ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the submission of everything natural to the autocratic subject finally culminates in the mastery of the blindly objective and natural. It offers the main lines of a philosophical prehistory of anti-Semitism. Its “irrationalism” is deduced from the nature of the dominant ratio itself, and the world which corresponds to its image. The essay on the “culture industry” demonstrates the regression of enlightenment to ideology which finds its typical expression in cinema and radio. Enlightenment consists the calculation of effectiveness and of the techniques of production and distribution; in accordance with its content, ideology expends itself in idolization of given existence and of the power which controls technology. Enlightenment has always taken the basic principle of myth to be anthropomorphism, the projection onto nature of subjective. In this view, the supernatural, spirits and demons, are mirror images of men who allow themselves to be frightened by natural phenomena. Myth turns into enlightenment, and nature into mere objectivity.
