Bourgeois ethics inherits Enlightenment’s truth-postulate as the demand to be oneself.

Evidence

We are wholly convinced—and therein lies our petitio principii—that social freedom is inseparable from enlightened thought. Nevertheless, we believe that we have just as clearly recognized that the notion of this very way of thinking, no less than the actual historic forms—the social institutions—with which it is interwoven, already contains the seed of the reversal universally apparent today. If enlightenment does not accommodate reflection on this recidivist element, then it seals its own fate. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 21 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The second general effect, then, is that of fragmentation or separation. The unity of the different spheres of the state are dispersed into the theory of the “separation of powers” (“Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”). The collective interests of the working classes are fragmented into the internal oppositions between different strata of the class. The value which is collectively created is individually and privately appropriated. The “needs” of producers are represented as the “wants” of consumers—the two so separate that they can, in fact, be set against one another. In most of the dominant regions of this ideological field, the constituting category is what Poulantzas calls “individuals-persons.” The moral, juridical, representational, and psychological lexicons of the dominant system of practices, values, and meanings could literally not be constituted at all without this thoroughly bourgeois category of “possessive individuals.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 912 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Bourgeois Enlightenment traded freedom for self-preservation early on; Enlightenment can be redeemed from blind domination by self-critique; The Enlightenment’s self-image required the Rest as its suppressed opposite. (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Enlightenment can be redeemed from blind domination by self-critique #qualifies (0.80)
• Enlightened thought itself contains the seed of its own reversal into domination #complicates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 21
• Bourgeois ideology fragments classes into possessive individual subjects. #expands (0.78) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 912
• The Enlightenment’s self-image required the Rest as its suppressed opposite. #expands (0.75)
• Enlightenment must critique itself rather than merely defend cultural values #corroborates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 24
• The Enlightenment’s core project displaced local moralities with universal rational ones #expands (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 71
• Bourgeois politics uses progressive-conservative coding instead of truth to give political direction #complicates (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 694
• The bourgeoisie embodies a law of progressive dehumanization once it becomes dominant. #expands (0.72) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 202