Technical rationality serves those in power rather than being genuinely rational.
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, 258
Categorization
- DEFINE: Kirchheimer’s formulation of technical rationality as power-serving is a key conceptual building block of the Institute’s critique of instrumental reason.
- XREF: Links forward to Horkheimer and Adorno’s critique of instrumental reason and the culture industry in Dialectic of Enlightenment. — connects to: Legitimacy always rests on successful power, not pure rationality. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 453; Modern rationality is inseparable from the drive for control and domination.; Political rationality enables and legitimates governing instruments rather than serving them. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 220 (+11 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Legitimacy always rests on successful power, not pure rationality. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 453; Modern rationality is inseparable from the drive for control and domination.; Political rationality enables and legitimates governing instruments rather than serving them. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 220 (+11 more)
Broader Connections
- Technical rationality only serves those already in power
#corroborates(0.97) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 975 - Economics serves power more effectively when it operates in innocence of serving it
#complicates(0.79) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 241 - Technology itself is neutral; harmful outcomes stem from power relations, not technical necessity.
#complicates(0.74) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 262