Technical rationality only serves those already in power

Evidence

Its central ideasthat individuals were being held in check by social groupings and by state bureaucracy; that the authority of the group bureaucracy was growing with the number of executive duties being handed over to it by the governmentreached their climax with the observation that there was a form of technical rationality dominant everywhere which was only `rational’ for those in power. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 975

Categorization

• XREF: Directly foreshadows — nearly pre-states — the instrumental-rationality thesis later crystallized in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Also ties to the standing claim from ch27 that positivism’s calculative thought is built on nature-control. — connects to: A rearticulated rationality functions as ammunition within power’s mechanics; Technical rationality makes irrational social control appear reasonable and rational — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 124; Technical rationalization hides who benefits from the machinery. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 689

Broader Connections

• Technical rationality makes irrational social control appear reasonable and rational #expands (0.90) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 124
• Technical rationalization hides who benefits from the machinery. #expands (0.88) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 689
• A rearticulated rationality functions as ammunition within power’s mechanics #expands (0.85)