In this video I look at the second part of Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment on the Culture Industry.
They write, ‘culture today is infecting everything with sameness. Film, radio, and magazines forms a system. Each branch of culture is unanimous within itself and all are unanimous together. Even the aesthetic manifestations of political opposites proclaim the same inflexible rhythm. The decorative administrative and exhibition buildings of industry differ little between authoritarian and other countries.’
For all of the Critical Theorists of the Frankfurt School, the individual lives in a world dominated by highly concentrated capital. The critique has more flexibility that orthodox Marxism, but the emphasis is the same: the drugs that save our lives, the manufacturing plants that build our products, the routine of the worker and the consumer, are dominated by the profit motive and the power of capital.
The culture industry is no exception:
‘All mass culture under monopoly is identical.’
They say that the defenders of the culture industry argue that they are driven by the demand of their customers: They demand cheap, reproducible products that can be accessed easily and everywhere.
The effect though is mass standardization: ‘Something is provided tor everyone so that no one can escape; differences are hammered home and propagated.’
They argue that the culture industry supports the tiring workday. Rather than think about their positions at the end of day, its much easier to switch off. To consume the same libidinal routines of enjoyment without considering the possibility of difficult change.
To be creative, to read something new, to follow a new plot, to take the time to enjoy completely new music is laborious.
The culture industry organizes free time in the same way capital organises work time. Everything is defined you without room for individual creativity and difference.
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Sources:
James Bradley, ‘Frankfurt views’, Radical Philosophy, vol. 13 (Spring 1975), pp. 39–40.
David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory
Simon Jarvis, Adorno: A Critical Introduction
Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment
James Schmidt, Language, Mythology and Enlightenment: Historical Notes on Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment
Credits:
Adorno and Horkheimer Photo –
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Jjshapiro at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 ([ Ссылка ])]
