Dialectic of Enlightenment conflates two distinct concepts of enlightenment forced together.

Evidence

There were two concepts of enlightenment at work in the book. In the first, the goal of enlightenment had always been to establish humanity’s dominance; this form of enlightenment had now reached its goal, and was bathing the perfectly enlightened earth in the glow of triumphant disaster. The goal of the other had been to soften the demand for dominance, and achieving this would mean dispensing with power. These two concepts of enlightenment seemed to have been forced together with violence in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, giving the impression initially that enlightenment was destroying itself but could also save itself. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1395

In addition, Horkheimer and Adorno, instead of distinguishing terminologically between objective and subjective reason, used the concept of enlightenment equivocallysometimes in a negative, sometimes in a positive sense, sometimes in the sense of subjective reason, sometimes in that of objective reason. There were two concepts of enlightenment at work in the book. In the first, the goal of enlightenment had always been to establish humanity’s dominance; this form of enlightenment had now reached its goal, and was bathing the perfectly enlightened earth in the glow of triumphant disaster. The goal of the other had been to soften the demand for dominance, and achieving this would mean dispensing with power. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 356

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the two opposed concepts of enlightenment (dominance-driven vs. dominance-softening) that the book notoriously conflates.
• XREF: Connects to the standard critical-theory distinction between instrumental and objective reason as the book’s core conceptual fault line. — connects to: Dialectic of Enlightenment became more negativistic than its authors originally planned. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1341; The Enlightenment holds a shared substrate despite its internal diversity — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 71; Enlightenment reason reshaped religious providence rather than displacing it — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 122 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1395; Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 356

Broader Connections

• The Enlightenment holds a shared substrate despite its internal diversity #qualifies (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 71
• Enlightenment reason reshaped religious providence rather than displacing it #expands (0.72) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 122
• Enlightenment thought frames tradition and modernity as opposing binary cultures. #complicates (0.72)