Ideas from Romantic philosophy experienced a resurgence of popularity in the first half of the 20th century, partly as a response to two world wars and a global economic depression. The notion that relying on reason and logic can prove destructive was advanced not only in philosophy, but also in mathematics and literature. Aldous Huxley wrote a bold illustration of this idea in his 1932 novel Brave New World. 15 years later, the philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno issued Dialectic of Enlightenment, an effective articulation of this argument. Both Horkheimer and Adorno were influenced by Huxley's book; it strongly supports their thesis.

    Horkheimer and Adorno hold that “myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts into mythology.” By that, they mean to criticize the Enlightenment idea that application of pure reason is the only means of acquiring understanding about the world (the enlightenment believes in reason like an ancient believes a myth). Like previous Romantic thinkers, they hold that rationality is incomplete by itself, and that when unaided, produces disastrous results (acting solely on mythological beliefs is dangerous). One example discussed in Dialectic of Enlightenment is the “culture industry”[1]. By pursuing a rational line of reasoning (art is valuable, therefore more access to art would be more valuable), it ends up cheapening culture (mass production of art, music, and other cultural products leads to a boring sameness of books, radio programming, films, etc.). Another example is the development of nuclear weaponry (which is not discussed by Horkheimer and Adorno; their discussion predates its introduction) – strict adherence to reason (scientific principles) led to the most dangerous and destructive end imaginable.

    This premise is illustrated by Huxley in Brave New World, especially in the next-to-last chapter. Mustapha Mond, “the Controller”, discusses the totalitarian nature of his civilization with John, ”the Savage” (who had previously lived on a reservation for the “uncivilized”), giving carefully reasoned responses to all of the arguments against it. The Savage challenges the Controller to explain how he can keep the masses ignorant of religious teachings. The Controller answers by claiming “'[We've] got youth and prosperity right up to the end. What follows? Evidently, that we can be independent of God.” The Savage, who cannot reasonably argue that youth and prosperity are undesirable, changes tactics, proposing that it is “natural” for humans to believe in God, suffer, and have passionate feelings. The Controller cuts down his argument, rightly claiming that his society has changed “nature” - humans in the brave new world, by their nature, don't believe in God, can take soma to alleviate suffering, and a monthly regimen of Violent Passion Surrogate adequately replaces passion. Out of reasonable counterarguments, the Savage has to resort to stating his feelings. He says that he wants freedom, goodness, and sin, and can only acquiesce when the Controller reminds him that this means he also wants the “right to be unhappy” [2, p. 177-184].

    The Savage, and presumably the reader, are unable to rationally argue that the automatic life the inhabitants of the brave new world lead is lacking. To do so would be to criticize freedom from “syphilis and cancer,” “[having] too little to eat,” and torture. The Savage claims he welcomes the right to be unhappy, and so might some readers, but this is an untenable position for most others – if given an opportunity to be threatened by disease, starvation, and torture, few of us would take it. Similarly, to criticize the highly technological birth process described in the first chapters of Brave New World, one must be willing to defend the idea that there is an acceptable, desirable number of birth defects, genetic diseases, and miscarriages. Claiming, like the Savage does, that the Deltas and Epsilons shouldn't solve their problems with soma or have their lives dictated by a World Controller (even though those things make them happy) is also untenable. By doing so, one implicitly states that (s)he knows what's good for them better than they do – exactly what the World Controller thinks. One might try to finesse this point, but ultimately, as the Controller says, “you've got to stick to one set of postulates” [2, p. 181].

    Just before Huxley wrote Brave  New World, Kurt Gödel proved that no obtainable set of postulates could provide the basis for a reasonable system that is both consistent and complete (in math, at least). Around the time Dialectic of Enlightenment was published, John Nash analyzed how a group of individuals acting rationally for their own interests can lead to detrimental effects on every individual's interest. Criticism of Enlightenment ideals had lots of support during this period. By showing how pursuing solely rational lines of thought leads to destructive ends, Brave New World supports Horkheimer's and Adorno's views – it even provides an example of  enlightenment degenerating into mythology: technology has led to efficient assembly line production, but Henry Ford is worshiped like a god.

Endnotes
1. The original papers are difficult to find, but a Google search reveals information on Adorno's critiques of Huxley's work.

2. See, e.g.,<http://cs.umaine.edu/~chaitin/turin.html>for a brief illustration of Gödel's and Turing's mathematical formulation of the “limits of reason,” or Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid for a very thorough guide to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. Hofstadter builds up a system of logic, then uses Gödel's method to use the system to prove its own incompleteness or inconsistency. Although it is discussing the natural numbers, the idea is the same as Adorno's and Horkheimer's: a system's strict adherence to reason leads to the destruction of the system.

3. The “Prisoner's Dilemma” is one example of this from game theory. See, e.g., <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma>.

References
1. David Harris. “Notes on Adorno T and Horkheimer, M.” <http://www.arasite.org/adhkdofe.htm> Retrieved 4 June 2007.

2. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World & Brave New World Revisited. New York: HarperPerennial, 1965.