In this way enlightenment nullifies both subject and object. It is simply a matter of our scientific tools and precision. In the Enlightenment, even the unknown which hasn’t been quantified or measured yet is still measurable and quantifiable in principle. Enlightenment thinkers simply dismissed mana as a projection of the human spirit into nature where there simply was no such thing.įor Adorno and Horkheimer it is the precise opposite: mana is the echo of nature in the minds of primitive people. In myth, the Mana was something which escaped measurement, something more than the totality of the individual pieces of the world, a spirit which couldn’t be quantified and was expressed in the terror of the unknown. The enlightenment motto is that once you translate something into numbers, you know everything you need to know about the object. This spirit of the Enlightenment is for Adorno and Horkheimer deeply entrenched in the myths it tries to dispel. Adorno in his house in Kettenhofweg in Frankfurt, via Wikimedia Commons. What Is The Place of the Spirit of Enlightenment? Plaque for Theodor W.
It gathers everything and translates it into the currency of numbers, into their instrumental essence.Ģ. Reason mapped itself onto everything that existed and everything that could possibly exist. If we knew the speed, acceleration, weight and all the relevant physical details of every object in the universe, we could predict everything else that would ever happen. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”Īt this period there was a widespread belief that there was nothing more that the universe could tell us. “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. The more power, the more we are estranged from it. The more we can manipulate it, the more power we have over it. The idea is that we understand nature to the degree that we’re able to manipulate it. This relationship of understanding nature, is, for Adorno and Horkheimer, similar to that of a dictator to his citizens. The goal of the Enlightenment was for humanity to finally understand nature and exploit it for its own gain. The Concept of a Totalitarian Enlightenment Reading of Voltaire’s L’Orphelin de la Chine, by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier, c.
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