Positivist restrictions on thought serve authoritarians by blinding observers to hidden suffering.

Evidence

In the spirit of the drastic critiques in Dawn, Horkheimer pointed out the significance of central propositions of positivist empirical theory when their implications for practical life were examined. `The view that thought is a means of knowing more about the world than may be directly observed … seems to us entirely mysterious’ is the conviction expressed in a work of the Vienna circle. This principle is particularly significant in a world whose magnificent exterior radiates complete unity and order while panic and distress prevail beneath. Autocrats, cruel colonial governors, and sadistic prison wardens have always wished for visitors with this positivistic mentality. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 204

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The ‘autocrats, colonial governors, prison wardens’ image inverts the empiricism-liberalism linkage and has unusual staying power as an argument about the politics of epistemology.
• XREF: Echoes the earlier chapter’s analysis of Dawn’s drastic critique of science and its rescue-of-appearance theme.