Barbarism is what lets mind master itself and stay open to nature

Evidence

Adorno’s view was therefore that it was the barbaric element which gave the mind (Geist) command over itself in opposing objectifications of its own activity which were alienated from it. In this way, the mind was able to appear armed in steel before a rigid society, while at the same time remaining open towards the ungrasped nature within itself. Indeed, each aspect required the other: just as its link with what could not be grasped was all that preserved the mind from being overpowered by its rigid objectifications, so too it could only remain true to what could not be grasped by maintaining its toughness within a rigid society. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 329

Categorization

• DEFINE: Adorno’s positive sense of ‘barbarism’ as a self-hardening of the mind against its own alienated objectifications — a term later critics of Adorno conflate with the negative sense.
• XREF: Connects across to Adorno’s broader claim (in Dialectic of Enlightenment) that Enlightenment reason’s domination of nature rebounds destructively on the subject. — connects to: Society can escape nature’s compulsions by properly recalling its own nature.; Retreat can begin with discovering a book that strips the mind of the world — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 215; A philosophy matching the horror of barbarism must abandon explanatory causal detail (+11 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Society can escape nature’s compulsions by properly recalling its own nature.; Retreat can begin with discovering a book that strips the mind of the world — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 215; A philosophy matching the horror of barbarism must abandon explanatory causal detail (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Restless hyperactivity is driving civilization toward barbarism #complicates (0.80) — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 43
• Suppressing myth converts fear of nature into superstition and nature-domination #complicates (0.78) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 358
• Ending deprivation requires increased domination of nature and self-repression #complicates (0.74) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1572
• Rational self-preservation conquers nature only by imitating nature’s own rigidity #complicates (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 63