Horkheimer traced fascist language corruption back through Jewish religious prohibitions against naming God

Evidence

The root of fascist agitation is the fact that there is something rotten in language itself. The rottenness I have in mind is … a phenomenon which is expressed in Jewish religion by the verdict against trying to call God by His name and by the story of the Tower of Babel. The corruption of language seems also to be expressed in the legend of the Expulsion from Paradise, where all the creatures had been named by Adam. We must beware of the idea that the fascist use of language is something radically new in our society… . The distrust of the peasant against the city-dweller with his mastery of language was partly justified. This distrust is an element of antiSemitism itself, and the Jew who manipulates language so easily is not free from guilt in the prehistory of what you explain as the fascist handling of language. Here, too, the Jew is the pioneer of capitalism. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 701

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘rottenness in language’ anticipates the language-of-civilization theme in Dialectic of Enlightenment and connects to the Tower of Babel motif. — connects to: Mispronouncing the enemy religion’s name is an act of ideological control — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 178; Horkheimer’s late turn to religion continued his earlier anti-humanist stance. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 799; The Frankfurt School’s refusal to name utopia echoed the Jewish taboo against naming God. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 790 (+2 more)
• SEED: A potential essay angle: how the Frankfurt School’s account of fascist language anticipates — or fails to anticipate — contemporary debates about linguistic manipulation and ‘the Jew who manipulates language as pioneer of capitalism’; a fraught but historically important thread.

Broader Connections

• Mispronouncing the enemy religion’s name is an act of ideological control #expands (0.72) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 178