Technical rationality makes irrational social control appear reasonable and rational

Evidence

We are again confronted with one of the most vexing aspects of advanced industrial civilization: the rational character of its irrationality. Its productivity and efficiency, its capacity to increase and spread comforts, to turn waste into need, and destruction into construction, the extent to which this civilization transforms the object world into an extension of man’s mind and body makes the very notion of alienation questionable. The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment. The very mechanism which ties the individual to his society has changed, and social control is anchored in the new needs which it has produced. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 124

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core formulation of ‘the rational character of its irrationality’ — the paradox that defines one-dimensionality.
• XREF: The reader’s reading purpose explicitly names ‘technological rationality as ideology’ as a key contarian claim worth preserving. — connects to: Planned chance serves as an alibi for rationalized society — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113; Psychological irrationality gets precisely engineered into the power system; Rationality emerges from taboo rules rather than rules arising from rational reflection — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 135 (+28 more)

Broader Connections

• Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination #expands (0.90) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 141
• Social organization displaces autonomous moral drive with instrumental and procedural rationality #expands (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 612
• A rationality geared to domination shapes how we construe the Other #expands (0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 464
• Rational productivity and social control are welded together in new forms of manipulation #corroborates (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 551
• A rearticulated rationality functions as ammunition within power’s mechanics #corroborates (0.80)
• Technological rationality neutralizes guilt and conscience under reification #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 346
• Rationalized social relationships increase the efficiency of producing inhumanity #complicates (0.70) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 436