Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (Cultural Memory in the Present)

by Max Horkheimer

However, the lawless Polyphemus is not simply the villain he appears to be according to the taboos of civilization and as the giant Goliath appears in the fables of enlightened childhood. In the meager domain in which his self-preservation has taken on orderly habits, he is not without redeeming traits. When he puts the young sheep and goats to their mothers’ udders, this practical action shows a concern for creaturely life itself, and the famous speech of the blinded Polyphemus in which he calls the leading ram his friend, asking whether it is the last to leave the cave because it is grieving for its master’s eye, has a power and poignancy equaled only at the highest point of the Odyssey, when the homecoming Odysseus is recognized by the old dog Argus—despite the appalling brutality with which the speech ends. The giant’s behavior has not yet been objectified as character.