment.Adornos concept of enlightenment relates to the historical one in the sensethat he conceptualizes itprimarily on the basis of the ideas of those writingduring the historians era: Adorno mainly uses the ideas of Kant.4 However,he also uses the notion of enlightenment in a way that extends it well beyondthat which any historians would accept. In fact, for Adorno, enlightenmenthas been present in some sense ever since the dawn of Western culture. It isthus, in historical terms, a very broad concept indeed. Adornos concept ofenlightenment gains its worth as a philosophical construct. For him, itdenotes a very particular kind of culture one that is characterized by acertain set of aims.5 That is to say, enlightenment, for Adorno, is definedaccording to its aims. The principal aim of the enlightenment is the acqui-sition of knowledge which is coupled to the attainment of maturity and to aset of further aims, namely, freedom, security and peace all of which con-stitute, for the enlightenment, progress.

The enlightenments self-conception is formed in contrast with what

Adorno believes the enlightenment regards as another kind of culture, thatof myth. Adorno writes: the program of the enlightenment was the disen-chantment of the world; the dissolution of myths and the substitution ofknowledge for fancy (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 3). Mythic culture ispermeated by a certain set of attitudes which differ from the enlightenmentin that they are not derived from a set of aims. Myth does not, according toAdorno, set out with any aims at all. As a culture it simply is what it is. Andit is centred around a way of relating to the world which is animistic. Thisinvolves a particular system of knowledge acquisition for which Adorno

deploys the term animism.6 According to Adorno this is a false system ofknowledge acquisition for it is coupled to immaturity and the further featuresof domination, an expression of fear, barbarism, all of which constituteregression (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 4380).

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According to Adorno the enlightenment sees itself as having transcendedmyth; as having overcome myths negative features of domination, fear, bar-barism and regression. The enlightenments entire self-conception is formed

in opposition to myth. However, for Adorno, the enlightenment fails andregresses into myth. This regression is what the enlightenment itself wouldconceive of as a regression into its absolute opposite and thus a sign of com-plete failure. Adornos critique is that the enlightenment becomes myth andthe basis of this is, he argues, an epistemological failure.

Adorno begins his critique by criticizing the enlightenments own view ofits aims. It mistakes its view of its principal aim, leading to repercussions forthe whole project of enlightenment. According to the enlightenments ownself-conception, its principal aim is the acquisition of knowledge. This is

where the enlightenment makes its first mistake. Knowledge acquisitionturns out, in fact, not to be an aim of the enlightenment at all but to be ameremeans that the enlightenment uses in order to attain its other aims.7 Theenlightenment is thus mistaken about the role of its purported foremost aim.Because knowledge acquisition turns out not to be an end but a means,Adorno refers to it as instrumental knowledge acquisition.8

For Adorno, instrumental knowledge acquisition is inherently inadequate,which is to say that not only does it fail to have the quality of being an end-in-itself but, relatedly, it fails also as a means. That instrumental knowledgeacquisition is inadequate as an instrument, results in the enlightenmentdeclining into myth.

A large factor as to why instrumental knowledge acquisition fails as ameans is because of a distinctive kind of subjectivity that, according toAdorno, underlies it. We can analyse the enlightenment subject by turning tothe work of Sigmund Freud. Freud, for Adorno, most clearly represents theideas of the enlightenment. That is to say, Freud is an instance of the generalphenomenon of enlightenment which means that Adorno regards him asboth inherently positive, in the sense of being in league with the enlighten-ments aims, and inherently negative: he is part and parcel of the failure of the

enlightenment. Furthermore, Freud straddles this ambivalence with a furtherpeculiarity. Not only is he intrinsically part of enlightenment culture but hefurther provides a conceptual framework through which to view theenlightenment subject.

FREUD

Freud provided an account of human psychological development.9 At its

initial most primitive stage, he conceptualized the self as a merepleasure-seeking entity which merely consists of various (uncontrolled) impulses forpleasure and for the avoidance of unpleasure.10 Later, as the self develops, itattains the faculty of control. However, an aspect of the uncontrolled

ADORNO: A CONTEMPORARY READING 37



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pleasure-seeking part of the self remains and is referred to by Freud as the id.The other part develops into the mature adultsego.11 The ego and the id thuscorrespond to two very different aspects of the adult self (Freud, 1923: 364).

The ego refers to the part of the self that is responsible for self-preservation,capable of control and gaining a sense of reality. The id is the more primitiveaspect that is uncontrolled and concerned with pleasure.

In his later work Freud moved from talking about parts of the self andconceived of the self as something driven by drives. Drives, according toFreud, form the basis of the individuals action. They emerge out of the ego,when they are referred to as the reality principle, and out of the id, whenthey are referred to as the libido (Freud, 1915b: 10538).

An important characteristic of drives is that they have an aim and their aim

is an object. Freud writes: the object of a drive is the thing in regard to whichor through which the drive is able to achieve its aim (Freud, 1915b: 119). Theid seeks out an object in order to satisfy its aim of pleasure, whereas the egoseeks out an object in order to satisfy its aim of self-preservation. The objectof the drives is predominantly external reality although it can (sometimesabnormally) be the self or even illusions.12

The satisfaction of these drives upon their object leads to different conse-quences and thus to a different kind of experience of the object. For the id itleads topleasure and a kind of meaning (Freud, 1930: 26170). For instance,Freud argues that a vocation gains its meaning to the person employed in itthrough the pleasure that person derives from it (Freud, 1930: 272). Art gainsits meaning, Freud argues, through the pleasure derived from the experienceof beauty, and another person becomes deeply meaningful because of thepleasure of sexual love (Freud, 1930: 270). This kind of meaning is distinctfrom that associated with knowledge. For example, the kind of meaning thatbeing in love with a person imbues upon them is quite distinct from the kindof meaning contained in the knowledge of how the human organism func-tions (Freud, 1930: 261). Let us refer to these two distinct kinds of meaningas meaning (A), for that relating to knowledge (derived from the ego-

drives), and meaning (B), for that related to pleasure, derived from the id.An object can be experienced as meaningful (B) only through the satisfactionof the id-drive.

The ego, meanwhile, provides self-preservation in relation to the objectwhich it achieves by its capacity for control. It both controls the self (as itsobject) internally and also relates to external objects in the world with theaim of avoiding danger and satisfying internal needs.

The ego also achieves self-preservation through the acquisition of know-ledge. Freud writes:

Consciousness now learned to comprehend sensory qualities in additionto the qualities of pleasure and unpleasure which hitherto had alone been




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of interest to it. A special function was instituted which had periodicallyto search the external world, in order that its data might already be famil-iar if an urgent internal need should arise. (Freud, 1911: 378)

This view of knowledge acquisition as stemming from the ego leads to certainfeatures. First, it means knowledge acquisition is bound up with the featureof control. It also includes the notion of a kind of meaning, which we havetermed meaning (A). This is a categorizing kind of meaning. It occurswithin propositional statements insofar as these statements refer to objects inthe external world. It is also related to the use or function of an item. So, forexample, knowing that the earth orbits the sun is an instance of meaning(A). Furthermore, knowing how a radio works such that one can repair itis also an instance of meaning (A). For Freud, knowledge acquisition is

derived from the ego and consists of the feature of control and meaning (A).For Adorno, Freuds ideas portray two points: first, many of the central

features of the enlightenments kind of knowledge acquisition Adornosconcept of instrumental knowledge acquisition is bound up with control andmeaning (A); second, for Adorno Freud provides an image of the enlighten-ment Subject.

Adornos central use of Freud is the following. Enlightenment is definedby its aims which depend upon the acquisition of knowledge. The definitiveexperience of enlightenment therefore becomes the acquisition of knowledge.

This entails, for Adorno following Freud, that the subject satisfies itself uponthe object through the ego-drive. Thus, for Adorno, the ego-drive is pre-dominant in enlightenment.

NARRATIVE OF DECLINE

The consequences of a kind of subjectivity dominated by the ego-drive are,Adorno believes, that enlightenment fails. He depicts this failure as a narra-

tive. Although this has been criticized as historically inaccurate, it is im-portant to note that it is not intended as historical. The narrative is aninterpretative or heuristic device. More specifically, it is a critical theory,intended, in his words, to enlighten the enlightenment about itself (Adornoand Horkheimer, 1979: xixvii). I divide this narrative into four clear stages,which I entitle impoverishment, fantasy, totalization and fragmentation.This division is my own and these categories themselves should not be readas historical or temporally successive. They are intended to help us unravelthe detail of Adornos critique.13




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1 Impoverishment

The first stage of Adornos critique of the enlightenment is impoverishment.Adorno illustrates this through an interpretation of the myth of Odysseus.Although Odysseus is a central character of myth, Adorno regards him as theprototype of the enlightenment subject embodying many of the latterskey characteristics, such as the search for security and peace, for which herequires control, achieved through the acquisition of knowledge. Odysseuswishes to procure safety, to steer his ship safely home, and to achieve this heneeds to control himself, his crew and his ship and also to predict his externalworld in order to avoid its dangers. This entails gleaning knowledge aboutpotential dangers in the world and about how to control circumstances inorder to avoid them. Both Odysseus and the enlightenment subject display

the traits of being driven towards the acquisition of knowledge in order toattain control and self-control: Odysseus is the self who always restrainshimself (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 55). Odysseus is controlled, instru-mental or functional, organized, administered and administering. There is acost. Adorno reveals this through an analysis of his encounter with the Sirens.

Odysseus, in order to keep his ship on course, must avoid being drawn inby the Sirens singing (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 324, 589). Toachieve this he plugs the ears of the rowers so that they should not be exposedto the temptation of the song. He has himself tied to the mast, from where

he can hear the song but is secure from the danger of responding to it. Adornoexplains how Odysseus oppresses the impulse for pleasure of his fellowhumans the rowers whose ears are plugged cannot even hear the song.Odysseus also suppresses his own pleasure in rendering himself unable tojump overboard and submerge himself in the music. In being unable torespond to the Sirens, Odysseus receives only a diluted experience of theirsong. Both he and the rowers therefore (virtually) know only the songsdanger and nothing of its beauty (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 34). Theprice of Odysseus control, quite simply, is an impoverishment of pleasure.

Impoverishment encompasses a loss of sensual pleasure: Odysseus cannotsubmerge himself completely in the sensuality of the Sirens song. It alsoentails a restriction of the imagination.14 With the technical easing of life thepersistence of domination brings about a fixation of the drives by means ofheavier repression. Imagination atrophies (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979:35).15 Furthermore, the capacity for self-abandonment is lost. Whereasprimitive man experienced the natural thing merely as the evasive object ofdesire . . . Odysseus . . . cannot yield to the temptation to self-abandonment(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 35). Finally, as the faculties of response tobeauty decline, so too does the actual existence of beauty. The lack of appreci-ation of the Sirens song results in a depreciation of the song itself:

The Sirens have their own quality, but in primitive bourgeois history it




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is neutralised to become merely the wistful longing of the passer-by.The epic says nothing of what happened to the Sirens once the ship haddisappeared. In tragedy, however, it would have been their last hour.

(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 59)16

Like Odysseus, the enlightenment subject forfeits much of the potentialpleasure of the world. His imagination becomes impoverished, his capacityfor self-abandonment decreases and the actual existence of beauty within hisworld plummets. As a consequence the quality of art declines.

Pleasure, in all its aspects, is derived from the id-drives. Thus to say thatthe subject loses the experience of pleasure due to control which as weknow is derived from the exertion of the ego-drives is to say that he suffersa depreciation of the id-drives. The enlightenment subject, like Odysseus,

loses not simply pleasure but pleasure in relation to reality. Thus he losesthe engagement of the id-drives upon their object of reality. The stage ofimpoverishment consists of the withdrawal of the subjects id-drives fromreality.

In criticizing the enlightenment for consisting of a depleted quality inpleasurable experience, Adornos critique is external: the enlightenment didnot aim for pleasure. However, he claimed that his was to be an internalcri-tique of the enlightenment. In fact, Adorno pursues this external criticism inorder to show how the loss of pleasure (an external aim, let us say) leads to

a failure of the enlightenment to attain its own, self-declared aims.

2 Fantasy

The next stage of decline involves the onset of the enlightenments failure toachieve its own internal aims. In the enlightenment, as we have seen, onlyhalf the drives of the subject are engaged upon reality. What therefore doesthe id-drive now take as its aim?

As a consequence of the increasing loss of reality as an object, Freud

explains a likely outcome: [when] the connection with reality is . . . loosened;satisfaction is obtained from illusions (Freud, 1930: 268). The id thus seeksan alternative object. It turns, in fact, to illusion.

Freud argues that the earliest stage of human development is that of infan-tile narcissism. In this condition the self, not properly formed, is unable todiscriminate between the internal and the external. One aspect of this lack ofdiscrimination encompasses an inability to discern between sensationsderived from objects in the external world and the selfs own impulses orwishes. The self in such a primitive condition simply wishes and then satisfies

its drives upon these wishes. In the adult self this process can also occur. Theadult self projects its wishes outward. It either projects them onto an externalobject converting it into what the id would wish it to be, or its wishes reside




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within the imagination without forming an attachment to any external object.The objects of these wishes are illusions. Hence illusions are generated fromthe ids own impulses. They are projections masquerading as in the external

world. Illusion is thus a feature of a primitive stage of the selfs developmentand any reversion to it in adult life is a regression.

In the stage of enlightenment that is impoverishment, the id can no longersatisfy itself upon the external world. As a result it turns to generate illusionsin order to satisfy itself. We can term this condition of the id satisfying itselfby illusion a state of fantasy. In the stage of the enlightenment that I havetermed fantasy, the ego satisfies itself upon reality whilst the id generates itsown illusions. Half of the self is thus engaged upon the world, half not. Theself is split.

This encompasses a regress. Half of the self is turning away from realitytowards itself as its object. It is reverting to a more primitive state of humandevelopment. Freud terms this condition narcissism as it is a reversion to acondition akin to infantile narcissism.

An instance of this regress of the id-drives to fantasy is given by Adornothrough his account of Odysseus experience of the lotus-eaters. The lotus isa source of obvious pleasure. Homer describes it as sweeter than honey.However (unlike the song of the Sirens) the lotus, according to Adorno, doesnot embody any reality-content. Whereas the Sirens knew everything thathas happened on this so fruitful earth, including the events in whichOdysseus himself took part (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 33), eatinglotus is a pleasure that is wholly disconnected from reality. It is a kind ofidyll, which recalls the happiness of narcotic drug addicts reduced to thelowest level (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 62). Because of this lack ofreality-content in the lotus-eaters experience, the pleasure itself, accordingto Adorno, is actually the mere illusion of happiness (Adorno andHorkheimer, 1979: 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 (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979:

62). This regression encompasses a loss of interest in reality. Whoeverbrowses on the lotus . . . succumbs . . . [to] oblivion and surrender of the will(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 62). Adorno continues to quote Homersnarration: All who ate the lotus . . . thought no more of reporting to us, orof returning. Instead they wished to stay there . . . forgetting their homeland(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 62).

The lotus-eaters appear in modern society in the guise of the culture indus-try. Its products, such as film, lull the audience into a state of [empty] pas-sivity and provide a kind of pleasure of which the only thing that can be said

is that all [it] actually confirms is that the real . . . will never be reached(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 139). This pleasure fails to connect thesubject in any way to reality.17 The consumers of the culture industrys




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products are thus condemned, like the lotus-eaters, to a primitive state(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 12065).

In the experience of illusory pleasure, the enlightenment fails to attain its

goal of maturity. The consumers of the culture industry regress to becomelike Homers mythic lotus-eaters. Mythic culture is regarded by the en-lightenment as regressive. In regressing to this infantile state and failing toattain maturity, the enlightenment therefore declines into myth. Half of theenlightenment declines to encompass one of the central features of myth.

For Adorno, an even more problematic consequence emerges from illus-ory pleasure. Adorno follows Freuds claim that there is an interconnectionbetween pleasure and meaning; for Freud, as we know, the pleasure thatemerges out of the satisfaction of the id-drives upon their object is ac-

companied by a sense of the object as meaningful. Freud, however, providesvery little analytical detail of this particular kind of meaning and merely statesits distinction from the meaning accompanied by the process of knowledgeacquisition that is derived from the ego. Further to this, Freud claims thatreligious experience is accompanied by a sense of meaningfulness which ispleasurable and without propositional knowledge-content. Freud gives uslittle more to go on. Adorno, however, takes up and elaborates Freudsnotion. Adorno implies that the kind of meaning present in the experience ofpleasure, or what Freud refers to as religious experience, is a sense that theobject is imbued with a value or significance which is beyond our need,desire, or usage of it. This notion of meaning refers to the objectsown inher-ent significance. What the exact content of this meaning is we cannot necess-arily depict. However, through the experience of pleasure (be it religious orotherwise) we experience the fact of the existence of this kind of meaning.This kind of meaning which we referred to in our discussion of Freud asmeaning (B), is important for Adorno. Here, however, our interest lies inseeing how this concept reveals to us a further detail in the decline of theenlightenment.

According to Adornos analysis, when illusion becomes the new source of

pleasure, because pleasure is inherently linked to meaning (B), then illusionalso of course becomes the new source of meaning (B). Illusions thereforecome to replace reality not merely as a source of pleasure but as a source ofthis kind of meaning. This marks a further regress. Illusions, for Adornofollowing Freud, are infantile fantasies which are intrinsically meaningless.Therefore when they become experienced as meaningful that which isintrinsically meaningless comes to be taken as meaningful. This is a state ofdelusion.18

Delusion is even more regressive than illusion. It occurs in the instance of

the lotus-eaters when their experience is like yet unlike the realisation ofutopia (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 63). That is, their experience beginsto imitate utopia but lacks the meaning (B) that such experience would hold.




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In modern society the same phenomenon occurs. The culture industry alsoemulates meaning (B), thus generating delusion.

What we have depicted here as fantasy represents, however, only half of

the enlightenment. The ego-drives are still expressed upon reality so that theenlightenment experiences an ever-spiralling increase in control, according toAdorno. This is apparent, he argues, in the increase in the technologicalpower of enlightenment culture.19

The enlightenment at this stage, as we have seen, consists of a split, whichentails that only half the selfs drives relate to reality. The other half aredeployed on mere illusion. The cultural correspondence to this psychologicalsplit is a society made up on the one hand of enormous technical power andefficiency, and on the other of depleted, illusory pleasures and meanings.20

Enlightenment is comprised of split halves, only one of which is Enlight-ened. The other has declined to myth. Enlightenment has began its declineto myth in half its sphere.

This situation, however, further deteriorates. We have so far depicted thefeature of delusion as remaining within the realm of fantasy, thus being a per-version of the satisfaction of the id-drives. As such it represents the decay ofmerely half of the enlightenment. However, delusion spreads into the realmof the ego-drives and so into enlightenment proper. (One aspect of this isthe appearance of what Adorno would see as childish science, the ludicroustheories and practices of so-called administrative sciences.) A further aspectwould be that which Adorno despises as the real absurdity of occultistswho are drawn towards childish monstrous scientific fantasies (Adorno,1974: 241) such as astrological hocus-pocus, which adduces the impenetrableconnections of alienated elements nothing more alien than the stars asknowledge about the subject. Here there is an increase in delusion for amonstrous scientific fantasy does not merely replace real meaning (B) witha false meaning (B) but actually imbues itself with meaning (A). Thus thereoccurs false meaning (A). The astrological hocus pocus posits itself asinstrumental knowledge.

Fantasy is thus doubly responsible for delusion in that first it is inadequatein terms of meaning (B) although it believes itself to be imbued with this.Second, it then becomes imbued with the status of meaning (A) so that it isresponsible for knowledge itself becoming deluded. In this way delusioncrosses over from the realm of pleasure to that of knowledge or enlighten-ment proper.

For Adorno, the stage of fantasy marks two aspects of decline. First, thepleasure-driven part of culture regresses through neglect. The subjectregresses from maturity to immaturity and pleasure becomes composed of

delusional meanings. This is a decline towards myth. Therefore half theenlightenment degenerates to myth.

There is a second and deeper regression because the delusion within fantasy




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feeds back to affect the realm of enlightenment proper so that delusions startto occupy the realm of knowledge. Delusion is a feature of myth. Theenlightenment thus regresses to myth not only in the sphere of pleasure

(which in a sense is its external sphere, that is, not a part of its aims) but inthe sphere of knowledge itself (that is, its internal sphere its self-declaredaims).

3 Totalization

With further progress the enlightenment worsens and enters the third stageof decline. This can be characterized as the stage of totalization and repre-sents the total decline of enlightenment to myth. It occurs in the following

way.In the stage of fantasy the only set of drives engaged upon reality werethose of the ego. According to Adorno, in the stage of totalization these growmore and more powerful and exert more and more control over the id. As aresult the id-drives become more restricted such that eventually they becomeunable to generate wish-objects or fantasies. That is, the enlightenmentsubject becomes increasingly unable to generate illusions. Adorno writes:

. . . with the technical easing of life the persistence of domination bringsabout a fixation of the drives by means of heavier repression. Imagina-

tion atrophies. (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 35)However, the drive of the id, if weakened, persists. What therefore can it

turn to in order to attain satisfaction? In fact, there is a readily available objectfor the id to satisfy itself upon. In its predominance, the ego has generated acomplex web of instrumental knowledge, a world of science, logic, technicaldesigns and processes. This complex technical system is a readily availableobject. The id in fact turn to this for satisfaction. Thus, in the third stage ofthe enlightenment the ego that is, in fact, the technological system of know-ledge 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 ofexperiencing objects in terms of pleasure; therefore when the egos productsbecome the object of the id, instrumentality becomes a source of pleasure.Adorno sees this phenomenon as ubiquitous in the culture industry, whichencompasses a shift away from escapist fantasy towards an appreciation ofinstrumental systems.21 In his analysis of the stage of totalization Adorno seesa shift in the object of pleasure, examples of which permeate, for instance, therealm of music. On the one hand, in the sphere of popular music soundsbegin to emulate machinery in the literal sense so that the instrumental

working of technology begins to become taken as pleasurable (Adorno andHorkheimer, 1979: 148). Within high culture on the other hand, abstractpatterns within sound and within visual art constructivism, for instance




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reflect the causal, systematic relations internal to the instrumental mode ofrelating to the world that is characteristic of the ego. Adorno explains that

. . . this abstractness has nothing in common with the formal characterof older aesthetic norms such as Kants. On the contrary, he writes thatfrom the outset, aesthetic abstraction . . . [is a] reaction to a world thathas become abstract. (Adorno, 1997: 22)22

The instrumental abstraction of the world becomes a source of pleasure asthe id shifts to satisfy itself upon the ego as its new object.

This stage I have characterized as that of totalization for the followingreason. Previously, when the enlightenment was split into two halves (en-lightenment proper and mythic fantasy) there still remained two separate

spheres of experience. However, once instrumental abstraction replacesfantasy as the object for the id, then experience loses distinctions. The ego-drives are the only way of relating to reality itself and, although the id-drivesremain, they neither relate to reality nor do they even any longer generatetheir own object. They can experience the ego only as object. Thus, on theone hand, the ego provides the only way of experiencing reality and, on theother, it has come to replace reality as the experiential realm for any otheraspect of the self. Instrumental abstraction becomes the only kind of poss-ible experience in both spheres. In this sense, the enlightenment is totalized.Enlightenment has become, say Adorno and Horkheimer, one of the [e]xpla-nations of the world as all or nothing . . . mythologies (Adorno and Hork-heimer, 1979: 24).

Totalization marks a regress to myth. All the aims of the enlightenmentregress to myth. Thefirst feature to decline is instrumental knowledge itself.This occurs in the following way.

The id experiences objects as pleasurable and as meaningful. Hence theproducts of the ego instrumental abstraction become experienced not onlyas pleasurable but also as meaningful; which is to say, meaningful in the idssense, what we have termed meaning (B). This raises a question. Does instru-

mental abstraction contain this first kind of meaning? We know that it con-tains meaning (A), that of enlightenment knowledge, but this is entirelydistinct from meaning (B). Adorno writes, with respect to art, of appearancebecom[ing] abstract after the catastrophe of meaning (Adorno, 1997: 22). ForAdorno the catastrophe of meaning refers to meaning (B) so that abstractappearance certainly does not contain meaning (B). When we experience thisabstraction as meaningful (B) then we are experiencing a kind of meaningwithin something which it does not inherently possess. This is delusion. Thisdelusion occurs in thought as in art, so that Adorno writes: thought appears

meaningful only when meaning has been discarded (Adorno and Horkheimer,1979: 93). An instance of this delusion in the realm of thought would be thesense that an explanation of the subject along biological lines, which contains




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meaning (A), conveys a sense of the inherent significance of the subject meaning (B). Mathematics, according to Adorno, is the purest form of instru-mental abstraction. It too comes to be taken as meaningful (B). For Adorno,

the enlightenment equates all possible kinds of meaning with meaning (A).Adorno writes: enlightenment . . . is the philosophy which equatesthe truthwith scientific systematization (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 85). (Truthfor Adorno in this context refers to all possible kinds of meaning.)

Instrumental knowledge thus becomes deluded about its own nature. Thefeature of delusion that begins with the narcissistic satisfaction of the id-drives spreads further into the sphere of the ego-drives.

The secondfeature to decline is that of maturity. In totalization, now thatthe id has turned to worship the products of the ego, the relationship between

the self and the external world alters. The id-drives that previously had satis-fied themselves upon reality now satisfy themselves upon the ego:

. . . [t]he libido that has been withdrawn from the external world hasbeen directed to the ego and thus gives rise to an attitude which may becalled narcissism. (Freud, 1914: 67)

From reality, to fantasy, to the ego, the self has turned increasingly away fromthe external world as its source of pleasure and meaning, and towards its ownego. The self is thus becoming increasingly preoccupied with itself. ThisFreud describes as a return to a primitive objectless condition (Freud, 1915a:202), and as such it marks a regression in subjectivity.23 The feature ofmaturity is thus undermined. This is a regression of the enlightenment subjectinto the mythic counterpart.

The third feature to decline is that of freedom. In totalization the onlyrelationship with reality is through the ego. Thus the subject relates toreality only through forms of control. This becomes a relationship of domi-nation. Domination is the contrary of freedom. Freedom in the enlighten-ment consists of two aspects according to Adorno. First, there is thefreedom 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 isgiven when Adorno writes of the self-dominant intellect, which separatesfrom sensuous experience in order to subjugate it (Adorno and Hork-heimer, 1979: 36).24 This, however, is of course a notion of freedom that isexternal to the enlightenment. Domination also, however, prevents asecond kind of freedom freedom conceived of as the subjects free will.25

The subject in dominating the external world (including other subjects)becomes itself an object of such domination in terms not merely of thefaculty of pleasure but also of its own independent will. Domination as a

characteristic of myth means that yet another of the enlightenments fea-tures degenerates to myth. The third goal of the enlightenment thereforebecomes undermined.




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Let us now look at the remaining relationship with reality. Access to realityis solely through the ego and its products. The ego relates to its object interms of survivaland when the world is related to solely in terms of survival

it is treated as something that is exclusively a potential threat to survival. Ofcourse, in part the world had always been experienced as dangerous but thishadbeen offset by the pleasure it afforded. Now that pleasure has gone andthe world is experienced solely as dangerous, reality becomes only a sourceof fear. This marks the emergence of another feature of myth. Whereasenlightenment (Adorno and Horkheimer claim) aimed for security it resultsin a culture driven by fear: enlightenment is mythic fear turned radical(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 16).26

For Adorno, fear leads to the loss of peace and the onset of barbarism. It

entails that self-preservation becomes the omnipresent concern of theenlightened self (Freud, 1930: 26472). Here self-preservation should beunderstood as psychological survival, that is, the preservation of a sense ofself or identity, rather than merely biological survival. For this kind of self-preservation the self is threatened by that which is different for it fears thatthis may contaminate the selfs identity. We can term that which is differentfrom the self the Other.

Now ordinarily, the self relates to the Other through both its drives so thatthe Other is potentially pleasurable and meaningful (B) as well as potentiallyharmful. At the stage of totalization, however, now that the egos productsare the only source of pleasure and meaning (B) and external reality is devoidof these qualities, then the world is no longer a source of significant andpleasurable experience but is only threatening. Adorno argues that this senseof threat reaches paranoid proportions so that the enlightened self fearsobsessively everything that is not self.

This fear is at root a fear of difference: a sense that the different will annihil-ate the selfs identity. It expresses itself in several ways. One is an attempt toremove the threat. Adorno argues that this can manifest itself in a drive forthe destruction of difference. It can be a drive for the destruction of external

reality or of any perceived Other.Epistemologically, this manifests itself, Adorno claims, in the rigid closed

systems of logic which are concerned with their own internal rules and rejectall that lies without. These, Adorno argues, are a kind of megalomaniac domi-nance: the system is the belly turned mind . . . It eliminates all heterogeneousbeing (Adorno, 1973: 23, 26). It is a philosophical devouring, which leavesnothing outside of its own system: it equates reality with itself, therebyexterminating any potential external (different) reality.

A brutal manifestation of this becomes inevitable, Adorno argues. He sees

this in anti-Semitism. The fascists do not view the Jews as a minority but asan opposing race, the embodiment of the negative principle (Adorno andHorkheimer, 1979: 168). This fear of the difference of the Jews is, on the one




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hand, a narcissistic worship of the self: The nationalist brand of anti-Semi-tism . . . asserts that the purity of the race and the nation is at stake (Adornoand Horkheimer, 1979: 176). On the other hand, it is a drive to exterminate

difference. The I am, which tolerates no opposition (Adorno and Hork-heimer, 1979: 177) was of such paranoid proportions that it resulted in thebrutality of the Nazi extermination camps.

The attempt to remove the threat of difference which emanates from theparanoid, narcissistic self, results in brutality, in barbarism. The final aim ofthe enlightenment, peace, has thus regressed to mythic barbarism.

Enlightenment has declined in total to myth.

4 Fragmentation

One would think that the total decline of enlightenment would inevitably bethat which Adorno would characterize as the final stage of the enlightenment.What possible further stage of decline could there be? Adorno pushes hisargument further.

The relationship that the subject has with the external world at the end ofthe stage of totalization and the onset of the stage of fragmentation is solelythrough the ego-drives. This is a relationship where fear has led to the attemptto exterminate all that is external to the self. If successful this leads, ofcourse, to the loss of all that is external including the external world as theobject for the ego. The only remaining object therefore becomes the egoitself.

What of the drives? The id-drives have become progressively dominatedby the ego such that the self has lost, first, the ability to relate to reality as itsobject of pleasure, and, second, the ability to generate fantasy objects: now,finally, according to Adorno, the ego dominates the self such that the id-drives decline altogether. For Adorno, the id-drives through their lack ofdeployment on reality grow increasingly weak and eventually fade awayaltogether.27 The result? The only drives that remain for the possibility of any

experience are those of the ego. At the stage of fragmentation therefore wehave the peculiar situation that the only drive that remains is that of the egoplus that the only object for experience is the ego. The stage of fragmentationtherefore consists of the ego relating to the ego.

The consequences that emerge from this fact are as follows. The ego-driveslack a capacity for the experience of pleasure and meaning B. Thus, when theself relates to itselfsolely through the ego it loses a sense of itselfas pleasur-able or meaningful (B).

However, the ego-drives do not simply lack certain features, they also

consist of a certain feature: the drive for self-preservation. This drive relatesto the object as something against which the ego wishes to protect itself. Pre-viously the ego-drives protected themselves against the external world. When




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the ego becomes the only object of experience these drives turn to protectthemselves against the ego. The combination of a loss of pleasure andmeaning in experience coupled to the existence of a drive for protection,

results in the object becoming a source of fear. The ego becomes threatenedby itself as an entity. The result of this is that the enlightened self begins toattack itself. It starts to attempt to destroy its own sense of existence. Thecoherent I, psychological identity, comes under threat of extinction.

Adorno illustrates an instance of this through the story of Odysseus.28

Odysseus has an encounter with the mythic monster, the Cyclops, Poly-phemus. Cyclopses eat human flesh and this one intends to eat Odysseus,thereby destroying Odysseus physically but also, and most importantly forAdorno, devaluing Odysseus existence as a selfby regarding him as merely

food.29

Therefore the Cyclops is an external threat not only to Odysseusphysical survival but, importantly, to hispsychological survival, or identity.In order to defend himself physically Odysseus tries to trick the Cyclops bytelling the Cyclops that his name is Nobody. When the Cyclops tries toidentify Odysseus in order to eat him he thus suffers confusion and in thisconfusion Odysseus takes the opportunity to flee. Odysseus has thus appar-ently triumphed and saved his physical life. But, Adorno argues, there is aconcealed cost. In order to trick the Cyclops and protect his own life,Odysseus has had to deny his own identity. In terms of psychological sur-vival, therefore, Adorno explains, Odysseus has ironically completed whatthe Cyclops intended. Odysseus has destroyed his identity his self: thesubject Odysseus denies his own identity, which makes him a subject.Odysseus employed an artifice that breaks the ordinance by fulfilling it andthereby saves his life by losing himself (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 60,658).

In destroying his identity, Adorno explains, Odysseus may survive physi-cally but degenerates psychologically to the same level of unselfconscious-ness as the monster. Adorno even accuses Odysseus of being lower than theCyclops because Odysseus has the capacity to be better: The stupidity of the

giant, an element of his barbaric crudity . . . represents something betterassoon as it is subverted by the one who ought to know better (Adorno andHorkheimer, 1979: 67).30 Adorno argues that Odysseus degenerates to a stageeven beneath that of the mythic monster to the amorphous, that is, to unself-conscious nature itself: Odysseus keeps himself alive by imitating the amor-phous (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 67).

This marks the stage that I have termed fragmentation, a stage where thecoherent entity of the self comes under threat of fragmentation and even-tual collapse.

The modern enlightenment self, like Odysseus, defends itself against athreatening world. It turns away seeking refuge in the ego and then, in turn,attacks this. The self (as subject) feels threatened by itself (as object). In an




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attempt to exterminate this threatening object, it attacks its own existence.This becomes an attack, according to Adornos argument, upon self-conscious subjectivity. The result is a marked regression and there then

emerges the (so-called) death of the subject.31 Like Odysseus, the dyingSubject cries I am nobody, celebrating the purported cunning of its owndeath. In the stage of fragmentation, the enlightenment subject degeneratesto the final stage of myth, and even beyond myth, to the amorphous, to thecollapse of any kind of subjectivity at all.

The psychological disintegration of the self has a physical counterpart. Thisoccurs due to the collapse of the subjects ability to control its externalenvironment. This collapse of control can be most readily observed throughthe disintegration of instrumental knowledge acquisition.

The ego-drives contain no capacity for the experience of pleasure andmeaning (B). Thus, when the ego solely relates to itself it loses a sense of itselfas pleasurable or meaningful and, furthermore, it loses a sense of its products,including instrumental knowledge, in the same way. Enlightenment know-ledge eventually becomes experienced as meaningless.

In certain circumstances, as we have seen, the ego attacks itself. In fact itdoes not merely attack itself but also its products including instrumentalknowledge. This results in a destruction of the latter. An example of thisoccurs again in the myth of Odysseus. Homer depicts the mind of the mythicmonster Cyclops as lawless, a mind that cannot relate to the world in anykind of systematic way it lacks all capacity for controlled thought.

Stupidity and lawlessness are diagnosed as one: when Homer callsCyclops a lawless-minded monster, this does not mean merely that inhis mind he does not respect the laws of civilisation, but also that hismind itself, his thinking, is lawless, unsystematic and rhapsodical.(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 65)

The self has no systematic instrumental capability. This undermines thepossibility of procuring self-preservation in the sense of survival. The physi-

cal death of the biological self then becomes inevitable.We can see Adornos image of the final stage of the destruction of instru-

mental knowledge reflected in contemporary debates about knowledge.According to certain views, texts, theories, systems, concepts are decon-structed into disconnected fragments which are then themselves dissolved.32

The notion of what counts as the structure of knowledge namely, the sys-tematic (unitary and linear) nature of thought is undermined. Empiricalexperience, facts, ideas, can no longer be related to each other in any sys-tematic way. Moreover, the notion of what counts as the content of know-

ledge itself is revealed to have no actual reality or validity. Thus the abilityof the ego to have any rational capacity is itself undermined. Just as Odysseuscalled himself Nobody, the modern subject dismantles his or her knowledge




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as fiction or nothing. Derrida claims that In a certain sense, thoughtmeans nothing.33 Adorno calls this the linguistic adaptation to death(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 60). It represents, for Adorno, the end of

any capacity for an instrumental knowledge of the world and so of controland therefore survival.

NOTES

1 I would like to thank Susan James, Michael Rosen, Bernard Berofsky, IrvingVelody and the anonymous readers advising on behalf of History of the HumanSciences for their valuable comments.

2 In this paper I discuss Adornos thought although the Dialectic of Enlightenmentis, of course, written by Adorno andHorkheimer. For an excellent depiction ofsome of the distinctions between these two authors see Mitchell and Rosen (1983:91105).

3 Many secondary sources tend to view the Dialectic of Enlightenment as a criticaltheory, within which they acknowledge, but do not explore, the psychoanalyticand epistemological aspects of the text see, for instance, Benhabib, 1986;Habermas, 1982; Jay, 1973. One exception to this is Alford (1988), who exploresthe relationship between the Frankfurt School in general and psychoanalysis.

4 Henceforth denoted by the use of the lower case.5 Culture in Adorno refers to certain realms in human society, those of knowledge,

subjectivity, aesthetics and certain social phenomena.6 I am not, of course, implying that Adorno invented this term himself.7 Adorno uses the terms enlightenment culture, the enlightenment and en-

lightenment interchangeably.8 Adornos epistemological critique of enlightenment encompasses ideas about

knowledge, reason, thought and cognition. I use the term knowledge acqui-sition to encompass this broad grouping.

9 Adorno often discusses the notion of identity interchangeably with the notionof sense of self. It should be noted that in general the notion of identity envelopsmany further concepts than sense of self.

10 Unpleasure is Freuds own term for the opposite of pleasure (Freud, 1911: 37).11 Freud first mentions these categories in Formulations on the Two Principles of

Mental Functioning (1911: 345) although his full exposition is given in The Egoand the Id (1923: 357408).

12 External reality refers to objects in the world including other people, etc. Theterm illusion will be defined on pp. 412.

13 I do illustrate these through examples from periods of the 20th century; forinstance, Nazism and Adornos contemporary American culture.

14 Imagination is used here in the ordinary sense of the word.15 Also cited on page 45.

16 My emphasis.17 The subject, for Adorno, is always the historically situated self.18 In this way, Adorno argues, illusions become actual delusions. Note that the




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concept delusion will be used throughout the text to refer to the notion that anidea, a belief, or a statement is mistaken about its own nature or validity.

19 In the film industry, for instance, we have a growth in the technological systems

of communication, administration, production and distribution. See Adorno andHorkheimer, 1979: 12068.20 Adorno and Horkheimer claim industrial societies consist of impoverished enter-

tainment on the one hand and sophisticated technology on the other (1979:12068).

21 Adorno does not always regard this kind of pleasure as intrinsically regressive.22 By reaction Adorno means a critical reaction.23 The subject although declining in his sense of self is, however, a subject in the

sense that he typifies the subjectivity of his time.24 See also Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 325.25 See Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 868, 89.26 My emphasis.27 This is, of course, a serious departure from Freud. A Freudian analysis would see

the id-drives as repressed and as a result becoming increasingly perverted. Thiswould then be an explanation of violence. Adorno straddles this more conventionalview and a view where he regards the id-drives as dying out such that the ego-drivesbecome responsible for the violence.

28 The incident actually illustrates features from the third, as well as the fourth, stage.29 And thus as an object for anothers physical self-gratification.30 My emphasis.31 See, for instance, Cadava et al., 1991, or Lacan, 1966.32 Derrida expresses it: thought becomes mere tautology (1974); see also Lyotard,

1984.33 See Note 32.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adorno, T. (1973) Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton. London: Routledge &Kegan Paul.

Adorno, T. (1974) Minima Moralia, trans. E. Jephcott. London and New York: Verso.Adorno, T. (1997)Aesthetic Theory, trans. R. Hullot-Kentor. London: Athlone Press.Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1979) Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. J.

Cumming. London: Verso.Alford, F. (1988) Narcissism: Socrates, the Frankfurt School and Psychoanalytic

Theory. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.Benhabib, S. (1986) Critique, Norm and Utopia: a Study of the Foundations of Critical

Theory. New York: Columbia Press.Cadava, E. et al., (1991) Who Comes after the Subject? London: Routledge.Derrida, J. (1974) Of Grammatology, trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore, MD: Johns

Hopkins University Press.Freud, S. (1911) Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning, in

Freud, 197386: Vol. 11.




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Freud, S. (1914) On Narcissism: an Introduction, in Freud, 197386: Vol. 11.Freud, S. (1915a) The Unconscious, in Freud, 197386: Vol. 11.Freud, S. (1915b) Drives and Their Vicissitudes, in Freud, 197386: Vol. 11.

Freud, S. (1923) The Ego and the Id, in Freud, 197386: Vol. 11.Freud, S. (1930) Civilisation and Its Discontents, in Freud, 197386: Vol. 12.Freud, S. (197386) The Pelican Freud Library, 15 vols, ed. Angela Richards, trans.

James Strachey. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Habermas, J. (1982) The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Re-reading the

Dialectic of Enlightenment,New German Critique, 26 (Spring/Summer).Jay, M. (1973) The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the

Institute of Social Research, 19231950. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.Lacan, J. (1966) Ecrits. Paris: Editions du Seuil.Lyotard, J. (1984) The Post-Modern Condition: a Report on Knowledge, trans. G.

Pennington and B. Massuni. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Mitchell, S. and Rosen, M., eds (1983) The Need for Interpretation: Contemporary

Conceptions of the Philosophers Task. London: Athlone Press.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

YVONNE SHERRATT has a doctorate in Philosophy from Kings College, Cam-bridge. She is currently Research Fellow in Philosophy (and IntellectualHistory) at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Previous research has been

published in Philosophy and Social Criticism, International PhilosophicalQuarterly and the Times Literary Supplement. A book on Adornos PositiveDialectic is being prepared for publication.

Address: Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB21RH, UK.[email: [email protected]]


yvonne sherratt

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