Philosophy Adorno, The Culture Industry Theodor Adorno on Mass Culture, Society, Propaganda, Advertising The Culture Industry

y is a must-have text for those interested in political philosophy and cultural studies. Theodor Adorno is an established and credible thinker in these fields. Theodor Adorno's collection of essays, The Culture Industry, examines and critiques the existence of a new mass culture and society that has effectively stripped common discourse of its individualism, and of its intelligence. Ever the pessimist, Adorno argues vehemently that the new popular culture, a manufactured example of style over substance, is effective only in crafting complacent and easily led consumers, both in the financial and political sense. The Totality and Authority of Mass Culture and Society The totality of mass culture culminates in the demand that no one can be any different from itself The old slogan of bourgeois entertainment, 'But you must have seen this', which just represented a swindle in the market place becomes a matter of deadly seriousness Formerly the supposed penalty merely lay in not being able to participate in what everyone else was talking about. Today anyone who is incapable of talking in the prescribed fashion, that is of effortlessly reproducing the formulas, conventions, and judgements of mass culture as if they were his own, is threatened in his very existence, suspected of being an idiot or an intellectual People give their approval to mass culture because they know or suspect that this is where they are taught the mores they will surely need as their passport in a monopolized life. Who exactly won American Idol last night? If one does not know, or care to know, then they become more aberrant and eccentric in Adorno's conception of mass society. This is truly self-governance, in a sense, and the rise of the power of social convention amongst peers. No longer do the cultural elite need to hold the reigns of power and crack the whip when beasts might step out of line the wagon is now pulled by a willing, self-policing mass that is subtly directed by the teamster rather than openly forced into submission via the harsh bite of leather. The Internet and its myriad expressions speak to this possibility even more than the advents of television and radio might have the Internet creating a common global culture, instantly accessible from a cellular phone, laptop, or any computer to be found in nearly every room of the North American household. Cultural participation is simply an e-mail, a Google search, a Youtube music video, or a Facebook advertisement away, and we are inundated with it constantly. However, for Adorno, citizens are not the masters of this culture, we simply consume what is offered to us internalizing these cultural messages and mores as Truth. Cultural Monopoly, Advertising and the Cultural Buyer Curiosity is the enemy of the new which is not permitted to exist anyway This is ensured by the restriction of information to what the monopoly has supplied, to commodities, or to those people whose function in the business world has turned them into commodities. But if this were not enough, there is a

taboo against inaccurate information, a charge that can be invoked against any thought. The curiosity for information cannot be separated from the opinionated mentality of those who know it all. Today the curious individual becomes a nihilist. Anything that cannot be recognized, subsumed and verified he rejects as idiocy or ideology, as subjective in the derogatory sense. But what he already knows and can identify becomes valueless in the process, mere repetition, so much wasted time and money But this hopeless figure of curiosity is wholly determined by the monopoly. The attitude of the well-informed derives from that of the buyer who knows his way about the market. To this extent it is directly related to the advertising business. Adorno's statement that the attitude of the well-informed derives from that of the seasoned consumer is of importance in this passage. This statement does not simply apply to its most literal meaning it also extends to the consumption of cultural objects, in relation to the earlier quote above. The knowledgeable consumer is simply a well-trained and willing cultural consumer, one who lives within the framework provided to them by the cultural elite and who thrives on the rules of the game. Adorno's further example of the curious individual as a nihilist is worth considering. Have we become so reliant on mass culture as to form rigid categories exclusive sources of Truth and information? Is culture so wholly dominated that the curious individual cannot find any remnant of knowledge save for that which has been spun and manipulated before he might read it? Is this nihilistic and intrepid thinker bound for inevitable madness, poring over book after book containing the same pasteurized message? Agree or disagree with Theodor Adorno his work remains extremely influential and thought provoking in the context of an increasingly dominant and pervasive mass culture. Other Articles on Political Philosophy and Cultural Studies by Nicholas Morine