Adorno, the mystical and the Little Prince

I have been reading the work of the late Frankfurt Schule philosopher, Theodor Adorno, this week.

In his book 'Dialectic of Enlightenment' (written with Max Horkheimer) he makes an interesting point about how quickly, in 'modern' societies, rational progress can become irrational regress.

We fall into the trap of blind domination (domination of nature by human beings, domination of nature within human beings, the domination of human beings by other human beings). In a society where progress is held as the highest value, no matter what the cost, human beings, nature, and even the human self, are sacrificed.

Somehow, in our pursuit of enlightenment we become less and less enlightened and more and more totalitarian.

While Adorno would have appealed to the aesthetic (culture, the arts, philosophy), I would also appeal to the mystical and the spiritual. From Descartes, through Francis Bacon, to Isaac Newton, we seem to have lost touch with the sense of the sacred in creation (which includes both human and non-human creation).

Perhaps the Little Prince was on to something, “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”