Modern science and technology are sublimated forms of magic and mimicry.
Evidence
Science is repetition, refined into observed regularity, and preserved in stereotypes. The mathematical formula is regression handled consciously, just as the magic ritual used to be; it is the most sublimated manifestation of mimicry. Tech nology no longer completes the approximation to death for the sake of survival by physical imitation of external nature, as was the case with magic, but by automation of the mental processes, by converting them into blind cycles. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 139
Categorization
- XREF: Direct precursor to the reader’s stated theme that Burns invokes Adorno; the culture industry chapter builds on this continuity of science-as-regression. — connects to: Magic preserved concrete particularity that science flattens into interchangeable matter; Romantic metaphysics originated in magic and serves to veil reality
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the mathematical formula is ‘regression handled consciously’ and that technology is automated mental mimicry is dense and paradigm-shifting.