Horkheimer And The Individual Relation Between Efficiency, Productivity

Horkheimer and the Individual
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The individual, and everything concerning the individual, have historically, sociologically, and philosophically considered as totally independent occurrences. There is autonomy in the definition and understanding of the individual self, and the choices made. The ability of a person to survive and assert himself through the social challenges is greatly determined by his or her ethical life conduct. Horkheimer tries to follow through the rise and decline of an individual amidst all these factors. He basically tried to illustrate how the efforts and endeavors of an individual are what really determine his or her progress, success, and productivity. He establishes the relationship between efficiency, productivity and the modern individual.
Horkheimer traces the path of the rise of an individual starting with the prelude. This is embodied in the ancient hero, and then goes to the Greek citizen, who is christened the ultimate measure of an individual’s excellence. This is then followed by the Christian individual, also known as the immortal soul. The rise is then completed by the independent entrepreneur, who is placed in the liberal era as indeed a prototype individual. In any typical life of an individual, there is always the struggle between the will to self-preservation and the preservation of the eternal soul. Most individuals, in order to establish some degree of normalcy in their lives out of these two struggles, opt to repress the fundamental instincts (Horkheimer, 2013).
The repression of such instincts essentially leads to loss of objective reason, which in turn results in a certain degree of loss when it comes to self-determination of humanity. To balance this inequality, the modern individual opts for programs that foster self-realization (Correa, 2017). When it comes to the independent entrepreneur, Horkheimer notes that this is practically where the individual develops the need for subjective reason and independent thought, for the purposes of safeguarding one’s property or business (Horkheimer, 2013). Serving the society’s interests then takeover, once an individual makes it to the higher echelons of entrepreneurship and modernity. However, to achieve the ends desired, the individual can combine both independent thought and other forms of expression as well as activities.
Horkheimer believes in the notion of individual suffering as the basis for his argument relating to self-realization in relation to social universality (Correa, 2017). He believes that the decline of an individual sets off due to the fact that in a fully functional economic system, success isn’t hinged on the ind...