IN their 1944 work on Critical Theory, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Frankfurt School thinkers Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) and Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) discuss the famous Greek myth of Odysseus and its wider significance. Odysseus, if you recall, is in command of a crew of sailors and both he and his men are returning home to the island of Ithaca from the Trojan War when their ship is suddenly approached by a group of winged creatures known as Sirens. Half-bird, half-female, these deceptive beasts sing a macabre song in an attempt to lure the sailors to their doom. In order to concentrate on their rowing, the men plug their ears with wax, whilst Odysseus ties himself to the mast to avoid being seduced by the semi-feminine wiles of these mysterious creatures.

Known for their ‘heretical’ Marxism, Horkheimer and Adorno posit the curious view that Odysseus is the first ‘bourgeois’ hero and that Homer’s myth represents a form of repressed sexuality and an attempt to fight against nature. That may well be the case, but the two German-Jewish ideologues go on to advance the theory that this display of self-denial essentially leads the men “all the more deeply into enslavement. Hence the course of European civilisation.”

Somehow, they argue, by resisting his natural urges Odysseus has been reduced “to the nodal point of conventional responses and modes of operation expected of him” and that his individuation took place “at the expense of individuality” itself. By domesticating nature, they argue, Odysseus thus begins the process which, in the contemporary world, has led to modern man’s domination of nature and therefore his own self-alienation.

I agree with their contention that Homer’s tale works in a similar way to that of the forcible suppression of human instinct that one finds in Judeo-Christianity, for example, but in many ways they are missing the point. The story of Odysseus serves a very useful purpose in that it makes an attempt to warn us of the disastrous consequences that would had befallen the men if they had succumbed to their wildest desires. Not the threat of eternal damnation that characterises the guilt-inducing morality of the Abrahamic religions, of course, but the very real and practical objective of ensuring that their vessel was not dashed upon the rocks. Horkheimer and Adorno are so obsessed with scuppering the notion of morality that they completely lose sight of the fact that this is a tale of survival.

Given that a number Frankfurt School ideologues had a penchant for licentious behaviour, their conclusions are inevitably centred on juxtaposing the perceived morality of Odysseus with their own endorsement of immorality. We must, however, make a crucial distinction between immorality and amorality. Whilst the former relates to living in a state of sin or acting in a wicked manner, the latter denotes a form of complete indifference to morality itself and that accords with my own position on the matter. As our Marxian duo remove the wax from their ears and cut the ropes that may well have saved them from impending doom, another Frankfurt School myth – once seduced by the sound of its own imperfect ideology – is sent to the bottom of the proverbial ocean.