The Enlightenment and "End of the Night"
In "Dialectic of Enlightenment", Horkheimer and Adorno describe how a society built upon a framework rationality can yet run amok. Scholars who experienced the monetary currency extremes of the Weimar Republic in Germany, and then witnessed the tragedies that soon followed, they were well-positioned for this task. Writers such as Ferdinand Celine in "Journey to the End of the Night" dramatized the dark irony of democratic republics plunged into war.
Similarly today, we may be interested in the lyrics to "The Doors" song, "End of the Night", which shows influence from both Celine and the much earlier writer, William Blake. Beginning with "Take the highway to the end of the night", the lyrics echo the directness of the American plunge into the nightmare of the Vietnam Police Action, which although even formally defined as merely policing and not a move for victory as in war, is colloquially known as the "Vietnam War".
Celine's "Journey to the End of the Night" highlights the difficulties and insights an individual, such as the protagonist of his book who is a surviving soldier of World War I action, may experience while in civilian society. Similarly, William Blake's poem, "Auguries of Innocence", notes, "Some are Born to sweet delight / Some are Born to Endless Night". It may be said that Celine himself fell into such darkness, perhaps driven mad by his wartime experiences. Nevertheless, no less than Alan Ginsberg of the literary group known as the Beat Poets, a large influence on Jim Morrison's writings, visited Celine in 1958 and wrote much of his inspirations from Celine.
A contemporaneous supporter of the American Enlightenment, the Englishman Blake seems to echo its Declaration's "pursuit of happiness" in, "Some are Born to sweet delight". In "Dreamer of the Day" by Kevin Coogan, we see how evil movements have been born out of frustration in the derailment of societies based on such ideals. Compounding this is the unawareness - so eloquently and definitively described in Herbert Marcuse's "One Dimensional Man" - of the greater world that those in "sweet delight" exist in, utterly magnified by the great scale of mass society to the automatic nature of driving fast on a highway to "the end of the night".
Is there an answer to the conundrum where the ideals of the intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment seemingly become endlessly thrown into various dark abysses? I am sure you can figure it out.
Similarly today, we may be interested in the lyrics to "The Doors" song, "End of the Night", which shows influence from both Celine and the much earlier writer, William Blake. Beginning with "Take the highway to the end of the night", the lyrics echo the directness of the American plunge into the nightmare of the Vietnam Police Action, which although even formally defined as merely policing and not a move for victory as in war, is colloquially known as the "Vietnam War".
Celine's "Journey to the End of the Night" highlights the difficulties and insights an individual, such as the protagonist of his book who is a surviving soldier of World War I action, may experience while in civilian society. Similarly, William Blake's poem, "Auguries of Innocence", notes, "Some are Born to sweet delight / Some are Born to Endless Night". It may be said that Celine himself fell into such darkness, perhaps driven mad by his wartime experiences. Nevertheless, no less than Alan Ginsberg of the literary group known as the Beat Poets, a large influence on Jim Morrison's writings, visited Celine in 1958 and wrote much of his inspirations from Celine.
A contemporaneous supporter of the American Enlightenment, the Englishman Blake seems to echo its Declaration's "pursuit of happiness" in, "Some are Born to sweet delight". In "Dreamer of the Day" by Kevin Coogan, we see how evil movements have been born out of frustration in the derailment of societies based on such ideals. Compounding this is the unawareness - so eloquently and definitively described in Herbert Marcuse's "One Dimensional Man" - of the greater world that those in "sweet delight" exist in, utterly magnified by the great scale of mass society to the automatic nature of driving fast on a highway to "the end of the night".
Is there an answer to the conundrum where the ideals of the intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment seemingly become endlessly thrown into various dark abysses? I am sure you can figure it out.
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