The Dialectic holds that myth was already enlightenment and prepared self-destructive enlightenment
Evidence
Disaster, for the two writers, was, true to the Benjamin-Adorno tradition, synonymous with the domination of the mythical. `Enlightenment reverts to mythology’ was therefore another formulation of their thesis. But they were equally concerned to show that myth was already enlightenment. The point of the thesis was that, in that case, enlightenment had not destroyed myth from outside; rather, myth had been the first step towards a failed emancipation from nature and had thus prepared the way for self-destructive enlightenment. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1371
Categorization
- DEFINE: Pins down the precise, counterintuitive meaning of ‘enlightenment reverts to mythology’ in the Dialectic — myth was the first failed emancipation, not a defeated opposite.
- XREF: connects to: Myth was the first failed step toward emancipation, preparing self-destructive enlightenment — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1371; Enlightenment itself, not its corruption, leads to disaster in the Dialectic — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1370; Enlightenment regresses into the very myth it claimed to escape (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Enlightenment itself, not its corruption, leads to disaster in the Dialectic
#expands(0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1370 - enlightenment is indefatigably self-destructive in its own tendencies
#corroborates(0.90) - Enlightenment regresses into the very myth it claimed to escape
#corroborates(0.85) - All civilization so far is enlightenment trapped within mythic immanence
#expands(0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1372 - The myth shapes the present while being reshaped by it.
#contradicts(0.80) — David Ohana, David Maisel , The Origins of Israeli…, 774 - Enlightenment’s principle of immanence is itself the mythic principle of repetition.
#expands(0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 38 - Mythic discourse systematically conceals its own origins and institutional basis
#expands(0.72)