The Frankfurt School (German: Frankfurter Schule) refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with

the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main. The school initially consisted of dissident Marxists who believed that some of Marx's followers had come to parrot a narrow selection of Marx's ideas, usually in defense of orthodox Communist parties. Meanwhile, many of these theorists experienced that traditional Marxist theory could not adequately explain the turbulent and unexpected development of capitalist societies in the twentieth century. Critical of both capitalism and Soviet socialism, their writings pointed to the possibility of an alternative path to social development.
[2] [1]

Following Marx, they were concerned by the conditions which allowed for social change and the establishment of rational institutions.
[5]

Their emphasis on the "critical" component of theory was derived significantly from

their attempt to overcome the limits of positivism, materialism and determinism by returning to Kant's critical philosophy and its successors in German idealism, principally Hegel's philosophy, with its emphasis on dialectic and contradiction as inherent properties of reality. The political turmoil of Germany's troubled interwar years greatly affected the School's development. Its thinkers were particularly influenced by the failure of the working-class revolution in Western Europe (precisely where Marx had predicted that a communist revolution would take place) and by the rise of Nazism in such an economically and technologically advanced nation as Germany. This led many of them to take up the task of choosing what parts of Marx's thought might serve to clarify contemporary social conditions which Marx himself had never seen. Another key influence also came from the publication in the 1930s of Marx's EconomicPhilosophical Manuscripts and The German Ideology, which showed the continuity with Hegelianism that underlay Marx's thought. As the growing influence of National Socialism became ever more threatening, its founders decided to prepare to move the Institute out of the country. [12] Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the Institute left Germany for Geneva, before moving to New York City in 1935, Early members of the Frankfurt School were: y y y y y y y Max Horkheimer Theodor W. Adorno Herbert Marcuse Friedrich Pollock Erich Fromm Otto Kirchheimer Leo Lwenthal

Franz Leopold Neumann

People who were associated with the Institute or its theorists include: y y y Siegfried Kracauer Alfred Sohn-Rethel Walter Benjamin

Critique, in this Marxian sense, meant taking the ideology of a society e.g. the belief in individual freedom or free market under capitalism and critiquing it by comparing it with the social reality of that very society e.g. social inequality and exploitation. The methodology on which Frankfurt School theorists grounded this critique came to be what had before been established by Hegel and Marx, namely the dialectical method.

Dialectical method Marx advanced his own theory of dialectical materialism, arguing that "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."
[25]

Marx's

theory follows a materialist law of history and space,[26] where the development of the productive forces is seen as the primary motive force for historical change, and according to which the social and material contradictions inherent to capitalism will inevitably lead to its negation, thereby replacing capitalism with a new rational form of society: communism.
[27]

Marx thus extensively relied on a form of dialectical analysis. This method to know the truth by uncovering the contradictions in presently predominant ideas and, by extension, in the social relations to which they are linked exposes the underlying struggle between opposing forces. For Marx, it is only by becoming aware of the dialectic of such opposing forces, in a struggle for power, that individuals can liberate themselves and change the existing social order.
[28]

The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main. The school initially consisted of dissident Marxists who believed that some of Marx's followers had come to parrot a narrow selection of Marx's ideas, usually in defense of orthodox Communist parties. Meanwhile, many of these theorists experienced that

traditional Marxist theory could not adequately explain the turbulent and unexpected development of capitalist societies in the twentieth century. Critical of both capitalism and Soviet socialism, their writings pointed to the possibility of an alternative path to social development. Their emphasis on the "critical" component of theory was derived significantly from their attempt to overcome the limits of positivism, materialism and determinism by returning to Kant's critical philosophy and its successors in German idealism, principally Hegel's philosophy, with its emphasis on dialectic and contradiction as inherent properties of reality. The political turmoil of Germany's troubled interwar years greatly affected the School's development. Its thinkers were particularly influenced by the failure of the working-class revolution in Western Europe (precisely where Marx had predicted that a communist revolution would take place) and by the rise of Nazism in such an economically and technologically advanced nation as Germany. This led many of them to take up the task of choosing what parts of Marx's thought might serve to clarify contemporary social conditions which Marx himself had never seen. As the growing influence of National Socialism became ever more threatening, its founders decided to prepare to move the Institute out of the country. [12] Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the Institute left Germany for Geneva, before moving to New York City in 1935 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School As Martin Jay tells the story, he makes clear that all this like minded intellectuals didn't want to be under a university fearing that , rather they have established a free in...

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Max Horkheimer Theodor W. Adorno Herbert Marcuse Friedrich Pollock Erich Fromm Otto Kirchheimer

y y

Leo Lwenthal Franz Leopold Neumann

People who were associated with the Institute or its theorists include: y y y Siegfried Kracauer Alfred Sohn-Rethel Walter Benjamin

Dialectical Materialism- Dialectical Imagination Marx advanced his own theory of dialectical materialism, arguing that "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." theory follows a materialist law of history and space,
[26] [25]

Marx's

where the development of the productive forces is

seen as the primary motive force for historical change, and according to which the social and material contradictions inherent to capitalism will inevitably lead to its negation, thereby replacing capitalism with a new rational form of society: communism

The theories and opinions of the German philosopher Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-1969) on popular music and the culture industry are still highly influential in the domain of media studies. His thoughts about these subjects were very critical, pessimistic even. Adorno analysed the workings of the culture industry in terms of "standardization" and used the concept of "pseudo-individualization" to describe its effects on the listeners. Culture industry is a term was argued in the chapter of their book Dialectic of Enlightenment, 'The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception'; that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods through film, radio and magazines to manipulate the masses into passivity; the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture make people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances. Frankfurt okulu Mass housing

Horkheimer and Adorno start their discussion with the sameness which can be traced in everyday things, from spiritless cities to trashes, from films to magazines. According to them, everything is the pieces of the well-organized unity that creates a false identity, so redound an absolute power to capitalism. As a capitalistic tool, mass media, or in Horkheimer s and Adorno s words, The Culture Industry , is the monopoly as its violence becomes more open, so its power grows and also it creates imagined needs in the favour of selling its rubbish products like films and music. These products had to be art, but with the technological rationalism and standardization became spiritless and empty. With these products, the culture monopolies which are also the powerful sectors of industry, controls the individual consciousness and alienate the society from itself. In capitals eye, every single person is customer who categorized by statistical researches, and expected to behave according to his or her category which has prespecified quality mass produces products. According to Horkheimer and Adorno, the products are exactly the same of each other except their qualities and prices. They claim that these culture products are ready-made and very calculated even it is just a gag. This calculating commercialism explains the emergence of different genres in films or literature. As a result, the audience is left with no choice but to be unthinking and unreflective receivers everything is pre-classified by the production team, leaving nothing for the viewers to do. glme efekti (nur yorum) films & realism http://www.magic.org/store/images/1ApplauseCard.gif

The same impulses produce predictability and standardisation - cultural clichs whose details are interchangeable, standard plots as in soap operas, and a range of special characteristic effects. The calculated experiences leave no space for imagination or reflection; even real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies since individuals impersonate the movie stars. The sameness, the unity of style, is encouraging for meet with approval at first sight. Everything is made subservient to the needs of mechanical reproduction. This includes the lovingly detailed and assiduous construction of stereotypes, elvis and the tremendous specialized detail that goes into matters such as designing sets, or making costumes. Everything must be measurable, calculable, and ultimately described by everyday language, just 'as in logical positivism' (p. 129). This sort of commercial culture serves as a kind of template, reducing and incorporating all pre-modern forms and pre-existing artistic traditions. It simply appears as 'natural'. Occasionally, of course the industry requires novelty, so directors such as Orson Welles

Welles filmi kareleri

are allowed to experiment with the conventions of film, but this only confirms the naturalness of the conventional categories. Also, there are sometimes conflicts between organisations in the culture industry, disputes over censorship, for example, but again there is a deeper consensus on the apparatus to be used to manage culture. There are to be no serious aesthetic tensions, nothing to grasp or to mediate, everything is flattened out. Indeed, the culture industry loses its ability to handle opposition or genuine tension, and is unable to test its style against serious challenge, in this way, the development of a style negates style itself, in Adorno's and Horkheimer's words (pages 129-130). The test of a real tension is found in something that is completely discrepant in terms of what exists in the tradition. The styles of the past, which were never that systematic but stem from genuine artistic impulses and tensions between passion, suffering and Scream - munch domination, have been incorporated into these general systems. This systematization is misleading and allows the culture industry to represent itself as something which is genuinely universal. In this way, the old problems that dominated artistic style have been 'solved'. In the culture industry this imitation becomes absolute. Having ceased to be anything but style, it reveals the latter s secret: obedience to the social hierarchy. (...) And so the culture industry, the most rigid of all styles, proves to be goal of liberalism, which is reproached for its lack of style (p.131) and also create a cultural lag, especially in America; Intellect and creativity left some degree of independence and enabled its last representatives to exist in Europe, especially in Germany due to Nazism (p. 132). Bauhaus Capitals are the new dictators of our era, but there is a difference between the ex-dictators, they create an illusion of freedom, a myth of success, so can dictate to us without intuit by standardized, liberal taste product. Even the cartoons, were once exponents of fantasy, teach how you will punish if you rebel as an individual and there is no escape from the victory of technical reason. Also the culture industry is cheating its customers, can never deliver real pleasure or engagement, but continues to sound prolonged promises, endless repetitions, and the disappointments of realism. Only a 'phoney catharsis' is on offer as the gap shrinks between culture and the boredom of everyday life. Catharsis

At best, it offers pornography and prudishness, nervous or masochistic laughter instead of proper happiness, the mechanical reproduction of beauty and idolization of individuality; Marlyn monroe ethos downgraded to shallow representations. The culture industry keeps away its costumers from everything which deals with intellectuality, even nave pleasure. Controlled amusements, which are ruined by business issues and became ideological clichs of a culture in the process of self liquidation, copied and served. The culture industry is controlling and limiting real needs. The function of pleasure is always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even where it is shown. The culture industry leads the flight from resistance, from thoughts and negation (p. 144). The culture industry conceals the social inequalities, it holds out the promise of individual achievement, lies to customers that all have equal chance to achieve. Nevertheless success is seen as a matter of winning a prize, and no longer as a reward for hard work, anyone can be a star. Warhol quotation 15 dk

This old narcissistic appeal is a powerful theme in the success of fascism as well (p. 146). The joke from Hitler s Germany, No one must go hungry or thirsty; if anyone does, he s for the concentration camp! is an indicator of the system s rules: if someone is unsuccessful, he is an outsider, and must be punished should be in a concentration camp since they are useless for the managers of the economy. However, they are not forgotten by the culture industry, they are used as deterrent examples for who wants to rebel; the tragic film becomes an institution for moral improvement (p. 152). Tragedy made into a carefully calculated and accepted aspect of the world is a blessing (p. 151). Tragedy is reduced to the threat to destroy anyone who does not cooperate, whereas its paradoxical significance once lay in a hopeless resistance to mythic destiny. Tragic fate becomes just punishment (p. 152). Toplama kamp night and fog-film A pseudo-individuality is encouraged, a matter of 'individualized' additional detail which of course does not prevent absorption into the generality. Of course, bourgeois individuality paved the way here, with his notion of the competitive individual triumphing by submitting to the market. In the culture industry the average becomes heroic, and individuals find their individuality in vicarious participation. Experience itself is now openly admitted to be a commodity (p. 157). According to Adorno and Horkheimer, pseudo-individuality is the way that the culture industry assembled products that made claims to originality but which when examined more critically, they exhibit little more than superficial differences. "The defiant reserve or elegant appearance of the individual on show is mass-produced like Yale-locks, whose only difference can be measured in fractions of millimeters" (p. 154).

Until the eighteenth century, buyers protect the artists from market; it depends on the objective of buyer. Great modern work of art becomes purposelessness because of the anonymity of the market (p.157). The principle of idealistic aesthetic is purposefulness without a purpose, however bourgeois art conforms socially, which is purposelessness for the purposes declared by the market. The work of art is assimilating itself according to need. Use value in the reception of the cultural commodities is replaced by exchanging value; there are gallery visiting instead of enjoyment, experts instead of prestige seeker. The use value of art is treated as a fetish, and the fetish, the work s social rating becomes its use value. The commodity function of art disappear when no longer be an industrial product. There is a chain between automobile and soap manufacturers whose payments support radio stations so, sales of electrical industry is increased; the part of the manufacturers the radio set. The radio is the voice of the nation. Fhrer used radio properly in order to transfer his ideas to public. Radio becomes a tool for Fhrer and his voice rises everywhere and it is a kind of modern propaganda. The speech penetrates everywhere and it becomes like music and the speaker s false commandment becomes absolute to listener (p.159). Today culture industry uses works of art like political slogans and forces them in order to reduced prices to become accessible for public enjoyment as a park. However the genuine character of commodity is disappearing. In the culture industry criticism and respect disappear and the consumers now find nothing expensive. The symphony becomes a reward for listening to the radio and the film would be would be delivered to houses as what happens with the radio. However Fascism wants to use and train the culture industry with these receptions in order to organize them into its own supporter (p.161). Advertising is informing the buyer the market, it helps to make choice easier and promote the goods. The cost of the advertisement is extreme and should flow back. In the wartime goods are still advertised even if they cannot find, the reason of that is keeping industrial power in the front. The rooftops of huge buildings are used for floodlit stone advertisements and they seem monumental. However nineteen-century houses used as a consumption commodity to be lived in and they covered with posters from the ground to the roof so they become only backgrounds for billboards. American magazines advertising the great man with his life and habits and so this will bring him new fans. Advertising and culture industry merge economically and technically, mechanical repetition of the same culture product come to be the same as the propaganda slogan (p.163). The language which one speaks and makes own contribution to culture as propaganda. The word become only a sign without any meaning, and fixed like formula. It treats as an abstract and away from reality. A left half at football, a black shirt, a member of the Hitler Youth is no more than names. Also names used as advertising trade-marks like film stars surnames become their first names. In contrast bourgeois family names individualized with their past history instead of being trade-mark. When the German Fascists say intolerable over the loudspeakers the next day all the nation say the same word. They make the word familiar to the nation and its spread blindly and rapidly (p.165). In the conversation, the choice of the words are related the

inner life and depth psychology, similar to the model served up by the culture industry. Consumers feel forced to buy and use the culture industry products and this is the conquest of advertising in the culture industry (p.167).