Identity Thinking:

Adorno coined the term "identity thinking" to refer to that form of thinking which is the most expressive philosophical manifestation of power and domination. Drawing a contrast between his own form of dialectical thinking and identity thinking, Adorno wrote that "dialectics seeks to say what something is, while identarian thinking says what something comes under, what it exemplifies or represents, and what, accordingly, it is not itself." (1990:149). A perfect example of identity thinking would be those forms of reasoning found within bureaucracies where individual human beings are assembled within different classes or categories. The bureaucracy can thus only be said to "know" any specific individual as an exemplar of the wider category to which that individual has been assigned. The sheer, unique specificity of the individual in question is thereby lost to view. One is liable to being treated as a number, and not as a unique person. Thus, Adorno condemns identity thinking as systematically and necessarily misrepresenting reality by means of the subsumption of specific phenomena under general, more abstract classificatory headings within which the phenomenal world is cognitively assembled. While this mode of representing reality may have the advantage of facilitating the manipulation of the material environment, it does so at the cost of failing to attend to the specificity of any given phenomenal entity; everything becomes a mere exemplar. One consequence of apprehending reality in this way is the elimination of qualities or properties that may inhere within any given object but which are conceptually excluded from view, so to speak, as a result of the imposition of a classificatory framework. In this way, identity thinking misrepresents its object. Adornoís understanding and use of the concept of identity thinking provides a veritable foundation for his philosophy and ultimately underlies much of his writing.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

from: http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/adorno.htm