[FRA:] Language, Mythology, and Enlightenment

[Ralph Dumain]

"The Eclipse of Reason and the End of the Frankfurt School in America" by 
James Schmidt
Social Research, 0037783X, Winter 98, Vol. 65, Issue 4
http://www.dearey.alivewww.co.uk/PolTruth2007/Readings/DoE.htm

Schmidt reviews the genesis of the Dialectic of Enlightenment as 
Philosophical Fragments, Marcuse's incomprehension, the author's views of 
the debasement of language, the parallels with Hegel's phenomenology, and 
the logic of what became the title essay.  Schmidt finds DofE unique in 
comparison with Counter-Enlightenment literature:

>  Had the argument of Dialectic of Enlightenment stopped here (and 
> summaries of the book sometime do stop here), the book would have long 
> ago found a comfortable resting place among the many critics of the 
> enlightenment who have argued that the grand project of freeing mankind 
> from illusion ultimately culminates in nihilism. Thinkers from Edmund 
> Burke to Hans-Georg Gadamer have argued that the enlightenment's attack 
> on prejudices was itself a prejudice, and have called for a greater 
> deference toward tradition. Thinkers from Nietzsche to postmodernists 
> have basically agreed with their conservative brethren that reason has 
> undermined its own foundations--though, less concerned about the results, 
> they have been inclined to endorse Nietzsche's dictum: "That which is 
> falling
 Push!" What prevents the Dialectic of Enlightenment from fitting 
> in easily with other critiques of the enlightenment lies in the first 
> part of the chiasmus: "mythology is already enlightenment." Where other 
> critics of the enlightenment respond to its alleged failings by seeking 
> to reactivate modes of thinking that had not been corrupted by 
> enlightenment rationality, this path is not available to Horkheimer and 
> Adorno. Since, in their view, the concept of enlightenment "stretches 
> back to the beginning of recorded history," they can find no form of 
> thinking that is not already inclined toward enlightenment.

To justify their view of myth as incipient Enlightenment, Horkheimer and 
Adorno plunged into the literature of anthropology as well as the College 
of Sociology. Wile magic is rooted in mimesis, mythology is already a step 
toward Enlightenment. There is a historical progression:

>The origins of individuality, in short. He on this side of the line 
>between magic and mythology.
>The transition from magic to myth was accompanied by a centralization of 
>power and the development of a division between mental and manual labor. 
>"The lyrics of Homer and hymns of the Rig-Veda," Horkheimer and Adorno 
>noted, "date from the time of territorial domination and the secure 
>locations in which a dominant warlike race established themselves over the 
>mass of vanquished natives" (5,p. 36 [13]). Following Durkheim, they 
>argued that even the categories of subordination and superordination in 
>logic had their basis in new forms of social domination (5,p. 44 [21]). 
>Likewise, with a nod to Hegel's account of the dialectic of master and 
>slave, they argued that the separation between subject and object is 
>grounded on the distance of the thing that the master achieves through the 
>mastered (5,p. 36 [14]). With the move beyond magical/mimetic relations to 
>the world, language renounces the claim to be like nature and instead 
>limits itself to the task of calculation and control (5,p. 40 [18]).

Odysseus becomes the exemplary mythological figure.

>The intent of Dialectic of Enlightenment was to offer a critique of 
>enlightenment as relentless and unforgiving as that mounted by the 
>enlightenment's fiercest critics and yet, somehow, remain loyal to the 
>enlightenment's hopes. Hence the importance of the book's unwritten 
>sequel. Dialectic of Enlightenment traced the process by which the dreams 
>of the enlightenment had turned into a nightmare. The unwritten Rettung 
>der Aufklärung would awaken the enlightenment from its nightmare, restore 
>it to consciousness, and set it back on its path. Any reading of Dialectic 
>of Enlightenment that is unaware of the incompleteness of its argument 
>runs the risk of misunderstanding the intentions of its authors. And any 
>attempt to remain faithful to the project begun by Horkheimer and Adorno 
>can find no better starting point than the question that stymied them half 
>a century ago: How can the enlightenment be rescued?

I still find the argument of DofE unconvincing.