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The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Re-Reading Dialectic of Enlightenment

Author(s): Jürgen Habermas and Thomas Y. LevinSource: New German Critique, No. 26, Critical Theory and Modernity (Spring - Summer,1982), pp. 13-30Published by: New German CritiqueStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488023

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TheEntwinementfMythandEnlightenment:Re-ReadingDialectic of Enlightenment

byJurgenHabermas

The darkwriters of the bourgeoisie- such as Machiavelli, Hobbes

and Mandeville - had alwaysappealed to Horkheimer, who was him-self influenced by Schopenhauer. Clearly, from their works there stillremained ties to Marx's social theory. These connections were broken

by the reallynihilistic darkwritersof the bourgeoisie, foremost amongthem the Marquis de Sade and Nietzsche. It is to them that Hork-heimer and Adorno turn in the DialecticofEnlightenment,heir blackest,most nihilistic book, in order to conceptualize the self-destructivepro-

cess of Enlightenment. Although they no longer placed hope on itsliberating power, inspired by Benjamin's ironic hope of those with-out hope, they nonetheless refused to abandon the now paradoxicallabor of analysis.We no longer share this attitude. However, under the

sign of a Nietzsche restored by some post-structuralistwriterssuch asDerrida and the recent Foucault, attitudes are being disseminated

today which appear as the spitting image of those of Horkheimer and

Adorno in the DialecticofEnlightenment.t is the confusion of the twoattitudes that I want to prevent.

The DialecticofEnlightenments a strange book. A substantial part ofthework wascomposed from notes takenby Gretel Adorno during dis-cussions between Horkheimer and Teddy in Santa Monica. The textwas completed in 1944 and published three yearslaterby the QueridoPress in Amsterdam. Copies of this first edition were available foralmost twenty years. The impact which Horkheimer and Adornomade with this book on the intellectual scene of the Federal Republicof Germany especially during the first two decades after its publica-tion, stands in curious contrast to the number of its purchasers. The

composition of the book is equally unusual; it consists of an essay of

*This essay which is published here for the first time was delivered as a lecture atBoston University on March 25, 1982.

13



14 JiirgenHabermas

just over fifty pages, two excursuses nd three appendices which con-stitute more than half of the text. The rather obscure manner of pre-sentation makes it difficult at firstglance to recognize the underlying

structure of the train of thought.I will therefore first explain the two central theses (I and II). This

leads to the problem which concerns me with regard to our presentsituation: I am interested in the subtle strategiesto radically enlightenthe Enlightenment about itself (III).Nietzsche was the most significantmodel for what I will call a totalizing self-transcendence of the critiqueof ideology (IV).The comparison of Horkheimer and Adorno withNietzsche shall illuminate not only the contrarydirections in which thetwo sides pursue their cultural criticism, but, in the end, shall raise

doubts concerning the repeated reflexivityof Enlightenmentitself (V).

I.

Enlightened thinking has been understood as both a contrast to

myth and as a force opposing it. As a contrast ecause it counters the

authority of tradition with the non-coercive coercion of the better

argument; as an opposingforceo the extent that it breaks the collective

spell of the mythical powers by means of individually acquired insightswhich gain motivational strength. In this manner, the Enlightenment

was supposed to contradict myth and thereby escape from its power.Challenging this opposition, of which enlightened thought is so cer-

tain, Horkheimer and Adorno instead propose a thesis of secret com-

plicity: Mythis already enlightenment; and enlightenment reverts to

mythology. 2This thesis, announced in the introduction, isdevelopedin the title essay and subsequently substantiated by means of an inter-

pretation of the Odyssey.Reflected in the adventures of the cunning cast-off Odysseus is the

primal history of a subjectivity which wrenches itself free from the

mythical forces. The mythicalworld is not the homeland but ratherthelabyrinth from which one mustescape in order to gain one's identity.The mythical stories do indeed call the individual back to his/her

origins mediated genealogically through the chain of generations, butthese ritual events which are meant to bridge and heal the guilt-riddendistanciation from the origins also widen this gap at the same time.3The primal myth thus involves both a sense of origin and escape: thedread of being uprooted and the sigh of relief at getting away. Hork-heimer and Adorno therefore pursue Odysseus' cunning into the

1. Klaus Heinrich, Versuchiberdie Schwierigkeitein zu sagen(Frankfurtam Main,

1964).2. Dialecticof Enlightenment,rans. by John Cumming (New York, 1972), p. XVI;

hereafter referred to as DoE.3. Klaus Heinrich, DahlemerVorlesungenBasel/Frankfurtam Main, 1981), p. 122f.



Mythand Enlightenment 15

heart of the sacrificial rites: these contain an element of deceptioninsofar as people attempt to redeem themselves from the curse of the

vengeful powers through the offering of symbolically enhanced sub-

stitutes.4This layerof myth points to the ambivalence of a type of con-sciousness for which ritual practice is both real and imaginary. The

regenerating power of a ritual returnto the origins is vital for the collec-

tive consciousness because, as Durkheim has shown, it guaranteessocial cohesion; equally vital,however, is the merely imaginarycharac-

ter of the return to the origins which, by developing the egos of the

members of the tribal collective, simultaneously enables them to

escape these origins as they must. Thus in the primal history of subjec-

tivity, the primal powers which are simultaneously sanctified and out-

witted already constitute a stage of Enlightenment.If distance from the origins meant liberation from the repressive

genealogical chain, Enlightenment would be successful. However, the

mythic powers impede the striven-after Enlightenment and con-

tinually prolong the ties to the originswhich areexperienced ascaptivi-

ty. Horkheimer and Adorno claim that at every new stage, this processof gaining mastery over the mythical powers inevitably brings about

the return of myth. Enlightenment is said to revertto mythology. The

authors go through the Odysseypisode by episode in order to discover

at what price the experienced Odysseus emerges from the adventureshe had encountered with an ego that is both strengthened and

rigidified.The episodes tell of danger, cunning and escape, and of the self-

imposed renunciation through which the ego (which has learned to

master danger)gains its own identity and at the same time relinquishesthe archaic unity with both inner and outer nature. The song of the

Sirens recalls a joy which was provided long ago by the fluctuating

relationship with nature ; Odysseus yields to the temptations as one

who knows himself to be already in chains: Man's domination overhimself, which grounds his selfhood, is almost always the destruction

of the subject in whose service it is undertaken;for the substance which

is dominated, suppressed and dissolved by virtue of self-preservationis none other than thatverylife as functions of which the achievements

of self-preservation find their sole definition and determination: it is,

in fact, what is to be preserved (DoE,p. 54). This idea - that people

develop their identity by learning to control external natureat the price

4. The discovery that symbolic communication with the deity through sacrifice isnot actual must be an age-old human experience. The sacrificialrepresentation that afashionable irrationalism has so exalted cannot be separated from the deification ofthe human sacrifice - the deceit of a priestly rationalization of death by means of an

apotheosis of the predestined victim (DoE,p. 50 f.).



16 JiirgenHabermas

of repressing their inner nature -provides Horkheimer and Adorno

with the model for a description in which the process of Enlighten-ment revealsitsjanus-face: the price of renunciation, of self-seclusion,

of the interruptedcommunication of the ego with its own naturewhichhas become an anonymous Id - all this is interpreted as the conse-

quence of an internalization of sacrifice. The ego which originallyoutsmarted its mythical fate by sacrificing a substitute is again over-whelmed by this mythical fate as soon as it is itself forced to internalizethis sacrifice. Thus, in terms of world history, the human species hasdistanced itself ever further from its origins, through the process of

Enlightenment,while still not freeingitselffrom those mythicalorigins.An almost completely rationalized modern world only seems to be

demystified; on it rests in fact the curse of demonic objectification andfatalisolation. The symptoms of an emancipation running loose in idlemotion express the revenge of the primordial powers upon those whotried to emancipate themselves and yet could not escape. The compul-sion to rationally subjugate the natural forces which intrude fromwithout has engaged the participants in a formative process whichincreases the forces of production ad infinitumpurely for the sake of

self-preservation while it allows the powers of reconciliation (whichtranscend mere self-preservation) to wither away. Domination of an

objectified external nature and a repressed inner nature are the hall-marks of Enlightenment.

With this thesis, Horkheimer and Adorno vary Max Weber's well-known theory in which the old demystified Gods are seen rising fromtheir graves in the form of impersonal powers in order to renew theirreconcilable conflict of the demons.5

II.The reader who does not allow him/herself to be overwhelmed by

the rhetorical presentation of the DialecticofEnlightenmentnd insteadtakesa step backand seriously considers the claims of this text, can getthe following impressions:

- that the thesis which is being developed here is no less riskythan Nietzsche's diagnosis of nihilism which is formulated in asimilar manner;- that the authors are awareof this riskand, contraryto a first

impression, are making a serious attempt to substantiate their

cultural critique;

5. Max Weber, Wissenschaft als Beruf, trans. as Science as a Vocation, in FromMax Weber:Essays n Sociology,rans. by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York:Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 148.




- but that in doing so, they put up with generalizations and

simplifications which ultimately threaten the plausibility oftheir

project.I would like, first of all, to examine if these impressions are correct.Reason itself destroys the humanity which it had made possible in

the first place- this far-reaching thesis is substantiated in the first

excursus, swe have seen, with the argument that the process of enlight-enment is from the very beginning dependent on an impulse of self-

preservationwhich mutilates reason because it can only make use of itin the form of purposive-rational domination of nature and instinct,i.e., in the form of instrumental reason. This does not yet prove,

however, that reason remains subject to the dictates of purposive-rationalityeven in itsmost ecentmanifestations;.e., in modern science, inthe universalist conceptions of justice and morality, and in autono-mous art. The titleessayon the Concept of Enlightenment, the excur-suson Enlightenment and Morality,and the appendix on the culture

industry all serve to demonstrate that this is indeed the case.

First, Adorno and Horkheimer are convinced that, with logicalpositivism, modemcience as come into itsown and has relinquished its

emphatic claim to theoretical knowledge in favor of technological

exploitability. The earlier critique of the positivistic understanding ofthe sciences is sharpened and culminates in the global reproach thatthe sciences themselves have been absorbed by instrumental reason.

Secondly, Horkheimer and Adorno want to demonstrate through a

reading of the HistoiredeJulietteand the GenealogyfMorals hat reasonhas been exorcized from moralityndjustice.With the disintegration of

religious and metaphysicalworld views, all normative moral standardsare said to have lost their credibility in the face of the sole survivingauthority of science. De Sade and Nietzsche have not postulated that

formalistic reason is more closely allied to morality than to immorali-ty (DoE,p. 118).The earlier critique of the meta-ethical reinterpreta-tion of morality turns into a sarcastic approval of ethical skepticism.Finally, in their analysis of mass culture, Horkheimer and Adornowantto demonstratethatart,when fusedwithentertainment, sdrainedofits innovative power and emptied of all its criticaland utopian content.The earlier critique had concentrated on the affirmative aspects of

bourgeois culture; it now turns into an impotent rage over the ironic

justice of an irreversiblejudgment which mass culture executes on artwhich itself had

always alreadybeen

ideological.Thus, the argumentation follows the same course with regard to

science, morality,and art:alreadythe separationof the culturalspheresand the decay of the substantive reason still embodied in religion and

metaphysics so extensively debilitates the isolated moments of reason,

robbing them of their coherence, that they regress into a purposive



18 JiirgenHabermas

rationality at the service of a self-preservation gone wild. In cultural

modernity, reason is stripped of itsvalidityclaims and is assimilated tosheer power. The criticalability to take a 'yes'or 'no' stand, to be able to

distinguish between what is valid and invalid, is undercutby the unfor-tunate fusion of power and validity claims. If one reduces the critiqueof instrumental reason to this core it becomes clearwhy the Dialectic f

Enlightenmentlattens out the view of modernity in such an astonishingmanner. The dignity specific to cultural modernity consists in whatMax Weber has called the stubborn differentiation of value-spheres.In fact, the Dialecticof Enlightenmentoes not do justice to the elementsof reason in culturalmodernity which are contained in what Marxandthe Marxisttradition call the bourgeois ideals (andbecame instrumen-

talized along with them): I mean the internal theoretical dynamicwhich constantly propels the sciences - and the self-reflexion of thesciences as well - beyond he creation of merely technologically ex-

ploitable knowledge; furthermore, I mean the universalist foun-dations of law and morality which have also been embodied (in nomatter how distorted and imperfect a form) in the institutions of con-stitutional states, in the forms of democratic decision-making, and inindividualistic patterns of identity formation; finally, I mean the pro-ductivityand the liberating force of an aesthetic experience with a sub-

jectivity set free from the imperatives of purposive activity and fromthe conventions of everyday perception. Contained in the works of

avant-garde art, in the discourses of art criticism, and in the innova-tions of our vocabularies of values, such aesthetic experiences do havesomewhatof an illuminating effect or at least provide an instructivecontrast.

If these suggestions were sufficiently elaborated for the purpose of

my argument, they would substantiate the intuitive impression whicha reading of this book affords at firstglance: cautiously put, the presen-

tation is at least incomplete and one-sided. The readerjustifiably getsthe feeling that the global pessimism of the Dialecticof Enlightenment

ignores significant aspects of cultural modernity. This leads to the

question of the motives nd reasons which could have prompted Hork-heimer and Adorno to make their critique sofar-reachinghat the veryproject of Enlightenment itself was threatened: indeed the Dialectic f

Enlightenmentffers hardlyany prospect of escape from the constraintsof instrumental rationality. In attempting to provide a preliminaryanswer let me first a) locate the Marxian type of critique of ideology

within the process of enlightenment and then b) give some of thereasons why Horkheimer and Adorno abandoned this kind of analysisin favor of a totalizing critique.




III.

Up till now we have examined the mythical mentality only in termsof the ambiguous attitude of the subjects towards the primal powers,that is, in terms of the emancipation hich is central to the formation of

identity. Horkheimer and Adorno conceive Enlightenment as theunsuccessful attempt to escape from the powers of fate. The desolate

emptiness of emancipation is the form in which the curse of the mythi-cal figures does in the end overtake those attempting to flee. A differentaspectof the description of mythical as well as enlightened thinking is

only mentioned in the few places where the demythologization ischaracterized as a transformation and differentiationffundamentalon-

cepts.The totalizing force of myth incorporates all phenomena into a

network of correspondences, similarities, and contrasts. Myth owesthis force to fundamental concepts which categorically hold togetherthat which the modern understanding of the world can no longer syn-thesize. Language, for example, as the medium of representation in

mythical narrative,is not so far removed from reality that the conven-

tional sign is completely divorced from its semantic content and from

its referent; speech and world view remain in some way interwoven

with the order of the world. Mythical traditions cannot be revised

without endangering the order of things and the identity of the tribe

which is embedded in them. Categories of validity such as 'true' and'false', 'good' and 'evil', are still linked to empirical concepts such as

exchange, causality, health, substance, and wealth. Magical thinkingallows for no fundamental distinction between things and people,between the inanimate and the animate, between objects which can be

manipulated and agents to which we ascribe actions and spoken ex-

pressions. Only demythologization breaks that spell which appears to

us today as a confusion between nature and culture. The process of

Enlightenment leads to the desocialization of nature and to the de-

naturalization of the human world; Piagetdescribes thisas the decenter-ingoftheworldview.

In modern times, traditions become temporalized; the changing

interpretations are clearly distinguished from the world itself. This

externalworld divides into the objective world of entities and the social

world of norms (or normatively governed inter-personalrelationships):both are in turn silhouetted against the inner world of subjectiveexperiences. When, as is the case in the course of theWestern tradition,rationalization does not stop before the fundamental theological and

metaphysical concepts, the sphere of meaning and validity is not onlypurged of empirical admixtures but is also differentiated in terms of

propositions, the rightness of norms, and the veracity of subjective

expressions or the authenticity of works of art.6

6. Jiirgen Habermas, Theorie es kommunikativen andelns,vol. 1 (Frankfurt am

Main, 1981).



20 JiirgenHabermas

If one describes the process of Enlightenment from this point ofreference as the development of a decentered understanding of the

world, this allows one to also identify the moment in the drama atwhich the critique of ideology can make its entrance. The suspicionthat the autonomous validity claimed by theory is an illusion becausehidden interests have crept into its pores - such a suspicion cannotoccur unless semantic and empirical, internal and external relationsare segregated; it cannot occur unless science, morality and art each

specialize on one validityclaim, each follow a logic of theirown and areeach purged of cosmological, theological, and cultic residues. The

critique inspired by such a suspicion attempts to prove that the pro-

positions forwhich thesuspectedheoryclaims validityin factexpress ana tergodependency which the theory could not admit without losing its

credibility. The critique of ideology wants to demonstrate that the

validity of a theory under investigation has not freed itself sufficientlyfrom the context of its genesis. It wants to demonstrate that hiddenbehind the back of this theory is an inadmissiblefusion ofpowerandvalidity nd that it is moreover to this fusion that it owes its recognition.Semantic and empirical relations become confused on precisely thatlevel at which the explicit differentiation between such internal and

external relationships isconstitutive. Formodern thought, the critiqueof ideology is not itself a theory which competes against others; but itrelies on certain theoretical assumptions. Thus armed, it challengeshetruth of a suspicious theory by exposing its untruthfulness, its lack of

veracity. The critique of ideology furthers the process of Enlighten-ment by unearthing a categorymistakewhich stems from the fusion ofdeclared validity claims with hidden power claims.

With this type of critique Enlightenment becomes reflexive for thefirst time; it now carries out its project on its own products, i.e., its

theories. But the drama of Enlightenment only reaches its peripeteiaor turning point when the critique of ideology itself is suspected of no

longer producing truths - it is only then thatEnlightenment becomesreflexive for a second time. Let us find out why Horkheimer andAdorno made this move.

In one of the appended 'notes' on Philosophy and the (Scientific)Division of Labor there is a section which reads like an intrusion fromthe earlier period of Critical Theory. The passage claims that philo-sophy's immunity to the influence of the statusquo is due to the fact

that it acceptshebourgeoisdealswithoutfurtherexamination.These idealsmay be those still proclaimed, though in distorted form, by the rep-resentatives of the statusquo; or those which, despite all manipulation,are still recognizable as the objective meaning of existing institutions,whether technical or cultural (DoE, p. 243, emphasis added; trans.modified). Here Horkheimer and Adorno recall the notion proper toMarx's critique of ideology which presupposed that there were two




sides to the potential for reason articulated in the bourgeois idealsand in the objective meaning of existing institutions : on the one

hand this potential gives the ideologies of the ruling classesthe

decep-tive appearance of persuasive theories while on the other hand it pro-vides a point of departure for an immanent critique of these ideaswhich claim to be in the interest of the general public when in fact theyonly serve a dominating segment of society. In these instrumentalizedand abused ideas, the critique of ideology discovered a piece of exist-

ing reason hidden to itself. It read these ideas like a directive whichwould be carried out through social movements to the extent that theforces of production developed sufficient excess.

Duringthe 1930s the critical theorists had retained some trust in

bourgeois culture's potential for reason which would be released bythe pressure of the developing forces of production. The interdis-

ciplinary research program documented in the nine volumes of the

ZeitschriftfiirSozialforschung1932-41) wasalso based on this confidence.In an analysis of the development of early critical theory, Helmut

Dubiel, a young German sociologist, has described why the stock of

trust was depleted to such an extent at the beginning of the 1940s7thatHorkheimer and Adorno felt that the Marxistcritique of ideology had

definitelyexhausted

itself; theyno

longerbelieved that

theycould

fulfill the promises of a critical social theory with the methods of the

social sciences. Instead they attempted a radicalization and totaliza-tion of their critique of ideology in order to enlighten the Enlighten-ment about itself. The preface to the DialecticofEnlightenment eginswith the following confession: Even though we had known for manyyears that the great discoveries of applied science are paid for with an

increasing diminution of theoreticalawareness,we still thought that in

regard to scientific activityour contribution could be restricted to thecriticism or extension of

specialistcontributions.

Thematically,at

anyrate, we were to keep to the traditional disciplines: to sociology, psy-chologyandepistemology.However,thefragmentsunitedinthis volumeshow that we were forced to abandon this conviction (DoE,p. XI).

If the now cynical consciousness of those dark authors expressesthe truthabout bourgeois culture, then the critique of ideology has lostits foundations. Moreover, if the forces of production are increasinglymerging symbiotically with the relations of production which they atone time were supposed to destroy, then there is also no more drivingforce on which

critiquecould set its

hopes.Horkheimer and Adorno

therefore consider the basis of the critique of ideology destroyed; and

yet theywant to hold on to the basic premise of Enlightenment. So they

7. Helmut Dubiel, WissenschaftsorganisationndpolitischeErfahrungFrankfurtam

Main, 1978), Teil A.



22 JiirgenHabermas

take that which Enlightenment did to myth and turn it back onto the

process of Enlightenment itself. Critiquebecomes total: it turs againstreason as the foundation of its own

analysis.The factthatthe

suspicionof ideology becomes total means that it opposes not only the ideologi-cal function of the bourgeois ideals, but rationality as such, therebyextending critique to the veryfoundationsof an immanent critique of

ideology.Now reason itself has fallen prey to the ill-fated confusion of power

and validity claims. For Horkheimer and Adorno, the concept ofinstrumental reason was not merely meant to denounce the factthat

understanding, Verstandn the Kantiansense, had usurped the place ofreason or

Vernunft.8he

conceptwas at the same time to recall the fact

that the purposive-rationality, which had become total, eliminates thedifference between thatwhich claimsvalidityand thatwhich only servesthe interests of self-preservation. By doing so instrumental reasonbreaks down the barrierbetween truth and power and thereby annihi-lates that fundamental differentiation which the modern decentered

understanding of the world thought it had gained definitively by over-

coming myth. Reason, once instrumentalized, has become assimi-lated to power and has thereby given up its criticalpower

- this is thefinal unmasking of a critique of ideology

applied

to itself.

This critique of ideology describes the self-destruction of the critical

faculty, however, in a paradoxical manner, because in performing the

analysis it must make use of the same critique which it has declaredfalse. It denounces the totalitarian development of Enlightenmentwith itsown means - a performativecontradictionof whichAdomo waswell aware.Adorno's laterwork, especially his NegativeDialectics,eadslike an explanation of why we should no longer attempt to resolve thisunavoidable performativeontradiction,nd why only the insistent and

incessantdevelopment

of thisparadox

offers theprospect

of thatalmost magically charmed remembrance of nature in the subject inwhose fulfillment the unacknowledged truthof all culture lies hidden

(DoE,p. 40). In the 25 years since the completion of the Dialecticof

Enlightenment dorno has remained faithful to his philosophical im-

pulse and has not evaded the paradoxical structure of thinking en-

gaged in totalized critique. The grandeur of this consistency becomesevident in a comparison with Nietzsche whose GenealogyfMoralswasthe great model for the DialecticofEnlightenment. ietzsche repressedthe paradoxical structure and explained the assimilation of reason to

power with a theory of power which, instead of truth claims, retains

only the rhetorical claim of the aesthetic fragment. The comparison of

8. See esp. Max Horkheimer, Critique of Instrumental Reason, trans. by Matthew J.O'Connell, et al. (New York: Seaburv Press, 1974).




Horkheimer and Adorno with Nietzsche demonstrates thata totalized

critique does not have its direction inscribed. Among the unswervingtheoreticians of a final

unmasking,Nietzsche is the one who radi-

calizes the counter-Enlightenment.9

IV.Horkheimer and Adorno's opinion of Nietzsche is conflicting. On

the one hand, they acknowledge thathe was one of the few afterHegelwho recognized the dialectic of enlightenment (DoE,p. 44). Theyaccept, naturally, the identity of domination and reason, that is, thebasis for a totalizing self-transcendence of the critique of ideology. Onthe other

hand, theycannot overlook the fact that

Hegelis also

Nietzsche's greatest antipode. Nietzsche's treatment of the critique ofreason renders it so affirmative that even determinate negation (i.e.,thatprocedure which Horkheimer and Adorno retainas the only valid

methodology once reason itself has become unreliable) loses its sting.Nietzsche's critique consumes the critical impulse itself: Asa protestagainst civilization, the master's morality conversely represents the

oppressed. Hatred of atrophied instincts actually denounces the truenature of the task-masters - which comes to light only in their victims.Butas a GreatPower or state

religion,the masters'

moralitywhollysub-

scribes to the civilizing powers that be, the compact majority, resent-ment and everything that it formerly opposed. The realization of

Nietzsche's assertions both refutes them and at the same time revealstheir truth,which - despite all his affirmation of life - was inimical to

the spirit of reality (DoE,p. 101).The conflicting attitude towards Nietzsche is instructive. It indicates

that the Dialectic fEnlightenmentwes more to Nietzsche thanjust the

strategyofa totalizing critique. It is still difficult to understand a certain

carelessness in their treatment of, toput

itquite blatantly,

the achieve-ments of Western rationalism. How can the two advocates of the

Enlightenment (which they always claimed to be and still are) sounderestimate the rational content of cultural modernity that theyobserve in its elements only the amalgamation of reason and domina-

tion, of power and validity?Is it Nietzsche who inspired them to derivethe standards of their cultural criticism from the radical but isolatedand somehow totalized experience of aesthetic modernity?

The similarities in content are striking.10 n thatdesign which Hork-

9. Like his 'new-conservative' successors, he too behaves like an 'anti-sociologist'.Cf. H. Baier, Die Gesellschaft - ein langer Schatten des toten Gottes, in Nietzsche-Studien,10/11 (1982), 6 ff.

10. See also Peter Piitz, Nietzsche and CriticalTheory , in Telos,50 (Winter 1981-82), pp. 103-114.



24 JiirgenHabermas

heimer and Adorno take as a basis for their primal history of subjec-tivity there are point for point parallels with Nietzsche. According toNietzsche, as soon as

people.were robbed of their most obvious

instincts they had to depend on their consciousness, that is, on the

apparatuswhich objectifiesand makes available external nature: Theywere reduced to thinking, inferring, reckoning, co-ordinating causeand effect, these unfortunate creatures. At the same time the oldinstincts had to be domesticated and the naturaldrives which could no

longer discharge spontaneously, had to be repressed. Through this

process of internalization, of a reversal in the direction of impulses(UmkehrderAntriebsrichtung),he subjectivityof an inner naturedevelopsunder the influence of renunciation or of 'badconscience': Allinstinctsthat do not discharge themselves outwardlyturn nward this is what Icall the interalizationof man: thus it was that man firstdeveloped whatwas latercalled his 'soul' (GoM,p. 520). Ultimately, the two elementsof the domination over external and internal nature combine and

solidify into the institutionalized domination of men over men. Thecurse of society and of peace rests on all institutions because theyforce men into renunciation: Those fearful bulwarkswith which the

political organization protected itself against the old instincts-of free-dom - punishments belong among these bulwarks-

brought

about

that all these instincts of wild, free, prowling man turned backward

againstmanhimself'(GoM,p. 520).In the same manner, Nietzsche's critique of knowledge and moral-

ityanticipates the central idea which Horkheimer and Adorno developin theircritique of instrumental reason:behind the ideals of objectivityand the truth claims of Positivism, behind the ascetic ideals and thenormative claims of Christianityand a universalistmoralityarehidden

nothing but imperatives of self-preservationand domination. A prag-matic theory of knowledge and a naturalistic critique of moralityunmask both theoretical and practicalreason as mere fictions in whichclaims to power achieve an alibi. This is realized with the help of

imagination and with the aid of a drive to metaphorize for whichexternal stimuli offer only occasions for projective responses: alreadyfor Nietzsche, the text is merely the sum of its interpretations.

Unlike the Dialecticof Enlightenment,owever, Nietzsche explicitlystates the point of view from which heis observing modernity. And it is

only from this point of view that one really understands why objec-tified nature and moralized society can be perceived as degeneratinginto corresponding manifestations of the same mythical power-

11. OntheGenealogy fMorals,n BasicWritings fNietzsche,rans. and ed. by WalterKaufman (New York:Modern Library, 1968), p. 520; hereafter referred to as GoM.

Quotes from BeyondGood ndEvilare taken from the same edition and will be referredto as BGE.




whether it be a perverted will to power or instrumental reason. This

perspective was first established by aesthetic modernity, through ob-stinate self-revelations

(imposed by avant-gardeart)of a deconstructed

subjectivityfreed from all constraints of cognition and moralityas wellas from all imperatives of work and utility. Nietzsche is not only anintellectual contemporary of Mallarme;12 he has not only absorbed thelate-romantic spirit of Richard Wagner; he is the first to develop the

concepts of aesthetic modernity even before the avant-garde con-sciousness actually materialized in the literature, painting and musicof the 20th century. The heightened appreciation of the transitory,thecelebration of dynamism, and the glorification of this spontaneity ofthe moment and the new - these areall

expressionsof an

aestheticallymotivated sense of time and the longing for an immaculate, suspendedpresence. The anarchical intention of the Surrealists to explode thecontinuum of history is already effective in Nietzsche. Already inNietzsche's work, the subversive force of an aesthetic resistance whichwill later nourish the reflections of Benjamin and even Peter Weiss,

originates in the experience of rebellion against everything that is nor-

mative. It is this same force which neutralizes the morally good aswellas the practicallyuseful, and also expresses itself in the dialectic of mys-

teryand scandal, in the

pleasure

at the

fright

caused by desecration. As

the major opponents, Nietzsche sets up Socrates and Christ, thoseadvocates of abelief in truth and the ascetic ideal: it is theywho negatethe aesthetic values. Nietzsche believes that only art in which pre-cisely the lie is sanctified, the will to deception (GoM,p. 589), and theterror of the beautiful are capable of resisting capture by the deceivingworld of science and morality.

Nietzsche enthrones taste, the Yes and No of the palate (BGE,p.341) as the sole organ of knowledge beyond Truth and Falsity, beyondGood and Evil. He adopts the pronouncement of tasteby the artjudgeas the model of valuejudgment, or value estimation (Wertschitzung).For Nietzsche the only legitimate meaning of critique is that of the

value judgment which establishes a hierarchy, weighs things, and

measures the powers with which they are endowed. All interpretationis valuation: the Yes expresses esteem, the No expresses con-

tempt. According to Nietzsche High and Low is what we mean

when we respond 'Yes' or 'No' to claims of validity.It is interesting to observe how consistently Nietzsche undercuts the

rationalityof Yes/No positions. To begin with, he devalues the truth of

assertive sentences and the validity of normative sentences by tracing

validity and invalidity back to positive and negative value judgments.

12. Pointed out by Gilles Deleuze, Nietzscheund die PhilosophieMunich, 1976), p.38ff.



26 JiirgenHabermas

He reduces sentences like x is true or y is right (complex pro-positions with which we claim validity for descriptive or normative

statements)to

simpleevaluations with which we

expressour estima-

tions, that is, thatwe would like to prefer true over false and good overevil. Thus Nietzsche first redefines validity claims like truth as pre-ferences and then poses the question: Suppose that we prefer truth

(andjustice):why not rather untruth (andinjustice)? (BGE,p. 199).So,in the final analysis the value of truth and justice is determined byjudgments of taste.

Of course, there could still be a rational structure behind these fun-damental value estimations. Nietzsche can only realize his goal of a

complete assimilation of reason topower by

alsodepriving

value

judgments of their cognitive status and by demonstrating that the Yes/No reactions to value-judgments no longer express claims of validity;they must be exposed as sheer manifestations of subjective will, ofinterest, and of power.

In terms of linguistic analysisthe next step in the argument therefore

attempts to assimilate judgments of taste to imperatives, and value

judgments to expressions of will. Nietzsche deals with Kant'sanalysisof the judgment of taste (GoM,p. 539f.) in order to substantiate thethesis that evaluations are necessarily subjective and cannot be con-

nected with a claim to intersubjective validity. He maintains that thesemblance of disinterested satisfaction as well as of the impersonalityand universality of the aesthetic judgment can only be establishedfrom the perspective of the spectator;however, from the standpoint ofthe producing artist we recognize that value-judgments and estima-tions are induced by the producers of value. The aesthetics of produc-tion unfolds the experience of the artist as genius who creates values:from his point of view, all estimations are dictated by his value-

positing eye (GoM,p. 472). Value-positing productivity laysdown the

laws of estimation. Thus, the validityclaimed by thejudgment of tasteis merely an expression of theexcitement of the will by the beautiful.One will responds to another will, one power conquers another. This ishow Nietzsche can get from the Yesand No of estimations - once hehas cleansed them of all theircognitive claims of value-judgments - tothe concept of the will to power. The beautiful is the stimulant of thewill to power. The aesthetic core of the will to power is thus the abilityof a sensibility which allows itself to be affected in as many different

ways as possible.3

13. The mediating function of the judgment of taste is revealed in the reduction ofthe yes/no positions in criticizable validityclaims to the 'yes'and the 'no' of imperativeexpressions of will. This is also demonstrated by the way Nietzsche revises the conceptof propositional truthalong with the concept of the world built into our grammar: In-




Iwill leave this as it stands and concentrate on the performativecon-tradiction which results from all that. If thought can no longer operatein the realms of truth and

validity claims,then

analysisand

critiquelose their meaning. Contradictionnd negation can henceforth onlymean wantingobedifferent. or Nietzsche to implement his critiqueof culture, however, thisjust will not do. His critique wasnot supposedto be a piece of propaganda, but was ratherintended todemonstratewhyit is wrong, incorrect, or bad to accept the domination of the ideals ofscience and moralitywhich threaten life. If, however, all proper claimsto validity are devalued and if the underlying value-judgments aremere expressions of claims to power rather than validity, according towhat standards should

critiquethen differentiate? It must at least be

able to discriminate between a power which deserves o be esteemedand a power which deserveso be disparaged. Nietzsche's theoryfpoweris intended to provide a way out of this aporia. Nietzsche cannot,however, allow this theory of power to be a theory that can be true orfalse. According to his own analysis, he himself operates in a world of

appearance in which one can distinguish between lighter and darkershadows but not between reason and irrationality. This is a worldwhich has more or less intentionally relapsed into mythology, inwhichvarious

powersexert influence

uponeach other and where there is no

element left that could transcend the struggle between the powers.This is the point in Nietzsche's work where the totalized critique of

ideology turns into that which he calls genealogical critique. Once

the critical sense of negation has been suspended and the practice of

negation has been abolished, Nietzsche returns to theone dimension

of mythical thinking which permits a distinction that extends over all

other dimensions; thatwhich isolder s earliern the chain of generationsand thus closer to the origins: therefore it is considered to be better.

That which is moreoriginarys considered more venerable, respectable,naturaland pure. Ancestrynd origin erve simultaneously as the criteriaof rank in the social as well as in the logical sense.

It is in this sense that Nietzsche bases his critiques of morality on

genealogy.Moral value estimation, which places a person or a mode of

conduct in a hierarchy based on criteria of validity, is attributed by

deed, what forces us at all to suppose that there is an essential opposition of'true' and

'false'?Is it not sufficient to assume degrees of apparentness and, as itwere, lighterand

darker shadows and shades of appearance - different 'values' to use the language ofpainters? Why couldn't the world thatconcerns s be a fiction? And if somebody asks:

'but to a fiction there surely belongs an author?' - couldn't one answer be simply:

why?Doesn't this 'belongs' perhaps belong to the fiction too? Bynow isone not permit-ted to be a bit ironic about the subject no less than about the predicate and object?Shouldn't the philosopher be permitted to rise above faith in grammar? (BGE,p.236).



28 JiirgenHabermas

Nietzsche to the origin and thereby to the social status of the moral

judge him/herself: The signpost to the right oad was for me the ques-tion: what was the real

etymological significanceof the

designationsfor

'good' coined in the various languages? I found that they all led backto the sameconceptualransformation that everywhere 'noble,''aristoc-ratic'in the social sense, is the basic concept from which 'good' in thesense of 'with aristocratic soul,' 'noble,' 'with a soul of high order,''with a privileged soul' necessarily developed: a development which

always runs parallel with that other in which 'common,' 'plebeian,''low' are finally transformed into the concept 'bad' (GoM,p. 463f.).The genealogical localization of the powers has a criticalpurpose: the

powersof an earlier and more

distinguished ancestryare the active and

creative ones, whereas the reactive powers of later and lower descent

express a pervertedwill to power. With this Nietzsche has in his handsthe conceptual means with which he can denounce the accidental suc-cess of the belief in truth and the ascetic ideal, as well as the belief inscience and morality. Although decisive for the fate of modernity,Nietzsche considered this a contingent and reversible victory of thelower and the reactive powers. The latter, as is well known, are sup-posed to have emerged out of the Ressentiment,from the protectiveinstinct of a

degeneratinglife (GoM,

p. 556).14V.

We have followed two variantsof the totalizing, self-referential criti-

que. Horkheimer and Adorno find themselves in the same predica-ment as Nietzsche: if they do not want to give up the goal of an ultimate

unmasking and want to carry n theircritique,hen they must preserve atleast onestandard for their explanation of the corruption of all reason-able standards. In the face of this paradox, the totalizing critique losesits direction. It has two options.

Nietzsche seeks refuge in a theory of power - a consistent stepinsofar as the function of reason and power which is disclosed by his

critique surrenders the world - asif it were mythical- to the irrecon-

cilable strugglebetween the powers. In structuralistFrance,Nietzschehasjustifiably become influential as a theoretician of power through

14. The structure of the argument interests me here. Once Nietzsche has destroyedthe foundations of the critique of ideology through a self-referentialapplication of this

critique, he retains the position of the exposing critic only by recourse to a notion ofmythical-originary thinking. The ideological content of the Genealogy fMorals,how-

ever, is something altogether different, as is Nietzsche's battle againstmodern ideas in

general, for which the educated among those contemptuous of society continue todemonstrate an unusual interest: R. Maurer, Nietzsche und die KritischeTheorie ;G. Rohrmoser, Nietzsches Kritik der Moral, in NietzscheStudien,10/11 (1982), pp.34ff and 323ff.




thework of Gilles Deleuze. In his laterwork, Foucault also replaced themodel of repression and emancipation developed by Marx and Freudwith a

pluralismof

power/discourseformations. These formations

intersect and succeed one another and can be differentiated accordingto their style and intensity. They cannot, however, bejudged in termsof validitywhich was possible in the case of the repression and eman-

cipation of conscious as opposed to unconscious conflict resolutions.15

Clearly Nietzsche's doctrine of the active and the merely reactive

powers also does not offer a way out of the predicament of a critiquewhich attacksthe validityof itsown premises: atbest itprepares the wayfor an escape from the horizon of modernity. As a theory it is without

foundation if the categorical distinctionbetween claims of

powerand

validityis the basis on which everyheoreticalworkmust takeplace. Asa

result, the meaning of unmasking changes as well: the shock which in

an almost surrealistmanner Nietzsche produces again and again is not

caused by the flash of insight nto a confusion which threatens identity

(in the way that 'getting'he punch line of ajoke causes catharticlaugh-

ter).Instead, the shock is caused by the affirmed de-differentiation and

by the affirmed collapse of those categories which alone can account

for category mistakes of existential relevance. This regressive turn

enlists the powers of emancipationin the service of counter-

enlightenment.Horkheimer and Adorno took not only a different but an opposite

route: no longer desiring to overcome the performative contradiction

of a totalizing critique of ideology, they intensified the contradiction

instead and left it unresolved. At the level of reflexion achieved byHorkheimer and Adorno, every attempt to set up a theory was bound

to lead into an abyss: as a result, they abandoned any theoretical

approach and practiced ad hocdeterminate negation, thereby oppos-

ingthat fusion of reason and

powerwhich fills in all the cracks.The

praxis of negation is what remains of the spirit of... unrelenting

theory. And this praxis is like a vow to turnbackeven as it reaches its

goal (DoE,p. 42; trans.modified), the demon of merciless progress.If a position which philosophy once held occupied with its ultimate

principles now leads to a paradox, then to hold this position is not onlyuncomfortable, but can only be done if one can plausibly demonstrate

that there is no way out. Even the retreatfrom such an aporia must be

barredbecause otherwise there is away out - that is, to go back. In the

issue here athand, however,

I believe that this latter alternative is

possible.

15. H. Fink-Eitel, Michel Foucaults Analytikder Macht, in F.A. Kittler,ed., Aus-

treibungdesGeistes usdenGeisteswissenschaftenPaderborn, 1980), p. 38ff.; A. Honneth,

H. Joas, SozialesHandelnundmenschlicheatur(Frankfurtam Main, 1980), p. 123ff.



30 JiirgenHabermas

The comparison with Nietzsche is instructive insofar as he callsattention to the aesthetic horizon of experience which both guides andmotivates cultural diagnosis. Nietzsche refashions judgment into a

capacity for distinction which is beyond true and false, beyond goodand evil. In this way, Nietzsche gains standards for a critique of culturewhich unmasks science and morality as ideological expressions of a

perverted will to power in a manner similar to that of the DialecticofEnlightenment hich considers them as embodiments of instrumentalreason. This factmakes it highly probable that Horkheimer and Adorno

perceived cultural modernity from a similar horizon of experience,with the same heightened sensibility, and also with the same myopicperspective which made them insensitive to the traces and the existingforms of communicative rationality.This is also indicated by the struc-ture of Adorno's late philosophy in which NegativeDialectics ndAesthe-ticTheoryupport each other, the former which develops the paradoxicalconcept of non-identity, referring to the latter which deciphers theconcealed mimetic content in the most advanced works of art.

In one respect, the critique of ideology has inconspicuously con-tinued the undialectical enlightenment of ontological thinking. Itremained caught in the purist belief that the devil resides in the inter-nal relationships between genesis and validity,and that this devil must

be exorcized so that theory, once cleansed of all empirical admixtures,could operate in its own pure element. It is in the objective of a final

unmasking- to pull back with one swift motion the veil concealing

the confusion of reason and power- that the purist intention betrays

itself even more clearly.This purism is similar to the attempt of ontol-

ogy to categorically separate essence and appearance with one blow.

However, as is the case with the 'context of discovery' and the 'contextof justification' in the growth of theories, both spheres of power and

validityare so interwoven thatthey can be separatedonly procedurallyand step by step through the mediation of thought. In the realm ofrational discourse, critique and theory, Enlightenment and justifica-tion are rightly intertwined even if the participants in the discoursemust assumethat in the inescapable pragmatic presuppositions ofrational discourse only the non-coercive coercion of the better argu-ment gets a chance. But they know, or at least they are able to know,that even that presupposition of an ideal speech situation is onlynecessary because convictions are formed and contested in a mediumwhich is not 'pure' nor removed from the world of appearances in the

manner of the platonic ideals. Only a discourse which admits thiseverlasting impurity can perhaps escape from myth, thus freeing itself,as it were, from the entwinement of myth and Enlightenment.

Translatedby Thomas Y. Levin

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Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment [Re-Reading 'Dialectic of Enlightenment' by Adorno and...

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