CRITIQUE OF INSTRUMENTAL REASON: Lectures and Essays Since the End of World War II

by Max Horkheimer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1974

The dialectical thesis evokes a double take: rationality leads to freedom which process eventually restricts freedom. But for those familiar with the blend of Freud, Marx and Hegel characteristics of the Frankfurt School, Horkheimer's conclusions are not a shock. Whether as partner in marriage, pedestrian in street, or student at university, our activities have become automatized, integrated into the corporate structure. The peasant freed two centuries ago becomes today mass man oiling up the machine. Nothing much really new here. But there are brilliant observations: the tying of the institution of marriage to the rationalized productive goals set by the state and the consequent inference that marriage (as in China) is hardly necessary anymore -- and perhaps eroticism may go as well; a critique of the existential call for ""authentic"" man as an easy out, a call for, really, ""leaders,"" authority figures, ""stars"" -- (""Men are at bottom far less interested in being 'authentic' and 'real' than in being happy, even if they have forgotten what being happy means.""). What differentiates Horkheimer from, say, Marcuse or Norman O. Brown is, interestingly, his own excessive reliance on reason. A virtue and a vice; for while he avoids their drift toward romanticism, he also colors all potential advance with dialectic doom, and is forced to cheer us (and himself?) with vague futuristic hope.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Seabury

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION