Lit Theory - Horkheimer - Dialectic of Enlightenment

Horkheimer, Max and Theodore w. Adorno

1.      From Dialectic of Enlightenment

a.     The notion that there is cultural chaos is nullified as everything is becoming the same.

                                               i.     Media tends to be uniform amongst the whole.

                                             ii.     The presentation of politics is the same as through “enthusiastic obedience.”

                                            iii.     Industry and architecture are looking alike.

                                            iv.     Housing is becoming the same and the people are becoming more tethered to their adversary – capitalism.

b.     People are given a false understanding and identity of society and the individual, the macro and the micro.

                                               i.     The elite are no longer trying to hide their monopolies.

                                             ii.     The media no longer pretends to be art.

1.     What they promote as ‘just business’ is rhetoric for justifying rubbish.

c.     Because everybody participates in the same technology, then their needs and products are the same, which justifies mass reproduction and distribution.

                                               i.     We accept it with little resistance.

d.     No one talks about who controls technology controls the economic base and power over society.

                                               i.     We have become listeners where the authoritative subjects us to broadcast programs that are all the same.

                                             ii.     Workers are part of the industrial system and don’t criticize it.

e.     The world is made to pass through the filter of culture industry.

                                               i.     Real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies.

                                             ii.     No room is left for imagination.

                                            iii.     One must stay with the story and therefore movie reality is shoved onto personal reality.

                                            iv.     Reproduction is surpassing individual expression.

f.      Aesthetic style is equivalent of domination.

                                               i.     Art no longer reflects social structures and the sufferings of the artists producing it.  The negative truth and the imperfections.

                                             ii.     Culture defines culture.  It contains the mode of thought on which new ideas are thought about and accepted by society.

                                            iii.     The culture industry relies on similarity with others, or their identity, not the individual and self-negation.

g.     The culture business is based on entertainment 1116.

                                               i.     The culture business identifies with its manufactured need.

                                             ii.     Amusement is sought after work and infiltrates men’s leisure.

                                            iii.     Amusement becomes boredom.

                                            iv.     To remain pleasure, it must not demand anything of the viewer including independent thinking.

h.     Does the culture industry meet its own claim of diverting minds.

                                               i.     If media were shut down, the consumer wouldn’t lose much.

                                             ii.     “The idea of ‘fully exploiting’ available technical resources and the facilities for aesthetic mass consumption is part o the economic system which refuses to exploit resources to abolish hunger.”

                                            iii.     It doesn’t add anything to someone’s life, just shows someone what they don’t have.

i.      Laughter.

                                               i.     Laughter occurs when some fear passes.  It indicates escape from danger or escape from logic.

                                             ii.     Conciliatory laughter is heard from the escape from power, the echo of power as something inescapable.

                                            iii.     Media makes laughter fake and devoid of humor.

                                            iv.     Laughing becomes a parody of humanity and occurs through signals rather than real mirth.

                                             v.     Jovial denial takes the place of the pain.

                                            vi.     Short summary – the entertainment industry doesn’t offer anything and degrades people by moving laughter to moments of amusement, at best.  People want the moments of amusement to escape the drudgery of their lives and become hooked on the entertainment.

j.      Power begets power and the culture industry is power.

                                               i.     Pleasure means not to think about anything.

                                             ii.     It is a form of helplessness.

                                            iii.     It is flight from reality.

                                            iv.     The freedom it offers is the freedom to think for yourself or from thought.

                                             v.     “The rate at which they are reduced to stupidity must not fall behind the rate at which their intelligence is increasing.”

                                            vi.     The culture industry has to keep promising more.  If it doesn’t it becomes quickly recognizable that it can’t really offer any meaningful explanation of life.

k.     People feel or know they are helpless in the system and this notion has to be accounted for.

                                               i.     It is why media rips off art.  Some semblance of deeper meaning, that ultimately, is false.

                                             ii.     The tragic film becomes an institution for moral improvement. 

                                            iii.     Society is full of desperate people and they become the prey.

                                            iv.     The ability to become more has been pushed out.

l.      The individual is an illusion and must conform to projected culture.

                                               i.     The self is falsely represented as natural.

                                             ii.     Individuality is based only on superficial appearances.

Works Cited

Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.  1046-1127. Print.