Objectification becomes bourgeois rationalization when objectivity remains unfree.

Evidence

True because it unmasks the particular as a necessary illusion, the false consciousness of isolated things as being themselves alone and not moments of the whole; and this false consciousness it breaks down with the power of the whole. Untrue because the motif of objectification, ‘alienation’, becoming a pretext for bourgeois self-assertion of the subject, is degraded to a mere rationalization, as long as objectivity, contrasted by thought to bad subjectivity, is unfree and does not measure up to the subject’s criticism. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 267

Categorization

• XREF: The critique that the whole can both break down false consciousness and rationalize the status quo connects to Marx’s concept of alienation as simultaneously true description and ideological legitimation. — connects to: Lukács saw rationalization as reification caused by commodity fetishism — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 379; Overturning banality requires pushing nuance to objectivity, not abandoning it — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 237; Empiricism that excludes man-made context becomes ideology — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 454 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Empiricism that excludes man-made context becomes ideology #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 454
• Collective objectivity functions as a device for soothing the conscience #expands (0.75)
• Bourgeois ideology fragments classes into possessive individual subjects. #expands (0.72) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 912
• Objectivity is freedom from commitment-biased perception #qualifies (0.72) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 9594
• Prejudiced rationalizations can be socially validated ideology rather than irrationality #complicates (0.70)