The key object of Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis is ‘enlightenment’. As distinct from the common usage, the concept of ‘enlightenment’ has, for Adorno and Horkheimer, a very specific meaning that only partially relates to the likes of Descartes and Kant. Conventionally, in the recounting of Western political thought, enlightenment refers both to the historical period of the eighteenth century and to its concomitant advancement in knowledge and rational thought at the expense of old superstitions. Yet Adorno and Horkheimer instead seek to advance ‘two theses’ that seem entirely out of step with this interpretation: that ‘myth is already enlightenment; and enlightenment reverts to mythology’