DESCRIPTION:
The goal of this (virtual, Zoom-based) reading group, led by Maurin Academy co-founder Jakob Hanschu (prior facilitator of Marx reading group), is to read and discuss the Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments in its entirety over a period of six meetings. The Dialectic of Enlightenment is arguably the central and undoubtedly the most influential work of the so-called Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. The book was co-authored by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in Southern California in the 1940s, while the two were in exile from Nazi Germany. Initial drafts were circulated in 1944 and the book was formally published in Amsterdam in 1947. Additionally, the subtitle is not a joke. The book is indeed a series of philosophical fragments (or ‘riffs’ as we might refer to them today), which can make reading slow and interpretation arduous.
The content of the text includes critiques of many of the pillars of ‘enlightened’ ‘modernity’ (yes, scare quotes for both), including science, mathematics, abstraction, and indeed reason itself; a nuanced argument about the intertwined relationship of enlightenment and myth; a discussion of the domination of (internal and external) nature; and much more. The secondary literature on the Dialectic of Enlightenment is substantial, with a fair share of influential extensions (Adorno understood all of his later work as further excurses of the text) and criticisms (Habermas famously commented that the book led critical theory to a dead end). Part of purpose of this reading group is to evaluate the critical purchase of the text and the usefulness (or not) of the lines of thought therein.
The inspiration for a reading group on the Dialectic of Enlightenment stems primarily (if unsurprisingly) from contemporary events. Over the last decade (or maybe longer), a renewed advent of authoritarian populism, increasing repudiation of scientific institutions, and growing ethnonationalistic sentiments have emerged from within Western liberal democracies. Are such developments ‘freak mutations’ or ‘weird offshoots’ from the good, just, and progressive history and trajectory of enlightened modernity? Or are they indeed the children of the very things they condemn? The Dialectic of Enlightenment has an answer to this question, which may seem as startling as it is damning for our present times. In their 1944 preface to the text, Horkheimer and Adorno write: “What we set out to do was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entereing a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism.” Put another way, in the 1966 preface to the Italian edition the authors note that the book “demonstrates tendencies which turn cultural progress into its opposite.” This points to one of the primary reasons for reading the text today. Namely, to consider what might be done to escape the tendencies toward barbarism at work in the world today.
PLAN:
The schedule for the reading group is below. Each meeting corresponds to one of the sections of the Dialectic of Enlightenment. The prefaces will be covered with the first section. Group meetings will involve a discussion fo the text. Participants can pose questions to the group, unpack dense sections of the text, offer critiques, or extrapolate meanings to the contemporary. Reading should be completed prior to group meetings. However, life happens (even to the most enlightened of us–as the text tells us), so please do not feel like you have to read every word of every section in order to participate in the discussions.
TEXT:
The edition of the text used is from Stanford University Press (Cultural Memory in the Present series). A PDF version of the text is available here.
TO JOIN:
To join, please join The Maurin Academy Patreon at either the Salt of the Earth of Worker-Scholar level. If you would like to join but the suggested patronage poses difficulties, please reach out.
SCHEDULE:
All meetings will take place on Zoom from 7:00-8:30pm CST.
| March 19 | The Concept of Enlightenment |
| April 16 | Excursus I: Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment |
| April 30 | Excursus II: Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality |
| May 14 | The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception |
| May 28 | Elements of Anti-Semitism: Limits of Enlightenment |
| June 11 | Notes and Sketches |