ABSTRACT
Critical theory began in 1937 with the publication of Max Horkheimer's article titled "Traditional and Critical Theory". The National Socialists' seizure of power in Germany and Joseph Stalin's seizure of power in the Soviet Union raised doubts about whether the proletariat still bore the potential for transforming postliberal capitalism as the Marxist theory of revolution assumes. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer take something of a pessimistic turn in their thinking. Instrumental rationality provides the key for a critical theory of society. The main problem Horkheimer finds with Immanuel Kant's ethical formulation is that it opposes reason to happiness, universal interest to particular interest, freedom to instinctual motivation, and the individual to society. The concept of a multilayered personality has been used by the culture industry to snare the consumer as completely as possible in order to produce the intended effects through both surface and latent messages.
