[Marxism] Re: Re: Re: query on Horkheimer

[Henning Böke <Henning.Boeke@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Was Horkheimer's title in any way a reference to Wagner (Goetterdaemmerung)?
> Or to Nietzsche (Goetzen-Daemmerung)? I know that Adorno claimed that his
> book Versuch ueber Wagner (written in 1937-38, but not published until after
> the war) was significantly connected to Horkheimer's essay 'Egoismus und
> Freiheitbewegung: Zur Anthropologie des Buergerlich Zeitalters' published in
> 1936, but that is, I imagine, from a different collection?

First I must correct myself: Horkheimer uses "Dämmerung" (in the
first piece of the collection) in the double meaning of "twilight" as
"dusk" and "dawn", saying that the dusk of capitalism could lead to
the dawn of something new.  I guess the English volume was given the
title "Dawn and Decline" (the latter refering to the second
collection of notes from his later, "pessimistic" phase included in
the same volume) because it sounds better than "twilight and
decline", and "dawn" emphasizes the optimistic outlook of his early
texts.  "Dämmerung" is simply the metaphor for the dusk and dawn of
societies.  I think there is no connection to "Götterdämmerung" and
"Götzendämmerung", although Wagner and Nietzsche of course were part
of Horkheimer's education.  He published the "Dämmerung" collection
in Switzerland in 1933, adding a brief preface beginning with the
sober statement: "This book is outdated" (because the victory of
fascism had made obsolete many of his thoughts which nevertheless
remain interesting).

"Egoismus und Freiheitsbewegung" was published in Horkheimer's review
"Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung"--I do not know in which English
collection it is available.  Adorno's "Versuch über Wagner" (one of
the best books on Wagner) can be understood as a kind of variation of
"Egoismus und Freiheitsbewegung", because both writings deal with the
dialectics of bourgeois emancipation.  Horkheimer examines the early
bourgeois movements of the 16th century in which liberation from
feudal domination was interwoven with a new kind of self-domination;
Adorno focuses on the dialectics of progress and regression in Wagner.

Concerning Nietzsche:  Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were the main
sources of inspiration in Horkheimer's late philosophy.

Regards, Henning

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