Terms to be Familiar With
-Fascism
-authoritarian government where individual interests considered inferior to state’s
-character of heightened nationalism (usually united through ethnicity or religion), military use
-examples: fascist Italy under Mussolini; Nazi Germany under Hitler
-maxim of “strength through unity”
-defined by Mussolini as “right winged, collectivist ideology”
-take the F test
-Enlightenment
-18th century; evolution in Philosophy that extolled rationality and natural sciences: “the age of reason”
-led to incredible influx in knowledge of rational world (ie: Isaac Newton)
-strong emphasis on linearity, rationality, freedom through knowledge
-Marxism
-emphasis on material conditions of people’s lives (ie: where they live, what they consume, culturally, etc) and how these material conditions affect their consciousness
-emphasis on class structure: denotes differing types of production and contribution to society, people become identified as such (defined by their material production and consumption); thought that major revolutions in history marked by struggle between classes
-sympathetic to lower class, the “proletariat”; constantly kept down and subordinated through their working conditions and job; requires emancipation and enlightenment in order to realize best interest of humanity
-thought socialism/communism was ideal state for this to occur
-socialism would be the socioeconomic system that arises after the proletarian revolution where the means of production are owned collectively. This society would then progress into communism (classless, stateless society based on shared production and wealth – anti-capitalist)
-Ideology
-broadly, means comprehensive vision, way of looking at things (ie: paradigm), but in critical sense refers to a set of ideas (subtley) proposed by the dominant class of society to all members of society
-largely implicit (vs. explicit): all politics have ideological tendencies (certain points of view, attempt to convince others implicitly to accept ideology through acceptance of explicit proposals)
-Hegemony
-dominance of one group over another not through force, but rather through consent of the subordinated groups, usually through ideological means
-ie: convincing people that’s what’s best for them (ie: war on terror – people consent to have privacy violated because have been convinced that it’s the best thing)
Frankfurt School
-Institute for Social Research: FS began here with Horkheimer as director in Frankfurt,
Germany
-group of thinkers (such as Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, etc) studied here under Horkheimer
-moved to NYC in 1933 due to growing influence of Nazis (many of members Jewish, or had theories that went against Nazi ideology); all were quite against authoritarian, fascist regimes (they were instead more of a Marxist orientation, and were critical of capitalism and top down control)
-often sought to explain why Fascism and later Nazism was able to happen
-in light of failure of lower class uprisings, sought to apply Marx’s critique of capitalism in new ways
-common concern in ability of capitalism to destroy the preconditions of critical, revolutionary political consciousness
-evolution of critical theory, with recognition of ideology as foundation of social structure, also critical of making universal claims or universal truths; thought that such claims only server to further elite’s self interest
-human subject swallowed up by emphasis on rationality, reduction to binaries, no room to think outside these boundaries, leaves no room for lower class revolution (based on enlightenment) as envisioned by Marx
Horkheimer and Adorno
-two key figures in Frankfurt School
-was a tremendous unease among many intellectuals as to the results of mass culture and mass production on the character of individuals within a nation
-attacked positivism in the social sciences and in philosophy. He was particularly harsh on approaches that claimed to be scientific and quantitative,
-both state that advanced capitalism has eradicated any chance at revolution and consequent evolution into socialism
Dialectic of Enlightenment
-evolution of scientific culture, reduction of everything to fact, consequent inability to assess relationships, anything irrational (emotion, sexuality)
-everything reduced to a binary (right or wrong, true or false) and leaves no room for alternative claims (status quo becomes only option)
-D of E thinks that anything that cannot be quantified is not worth paying attention to; not acknowledged as existing. Ie: subjectivity and collective action both abstract concepts and purely relational, no fixed value – so pushed out of consideration
-H and A feel that this sort of emphasis on pure rationality (making anything sound logical) was what lead to Fascism and Nazism
-in order to break through this, must dissolve boundaries, turn to art and more subjective fields (to have emancipation from hegemony and capitalism)
The Culture Industry (Adorno)
-that mass culture (particularly films, other entertainment media) give us the illusion of choice, but all really coming from the same place touting the same ideas in order to propagate the same thoughts
-goal of capitalism/corporations is to keep us happy and distracted, illusion of choice without leading us to question the structure
- Popular culture was identified as a reason why people become passive; the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture made people docile and content, no matter how terrible their economic circumstances.
-Adorno conceptualised this phenomenon as pseudo-individualization and the always-the-same.
-this docility and enjoyment of the “low arts” endangered status of high, or actually creative and artistic arts. (ie: Mona Lisa vs. Saw films)
- Culture industries cultivate false needs; that is, needs created and satisfied by capitalism. True needs, in contrast, are freedom, creativity, and genuine happiness.
Benjamin and Dispute with H & A
-Benjamin was also a member of the Frankfurt School and had similar ideals to H and A
-however, disagreed that mass culture was necessarily bad thing
-he saw the broad spectrum of public being opened up to forms of art and artistic enjoyment and entertainment, thought it could be empowering, discouraged strict distinction between high and low culture
Discussion about Culture Industry
Do you think that culture is mass produced in today’s society? What about in the music or film industry? Do you agree or disagree with Horkheimer and Adorno?
What do you make of the distinction between high and low/popular art? Do you think that a painting in the Louvre has more artistic value than a Madonna album? Why or why not?
