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Adorno and Horkheimer About the culture industry Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer were two of the famous German philosophers that expressed their vies upon various philosophical subjects. Some of their views were accepted by their contemporaries other were not, but we are going to talk about the issues of culture industry and why these two great thinkers were so hostile to it. One of their major works in the field of philosophy was Dialectic of Enlightment in which they expressed their views upon the concepts of culture and modernity that are most important in this matter. Adorno's interpretation of modern culture can be evaluated as pessimism in its fullest extent.
And now we will look into the thoughts of Theodor W. Adorno, whose aim was in part to advance the Marxian project to an application of contemporary culture. Our argument is twofold: Firstly, that the works of Adorno must be read as an imperative cry for change; secondly, that Adorno's concern nonetheless was more that of a pessimistic interpretation than that of an optimistic action. The observant reader will notice that we fail to answer to what extent the thoughts of Adorno actually has led to change of any kind. The objection is sound.
We will namely to no degree claim to prove the link between theory and practice. On the contrary, it is our proposition that such a link can hardly be established at all on the explanatory level. In investigating Adorno's thoughts which is a more appropriate word than philosophy since Adorno probably nowhere claims to give birth to a new philosophy departed from all previous [ 1 ] we will look at his view of culture and modernity. Culture and modernity will not be dealt with separately, since they overlap, at least when it comes to understanding contemporary society.
Culture is the manifold expression of human activity in a given group or groups of people. It involves manners of production as well as ways of exchanging ideas. Modernity, then, is the general depiction of Western society and culture subsequent to the advent of advanced production methods and after the increase in mass communication, usually specified to the eighteenth century and onwards. It is reasonable that Adorno would agree on these general definitions; we see no need to elaborate on them further. An underlying framework of this paper is the role of change in philosophy, or the relationship between theory and practice.
This approach may very well provide a relatively exhaustive method to look at a certain philosophy, yet it also leaves behind some blind spots. The reader should be aware of this shortcoming. Adorno's view of modern culture was pessimistic from A to Z. He saw the progress of enlightenment as a calamity to mankind, not only on the outward, mechanic level, but also on the inward, intuitive level as well. This is the blunt way to summarize Adorno's interpretation of modernity.
The sophisticated way is not as simplistic since it will have to take into consideration various presuppositions and explanations, but it remains just as pessimistic. The main source to Adorno's interpretation of modernity is Dialectic of Enlightenment (1979 [ 1947 ]), which he composed together with Max Horkheimer during the Frankfurt schools American exile. The significance of the work lies in its demand that all parts of modern culture are unconsciously penetrated by the self-destruction of the Enlightenment (p. xiii).
Adorno did not tone down these thoughts later in his academic writings; rather, he reinforced them. In The schema of mass culture (1991), he paid particular attention to the collapse of the difference between culture and practical life (Bernstein, 1991) [ 2 ]. In Culture industry reconsidered (1991), he repeated that the total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment (p. 92) [ 3 ]. Hence, we may utilize Saussure an terms and in the name of Adorno doom the signified enlightenment ironic and false since the signifier (the enlightenment era) actually does not at all signify true information or freedom from deception [ 4 ]. The same irony appears in the title The culture industry: enlightenment as mass deception, a significant chapter on modernity in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Therein lies the very core of Adorno and Horkheimer's argument.
The modern man should, according to Adorno (1979), be viewed as having a fallen nature (p. xiv). This fallen nature appeared through all of modern culture: in the means of production, in mans thought, in society's superstructure, in the trace of history. Enlightenment rendered no room for reason in its redeeming sense. A substantial part of Adorno's critical theory was built on his notion of the culture industry, which he claimed to be a preferred term over mass culture since the latter falsely implies a culture that arises spontaneously from the masses themselves, the contemporary form of popular art (Adorno, 1991, p. 85). Adorno claimed that the whole and the parts of the modern world have no choice but to conform to the culture industry: The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1979, p. 126).
Thus, monopoly and sameness contained to Adorno some important features of the culture industry. Adorno claimed that what enlightenment was expected to bring about, pluralism and demythologization, turned out to be the contrary. Man is subject to conformity rather than choice, and myth is still a predominant guiding force, though it has taken on a different costume than previous ages all-absorbing Christianity. The important, underlying assumption that Adorno makes here is that all these things take place on the unconscious level. Man thinks he is free, but he is not. Freedom to choose an ideology since ideology always reflects economic coercion everywhere proves to be freedom to choose what is always the same (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1979, pp. 166167).
If someone wants to object to the preset order of the culture industry, the only way is through realistic dissidence, which is in reality not a threat to the industry but rather a reinforcement (p. 132). The cultural chaos of enlightenment was to Adorno and Horkheimer a result of the power of capitalism. Their ideas in this respect clearly owe a great deal to Marx. Culture was not any more a product of mans creative mind, but of the standardized, uniform mechanisms put forth by large international financial concerns. The result was the circle of manipulation and a society alienated from itself" (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1979, p. 121). The motive of the culture industry is questioned in a number of Adorno's writings, and the assumption remains that the industry is interested in people merely as costumers people become objects and surrender to the overall driving force of capitalism.
One last important characteristic of Adorno's view of modernity and culture is his thorough disbelief in progress. The trajectory of modern history is unequivocally making its way to the worse. What gave rise to a certain protest against the establishment from Romanticism to Expressionism is no longer appreciated or acknowledged. A keen art critic, Adorno gave several examples to prove his point in this regard.
Broad attention was given to the field of music, where jazz in particular became the materialized representation of how enlightenment deteriorates [ 5 ]. We are then left with three characteristics, which summarize Adorno's view of modernity: a mankind with a collectively corrupted mind, an industry with exploitative motives, and a history with a collapsing progress. The natural way to read Adorno in these matters is that he was careful to provide a thorough interpretation of modern culture and all its shortcomings. The next step would then be to look for proposals for change, be it on the theoretical or the practical level. But Adorno never got there. He was stuck in his pessimistic interpretations, his subjectivism explanations, and his anti-revolutionary nihilism.
Adorno's ever-present condemnation (implicit or explicit) of capitalism as the driving force in a society on its way towards increased suppression was certainly in line with traditional Marxist thought. It is here enough to refer to Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1979): Whereas today in material production the mechanism of supply and demand is disintegrating, in the superstructure it still operates as a check in the rulers favor (p. 133). Adding to the similarities between Adorno and Marx, we immediately recognize two traditional Marxist concepts, superstructure and ruler. Throughout Adorno's works it is clear that he adopted a certain Marxist terminology, especially when it came to explaining the relationship between the means of production and owners / subordinates . Steven Best and Douglas Kellner (1991) note that the critical theorists Adorno included employed Marxist categories such as commodification, exchange, reification, and fetishism to analyze social phenomena and to describe new forms of capitalist domination. Socioeconomic factors were also used by Adorno to explain the emergence of Nazism, as argued by Deborah Cook (1995).
Thus Adorno and the rest of the Frankfurt school brought further Marx's interpretation of society to give it a 20 th century validity. In so doing, they utilized a significant feature of Marx: contextualization. By this we mean the preference to explain incidents with regard to their historical and social context. In their critique of modernity, Adorno and Horkheimer (1979) accused the ruling class of putting the historical context in a dim light: the official apologists who have other concerns liquidate the history that helped them to their place in the sun, before it can prostitute itself (p. xii). They here seem to be concordant with a major concern of traditional Marxism.
Nevertheless, Adorno has been widely accused of treating history too superficially (Meszaros, 1989). Notably still, Adorno was highly critical of the structuralism view of society for its indifference to historical theory, as pointed out by Alfred Schmidt (1983). Also supporting Adorno's connection with some branches of Marxist thought not all is his critical view of enlightenment reason and industrial progression. Adorno was in this regard more critical than most other members of the Frankfurt school, and certainly more critical than the master of the Schools second generation, Jorgen Habermas. Adorno maintained that social reality turns into irrationality, and that enlightenment reason becomes totalitarian, whereas Habermas (1987) claimed that reason is in actuality the tool that can overthrow the suppressive forces of the modern world. The critical approach to modernity remains however viable, and is indeed the feature that gave the critical theory its name.
For Adorno, mans increased control over nature brought no necessary progress in human emancipation (p. 81). Adorno's deviation from Marx can also be seen in the lack of a coherent Marxist terminology. We have already pointed out that Adorno to a certain extent inherited Marxist concepts to interpret the trajectory of modern society; however, the absence of such concepts is all the more striking, particularly when it comes to the phase beyond mere interpretation of society. Meszaros (1989) observes that Adorno avoided the category of a combative / emancipatory social class and the idea of non-repressive but reciprocal-commitment-demanding collectivity (p. 99). Meszaros goes on to show that Adorno had to exchange classical Marxist words capitalism and classes with modernity and masses, arguably resulting in Adorno [emptying the words of their] critical content (p. 101). The support of such an interpretation of Adorno on the base of Dialectic of Enlightenment is obvious.
We are now ready to make some critical comments on the matter of the notion of change, which was so important to Adorno and Horkheimer in their views upon the culture industry. Adorno's analysis suggested that the historical process had expelled freedom while the hegemony of instrumental reason threatened subjectivity. Thus the goal of critical thinking was for him to project freedom in a new and redemptive form. Adorno's problem was that he never successfully achieved this goal, as we will now argue.
We will first list the major presuppositions that inevitably resulted in his pessimism, and then critically assess his overall theory. Logically, Adorno's schema of modernity could not render any possibility for revolutionary change in the classical Marxist sense. Marx's dialectical method was in its final stage highly dependent on the willingness of the masses (in Marxian terminology: workers) to overthrow the ruling class. In Adorno's view, the masses were absolutely incapable of triggering the gun since their thoughts were corrupted to pass through the filter of the culture industry (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1979, p. 126). Moreover, reason, which was both to Marx and Adorno a pivotal factor to any true revolutionary movement, was in Adorno's opinion equally deteriorated and had lost its ability to equip people with a critical mindset. It is therefore no surprise that revolution, not to mention a grassroots revolution, became absurd to Adorno.
Adorno's anti-Marxian theory of change can also be partly explained through a query of his philosophical aim. In classical Marxism, the aim was to develop a philosophy that linked theory and practice in order that the suppressed masses ultimately could reach a stage where individual freedom and equality were predominant. The end goal became the starting-point of classical Marxism, so to speak. Adorno's starting-point was quite the other. He began with the diagnosis and defined the goal in the second place (which in fact led him to never defining a clear goal).
Since change can take place in the form of action as well as reaction, we may even conceive a situation where Marx's praxis-oriented theory leads to stability whereas Adorno's standstill-oriented theory leads to change. With this argument in mind, it is interesting to observe that several critics maintain that Adorno has no political significance in contemporary world. The argument is usually built on the presupposition that prosperous politics is more concerned with action than with thought. To conclude we may state that an ideology or a theory may very well be of absolute necessity for an incident to occur, but to trace the link between the two causes difficulties.
It is therefore rather easy to cite a theory's agenda for how societal change can be enforced, but it is more difficult to prove that the proposed change actually takes place because of the theory. Should such a proof be satisfactory, it would have to take into account the whole complexity of human and technical interactions, be it on individual, community, national, or international level. The implication here is that Adorno's dialectical theory may lead to substantial changes in society, regardless of anyones ability to trace the source. Notes: Indeed, Buck-Morass (1977) contends that there is something false about speaking about Adorno's theories. Her argument is that Adorno never developed any full theory at all, just as he had no concept of history (p. 185).
The Schema of Mass Culture (Adorno, 1991) contributes greatly to the debate of Adorno as an alleged forerunner of postmodern ideas. The subject is thoroughly discussed by Best and Kellner (1991), who contend that Adorno was much closer to postmodern ideas than the other members of the Frankfurt school. Unfortunately, it seems that The Schema of Mass Culture was yet not available in English when Best and Kellner wrote their book. Horkheimer, however, apparently modified his opinion on some of the viewpoints expressed in Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1979). According to Meszaros, Horkheimer asked the publisher to depart from the original text when the book was to be published in Italian (Meszaros, 1989). Lenhardt (1977) correctly but simplified points out that Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1979) is about enlightenment in general rather than the philosophical tradition, which is named the Enlightenment.
However, it becomes clear throughout Adorno and Horkheimer's book that they use the two concepts somewhat interchangeably (yet with much more stress on the enlightenment era). The reader should therefore be careful not to build a critique solely on their use of these concepts. Several commentators criticize Adorno's use of music as a type of modern cultures conformity. Meszaros (1989) contends in this respect that Adorno's arbitrary statements were substantiated by nothing but equally arbitrary analogies (p. 93). Pointing to Adorno's extensive criticism of jazz, Meszaros (1989) deflates the very argument by proving that Adorno did not mention one single work of jazz in his reasoning. Bibliography: Adorno, T.
W. (1973). Negative dialectics. New York: The Seabury Press. Adorno, T. , & Horkheimer, M. (1979). Dialectic of enlightenment. London: Verso.
Adorno, T. (1984). Aesthetic theory. London: Routledge. Adorno, T. W. (1991). The culture industry.
Selected essays on mass culture. London: Routledge. Agger, B. (1977). On happiness and the damaged life.
In J. ONeill (Ed. ), On critical theory (pp. 2133). London: Heinemann. Anderson, P. (1976).
Considerations on Western Marxism. London: NLB. Anderson, P. (1988). In the tracks of historical materialism. London: Verso.
Bennett, T. (1982). Theories of the media, theories of society. In T. Bennett, J. Curran, M.
Gurevitch, & J. Woollacott (Eds. ), Culture, society and the media (pp. 3055). London: Routledge. Bernstein, J. M.
Introduction. (1991). In T. W. Adorno, The culture industry. Selected essays on mass culture (pp. 125). London: Routledge.
Best, S. , & Kellner, D. (1991). Postmodern theory. Critical interrogations. London: Macmillan.
Bronner, S. (1997). Dialectics at a standstill: a methodological inquiry into the philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno.
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