* Theodor Adorno (1903-1969)

Cultural critic and Frankfurt school philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote extensively on civilization's tendency to self-destruct -- evinced most clearly by Fascism. In Dialektik der Aufklärung (1947; Dialectic of Enlightenment), Adorno and Horkheimer located this impulse in the concept of reason, which the Enlightenment and modern scientific thought had transformed into an irrational force that had come to dominate not only nature but humanity itself. The rationalization of human society had ultimately led to Fascism and other totalitarian regimes that represented a complete negation of human freedom. Adorno concluded that rationalism offered little hope for human emancipation, which might come instead from art and the prospects it offered for preserving individual autonomy and happiness.

(W.O.)