“The regression of the masses today lies in their inability to hear with their own ears what has

not
already been heard, to touch with their hands what has not previously been grasped; it is the new form
of blindness which supersedes that of vanquished myth.” - Adorno & Horkheimer 1

Enlightenment
In his 1784 essay “Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?”, Kant considers enlightenment
“man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity” 2. Immaturity that would soon be challenged
with the onslaught of the world wars to follow, in which cold reason, efficiency and industrialisation
basked triumphantly in the glory of their own creation. A creation however, that brought not liberation
from myth, religion, and unjust authority, but a new kind of barbarism and domination, justified and
rationalised in the name of the very Enlightenment that was supposed to deliver us from such peril.
How is it then, that we have strayed so far from the ideals proclaimed by the enlightenment? To
answer this question, Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment begins by tracing the
historical development of enlightenment thinking, and its trajectory since Kant had written about
man’s self-incurred “Unmündigkeit” almost 200 years earlier. They argue that reason itself has a dark
side. More specifically they critique the positivist notion of universal reason, an objective,
homogenous, transcendental truth, and goal to be shared amongst any and all it subjects through
Enlightenment. Instead, they differentiate between different kinds of reason, that, in true Hegelian
fashion, enter into a dialectical relationship with one another and their situational context. On the one
hand you are thus presented with universal reason, that which governs and unites all, on the other you
are left with man, made of flesh, and endowed with needs and desires far beyond the reach of such
reason. The instrumental reason of Enlightenment would judge such a conflict in accordance with its
rationalist ideals: which is more reasonable? The collective reason, that which reckons how to
maximise collective benefit, reason amongst men; or the Individuals calculation of material
subjugation of the object for one’s own benefit and self-preservation? In either case we are left with
consideration of utility above all else, of mans domination over the object where anything that does
not conform to this kind of computation is suspect.
Thus, we have made instrumental reason our mythology, our unified means of understanding the world
and subordinating it to our will, the ideological superstructure that maintains and enforces the base of
which it is born. Singularly concerned with the optimisation of all things in accordance with this
instrumentality we structure our world and ultimately our lives in pursuit of this singular purpose. And
as we understand all things to have value only in their utility to our needs and desire for self-
preservation, soon people too become but means to an end, reified as objects to be dominated in the
name of reason. If reason is the total homogeneity of all, calculating the universal together, what is left
of the individual?

Culture Industry
As all else, production is subject to this dialectic. And it too abides by the law of utility, efficiency, and
universality. How do we ramp up productivity, how do we most efficiently distribute the product and
what skills are needed most for its production? We make ourselves into instruments, are made into
such by the new religion of instrumental reason. Who creates becomes irrelevant, what and why we
create is governed solely by a force external to ourselves and in service of something universal,
something alien to the individual. Both progeny and foundation of this development is the kind of
Fordism that prevailed in its wake. Its systems of mass production and consumption characterized by
assembly line manufacturing, standardized products, and mechanisation increasingly bring forth
uniformity that is fundamentally totalitarian in nature. When faced with the diverse interests, needs
and preferences of the consumer, Industry, in its unrelenting pursuit of the universal will try to find the
largest common denominator amongst them to appeal to. The resulting products emerge as
reproductions of the status quo, as conformity to it and the majority to the point of conservatism.
Everything new becomes imitation and imitation becomes routine. All that does not appeal to the
universal is considered disruptive to the way of life as presided over by the “enlightened” myth. As
part of these Fordist productive relations, the Culture Industry too begins to reproduce itself
accordingly. Movies become cheap reboots and stories repackage the same cliches and tropes, easily
recognised by the audience and consumed uncritically.
Acting as part of the ideological superstructure, this motive of universal appeal is both a result of the
material conditions and productive realities that constitute the base and actively enforces and
maintains the same. Born of the capitalist profit motive and its relations of production, it pursues mass
marketability by the same mechanisms with which it perpetuates the naturalisation of those base
structures. What is easy to consume is usually uncritical and proliferates the kind of overindulgence in
the status quo that eventually translate into complacency and docile obedience. All those who ask
more of the superstructure than reproduction and imitation are inevitably alienated, left without
autonomy over their artistic pursuits transformed into passive recipients of pre-packaged cultural
content rather than active participants in the creative process. Expanding on Marx’ concept of
alienation (applied mainly to the workplace) Adorno and Horkheimer elaborate on the cultural
alienation that comes with the homogenisation of a societies cultural output. The Loss of critical
engagement with this output contributes to the loss of agency over the shaping of one’s cultural
environment and class consciousness.

Word Count: 880

Bibliography
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1982). Dialectic of enlightenment. (J. Cumming, Trans.).
Continuum. (p.28)
Kant, I. (2009). An answer to the question: 'what is enlightenment?' (Ser. Penguin great ideas, 68).
Penguin Books. (p.1)