Enlightenment and Repression: A Comparison of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization

Abstract

This paper offers a comparison of Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization. It is my contention that although the content of these two works differs, there is an underlying argument which is remarkably similar. Drawing mainly on the early chapters of Dialectic and the first half of Eros, I plan to demonstrate that each text explores, the intertwining and cyclical nature of progress and regression; the manner in which liberating tendencies emerge which challenge present conditions, but upon their ascension become a new form of repression; for Horkheimer and Adorno this is the development of subjectivity in the movement from myth to enlightenment, which becomes the new myth; for Marcuse, it is the instinctual repression, under the guise of ‘civilization’, required of individuals in the interest of self-preservation and propagation. Furthermore, in both cases neither enlightenment, nor the reality principle are ever fully victorious, hence this cycle is self-perpetuating.