Author: M. Farahi Tojegi
A Brief Overview of the Frankfurt School (Part 10)
Differences between Adorno’s view and Marx
Adorno not only rejects the false hope of intellectual liberation promised by the intellectualism, but also criticizes Marxism. Although Adorno’s views were both dialectical and materialist, he never believed in a workers’ revolution and rejected economic analysis and Marx’s theory. He was also critical of Marx’s historical perspective, but at the same time criticized the class consciousness of the bourgeoisie. Adorno, along with Horkheimer (Hork -hy-mer), believed in Marxism without a proletariat. Adorno believes that societies are moving towards integration and unitary governance, and he strongly criticizes this situation. Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny the many similarities between Adorno’s views and Marx’s. Marx’s theory lies at the heart of Adorno’s theory of the culture industry. Marx’s discussion of commodity fetishism is the basis for his theory that “cultural forms such as pop music can ensure the economic, political, and ideological dominance of capital.”
What led Adorno to develop the theory that money defines and governs social relations in capitalist societies is precisely what Marx said about the origins of commodity fetishism. Adorno has in fact extended Marx’s analysis of commodity fetishism and exchange to the realm of cultural goods, as he himself says: “Cultural goods are entirely situated In the world of consumer goods, produced for the market, and intended for the market.”
The Culture Industry, intellectualism as Mass Deception
Perhaps the publication of Adorno’s article with Horkheimer (Hork -hy-mer) in 1944, “The Culture Industry, intellectualism as Mass Deception,” later published as a book, was a turning point in the history of the Frankfurt School. In this article, Adorno sees the culture industries as a new branch of the information industry, such as radio, the press, and cinema, which are used to serve the interests of the owners of the industries. “Cinema and radio no longer need to pretend to be art. The fact that they are just a form of business becomes the prevailing ideology to justify the nonsense that cinema and radio deliberately produce. These media call themselves industries, and when the figures for the incomes of their managers are published, any doubts about the social utility of the finished products are removed.”
In his view, the result of these cultural industries is the production of addictive cultural products, the creation of wider commercial markets and political conformity. He considers mass culture to be the result of passive and captivating culture. In Adorno’s view, the world today and the future is a managed world and true freedom has been damaged by the development of rationality in society, which is the effective domination over nature, and the satisfaction and happiness of the individual are not realized in today’s world; rather, it is accompanied by the decline of human individuality in a historical process that manifests itself in three forms: the integration of human consciousness through guided communication, the trivialization of the character and quality of the individual in the transformation of forms of production, and the transformation in the psychological structure of man due to the integrated socialization of humans.
Adorno believes that the only reason why the culture industry can deal with individuality so successfully is that individuality has always reproduced the fragility of society. Elsewhere in The Culture Industry, he says: “Anyone who doubts the power of uniformity and repetition is a fool. The culture industry rejects protest against itself just as much as it rejects protest against the world that it impartially recreates.”
For Adorno, the culture industries, like the television networks that control modern culture, produce a mass culture that is directed, non-spontaneous, artificial, and unreal. He is concerned on the one hand about the falseness of this culture, and on the other hand, he criticizes its silencing, numbing, and oppressive effect on people. In his opinion, the modern world has reached the final stage of domination over individuals, and in fact, the control over individuals has become so complete that there is no longer any need for the deliberate action of leaders. This control has penetrated all aspects of the cultural world and, more importantly, the functioning of the minds of actors. Domination has reached such a complete stage that it no longer seems like domination at all; because it is thought that this domination not only does not harm the individual, but also makes it appear that the world is as it should be. It is no longer clear to actors what the world should be like. Adorno himself says: “By the help of the cultural industries, society does not allow people to imagine a world other than what it is. The confusion of consciousness has reached a stage where it is difficult to make people aware of this confusion of consciousness.” According to Adorno, the culture industry reflects the strengthening of commodity fetishism, the dominance of exchange value, and the growth of state-owned capitalism. This industry shapes the tastes and preferences of the masses and thus organizes the people unconsciously by insinuating that unrealistic needs are desirable. Thus, this culture is used to ignore real needs with real ones, concepts with alternative and radical theories, and anti-state ways of thinking and behaving. This culture is so successful in this regard that people never realize what is happening.
Adorno, more than other theorists of mass culture, believes that this culture is imposed on the masses and forces them to accept it, in a way that they do not consider it an imposed culture. In response to the claims of those who consider contemporary mass culture to be relatively harmless entertainment and a democratic response to consumer demands, he emphasizes the emptiness and conformity of the people that the culture industry encourages. For him, this industry is a very destructive force, and to ignore its nature is to surrender to its ideology.
For Adorno, the ability of the culture industry to replace the consciousness of the masses is automatic and more or less complete. He says: “The success of this industry is to promote the weakness of the ego and the exploitation to which the weak members of contemporary society are condemned by the concentration of power. Their consciousness then expands even further. It is no coincidence that cynical American film producers seem to believe that their films should be aimed at the level of consciousness of eleven-year-olds. In this way, they tend to turn adults into eleven-year-olds.” This is why he sees art for the masses as the destruction of the dream.
In his view, the power of the culture industry lies in ensuring the dominance and continuity of capitalism and its ability to shape and create weak, dependent, passive, and servile recipients. Adorno believes that the entire world is made to pass through the sieve of the culture industry. Criticizing the uniformity and sameness of new media, he says: “Technical media are being ruthlessly pushed towards uniformity and sameness. Television aims to offer a combination of radio and film, and its limitations arise solely from the fact that the interested parties have not yet reached an agreement among themselves; But its consequences will certainly be enormous and auspicious, to the point of intensifying the poverty and lack of aesthetic expression to such an extent that in a short time the sameness of all the products of the culture industry can throw off its thin veil and triumphantly step onto the stage, ridiculing Wagner’s dream “the fusion of all the arts in one work of art”.
He mentions the culture industry as the hardest and driest of all styles, which has been the goal and end of liberalism, which itself is always blamed for its lack of style. Adorno considers the ideology of the culture industry activists to be a business. He believes that under the domination of private cultural monopoly, the tyranny of the body is left to itself and the attack is directed at the soul.
Regarding the role of entertainment and the media, Adorno believes that these two issues existed long before the culture industry came into being, but now these elements are directed and updated from above.
He says: “The culture industry is corrupt, not because it is a land of sin, but because it is a temple to high pleasure.”
Adorno emphasizes that due to the culture industry, entertainment itself has become an ideal, taking the place of higher things that it itself has deprived the masses of people of, and by repeating these things in a way even more clichéd than the slogans of advertising.
He describes the media, especially cinema, as a bloated machine for the production of pleasure that, despite its size, adds no dignity to human life. Stating that the culture industry constantly deceives its consumers about what it constantly promises, he emphasizes that the promise of achieving pleasure as a result of consuming the products of the culture industry is illusory, and what is not achieved is the real treat, like having to make do with the menu at a dinner party.
Adorno sees the culture industry as pornographic and soul-draining, unlike works of art, which he believes are ascetic and free from shame. Adorno refers to the paradise offered by the culture industry as the old hardship and misery, saying: “In every product of the culture industry, the permanent failure and deprivation imposed by civilization are once again clearly and definitively proven and applied to their victims.”
Human in the Thought of Theodor Adorno
Theodor (Wiesengrund) Adorno Born in 1903 in Frankfurt, Germany, died in 1969 in Brig, Switzerland. Fellow of the Institute for Social Research founded by Max Horkheimer (Hork -hy-mer) in Frankfurt. Emigrated to America in 1933 and returned to Germany in 1949. Until his retirement, he was Professor of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Frankfurt and Director of the Institute for Social Research. Adorno is one of the most influential founders of the “Frankfurt School.” Among his numerous works in philosophy, sociology, literature, and music, the most important are “Dialectics of intellectualism” (1947), which he co-authored with Horkheimer (Hork -hy-mer), as well as his major works of his later period, “Negative Dialectics” (1966 edition) and “The Theory of Aesthetics” (1970 edition), in the field of anthropology. His other work, “The Little Ethics” (1951 edition) and his short works on social criticism, such as “Manuscripts and Keywords”, are noteworthy.
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References:
- Batamour, Tom. The Frankfurt School. Translated by Hossein Ali Nozari. Nay Publishing House, 1997, Tehran, page 11.
- Ahmadi, Babak. Memories of Darkness: About Three Thinkers of the Frankfurt School. Tehran, Markaz Publishing House, 1997.
- Strinati, Dominic. An Introduction to the Theories of Popular Culture. Translated by Soraya Paknazar. Gam No Publications, first edition, 1990, Tehran, page 86.
- Azad Barmakki, Taghi. Sociological Theories. Soroush Publications, 1992, second edition, page 120.
- Horkheimer, Marx and Theodor Adorno. The Culture Industry, intellectualism as Mass Deception. Translated by Morad Farhadpour. Arghanun Quarterly, issue 18, fall 2000, page 36.
