Part one of term paper
‘Myth is already enlightenment; and enlightenment reverts to mythology’ (Dialectic of Enlightenment XVI) Adorno and Horkheimer’s obscure and nihilistic text Dialectic of Enlightenment (DoE) is an attempt to answer the question ‘why mankind, instead of entering a truly human condition, is sinking into a new kind of barb ...

Part two of term paper
... and instrumental reason. DoE also uses Homer’s Odyssey as a metaphorical interpretation of this historical change, where Odysseus is the prototype of the bourgeois man. This study reveals for Adorno and Horkheimer the failure of the Enlightenment project. Enlightenment has no claim to being less a myth than the mythology it failed to escape. This new myth is defined for them by the drive to dominate nature at the expense of alienation of man from nature and from his own inner na ...