Enlightenment as Mass Deception

The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as mass Deception, in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.

 

In their writings on the Culture Industry Adorno and Horkheimer continued with the theories of Frankfurt School built on the concepts of Marx.  Their ideas can summarised in the terms “Mass deception” and “Social control”.  They introduce the notion that we are conditioned socially through a scientific approach to think rationally which is enabled and enforced by the large culture industry.

           

           Films, radio and magazines make up a system which

          is uniform as a whole and in every part. Even the

          aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their

          enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system (Adorno 1947).

Although there may appear to be many choices they are simply offering both sides of the same coin.  This uniformity functions by not allowing the potential for individual thinking to flourish.  This then in turn verifies the myth that any such individuality could exist at all.

For Adorno and Horkheimer their understanding of the culture industry comes in terms of one of my favourite topics ideology.  They suggest that a dominant ideology has emerged socially directly attributed to the capitalist movement, which has transformed “art” into a business and a commercialised product, “standardisation”.  This is a result of advances in the age of mechanical reproduction which has allowed practically everything to be viewed in the technological terms of Capitalism; industry, production and profit. Millions participate in culture so it was alleged that reproduction processes are necessary allowing identical needs to be met with identical products in many places, all requiring management, and organisation. (Adorno 1947).  This technological reasoning according to Adorno and Horkheimer is the reasoning of dominance;

                  
                No mention is made of the fact that the basis on which

                technology acquires power over society is the power of

                those whose economic hold over society is greatest. (…) 

                It is the coercive nature of society alienated from

                itself (Adorno & Horkheimer 1947).

Put in simple terms, their argument states that the content of popular culture is produced by processes that are equivalent to factory production. The magazines, radio, records, and films effectively lull the masses into passive, docile, dupes, basically a sucker!  They become accepting of a system that is actually oppressing them economically and socially creating a false consciousness with false needs which can then be fulfilled by the mass produced commodities further contributing to modern man’s alienation.

           The public is catered for with a hierarchical range of

          mass-produced products of varying quality, thus

          advancing the rule of complete quantification. Everybody

          must behave (as if spontaneously) in accordance with his

          previously determined and indexed level, and choose

          the category of mass product turned out for his

          type (Adorno & Horkheimer 1947).

The culture industry implants predetermined ideologies and messages with a view to socially condition and control the populace to obey the established order of the capitalist system.  Meanings are enforced by constant repetition programming the “helpless victims” subjected to it.  This is detrimental to the populace as any individual thinking is eclipsed in such a way as, “There is nothing left for the consumer to classify. Producers have done it or him”.    

                        

 

Arts offered by the cultural industry are rigid types which cyclically repeat their content. As they are ultimately constructed from interchangeable details, entertainment only appears to change. The ready made clichés we know so well are there only to fulfil their purpose in the overall plan.  This leads to a predictability or familiarity in the way certain films will unfold or a song will sound, leading us to feel “flattered” when our correct assumption is rewarded.  This according to Adorno and Horkheimer has;

                   has led to the predominance of the effect, the obvious

                 touch, and the technical detail over the work itself – which

                 once expressed an idea, but was liquidated together with

                 the idea (1947).

The "high" arts are given as a contrast, as they challenge us to cultivate our true needs: freedom, creativity, authenticity, critical thinking.  In the past we had dramas, narratives, books, poetry and paintings all requiring individual thought in order to understand and engage with them. Today’s mediums of popular culture do not require the same participation of individual thought.  A somewhat nostalgic look back to the Romantic period gives an idea of the kind of art Adorno and Horkheimer deem “high”, art as a vehicle for protest, individualism over structure.  The progress achieved by these “great bourgeois works of art” is now mocked by the “prearranged harmony” of the culture industry.  There is “no antithesis and no connection”.

The entire world has to pass through the “filter of the culture industry”.  Language, behaviour, even food items are all affected.  Real life can then become indistinguishable from the fictional;

               The more intensely and flawlessly techniques duplicate

              empirical objects, the easier it is today for the illusion to

              prevail that the outside world is the straightforward

              continuation of that presented on the screen.

No immediate thought response can be without losing the thread of the story.  They are designed so that “quickness visual observation, and experience” are needed to enjoy them but sustained thought is definitely not required so as not to miss “the relentless rush of facts”.

Adorno and Horkheimer claim there is no distinction between general and specific. Only a “caricature of style” is available, unlike the “genuine style of the past”. Mass culture excludes newness. It is a machine that continuously rotates the same point. Great works of art achieve self-negation, while popular art “inferior work” relies on similarity.  In becoming nothing but style it reveals its “secret”, obedience and conformity to the social hierarchy.  Any form can only survive by fitting in. Deviation from the norm is immediately noted.

So for Adorno and Horkheimer the culture industry is continually cheating consumers out of what it promises by endlessly prolonging the pleasure. The promise is in fact illusory.  By continuously exposing objects of desire, the home or workplace and attaching certain ideologies to them it is possible to control the way a person identifies themselves with respect to that desire and repress it or awaken it to whichever ends suits the dominant ideology.  Happiness is downgraded to laughter (in particular at others expense), love downgraded to romance, in today’s terms they would probably be of the view that laughter has been downgraded to cruelty and derision and romance to sex without feeling.  An industry whose lifeblood is advertising, every star is a product, the object to overpower the customer.  No need to think independently, just choose an ideology on offer then sit back and let the “product prescribe the reaction”.  

References

The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as mass Deception, in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Available from http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm.