Nietzsche prefigured Adorno’s diagnosis of the dialectic of enlightenment.

Evidence

In general, the substantive proximity between Adorno and Nietzsche can be described thusly: both understand modernity along with its capitalist forms of intercourse not as an open opportunity for genuine enlightenment, but as one which has already been wasted. Just like Adorno, Nietzsche views the course of human history from the standpoint of the immediate present in order to interpret it as a failed attempt at self-liberation from mythology. In other words, he too recognises the dialectic in enlightenment. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 912

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the chapter’s thesis that Minima Moralia is Nietzschean — claims Nietzsche already saw enlightenment as failed self-liberation from myth, anticipating the Dialectic of Enlightenment. — connects to: Adorno’s critique of Enlightenment began as early as the 1930s — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 256; Nietzsche and critical theory both recognised enlightenment’s self-reversal into its opposite. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 914; Aristotle and Nietzsche mark the shift from moral to instrumental knowledge
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does the Nietzsche lineage complicate the standard story that Adorno’s enlightenment critique descends mainly from Weber and Marx?

Broader Connections

• Aristotle and Nietzsche mark the shift from moral to instrumental knowledge #corroborates (0.72)