Nietzsche and critical theory both recognised enlightenment’s self-reversal into its opposite.

Evidence

Nietzsche had pushed the idea of the enlightenment to the limit and to its reversal. He obscured nothing, but cried to the world that no argument against murder could be deduced from unfettered reason. Like critical theory, he recognized that enlightenment had turned into its opposite, and he then attempted to master chaos with an exaggerated individualism. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 914

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Dialectic of Enlightenment thesis shared with Horkheimer; a revisionist frame for the book’s argument. — connects to: Nietzsche prefigured Adorno’s diagnosis of the dialectic of enlightenment. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 912; Totalitarianism expresses rather than repudiates Enlightenment’s inherent dynamic. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 786; enlightenment is indefatigably self-destructive in its own tendencies (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Nietzsche prefigured Adorno’s diagnosis of the dialectic of enlightenment. #corroborates (0.95) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 912
• Enlightened thought itself contains the seed of its own reversal into domination #corroborates (0.95) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 21
• enlightenment is indefatigably self-destructive in its own tendencies #corroborates (0.85)
• Totalitarianism expresses rather than repudiates Enlightenment’s inherent dynamic. #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 786