Enlightenment eliminated negation from language, silencing the oppressed.

Evidence

In fact, the greatest failing of the Enlightenment mentality was not its inability to create social conditions in which name and thing might be legitimately united, but rather its systematic elimination of negation from language. This was the reason why its substitution of formulae for concepts was ultimately so destructive. The philosophy of the Enlightenment was overwhelmingly nominalist rather than realist; in Benjamin’s sense, it recognized only the speech of man, ignoring God’s. Man was the sole name-giver, a role commensurate with his domination of nature. Language thus became, to use Marcuse’s later term, one-dimensional. Incapable of expressing negation, it could no longer voice the protest of the oppressed. Instead of revealing meanings, speech had become nothing more than a tool of the dominant forces in society. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 791

Categorization

• XREF: Directly foreshadows Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man; connects the Dialectic to the later Marcuse output Jay describes elsewhere. — connects to: Enlightenment dialogues led to cultural suppression and societal fractures. — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1315; The Enlightenment secularized and expanded racist discourse in the American colonies. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 197; The Enlightenment’s self-image required the Rest as its suppressed opposite. (+9 more)
• SEED: Angle: how the Frankfurt School’s critique of nominalism as the language of domination bridges to contemporary debates about naming and categorization power.

Broader Connections

• The Enlightenment liberated man only to enslave him more effectively #corroborates (0.88) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 833
• The Enlightenment’s self-image required the Rest as its suppressed opposite. #expands (0.85)
• Enlightenment dialogues led to cultural suppression and societal fractures. #corroborates (0.82) — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1315
• Oppression functions by domesticating and submerging consciousness. #corroborates (0.82) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 121
• Enlightenment serves as a tool for making people smaller and more governable #corroborates (0.82) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 714
• The Enlightenment secularized and expanded racist discourse in the American colonies. #corroborates (0.80) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 197
• Linguistic philosophy advances an ideology that deletes critical concepts. #corroborates (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 662
• Enlightenment can be redeemed from blind domination by self-critique #complicates (0.78)
• Enlightenment-era cruelty shifts from rulers onto the ruled. #corroborates (0.78)
• Enlightenment reason replicated the tyranny it rebelled against, now over nature #complicates (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 182
• Formerly colonized and suppressed peoples now speak for themselves rather than being spoken for. #contradicts (0.74)
• Enlightenment reason reshaped religious providence rather than displacing it #qualifies (0.72) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 122