Humanity’s domination of nature fails because inner nature remains unruly
Evidence
Adorno’s text centred on the technique of twelve-tone music. The philosophical interpretation of it was tied in to a conception of the development of the human species along the lines of Western civilization. This was a romantic-Marxist conception, which might be paraphrased as follows: to begin with, humanity was confronted with all-powerful nature. In the course of time, people learned how to become more powerful than nature, how to control nature. This meant that nature was seen less and less as something directed by superior, self-willed, unpredictable powers, and more and more as something which obeyed laws and which could be put to service through cunning exploitation of those laws. As if they were still under the spell of the old fear of a superior nature, people made it their highest goal to bring nature into submission. But they did not succeed in breaking its superior power; instead, nature, within them, remained superior. Nature had been dethroned, but they did not succeed in achieving fearless respect for it, even after they had intentionally brought it down: respect for something which had potentially produced a means of alleviating its own harshnesses in the form of humanity itself. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1260
Categorization
- XREF: This is the core Dialectic of Enlightenment thesis — instrumental reason dominating outer nature while inner nature remains unmastered. Connects to Horkheimer/Adorno’s co-authored book. — connects to: Dominating nature chiefly becomes power over other humans — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 703; Adorno rejects mastery of nature as progress because domination entangles humanity in nature — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1585; Progress fails when its standard bearers become part of nature (+10 more)
- DEFINE: Summarizes the ‘romantic-Marxist’ historical narrative underlying Adorno’s programmatic music essays — a textbook-clear compressed statement of the domination-of-nature schema.
Broader Connections
- Adorno rejects mastery of nature as progress because domination entangles humanity in nature
#expands(0.88) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1585 - Progress fails when its standard bearers become part of nature
#corroborates(0.88) - Dominating nature chiefly becomes power over other humans
#expands(0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 703 - The drive to dominate external nature extends inward to the human self
#expands(0.85) - Rational self-preservation conquers nature only by imitating nature’s own rigidity
#complicates(0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 63 - Individuality cannot escape the social system because its inner essence already embodies that system
#corroborates(0.82) - Ending deprivation requires increased domination of nature and self-repression
#contradicts(0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1572 - Mastery over nature becomes mastery over other humans, weakening the individual.
#expands(0.80) - Nature is the object of reason as liberation, not only domination
#qualifies(0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 826