Dated March 1966 in Frankfurt am Main, this brief preface characterizes Dialectic of Enlightenment as a “fragment” of a larger, unfinished project. Work on the German text began as early as 1942 during World War II; it was conceived as an introduction to a broader theory of society and history developed under National Socialist rule, and its terminology and scope reflect those conditions. The book’s central aim is to demonstrate how tendencies within cultural progress invert it into its opposite, examined through U.S. social phenomena of the 1930s and 1940s.

The original preface, dedicated to Friedrich Pollock and dated May 1944 in Los Angeles, explains that the project’s central question is why humanity, rather than advancing toward a genuinely human existence, was descending into a new form of “barbarism.” The authors had originally planned to work within established academic disciplines—sociology, psychology, and epistemology—primarily by critiquing specialist theories, but this framework proved inadequate.

The authors state that the collapse of bourgeois civilization has raised doubts about both the methods of science and the purpose they serve. Fascism exploited the Enlightenment’s destructive tendencies with the assistance of experts who placed their knowledge at the service of power. Intellectuals can therefore no longer assume that their ideas or language are politically neutral: Even attempts at criticism may reproduce the values of the dominant culture. Where language does not enforce conformity directly, institutions such as film studio censorship and publishing systems step in to control which ideas can be expressed and circulated.

The central problem the authors sought to address was enlightenment’s self-destruction. They argue that freedom and enlightenment are inseparable concepts, yet enlightenment contains tendencies that reverse its liberating aims and produce new forms of irrationality and oppression. Enlightenment’s lapse into mythology stems from reason’s reluctance to question its own assumptions and confront uncomfortable truths. Although rising productivity improves material living standards, it gives the controlling classes a disproportionate advantage. Meanwhile, the constant flow of information and entertainment creates the appearance of a better-informed public while weakening people’s ability to think critically and independently.

A 1947 postscript states the text is essentially unchanged from the wartime version, except for the last thesis on antisemitism.

The chapter opens with a paradox: Enlightenment aims to liberate humanity from fear and establish mastery over nature, yet a fully enlightened world has produced catastrophe rather than freedom. Its central project is the “disenchantment” of the world, replacing myth and magic with systematic knowledge. Horkheimer and Adorno present Francis Bacon as a key figure in this development, as he equated knowledge with power. As a result, technology and practical control became more important than understanding, while knowledge increasingly served profit and the exploitation of nature more than human fulfillment.

Horkheimer and Adorno argue that, in rejecting animism—the belief that nature possesses spiritual life—enlightenment strips nature of intrinsic qualities, treating it as something that can be measured and controlled. Concepts are replaced with formulas, and anything that cannot be calculated is dismissed as irrational. This reduction of everything to a single, universal system makes all things appear interchangeable. A similar logic is also found in commodity exchange, which assigns different objects a comparable monetary value. 

The authors state that, before the Enlightenment, myth had already attempted to explain and organize the world. Meanwhile, although the Enlightenment ostensibly replaced the role of myth, it reverted to mythology. Mythical concepts such as fate and eternal repetition returned in the new form of the universal laws of nature. Society likewise imposes an abstract equality that appears fair while concealing continuing inequality and oppression. Just as classical philosophy reflected and legitimized its conditions of emergence, including slavery, scientific language now presents existing arrangements as neutral facts.

The chapter closes by insisting that this system of domination is not final. Although thought developed partly as a tool to control nature, it retains the possibility of criticizing the power from which it arose. Modern rulers increasingly justify their authority through mythic appeals to destiny, national purpose, and historical necessity. At the same time, people whose labor is less necessary to production are given roles that help preserve the existing system and make it appear indispensable. Genuine political action therefore depends on a critical theory that remembers the suffering and inequalities society encourages people to forget.

The authors argue that enlightenment can fulfill its promise of freedom only by relinquishing its desire to dominate nature and human beings. Bacon presented knowledge as a means of escaping nature’s control, but Horkheimer and Adorno assert that this apparent natural necessity also reflects human systems of power. Once this connection is recognized, knowledge can be turned toward challenging domination rather than reinforcing it. As things stand, enlightenment thinking remains at the service of the existing social order and functions as a form of systematic deception.