Adorno on the relapse of enlightenment into Auschwitz: The exclusion and resumption of the non-identical

Abstract

This paper answers Adorno's question, once asked in a lecture, about whether we, by forbidding the thought of the non-identical, fall in radically completed enlightenment back into the darkest form of mythology. In arguing for this in the question implied observation of enlightenment's fallback, the paper analyses Adorno's and Horkheimer's critique of enlightenment and its relapse due to excluding the non-identical, suggesting that emotions and memory represent this non-identical. As the darkest form of mythology Adorno is referring to is not to be understood as a myth itself but actually happened with the Holocaust, the paper then demonstrates how enlightenment, chiefly its exclusion of the non-identical, led to central conditions of the Holocaust that Adorno named ‘Auschwitz’. As enlightenment, according to Adorno, remains in its relapse, the paper finally discusses how his philosophy after Auschwitz advocates for the reintegration of the non-identical, mainly through the recollection of the past and the remembrance of nature within the subject.

Introduction

But I would not like to let you go, in conclusion, without at least giving you something even in withholding it from you – [inasmuch] as I would like you to consider the question whether such an assumption of identity [can be avoided at all], or, as I might perhaps express it, [whether] something like knowledge is possible at all without the assumption that subject and object are ultimately not wholly unlike one another, or whether in forbidding the thought of such a possibility in a radically completed enlightenment we do not thereby perhaps forbid ourselves knowledge itself, and then through this very enlightenment fall back into the darkest form of mythology. (Adorno, 2017: 219–220)

With this question, Adorno ends his lecture titled Introduction to Dialectics, which he gave at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main in the summer semester 1958. A closer look at this question, however, reveals the following problems: the talk of the similarity of subject and object arises from the discussion of Hegel's consideration of their identity that took place earlier in the lecture but does not appear consistent with the fallback into mythology that Adorno describes as resulting from the prohibition of this identity stemming from the completed enlightenment, as he understands this as ‘the victory of identity thinking over non-identity’ (2017: 311). Adorno, together with Max Horkheimer, develops this understanding of enlightenment in their jointly written Dialectic of Enlightenment, firstly published in 1944 under the title Philosophical Fragments, in which the two authors deal with the question of ‘why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: xiv). The created proximity between Adorno's cited question and the purpose of the Dialectic of Enlightenment also makes clear that enlightenment is interwoven with our thinking and society. Thus, such a strict separation between them cannot be made, and our quoted fallback with enlightenment is the same as its relapse into mythology. In this relapse, Adorno and Horkheimer find the answer to their question, claiming that ‘enlightenment reverts to mythology’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: xviii). This reverse of enlightenment ‘derives from the nature of the dominant reason and of the world corresponding to its image’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: xix). The dominant reason Adorno and Horkheimer refer to is a reason with a tendency towards absolute identity (absolute Identitätssetzung), which makes subject and object identical so that the reflection on the non-identical is absent, or, to be precise, the non-identical is excluded (Adorno, 2021a: 343–344). Because of this dominant reason and the relapse occurring with it, enlightenment has missed its goal – the ‘disenchantment of the world’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 1), the liberation of fear from human beings to instal them as ‘masters’ (1) – ‘[y]et the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity’ (1). This concept of enlightenment makes the following shortened conjecture of Adorno's question plausible: if the idea of non-identity is forbidden, in the sense of excluded, do we, in radically completed enlightenment, fall back into the darkest form of mythology?

This paper would like to answer Adorno's question and use this to point out a possible interpretation of the non-identical by pointing back to its historical intertwining. It is, namely, the case that the relapse of enlightenment is not to be understood as something mystical. Instead, it had already occurred historically: ‘One speaks of the threat of a relapse into barbarism. But it is not a threat—Auschwitz was this relapse’ (Adorno, 2005a: 191), as Adorno stated in his lecture Education after Auschwitz on 18 April 1966 in Frankfurt am Main. The name and the place ‘Auschwitz’ are more a symbol for Adorno by which he refers to the annihilation of six million Jews (Claussen, 1988: 55), professing enlightenment's relapse. I will adopt this terminology for the Holocaust in this paper. ¹ In the first part of this paper, the second section and part of the third, I will, by an immanent discussion, answer Adorno's question by showing how the exclusion of the non-identical has contributed to conditions of exactly this historical relapse of enlightenment. To be precise, the second section will show what may be understood as the mythology into which enlightenment relapses and as the prevailing reason. Therefore, this section will also show what this reason excludes as non-identical and suggest its interpretation as emotions and memory. As this interpretation becomes particularly clear in the context of the historical relapse, and in order to answer Adorno's question, the third section will show that the exclusion of the non-identical as emotion and memory contributed to the central conditions of Auschwitz, such as the bourgeois coldness, the culture industry and antisemitism, thus also Auschwitz itself.

Given current debates about the memory of the Holocaust, also with regard to other crimes against humanity, usually subsumed as Historikerstreit 2.0, referring to the continuation of the Historian's Debate (Historikerstreit) of 1986, Adorno's question about Auschwitz and its conditions is still one worth answering. Adorno's answer combines two perspectives on the Holocaust, which Dan Diner, in derivation from Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, in which they write of ‘the present collapse of bourgeois civilization’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: xiv), calls a ‘rupture of civilization’ (Diner, 1988b: 9) (Zivilisationsbruch). On the one hand, the rupture of civilization is an expression of the fact that the Holocaust was an event that broke through all ethical and instrumental barriers to action that were considered certain, meaning that it shook the foundations of civilization (Diner, 2007: 19) which expresses a universal view on the Holocaust. On the other hand, this term should also imply that this break with civilization was carried out specifically against Jews as Jews (Diner, 2007: 14). This also implies a particular perspective on the Holocaust, which followed its own rationality, of which antisemitism is a central component. Thus, the Holocaust did not follow any economic purpose and also contradicted the declared German war aims by using weapons and other resources to continue the Holocaust (Diner, 2007: 28). In the search for an answer to Adorno's question as to whether we are falling back into dark mythology, into Auschwitz, under the prohibition of the non-identical with enlightenment, these two perspectives, the double content (Doppelgehalt) of which Diner (1988a: 31) speaks, become clear. Adorno's question about the prohibition of non-identity as the reason for enlightenment's relapse into dark mythology thus pushes into the anthropological and initially reflects a universal view, as do some of the conditions addressed here, such as bourgeois coldness or the culture industry. However, Adorno always situates his seemingly universal observations within the concrete historical, particular experience of the Jews and, by adding antisemitism in particular, focuses not only on the instrumental rationality that he specifically examines, but also on antisemitism as the logic or rationality of the Holocaust and part of this instrumental rationality, whereby a particular view of it becomes clear. These two perspectives are thus reflected in Adorno's examination of the Holocaust, whereby it becomes a unique event, but at the same time as symbol and warning a non-unique event of that something similar can be repeated in modern societies, also, as the universal perspective reminds us, with other victims (Heins, 2012: 73). Auschwitz then rather becomes a negative symbol for modern society (Heins, 2012: 73), against which Adorno also warns after his return from exile, since he has to observe that enlightenment and interwoven society still dwell in its fallback. Thus, in his lecture Education after Auschwitz, Adorno, after determining that Auschwitz was this relapse, emphasizes that ‘barbarism continues as long as the fundamental conditions that favored that relapse continue largely unchanged. That is the whole horror’ (2005a: 191). However, reminiscent of the dialectic of enlightenment, ‘freedom in society is inseparable from enlightenment thinking’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: xvi). Thence, remaining in the relapse is neither necessary nor permitted, so the question of how ‘working our way out’ (Adorno, 2005b: 268) arises. For this ‘working our way out’ of the relapse, it seems evident that the reason must include what it previously excluded and whose exclusion caused its relapse, namely the non-identical. Accordingly, Adorno (1990: 8) demands that philosophy has to have its interest in the non-identical after Auschwitz. In the second part and fourth section of this article, the previously elaborated interpretation of the non-identical as emotion and memory will be applied to show how the non-identical can be included and philosophy can have its concern about. Thereby, I will focus on the so-called ‘remembrance of nature within the subject’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 32) and the ‘recollection of the past’ (Adorno, 2006: 134). By including this aspect, not only does the interweaving of the non-identical with the Holocaust become once again clear even from an afterward perspective focusing on Adorno's texts and lectures originating from the post-Holocaust society, but this aspect and historically interconnected interpretation also shows that a remembrance of the Holocaust is necessary in order to counteract the persistence of its conditions. Recent social developments offer signs for concern – from the worldwide increase in antisemitic incidents to specific instances in Germany of belittling the Holocaust to minimize guilt, which appeared as a far-right phenomenon but became more widespread across different political and ideological orientations (Neiman, 2015: 19). Given this context, Adorno's following demand to remember the Holocaust by linking its remembrance to an overall social change, thus past, present and future, seems a hopeful tool and strong reaction in order to counteract these tendencies still reflecting the fallback of enlightenment into mythology.

The exclusion of the non-identical and enlightenment's relapse into mythology

Enlightenment's relapse into mythology

‘Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: xviii) are the central theses of Adorno's and Horkheimer's understanding of enlightenment. Accordingly, enlightenment and myth are intertwined. The myth has an enlightening character as it wants to report on the world and explain and structure it. This reality structuring aspect, however, blends with the identity-setting aspect of enlightenment, which is interwoven with power as it involves the reporting of hierarchies, the subjugation of the hero's internal nature, and ‘the recognition of power as the principle of all relationships’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 5) resulting in submission under it. This intertwining of myth and enlightenment also applies to enlightenment since ‘[j]ust as myths already entail enlightenment, with every step enlightenment entangles itself more deeply in mythology’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 8). The reason for this is not to be found in the mythologies rather than in enlightenment itself (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: xvi). Enlightenment – as can be seen in the enlightened aspect of myth – wants to explain nature but, in doing so, follows the ideal of systematic reducibility, whereby reason is limited to control, efficiency and power, all thinking is pre-produced and all happenings are placed under the spell of fateful repetition (Sandkaulen, 2017: 11). This mastery of nature also causes people to alienate from nature, themselves and their relationships. They shrink to mere ‘nodal points of conventional reactions and […] modes of operation’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 21) for which the given objectivity appears natural and standard. Consequently, the power of the existing becomes reinforced as illustrated by the ‘fear of social deviation’; that is, of not thinking in terms ‘turned into clichés by the prevailing usages in science, business, and politics’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: xvi). The resulting totality of enlightenment rules out any contradiction, which amounts to the so-called ‘eversameness’ (Adorno, 1990: 95) (Immergleichheit), the myth into which enlightenment relapses – or, rather, has relapsed.

The exclusion of the internal nature and memory as non-identical

In his lecture Lehre von der Geschichte und von der Freiheit (translated and published under the title History and Freedom) that Adorno gave in the winter semester of 1964/1965 in Frankfurt am Main, he teaches concerning reason that ‘it does not contain two strata, one that dominates nature and one that conciliates it. Both strata share in all its aspects’ (2006: 157). The reason for the relapse of enlightenment into mythology thus does not lie in reason per se but in the fact that its conciliating strata is faded out in favour of the nature-dominating one. With this relapse, enlightenment missed its actual goal – the ‘disenchantment of the world’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 1). Instead, with the fade-out of its conciliating strata, it turned into a will for the mastery of nature and breakage of its compulsion referring to external nature surrounding people and their internal nature (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 9). Due to this process, cognition is limited to what is identifiable, guided by the radicalized ‘mythical fear’ that something ‘is at the same time itself and something other than itself, identical and not identical’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 11). Consequently, this non-identical is excluded by the so-called ‘instrumental reason’ ² with its tendency to absolute identity setting (Adorno, 2021a: 344), almost amputated as ‘the incommensurable’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 9).

Although Adorno does not define this excluded non-identical in the sense of what is to be subsumed under it, he does suggest that the internal nature of humans, among other things, can be regarded as such. By separating from it, reason becomes an apparatus of domination, assimilates to power and loses its critical power (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 28). This separation also causes people to alienate themselves from their own needs. Those become replaced by substitute needs evoked by second nature, including enlightened exchange society, its language and moral concepts, technologically oriented science, and the culture industry (Breitenstein, 2013: 121). This domination, in turn, evokes the aforementioned perpetual eversameness, out of which the existing can only be affirmed. Still, the instrumental reason not only excludes the internal nature, it has also lost moral categories of reflection, such as suffering, which refer to the ‘ontology of the wrong state of things’ (Adorno, 1990: 11) created by enlightenment. This loss is due to the fact that these categories are linked to historical experience, whereas enlightenment is ahistorical. Its reason liquidates everything contrary, such as memory, time and remembrance, as irrational and further non-identical (Adorno, 1961: 41). By this exclusion of the internal nature and memory as non-identical, the instrumental reason proves to be particular, since ‘[w]hat tolerates nothing particular is thus revealing itself as particularly dominant. The general reason that comes to prevail is already a restricted reason’ (Adorno, 1990: 317).

The primacy of the universal over the non-identical

This particularity of reason is also reflected in the fact that it allows the non-identical, as Adorno explains through his critique of Hegel's world spirit (Weltgeist), but sets identity absolutely so that the non-identical is defined as hostile and marginalized as a result of the rationality of the mastery of nature which asserts ‘its control over its so-called materials by subsuming, classifying, subordinating and otherwise cutting them short’ (Adorno, 2006: 13). So Adorno illustrates that identity, or the universal (Allgemeines), benefits a primacy over the non-identity, or the particular (Besonderes), with the consequence that it is only possible to be with this universal. It is precisely this, what Adorno describes as the ‘permanent catastrophe’ (1990: 320), that can be experienced daily as the supremacy of an objective (300) (Vormacht eines Objektiven), which burden ‘threatens to crush men as soon as their forces and the social forms they exist under come into flagrant conflict’ (306). It becomes evident that the described exclusion of the non-identical within instrumental reason has an actual correspondence in society, as Adorno and Horkheimer already anticipated. This correspondence is namely ‘to experience the unity of a totally socialized society […] tolerating nothing outside [as] the philosophical ideal of absolute identity’ (Adorno, 1990: 314). Social relations in service of domination become affirmed and reproduced in this society, in which with the exclusion of emotions also moments of spontaneity, such as protest atrophy (Adorno, 2006: 161–165).

Furthermore, the exclusion of memory as non-identical, particularly the memory of the catastrophes and suffering in history, as Adorno describes in reference to Walter Benjamin's speech about ‘writing history from the point of view of the victors’ (Adorno, 2006: 41), impedes protest and even the realization of its need. The exclusion of memory makes it also impossible ‘to recall that this web has evolved, and the more irresistible its natural appearance (Adorno, 1990: 358), referring to the primacy of the universal, that has indeed evolved in social praxis, but disagrees in the described manner the interests of humankind who would be the total subject (304) (Gesamtsubjekt) of Hegel's world spirit. Adorno certainly does not favour the world spirit's construction and the interwoven primacy of the universal. Still, it represents ‘the way the world is’ (Adorno, 2006: 43).

It is, peculiarly, this certain experience of the world spirit as the experience of the totally socialized society tolerating nothing outside of it and impeding a contradiction by excluding the non-identical that Adorno links to the concrete historical experience of National Socialism. Analogous to the world spirit, society and humankind set themselves universal, but are actually constituted particular as happened in fascist racial theory (Adorno, 2006: 45) or in the persecution, discrimination and liquidation of someone based on being ‘said to possess some characteristic or other that he doesn’t even need’ (18). Thus, Adorno establishes a connection to the concrete historical experience of enlightenment's relapse stated at the beginning, in which those not belonging to the universal were to be ‘beat[en] the life out of them whenever possible’ (2006: 45). For this occurrence, the exclusion of the non-identical, here mapped out as emotions and internal nature, is central as this exclusion has caused diverse conditions of Auschwitz what I will demonstrate in the following in order to answer the question of whether enlightenment has fallen back into mythology with forbidding the non-identical and to demonstrate the linkage between the non-identical and this precise historical background.

The exclusion of the non-identical and the conditions of the relapse into Auschwitz

The described fallback that Adorno asked his students about in his lecture is not to be understood as a myth itself. Instead, it genuinely occurred, as Adorno stated: ‘Auschwitz was this relapse’ (2005a: 191, emphasis in original). The relapse of enlightenment in mythology occurred due to the exclusion of the non-identical, which is reflected in thinking by the instrumental reason but also by the society corresponding to it as a society of eversameness. Suppose now, the relapse of enlightenment is understood as happened fallback into Auschwitz, meaning Auschwitz is the enquired fallback into the darkest form of mythology. In that case, one might ask the question, in order to answer Adorno, of whether and how the prohibition of the non-identical has contributed to this relapse. This question will be answered in the following section by showing how the exclusion of the non-identical, still interpreted as internal nature and emotions, has led to crucial conditions of Auschwitz, precisely, but here also limited to, bourgeois coldness and enlightenment's moral conception, culture industry, and antisemitism.

Enlightenment's moral conception and bourgeois coldness

As the moral conception of enlightenment reflects various characteristics of instrumental reason, like following a scheme, it may be seen as a possible condition of its fallback. As such, conception, the primary form of Kant's categorical imperative, ‘Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law’ (2002: 37, italics removed by me), is assumed here. Following Adorno, the categorical imperative's formalism and universal claim to validity (Gültigkeitsanspruch) abstract from the circumstances of actions, where, at the same time, the imperative impedes the recognition of grievances as the sole orientation along it is sufficient. Additionally, this formalism corresponds to the exchange society, commensurately the existing, as can be seen, for example, in the condemnation of revolutions regarded as obligatory compliance (Freyenhagen, 2013: 114–5). Subsequently, by following the categorical imperative, the continuance of present grievances is affirmed. At the same time, enlightenment's moral conception evades responsibility by refraining from the consequences of actions, whereby the person acting to it can claim – irrespective of the result – to have acted correctly or been of pure will. However, for Adorno:

The reality is that this so-called pure will is almost always twinned with the willingness to denounce others, with the need to punish and persecute others, in short, with the entire problematic nature of what will be all too familiar to you from the various purges that have taken place in totalitarian states. (2000: 163)

Here, Adorno again establishes the connection to the historical experience of that fallback of enlightenment. Its condition, the exclusion of the non-identical, is also represented in the categorical imperative as this imperative excludes acting led by internal nature, like emotions and impulses, since these would not fit into its scheme (Freyenhagen, 2013: 104). So, excluding the internal nature in action is not only the result of the moral conception described before. Instead, it occurs with the separation of thinking from emotions in total, meaning the exclusion of the non-identical. It is because of this separation that the instrumental, dominant reason maintains itself as an ‘instrument of power’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 28), produces ‘unanimity’ (28) among people and is available to every interest of the dominators, who make use of it and turn people into ‘centers of modes of behavior […] which by its iron discipline relieves its peoples of the burden of moral feelings’ (67). Since both, the exclusion of the non-identical as characteristic for enlightenment and its moral conception, the categorical imperative, cause this suppression of emotions, action against the social development, which in this context is the National Socialist development, is ruled out. Such action would occur as an ‘irrational aspect of moral action’ (Adorno, 2000: 8), the feeling of the intolerability of a situation. The only one who is unreasonable in the view of the universal would thus elucidate the ‘shame of the entire nation’ (Horkheimer, 1941: 385).

Not only the categorical imperative reinforcing the exclusion of internal nature as an aspect to consider an action's consequence in advance or the overall exclusion of internal nature as non-identical become clear as conditions of Auschwitz. Also, the ‘the stab of conscience’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 75) (Gewissensbisse) is excluded since the instrumental reason excludes this afterward reflection as memory, thus, as non-identical just like reflection categories bound to it, like suffering. With the non-appearance of non-continuing, or, more precisely, non-acting, this absence of memory contributes to Auschwitz, as well as, according to Adorno, to the fact ‘[t]hat fascism lives on’ (Adorno, 2005d: 98).

The exclusion of the non-identical becomes particularly evident in the bourgeois coldness. Hence, it combines the aspects of the absence of memory and emotion, specifically empathy. Without this coldness, whose most important ‘psychological condition’ (Adorno, 2005a: 201) is the inability to identify with those who suffer, Auschwitz would not have been possible (Adorno, 1990: 363). The inability to identify with those who suffer manifests itself in a fetishization of technology indeterminably close to rationality so that ‘one who cleverly devises a train system that brings the victims to Auschwitz as quickly and smoothly as possible forgets about what happens to them there’ (Adorno, 2005a: 200). The bourgeois coldness is also reflected in the ‘business interest’ (Adorno, 2005a: 201) (Geschäftsinteresse) that Adorno and Horkheimer describe in the myth of Odysseus, in which Odysseus, as representative of enlightenment, offers the Cyclops wine with human flesh and takes, in consideration of his advantage, the loss of the other people into account (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 52). These described aspects can be transferred to the universal's behaviour during Auschwitz and represent possible conditions attributable to the exclusion of emotion and memory, meaning the non-identical, which made Auschwitz possible and show in particular why (almost) no one rose against it.

Culture industry and habituation to suffering

Even culture, which one might assume as a counterpart to enlightenment's rationality, cannot be such. Instead, ‘in the midst of the traditions of philosophy, of art, and of enlightening sciences […] these traditions and their spirit lacked the power to take hold of men and work a change in them’ (Adorno, 1990: 366). Lastly, Auschwitz clearly demonstrated this failure since the culture also contributed to it by preventing the emergence of emotions and memories and by instead promoting the exclusion of the non-identical through habituation to suffering and forgetting. It is just this exclusion that becomes apparent in their consumers to whom ‘[t]he most intimate reactions of human beings have become so entirely reified, even to themselves, that the idea of anything peculiar to them survives only in extreme abstraction: personality means hardly more than […] freedom from body odor and emotions’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 136).

As a grown culture industry, culture is affected by technical rationality and thus by the ‘rationality of domination’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 95). Its ‘barbarism’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 105) is based on its interweaving with enlightenment forcing innovations in the culture industry to, subsequently, fit into known categories and schemes, while making actual innovations impossible (106–107). As a ‘false identity of universal and particular’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 95) – that is, the abolition of difference between the individual and society – the culture industry is unable to redeem its promise of ‘rejection of the guilt of a life which blindly and callously reproduces itself, […] the promise of a condition in which freedom were realized’ (Adorno, 1982: 23). The culture industry, instead, offers thought patterns and depicts an affirmative representation of the world, which leads to the withering of imagination and spontaneity right up to debarment of thinking (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 100). As an instance of this, Adorno and Horkheimer name cartoons that ‘hammer into every brain the old lesson that continuous attrition, the breaking of all individual resistance, is the condition of life in this society’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 110). The main characters ‘receive their beatings so that the spectators can accustom themselves to theirs’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 110). Additionally, suffering is portrayed not only as something usual but also as fate, turning it into something unquestionable and something to be accepted. Consequentially, the ability to identify with those who suffer becomes weakened, which leads to the most crucial condition of bourgeois coldness and prevents the opposition to the grievance of suffering.

Meanwhile, the culture industry's amusement encourages forgetting and ‘to be in agreement’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 114), seeing that, according to Adorno und Horkheimer, ‘[a]musement always means putting things out of mind, forgetting suffering, even when it is on display’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 116). With the habituation to suffering remaining unchanged considering its oblivion, the culture industry brings about eversameness, the myth into which enlightenment has relapsed, and confirms the status quo (Adorno, 2001: 100). A way out of this ‘social context which induces blindness’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 33), the so-called ‘context of delusion’ (Adorno, 1990: 406) (Verblendungszusammenhang) does not seem possible as the culture industry does not promote including the excluded non-identical, meaning emotions and memory, but instead promotes their exclusion.

Although there is cultural criticism in the culture industry, this criticism ‘shares the blindness of its object’ (Adorno, 1982: 27). Therefore, it does not represent a counterpart to the culture industry in order to encourage a resumption of the non-identical. Instead, the culture critics align their criticism with the market, thus weaving the culture industry's veil in ‘dazzled and arrogant recognition’ (Adorno, 1982: 19) of what is criticized. Hence, what culture should express – the unspeakable, the suffering – remains, also in the criticism, forgotten. This oblivion is because cultural criticism even holds the view that more enlightenment – in the sense of excluding the non-identical – is necessary. At the same time, ‘the mutilation of man’ instead results ‘from too little’ (Adorno, 1982: 24). After his return from exile, Adorno still observes that the culture (industry) and cultural criticism have not changed after Auschwitz, but continued to create a habituation to suffering wanting to wipe away the memory of it. Adorno, therefore, summarizes: ‘All post-Auschwitz culture, including its urgent critique, is garbage’ (1990: 367).

Antisemitism

The previously discussed conditions of Auschwitz of bourgeois coldness, enlightenment's moral conception and culture industry still represent conditions of Auschwitz that, like the instrumental reason, appear as a universal view on the Holocaust as the rupture of civilization. However, Adorno always refers this to the Jewish experience and finally, with the observation that, like in the culture industry, where everything is only tolerated as identical to the universal (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 124), this sameness should also appear in the enlightened society, the particular perspective on the Holocaust comes into view. This pursuit for the sameness of enlightened society can be seen in the primacy of the universal, but especially in antisemitism as ‘driven by the urge […] to make everyone the same’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 139), or shortly originally named ‘Gleichmacherei’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2020: 179). According to Adorno and Horkheimer, antisemitism is a key to understanding contemporary society, so a theory of antisemitism ‘would amount to nothing less than a theory of modern society as a whole’ (Adorno et al., 1969: 608). Adorno and Horkheimer developed such a theory in the Elements of Anti-Semitism, ³ published in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, in which the concept of idiosyncrasy is central. Idiosyncrasy is caused by what reminds the subject of its origin, that over which it has no complete control and from what it has alienated itself with enlightenment, such as the internal nature or the appearance of physical stimuli (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 148). Therefore, unsurprisingly, essential aspects of enlightenment also have played a role in understanding antisemitism as a key to enlightened society.

Antisemitism is not only named ‘Gleichmacherei’ but also characterized as a false projection (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 154). Although, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, ‘all perception is projection’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 154), this perception is pathic in the enlightened society. The subjective part of the cognizing subject, created by the difference between the object to be cognized and the subject's perception of it, is bridged unreflectively by means of domination (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 156). As far as an object, precisely in this context another human, shows features of the by enlightenment excluded nature, it becomes the particular and determined as the enemy in false projection, to whom the idiosyncrasy attaches itself, and evokes rage, even the will to annihilate in those belonging to the universal (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 147–150). In combination with the primacy of the universal, the previous aspects suggest why the projectors possibly only see their own reflection in the mirror as human, why their perception is such ‘that they do not see Jews as human beings at all’ (Adorno, 2005c: 105) and continue convincing themselves that they are not such, making them ‘a thing’ (p. 109). Overcoming the false projection and idiosyncrasy seems impossible in the enlightened society since the subject would have to admit the vulnerability and incompleteness of its claim to truth and relinquish its claim to dominance (Mullen, 2016: 53). All that is in contrast to enlightenment. Instead, it is ‘as if the anti-Semite could not sleep quietly until he has transformed the whole world into the very same paranoid system by which he is beset’ (Adorno et al., 1969: 633). This transformation involves ‘blind subsumption’ and ‘being labeled’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 166–167), the so-called ‘ticket thinking’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 170) that urges people to choose a ticket as the adaption to reality's delusion. Thereby, core characteristics of instrumental reason, like cutting off of experience and reflection, form a central component of this ticket thinking, prompting Adorno and Horkheimer to the statement: ‘It is not just the anti-Semitic ticket which is anti-Semitic, but the ticket mentality itself’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 172) demonstrating again how deeply interwoven modern, or enlightened, society and antisemitism are.

Although Adorno and Horkheimer may be criticized for losing the specificity of antisemitism with this statement, which can be observed again in Adorno's notion that Jews would have been invented if they had not existed (Adorno, 2005d: 101–102), the authors of Elements of Anti-Semitism offer various explanations for why idiosyncrasy was primarily directed against Jews, such as the false attribution of idiosyncrasy causing traits and their emphasis by the propaganda (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 152–153) or the anti-Judaism of Christianity (144–147). On that note, this thesis contains on one side the warning of the perpetual possibility of exclusions leading to annihilation with interchangeability of the victims (Mullen, 2016: 47), but is at the same time embedded in its historical context and origin. By that, the aforementioned double content of the rupture of civilization shines through. On the one side, the thesis of the ticket thinking as a component of late capitalist society forcing its members to choose a ticket in adaptation to the blindness of reality (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 170) conveys a rather universal perspective on the Holocaust. On the other side, the authors of this thesis also recall that this thinking can lead to taking up the particular perspective of the rupture of civilization: ‘Ethnic groups are transferred to other latitudes; individuals labeled “Jew” are dispatched to the gas chambers’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 167). The combination of these perspectives on the Holocaust as the rupture of civilization also reflected in the thesis of the ticket thinking as generally antisemitic makes above all clear that antisemitism has emerged from enlightenment itself. It is a central component of it, which is why essential aspects of enlightenment, such as the exclusion of the non-identical, are reflected in it, or, rather, have contributed to it. That can be seen in the idiosyncrasy as fear and alienation from internal nature caused by its exclusion or the lack of reflection of thought and the cut off of experience, which is linked to memory, or the lack of empathy and identification with those who suffer, specifically Jews tracing back to particularly historical approaches and specificities of antisemitism, making it possible to make them a thing. Due to this tight interweaving, it has to be noted that as long as enlightenment remains in its relapse, antisemitism also remains in modern society.

Interim conclusion: Auschwitz as a tendency of enlightenment

Not only antisemitism but also the will to annihilate those against whom it is directed have emerged from various aspects of enlightenment, such as the alienation from internal nature, the separation of it and experience from thinking, the lack of reflection, and the claim of total explanation towards domination. Therefore, to Auschwitz as a whole, it applies that

[it] cannot be dismissed by any living person as a superficial phenomenon, as an aberration of the course of history to be disregarded when compared to the great dynamic of progress, of enlightenment of the supposed growth of humanitarianism. The fact that it happened is itself the expression of an extremely powerful societal tendency. (Adorno, 2005a: 192)

That is, namely, the tendency of enlightenment and its instrumental reason, excluding the non-identical, which can be interpreted as internal nature and memory causing universal but also particular approaches in understanding the Holocaust. For instance, due to this constitution of reason and the categorical imperative as the moral conception of enlightenment, there is, neither in advance nor in retrospect, a reflection of an action's consequences. Instead, the dominator's interests are obeyed as fulfilment of duty, and the missing resistance ultimately confirms the present. The culture industry contributes to this by depicting suffering as something to be accepted and obeying as the condition of life in society. In parallel, it prevents the emergence of memory through the production of pleasure. Also, the bourgeois coldness but also antisemitism are likewise connected with the exclusion of emotions and memory from thought and action. The latter is caused by the absence of reflection, recognizable in the pathic-false projection mechanism, as well as by idiosyncrasy attaching to what has been suppressed by enlightenment. As demonstrated by antisemitism, the primacy of the universal, and the exclusion up to liquidation from the actual total subject of the world spirit – humankind – for reasons of (antisemitic) ticket thinking or being considered ‘unreasonable’ (Horkheimer, 1941: 385) by not excluding the non-identical, enlightened society amounts to eversameness. Therefore, Adorno's cited question at the beginning that he asked his students at the end of his lecture series, whether we, if forbidding the thought of non-identity in a radically completed enlightenment, fall back into the darkest form of mythology, has to be affirmed. It is namely this eversameness that represents the myth into which enlightenment has relapsed by excluding the non-identical and which actually happened historically with Auschwitz.

After his return from exile until his death, Adorno warned emphatically about the afterlife of fascism and the persistence of its social preconditions, thus, the conditions that made the fallback possible. Nevertheless – reminding the dialectic of enlightenment – remaining in the relapse is not needed. Instead, it is even necessary to work our way out of this relapse in order to minimize its conditions requiring a resumption of that which was excluded by enlightenment – the non-identical. This resumption occurs through the so-called ‘remembrance of nature within the subject’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 32), as well as through the ‘recollection of the past’ (Adorno, 2006: 134), and a remembering philosophy, which I will explain in the following section.

The resumption of the non-identical as working out of the relapse

The remembrance of nature within the subject

In order to work enlightenment out of its relapse, the non-identical, meaning emotions and memory, have to be resumed into thinking. Nevertheless, the internal nature, representing irrational moments as the unregulated experience, unadjusted by enlightenment, which is, for Adorno, already part of every cognition, should neither be split off nor hypostatized by reason (2021a: 107–108). Instead, this resumption should happen in a lively and transparent mediation with discursive thinking referring to the ‘remembrance of nature within the subject’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 32) (Eingedenken der Natur im Subjekt). That means the remembrance of the internal nature of humans, thus, a reflected resumption of their drives, passions and emotions to become aware of their actual needs (Breitenstein, 2013: 153). By pointing out an aphorism by Peter Altenberg, Adorno demonstrates that such remembrance is possible. According to this aphorism, people could no longer witness the maltreatment of a horse and would even be willing to kill the coachman for its end (2006: 154–155). So, people do have a desire for the absence of suffering and want to eliminate it, which could also be evoked when consuming culture if culture would work towards expressing such suffering and causing empathy, to cause a disagreement to the habituation to suffering. However, in the aphorism, the elimination of suffering remains linked to reproducing bourgeois coldness and variant suffering. Adorno (1990: 347) counteracts this problem by an ethical demand bound to Auschwitz and by the remembrance of nature within the subject itself as the bourgeois coldness is transcended through allowing and acting upon emotions, such as fear (Angst). It has to be remarked that also to the Kantian-formalist conception of morality becomes transcended, which tabooed acting led by internal nature, facilitating resistance due to allowing an ‘irrational aspect’ (Adorno, 2000: 8). desire for the absence of suffering shows that it is possible to remember nature in the subject and thus also to resume the non-identical. It is precisely this resumption of the internal nature and the awareness of the actual needs that form an essential part of working out of the relapse since it allows the failure of enlightenment and its deviation from the actual needs to be recognized and taken as the starting point for critical reflection (Freyenhagen, 2013: 183). However, with the remembrance of nature within the subject, working out remains on an individual level, whereas this should indeed occur on the level of society as a whole. For this, a less subjective starting point for working it out is vital, namely the relapse itself, meaning Auschwitz, to eliminate its conditions. With the recollection of the past, which I will discuss below, Adorno develops such a standard and also makes it possible for the non-identical to be reincorporated into thought in conjunction with its historical situation, whereby philosophy has a distinctive task here.

The recollection of the past

In order for philosophy to fulfil its task of working enlightenment out of its relapse and be a critic of it, philosophy must at first reflect on itself and become aware of its entanglement with domination, but also the nature-dominating and reconciliation sharing strata of reason mentioned in the second section. From this self-reflection, philosophy becomes aware of its ability to remember, which must be resumed to work enlightenment out of its relapse by criticizing it based on its relapse. For this criticism, the task of philosophy consists in interpretation. It should indicate that the social and economic conditions do not correspond to the actual interests of the people and evince their overcoming, which refers back to the remembrance of nature within the subject (Adorno, 2006: 67), the remembrance of emotions into thinking. In this interpretation, philosophy neither completely rejects nor affirms the circumstances originating from enlightenment. Instead, the interpretation ‘brings us to dialectics’ (Adorno, 1990: 144). This dialectic results from the experienced contradictoriness of enlightenment, which does not merge with its concept or does not do justice to its claim (Adorno, 1990: 144). However, it is not enough to interpret individual facts; their relation to structures of the social totality must be sought out (Adorno, 2019: 133). In such an interpretation, philosophy would detect the exclusion of the non-identical as such structure behind the relapse of enlightenment.

It is then precisely at this non-identical that philosophy, according to Adorno (1990: 5), conceptualized as negative dialectics, should have its interest at, take into itself and consistently be aware of to break through the appearance of identity and work out of the relapse. As ‘simply that of the prevailing non-identity’ (Adorno, 2006: 92), Adorno refers to the consciousness of discontinuity, which refers to the moments of oppression and subjugation in history (93). Therefore, philosophy must have its consciousness precisely at these moments – the moments of those who are not victors, not the universal – and must remember the suffering in the past. Adorno accordingly formulates that ‘to lend a voice to suffering is a condition of all truth’ (1990: 17) – a condition that is also recognizable in his remarks. For instance, he cannot define freedom, but he can remember a state of unfreedom as the constant fear that the Gestapo might ring the bell, thus stating the opposite (Adorno, 2006: 140). Truth – here as the definition of ‘freedom’ – is established correspondingly by showing what it is not via including historical experience.

Once again, the entanglement of the non-identical with the historical experience becomes apparent, although Adorno concretizes this even further. He does not remain with the general condition of talking about suffering but rather concretizes that it is the reproducing ‘guilt of a life’ (Adorno, 1990: 364) demonstrated by Auschwitz that compels us to philosophy. Additionally, Auschwitz demonstrates evidently the failure of enlightenment and becomes the negative symbol of modernity (Heins, 2012: 73). It has emerged from enlightenment's identity-setting tendency itself, which is why the so-called ‘recollection of the past’ (Adorno, 2006: 134) (Eingedenken an das Vergangene) to convict enlightenment of its falsity and liberate it from its relapse into mythology must happen in this concrete event. The recollection of the past describes the (intellectual) re-actualization of the past in the present experience (Taubald, 2001: 99), which means that Auschwitz must not be historicized. Instead, it must be existent to philosophy in each of its thoughts. By having Auschwitz present in each of its thoughts, philosophy reincorporates the memory into its thinking and, simultaneously, the precise memory of what can happen when memory is wholly excluded. This precise memory of Auschwitz should then serve as a critical yardstick, as Adorno formulates, that ‘every thought that fails to measure itself against such experience is simply worthless, irrelevant and utterly trivial’ (2006: 203).

Still, working out of the relapse and the bound resumption of the non-identical, specifically the memory of the fallback due to its exclusion, is not philosophy's sole task but instead of humankind as a whole. Accordingly, Adorno demands: ‘A new categorical imperative has been imposed by Hitler upon unfree mankind: to arrange their thoughts and actions so that Auschwitz will not repeat itself, so that nothing similar will happen’ (1990: 365).

Adorno's new categorical imperative is ‘refractory’ (1990: 365) against its justification, which, moreover, would be outrageous considering Auschwitz. It contains the unjustifiable moment of abhorrence of physical pain (Adorno, 1990: 365), referring back to the identification with those who suffer and, thus, to the necessary resumption of the internal nature. Also, it becomes particularly apparent that Adorno's imperative is temporally situated and that, to comply with his demand, the temporal situatedness – Auschwitz – must be recollected in thought and action. Adorno thus brings the memory of a past event into the present to change the future. Here, too, the double content of the memory of Auschwitz becomes apparent. On the one hand, it is the concrete memory of the extermination of European Jewry that should be constantly present. On the other, Adorno's demand also entails a certain decontextualization of remembrance, as action is to be taken against everything that Auschwitz stands for. That means, for example, one should not only act and think against the labelling of the ticket ‘Jew’ representing the negative symbol of modernity but against the overall structure of it, thus, against every (future) sticking on of any ticket by the generally antisemitic ticket mentality. However, it is precisely this combination of both perspectives on the rupture of civilization that makes it possible to keep the significance of the memory of the Holocaust itself, both in its particular perspective, whose conditions, like antisemitism, continue to exist, as well as universal and instrumental reason, significant for the present, in that – at least in the European context – a well-known event becomes a symbol of that against thought, and action must be directed. With this demand, Adorno also emphasizes the resumption of emotions, the internal nature and memory as non-identical in thought and action, that one has to arrange to work enlightenment out of its historically occurred relapse.

Working out accompanies concrete consequences of the demand becoming mostly evident in action, so I will focus on those. However, it should be noted that one can almost speak of a dichotomy between theory and practice alias thinking and acting according to Adorno. Hence, he names thinking a ‘form of behavior’ and ‘kind of practice,’ as the right thing can only be thought of if it wants to be realized in practice (Adorno, 2008: 53). Adorno's imperative is not about maxims, but about our thoughts and actions preventing a precise event: Auschwitz – his terminology for National Socialism and the Holocaust. Still, preventing Auschwitz is rather to be seen as the minimum condition of an ethics of resistance on whose foundation conditions of Auschwitz must be recognized in a future situation causing action against them (Freyenhagen, 2013: 151). In a society in which Adorno's dictum ‘wrong life cannot be lived rightly’ (2005c: 39), or originally, ‘Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen’ (2021b: 43), is not cancelled out regarding every action against the prevailing and persisting conditions of Auschwitz continues to take place within the society that made it possible and remains referred to it, an orientation along Adorno's new imperative, interwoven with the resumption of memory and internal nature, thus the non-identical, seems to indicate at least a less wrong life. So, according to Adorno: ‘The only thing that can perhaps be said is that the good life today would consist in resistance to the forms of the bad life that have been seen through and critically dissected by the most progressive minds’ (2000: 167–168).

Thus, such a possible less wrong life consists in the certain negation of what is recognized as wrong, meaning the presence of the memory of Auschwitz in thought and action, whose conditions should be constantly negated to prevent a repetition. Such a less wrong life already begins in seemingly small ways. For instance, going to the cinema can be determined as wrong, leading to reduced consumption of such visits and other culture-industrial products (Freyenhagen, 2013: 167). Or, instead of agreeing during a conversation on the train to avoid dispute, one might disagree upon those ‘few statements that one knows ultimately to implicate murder’ (Adorno, 2005c: 25).

Still, this less wrong life does not end with such seemingly small actions. Instead, it is a constant ‘perpetual and meticulous critique’ (Biron, 2014: 27) not coming to a standstill, that never comes to a standstill that one has to formulate and act according to live such a life by preventing a repetition. However, it is, admittedly, not enough to determine what an individual can contribute to this as the imperative is directed at humankind as a whole, so all people must orient themselves to it, and an overall social change must happen (Freyenhagen, 2013: 153). As enlightenment is total and entangled with society, such change is prevented, causing the need for individuals to be the ‘first ones’ (Adorno, 2006: 155). By the remembrance of nature within the subject, those first ones become aware of their actual interests and the deviation of the social state from them. They can then, based on this experience and the recollection of the past, fulfil the duty of being critical (Freyenhagen, 2013: 155), thus denounce ‘the inhuman’ (Adorno, 2000: 175) and consequently contribute to developing a theory and practice of resistance against this inhuman, which must then be redeemed on the macrosocial level; for example, by means of politics. The totality of the social condition must, therefore, not lead to the individual remaining in it and affirming it, but the opposite is true. Suppose neither individuals nor philosophy as possible critics follow Adorno's demand but withdraw from the past and exclude the non-identical. In that case, they behave like Odysseus as a representative of enlightenment, wanting to withdraw from the Sirens’ songs, embodying the past by plugging his ears and tying himself (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 24–26). They would then ‘reproduce the life of the oppressor’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002: 27), the remaining of enlightenment in mythology, and prepare ‘the danger that the horror might recur’ (Adorno, 2005a: 195).

Conclusion

Adorno and Horkheimer determine the eversameness in thought and society as the myth into which enlightenment has relapsed. The reason for this relapse lies in the identity-setting enlightenment itself, which is intertwined with domination and whose reason excludes the non-identical, including, among other things, internal nature, memory, and thus also categories of reflection tied to it, such as suffering. Still, this fallback is not an abstract phenomenon. Instead, it had already and actually occurred with Auschwitz. Thus, one would have to answer Adorno’s question quoted at the beginning: yes, if forbidding the idea of non-identity, we, in radically completed enlightenment, fall back into the darkest form of mythology – we actually already fell back. Precisely, this exclusion of the non-identical made various conditions of Auschwitz possible. For instance, the exclusion of memory prevents reflection on the consequences of action or the categorical imperative, and the exclusion of emotions from thought and action makes those irrational moments that would make resistance possible impossible. Instead, people are harnessed to the interests of those in power, obey them as a fulfilment of duty and reproduce the status quo by failing to resist. The culture industry, in turn, promotes this exclusion of the non-identical and the lack of resistance to the existing by presenting suffering as something to be accepted and obedience as a condition of life in society and preventing the emergence of memory through the production of pleasure. As shown, Auschwitz emerged from the tendency to exclude the non-identical, or, more precisely, its exclusion is the structure behind central conditions of Auschwitz, such as bourgeois coldness or antisemitism. The latter is produced by, among other things, idiosyncrasy, which attaches itself to what is oppressed by enlightenment and the reason corresponding to it, demonstrated by the pathic, unreflective projection mechanism. Antisemitism, as well as the supremacy of the universal and the resulting exclusion up to liquidation of subjects from the actual total subject of the world spirit – humankind – show that enlightened society amounts to eversameness, the myth. With this analysis of the conditions of Auschwitz, Adorno also shows that the overall first universal seeming aspect when trying to explain enlightenment's relapse of the instrumental reason, precisely the exclusion of the non-identical, has, on one side, provoked universally seeming conditions of Auschwitz, like the bourgeois coldness. Still, Adorno combines both perspectives on the Holocaust as the rupture of civilization when pointing out how the exclusion of the non-identical has, on the other side, also led to particular conditions of the Holocaust, such as antisemitism, making this analysis an interesting connecting factor for current debates about memory culture or the relationship between universality and particularity.

So that all these conditions of Auschwitz and, consequently, the myth into which enlightenment has relapsed do not persist, but what is evident in the forgetting of Auschwitz, the very idea of non-identity must not be forbidden. It must, above all, be resumed for the criticism of enlightenment and the working out of the relapse. Working enlightenment out of its relapse would also go hand in hand with actually working through the past. For this, that previously excluded by enlightenment – the non-identical – needs to be brought back into thought and action. This resumption of the non-identical happens through the remembrance of nature within the subject, by means of which the subject experiences a deviation of enlightened society from its actual needs, thus recognizing enlightenment's failure and caused suffering as a false state. Furthermore, by including emotions, the subject notices the admission of suffering resulting from trivialization as a false state and counteracts this, as well as the bourgeois coldness resulting from enlightenment. By recollecting the past, memory is simultaneously incorporated into thought and action, which has to take place so that philosophy can criticize enlightenment on the one hand and, on the other, so that humankind can follow Adorno's new imperative addressed to it, overcome identity thinking and meet his demand to counteract a repetition of Auschwitz. Although philosophy should be constantly aware of Auschwitz, which compels us to it, and thus take up the non-identical within itself, humanity as a whole should have the potential of this horror present and act against it. That, in conclusion, clearly shows the entanglement of the non-identical with the historical experience of its exclusion, the continuation of which can only be countered through the reinstatement of the excluded. For that, the memory of enlightenment's relapse, Auschwitz, remains relevant in the present as a warning to what the exclusion of the non-identical can lead to, namely to central conditions of Auschwitz and Auschwitz itself. Finally, through such an absorption of the non-identical and the criticism linked to it, a working out as a coming to terms with the past can take place, and thinking and acting can be arranged in such a way ‘that Auschwitz will not repeat itself, so that nothing similar will happen’ (Adorno, 1990: 365).