Civilization deliberately mutilates both inner desire and outer fear to dominate nature.

Evidence

This set in motion a process which rejected and mutilated nature, in reaction to both the promise of happiness and the supremacy of nature. What it rejected and mutilated were both the capacity for devotion within humanity’s inner nature and the temptations of outward nature; and also both the capacity for fear in humanity’s inner nature and the terrors of outward nature. This diminution of desire and fear was intended to make it possible, with constant presence of mind, to wrest existence from nature, which was either viewed with indifference or seen as an enemy. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1403

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is the core Frankfurt School claim about the cost of enlightenment: civilizing requires disabling both desire and fear.
• XREF: connects to: Surplus repression grows with domination over nature and strengthens destructive instincts.; Repression of nature throughout civilization provokes revenge in social rebellion. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1469; Humanity’s domination of nature fails because inner nature remains unruly — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1260 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Humanity’s domination of nature fails because inner nature remains unruly #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1260
• Repression of nature throughout civilization provokes revenge in social rebellion. #contradicts (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1469
• Civilization cannot be separated from the terror that sustains it #corroborates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 188