Kültür Endüstrisi - Kültür Yönetimi

by Theodor W. Adorno, Elçin Gen (Translator), Nihat Ülner (Translator)

Adorno “Kültür Endüstrisi” kavramını Nazizm sona ererken ortaya atar (1944). Yıllar sonra bu kavrama geri dönerek “Kültür Endüstrisine Genel Bir Bakış” makalesini yazar (1963). Bu arada “Kültür ve Yönetim” üzerine düşüncelerini de yayınlamıştır (1960). Bu kitapta derlenen yukarıdaki üç yazı, gerek kültür kuramı, gerekse kültürel hayatın dönüşümü konusundaki eleştirel çalışmaların vazgeçilmez kaynaklarını oluşturur. 19. yüzyılda, Endüstri Devrimi'nin akılcılığına karşıt bir anlamda tanımlanan sanatın nasıl giderek maddi üretim süreçlerine ve onları yöneten akla yenik düştüğünü anlatırlar. Endüstriyel mantığın ve bürokratik işletme disiplinlerinin denetimine giren modern sanatın özerkliğini ve eleştirelliğini yitirmesini incelerler. Adorno'nun düşüncelerinin ufkunda, kültür ve sanat yönetiminin zamanımızdaki baş döndürücü yükselişini izleriz. Adorno kültür endüstrisinin gidişatını da, yol açtığı tehdidi de açıkça görmüştür. En kötümser tahminlerinin zamanla gerçekleşmesi, kültür endüstrisi üzerine yazdıklarının, rahatsız edici de olsa, ne kadar çağdaş olduğunu gösterir. J.M. Bernstein Kapak: Andy Warhol, Marilyn (detay), 1967.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Sociology, Theory, Art, Politics, Cultural

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II. Although less well known among anglophone philosophers than his contemporary Hans-Georg Gadamer, Adorno had even greater influence on scholars and intellectuals in postwar Germany. In the 1960s he was the most prominent challenger to both Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science and Martin Heidegger's philosophy of existence. Jürgen Habermas, Germany's foremost social philosopher after 1970, was Adorno's student and assistant. The scope of Adorno's influence stems from the interdisciplinary character of his research and of the Frankfurt School to which he belonged. It also stems from the thoroughness with which he examined Western philosophical traditions, especially from Kant onward, and the radicalness to his critique of contemporary Western society. He was a seminal social philosopher and a leading member of the first generation of Critical Theory.

Unreliable translations hampered the initial reception of Adorno's published work in English speaking countries. Since the 1990s, however, better translations have appeared, along with newly translated lectures and other posthumous works that are still being published. These materials not only facilitate an emerging assessment of his work in epistemology and ethics but also strengthen an already advanced reception of his work in aesthetics and cultural theory.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a short Youtube video capturing the spirit of Theodor W. Adorno's The Culture Industry. Such a clear synopsis of his philosophy, I wanted to include as part of my review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YGnP...

You will be hard pressed to find a more scathing, uncompromising indictment of popular culture than The Culture Industry, Selected Essays on Mass Culture by Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969). An accomplished classical pianist, composer and musicologist (he was a friend of composer Arnold Schoenberg) as well as a philosopher and sociologist with a razor-sharp mind, Adorno loathed how commercial interests standardize artistic and aesthetic enjoyment by pressing low-level conformity on an entire population for the purpose of maximizing sales and profits.

There are nine essays in this collection, covering such topics as music, film and television. Adorno's writing style can be a bit dense; if you decide to tackle these essays be prepared to spend some time rereading many sections carefully.

Additionally, one Goodreads friend said reading Adorno is like drinking vinegar. I completely agree: the majority of the ideas presented have a taste most bitter. This being said, in order to share some Adorno vinegar, below are my modest comments coupled with several quotes from an essay on a subject I'm sure is near and dear to all of us: Free Time.

"Free time depends on the totality of social conditions which continues to hold people under its spell. Neither in their work nor in their consciousness do people dispose of genuine freedom over themselves. . . . even where the hold of the spell (of social conditions, especially work) is relaxed, and people are at least subjectively convinced that they are acting of their own free will, this will itself is shaped by the very same forces which they are seeking to escape in their hours without work."

After years of training in Jersy Grotowski-style physical theater, an extreme and demanding method to free one's body, I took an improvisational acting class where a number of students were office workers. I could instantly see how, although these students were engaged in theater exercises, their movements were so restricted and mechanical, it was as if they were still at work in their office.

Adorno speaks of his own life: "I have no hobby. As far as my activities beyond the bounds of my recognized profession are concerned, I take them all, without exception, very seriously. So much so, that I should be horrified by the very idea that they had anything to do with hobbies - preoccupations with which I had become mindlessly infatuated merely in order to kill the time . . . Making music, listening to music, reading with all my attention, these activities are part and parcel of my life; to call them hobbies would make a mockery of them."

Adorno's words here can be taken as a direct challenge: Do you `kill time' when you are away from work? Do you need a hobby to occupy your attention?

"For the most part the very development of the imagination is crippled by the experience of early childhood. The lack of imagination which is cultivated and inculcated by society renders people helpless in their free time."

Again, are you easily bored and seek out mindless distractions? How frequently do you turn on the TV?

"People have been refused freedom, and its value belittled for such a long time that now people no longer like it. . . . This is one good reason why people have remained chained to their work, and to the system which trains them for work, long after that system has ceased to require their labor."

For the life of me I will never understand how many people spend most of their "free time" thinking and talking about their work. Even if their work is interesting, I fail to see how work can be so interesting and mesmerizing that they can't let it go. Tis true: all work and no play makes Johnny and Suzy very, very dull people.

"The accepted reason for playing team sports is that it makes believe that fitness itself is the sole, independent end of sport: whereas fitness for work is certainly one of the covert ends of sport. Frequently it is in team sport that people first inflict upon themselves (and celebrate as a triumph of their own freedom) precisely what society inflicts upon them and what they must learn to enjoy."

Ha! In a word, team sports acculturate individuals to forfeit their health, creativity and freedom as a first step in forfeiting their health, creativity and freedom when they step into the workplace.

Interestingly, Adordo concludes his essay by relating a study done by his Frankfurt Institute in Germany where members of the public where interviewed after watching the wedding of a Princess and a German diplomat broadcast by all the mass media. The findings were a surprise. Turns out, people were glued to their television sets but there was an element of skepticism about the importance of the event and a reluctance to take the whole thing too seriously. In Adorno's words: "it is indeed consumed and accepted but with a kind of reservation." In other words, Adorno and the Frankfurt School recognized people are not as dumb and gullible as intellectuals and philosophers might think. And thus, they concluded, it is this very capacity to stand back and critically evaluate the commercialized garbage offered up by the culture industry wherein people can realize their freedom.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

How old were you when you realized that the methods and modes that govern Hollywood cultural production are EXACTLY THE SAME as the propaganda machines that power some of the most oppressive totalitarian regimes in human history? I know how old I was. I was twenty-five and this realization came to me, not immanently, but because I read this critical text. Critical theory is exactly what gives voice to suspicions that all intelligent people have, but lack the ability to voice. Whereas some critical theorists give voice to (boring) suspicions on the nature of truth, the limits of cognition, the embedded psychic processes which produce reactions like nostalgia (and so on and so forth), Adorno gives voice to every right-thinking persons attractive/repulsive relationship with Hollywood. Read Adorno, but be warned: the perceptive door that this text knocks wide open will be just as painful as it will be illuminating.

[Andrew]

I do this weird, masochistic thing whenever I can't make up my mind about an author, or musician, or filmmaker. I go in depth on them. I did it with Saul Bellow, with Lupe Fiasco, and with Lars Von Trier. And now I'm doing it with Adorno. Firstly, what I like about Adorno: his dissection of how culture is produced, his criticism of Enlightenment, the correlations he draws between reproduction and alienation. We're cool. What I dislike about Adorno: his profound elitism, especially the belief that he has tapped into a "true art" that stands above the menial processes of the culture industry. And this is paired with an aristocratic fatalism and denunciation of the common world. Not cool. And this little essay collection gathers both the best and worst of Adorno. My wrestling process with him is over, and now he's like the sort of nerdy guy you know who's cool to hang out with sometimes but most of the time he just needs to lighten up.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acknowledgements
Introduction & Notes

--On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening
--The Schema of Mass Culture
--Culture Industry Reconsidered
--Culture and Administration
--Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda
--How to Look at Television
--Transparencies on Film
--Free Time
--Resignation

Name Index
Subject Index

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Theodor Adorno is the original hipster, from a time before it was cool to be so. Furthermore, Adorno's work is, by modern standards, racist, sexist, and classist.

Adorno speaks of fetishization and conformity, but his own arguments begin to contradict each other. At the same time that he claims that only "original" art is good art, he vocalizes a very stringent worship of the old classical masters; suggesting in no uncertain terms that no ideal music has been produced since Mozart's "The Magic Flute." Beyond that, much of his argument stems from a very elitist mentality... At one point in the book, he compares jazz musicians to caged animals, and asserts that their work cannot live up to the high bar of the old masters.

Beyond the overt racism and sexism of the book, Adorno makes some degree of sense at times... Some of his arguments are sound - even backed up with evidence. He undercuts his own ethos, however, when he falls into the very traps he cautions against. If art is a strife for the "new," why recycle Classical music whole? Adorno's book reads like a red-faced manifesto, and his arguments only make sense in blurbs. If you read the whole book, applying logic as you go, you'll find that he is guilty of the logical fallacies of an angry man. On top of this, Adorno talks about other people with a condescending tone of a person who is too far up his own rear. The problems of society, he seems to think, come from no one else seeing what he, the enlightened T. Adorno, has discovered. "Smarmy" would be my choice of word to describe his attitude.

Furthermore, reading a book with such an aggressive tone can be hard on the reader; Adorno, for better or worse, is unrelenting. Reading this book feels like being yelled at for 200 pages, and at the end, you feel about as good about yourself as you would if a person actually *were* yelling at you for that long. Adorno not only offers a unflappably bleak view of human existence - one for which he makes no attempt to suggest a cure - he defends his negativity and dismal point of view by suggesting that the smart man (read: the thinking man... read: not you) thinks only of problems, but does not take action to solve them. The result, he seems to think, is that his resignation is justified because he continues to think about the awfulness of things only in the abstract. In reality, however, he simply comes off as a bee-in-his-bonnet Communist with no recourse for the world's social ills, only unhappy things to say about them. I recommend finding something else to read.

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning book about how culture isn’t just a random collection of our individual behaviours and norms transposed into something in the air which drives our etiquette and modus operandi. the book says quite the opposite. That we have been foisted into a construct which is self perpetuating and does not want us to take our eyes of the dumbpads and dumbphones we are usually subsumed within. A thinking man is a dangerous man to those fat cats that are relishing the taste and contours of the status quo. “Today anyone who is incapable of talking in the prescribed fashion, that is of effortlessly reproducing the formulas, conventions and judgments of mass culture as if they were his own, is threatened in his very existence, suspected of being an idiot or an intellectual.” Some of the chapters are stunning: on the fetish character in music and the regression of listening, the schema of mass culture, culture industry reconsidered, culture and administration, Freudian theory and the pattern of fascist propaganda, how to look at tv, transparencies of film, free time and resignation.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

dear reader,

welcome! welcome, friend, to this week's review of "did you say CULTURE INDUSTRY?" by theodore "california dreamin'" adorno! please enjoy!


REVIEW:

written in 1940's. maybe.
capitalism gives birth to corporations, mass media.
they create false needs.
we have true needs: freedom, independence, happiness.
they say: fuck that shit, $$$$.
population consumes false needs, becoming passive.
you buy fancy clothes, fancy car, nice home, body wash, makeup, cologne, go to hollywood movies, sign up for goodreads.
all of this makes the population passive.
years pass.
population stops objecting to evil and manipulation.
bad things happen: no rights, holocaust, u.s. sponsored genocide, corporate monopolies.
population successfully ignores all of this, opting instead to pay money to see a computer generated cowboy voiced by tom hanks make children's jokes.


VERDICT:

haha chomsky you fucking hack, way to be 40 years too late

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The research finding, that among radio listeners the friends of light music reveal themselves to be depoliticised, is not accidental.”
-On the Fetish Characteristic in Music and the Regression of Listening.

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know what Marx had to say about the arts, but Adorno can be his spokesperson. Overall, Adorno is spot-on about how commodification of public goods, like the arts, has destroyed them in large part. He blames the market for fetishizing favorite tunes and celebrities, without regard for 'quality'. I already blamed the market and technology for the downfall of all things good, so I'm with him there.

But, I have never had such a love-hate relationship with an author. He makes me want to wring his neck in frustration... at times. There is an elitism so engrained in Adorno, and he can't see it. His definition of "high art" (worth our while) at best is defined as simply the more authentic and quality work; at worst, it is strictly classical music, and never excerpted or altered. To Adorno I ask, what about the music of the masses? The traditional or folk music created pre-Industrial Revolution? I haven't taken a class in music history, but Classical Music can't be as wholesome as Adorno portrays it to be. Weren't there class barriers to even being invited to symphonies?

Love-hate aside, its thought provoking.

[Xander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bundle of essays by Theodor Adorno published posthumously in 1991. The essays span the period 1938 to 1968 and all cover various aspects of Adorno’s theory of culture as one branch of the capitalist system of production.

From the outset, I have to confess that I reject critical theory and find its claims not only pompous and misguided, but also nonsensical and overly reductionistic. To me, critical theory is a lens with which to look at society and interpret all of its various aspects. Nothing wrong with that, of course. The problem is that it is deeply rooted in the personal experience of Jews in fascist Europe of the 1920’s and 1930’s of last century. This ‘theorizing’ springs from the Institute for Social Investigation (better known as the Frankfurt School) which Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Walther Benjamin founded in order to investigate and interpret the social troubles and problems of their time.

All of them were intellectuals, who already distinguish themselves with the tendency to theorize everything in the delusion that this is the way to understand the world. When this tendency is combined with their life experiences as Jews in Nazi Germany and fascist Europe of last century, one gets a very selective, one-sided and coloured way of looking at things.

Horkheimer and Adorno, in their Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), introduced the term ‘culture industry’ as a replacement for the term ‘mass culture’. Both of them Marxists, they viewed cultural objects as products of the capitalist system of products. In a capitalist society, culture functions as a means to keep the labourers subjugated through propaganda.

Within this framework, each cultural product promises exactly those things which it doesn’t deliver. People might hope for their horrible situation to end or desire another station in life; instead of helping people to act on these desires and help them better their life, the culture industry makes them forget that these desires are actual possibilities.

How does this work in practice? Well, Adorno falls back on the Kantian idea of a priori structures which order the empirical world. The culture industry perpetuates itself through the use of schemas which confirm and emphasize the current status quo. In this sense, all culture is propaganda: from radio to television and from music to newspapers – everything is ultimately concerned with (1) promoting the correct attitudes and (2) objectifying the world, resulting in (3) the voluntary acceptance of hierarchical subjection which benefits society.

Such a life is terrible and deadening to the mind, which is why every person within a capitalist society has, in order to survive, to constantly consume products (including cultural products) to not feel alienated and outcast from society:

“Before the theological caprices of commodities, the consumers become temple slaves. Those who sacrifice themselves nowhere else can do so here, and here they are fully betrayed.” (p. 39)

Capitalism destroys all individuality and transforms human beings into objectivities, parts of a whole which is leading and determining in everything. The only aim of the capitalist system is the production of more value through more exploitation, everything and everyone else is only means to this end. Within this system, culture functions to ensure the continuing voluntary subjection of all human beings, through making them forget they are individuals with the power of imagination and the capacity for social change. Each cultural product is valued for its use value – in effect, its metaphysical promise (of hope, of something better, etc.) which seems to emanate from every object. According to Adorno, this myth of positivity (in the sense of objectivity as well as in the sense of experiencing positive feelings) only exists through the veil of technology. It is in this sense that he claims:

”Where they [the masses] react at all, it no longer makes any difference whether it is to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony or to a bikini.” (p. 37)

Also:

”Sport itself is not play but ritual in which the subjected celebrate their subjection. They parody freedom in their readiness for service, a service which the individual forcibly extracts from his own body for a second time.” (p. 89)

All these essays, whether they deal with the fetish character of music, with self-indoctrination through television or with the psychology of fascism forced on the masses through technology, breathe a sicking pessimism which simply isn’t to my taste. For Adorno, all culture is nothing but propaganda for the masses, indoctrination to create servile, mindless slaves which produce and consume in an endless cycle. It almost sniffs of a conspiracy theory, especially when Adorno loses his composure (i.e. his claims that it is simply the tendency of the system in general to produce these social effects) and starts blaming particular characters or personalities.

In his essay on the relation of Freudian theory with fascist propaganda, he claims fascism (almost?) equals capitalism and the technologies an industrial society produces enable those with fascist personalities to brainwash the masses to make them obey every desire or whim. Adorno goes as far as to psychoanalyze Hitler in terms of the father figure, libidinal drives, expelling otherness, inferiority complex, idealisation through narcissistic libido, etc.

Mass indoctrination as mass hypnotization is what Adorno sees when he looks as modern day culture. For him, there’s no essential difference to the way Hitler and his cronies subjugated an entire people through social and economic power or the way the masses in the USA self-indoctrinate themselves into slaves serving capitalist society. Everything, from tv to atomic bombs and from Reader’s Digest to radio programmes – everything is both an expression of and a means to perpetuate capitalism. All of western society is nothing but a totalitarian objectivity which has subjugated and destroyed nature, myth and humanity.

”Mass culture is a kind of training for life when things have gone wrong.” (p.91)

My two main objections to critical theory are perfectly illustrated in the above summary of Adorno’s way of thinking.

1. It treats literally all aspects of modern (western) life as simply expressions of the social-economic superstructures and views literally through the lens of (economic and/or military) power-relations. This approach doesn’t recognize the huge variety and multi-layered nature of life and society. Also, it is only able to view everything through the social-economic framework through abstraction, in the process losing all relevant distinctions and nuances.

When you look through half-closed eyes, everything will look more or less the same. Problems begin when you’ll begin to substitute this vague image for reality. It is simply not true that (sticking to culture) all cultural objects do what Adorno claims they do and that they are produced the way he claims.

2. Because of the Marxist foundation of critical theory, almost everything is transformed into a power struggle between oppressors and oppressed. Marxism (the political ideology, not the economic analyses of Marx) has the tendency to intoxicate innocent minds. It does so by playing on the hopes of young people and their innocent, factual experience of inequalities. Next, society as a whole is turned into a battlefield for change for the better, social justice. Once this phase has been reached, one cannot look at things in a neutral fashion anymore: everything is either good or bad - most, of course, bad. All existing structures are bad and flawed, all people opposing your view are obstacles on the path to social progress.

All this leads to the conclusion that critical theory is political activism, not science. Yet thousands of inexperienced young students take these ideas for truth and mistake theorizing about society (whether from a Marxist point or view or from any other perspective) for doing science. It is sad to see how this political activism has corrupted many important branches of science, possibly doing irreversible damage...

You can already see this bleak view on life in Adorno’s early writings Everything is regression; everything is bad and problematic - from airplanes to cinemas. The writings of Adorno and his Frankfurt School are nothing but the ramblings of clinically depressed human beings. And while I can sympathize with them on a psychological level – Who couldn’t, after learning about their life experiences? – it is incredibly sad that this way of thinking about and looking at the world has become so popular nowadays, especially with young students. Western societies would have been more peaceful and healthier places if Adorno and his clique had received clinical therapy for their depression instead of saddling society with an intoxicating and toxic way of looking at the world.

[Castles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A funny book this one. At the beginning of it, I disliked his lash about jazz and his obsession with Tchaikovsky. The middle of the book was just Chinese to me, with high academic language and complex paragraphs that make you wonder whether he’s trying to be a snob on purpose and why the hell can’t he just simplify his ideas and make them accessible. But by the end of the book in his articles about mass media and how we spend our free time, I fell in love.

I wonder he would’ve made of jazz today. He lashed on it so hard, but I can’t understand how come he didn’t see the beauty of its oral tradition of jazz, like ‘the real book’ with its simple chords, open for interpretation and overall the democratic quality of this genre. I also internally screamed while reading those passages: Jazz and classical music are not enemies!

And besides, whatever happened to the intellectual energy that was molded into jazz in later decades, how could he ignore that?

When he hinted that Tchaikovsky is somewhat kitsch, I really wondered if there’s any music at all this person actually liked.

I like how he describes thrillers that the reader knows how they are going to end, but keeps watching because it keeps him on safe ground and it’s an infantile need to feel protected.

By the time he declared that there are no such things as hobbies rather than “what I’m choosing to be interested in in my free time”, I fell in love.

His article about our free time is mesmerizing.

So it’s mixed feelings with this book. It’s smart and original and it makes you speak, not mentioning the academic value of his writings (that’s where I first heard about Adorno). Some passages were really beautiful. but because of its complex language, I can’t deny that along with the reading, I really wanted this book to end already.

[Jimmy Cline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adorno is brilliant. The profound aspect of his views on mass culture is the rather postmodern, ironic perspective that he throws on consumer manipulation. For Adorno what is essentially important is not that popular culture is debasing the attention span of the masses, it is the way in which capitalist institutions-say for example, television networks-convince the spectator that they are all too aware of what low brow art really is. In turn this assures people that it is okay to patronize cheap, homogenized art because they are cognizant of its poor quality.

In E Pluris Unum, David Foster Wallace elaborates on this Adornoesque mode of thinking when he talks about how postmodernism as a stylistic mode of fiction writing is now rendered obsolete because the television networks have capitalized on this cultural brand of self referential irony. It's astonishing how much weight Adorno's thought has carried over years of neo-Marxist, critical theory.

However, in the last essay, entitled Resignation, he seems to offer very little hope in revolutionary action. He paradoxically states that action is in fact resignation. I must admit that there is an almost zen-like quality to his confidence in the fact that mere critical awareness of the controlling evils of late capitalism is sufficient enough in itself as a form of intellectual rebellion.

"For the individual, life is made easier through capitulation of his impotence; within the circle of their own company, the few become the many. It is act - not confused thinking - which is resignation".

[Jakob Palmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

warum Adorno Jazz so hasst ist mir wirklich schleierhaft
und Marvel fan wär er wohl auch ums verrecken nicht geworden...

das buch fühlt sich einfach bisschen oft wie elitäres Gelaber an, Kultur möglichst wenig accessible zu machen, trotzdem sind immer wieder ganz coole Takes drin, aber man spürt den beiden schon sehr ab, wann das buch geschrieben worden ist und dass es schon sehr eng mit der inhaltlichen Struktur der gesamten "Dialektik der Aufklärung" verbunden ist

[John David · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a collection of related essays and less a book with a coherent, unified message, this is a set of nine essays on a variety of topics. I’ll list them here just to give the reader some idea of the vast area these essays cover. They are “On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening,” “The Schema of Mass Culture,” “Culture Industry Reconsidered,” “Culture and Administration,” “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda,” “How to Look at Television,” “Transparencies on Film,” “Free Time,” and “Resignation.”

Like much of the writing that comes out of the Frankfurt School, this is heavily influenced by Marxism, especially their idea (Horkheimer collaborated with Adorno in writing some of the more important essays in this collection) that mass consumer culture has become commodified, reified, and fetishized. The “culture industry” refers to the processes of standardization, marketing, and distribution which become a part of objects themselves, and therefore indistinguishable from them. Everything has been subsumed under the logic of the mass market, which creates what Adorno and Horkheimer term “false needs” – those needs that capitalism invents, and that capitalism can uniquely satisfy.

What I found of particular interest with the idea of the culture industry was the resonance that it has with so many other critical thinkers like Baudrillard, Debord, Lyotard, and Marcuse, yet being written several years before the most important work of these thinkers (Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation” didn’t come out until 1981, Debord’s “The Society of the Spectacle” until 1967, and Lyotard’s “The Postmodern Condition” until 1979). Some of the essays in the second half of the book – “How to Look at Television” and “Transparencies on Film,” especially – reminded me explicitly of the best writing on media of Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Raymond Williams.

While I credit Adorno for being an innovative, insightful social critic, the orthodox Marxism can become a little laborious and grating after a few essays. The best of his thought isn’t a result of his Marxism at all, but rather his sociological and psychological observations, as is the case with most of the media criticism here. Whether it is the translation or the original writing, the style is at its worst overly turgid and obfuscating, which makes it only digestible in small doses, but Adorno seems like he is always worth the effort. I will probably come back to this again and again in an attempt to inform my readings of later Frankfurt School members, especially Fromm, Lowenthal, and Habermas.

[Loris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wenn ich dem Buch 6 Sterne geben könnte, würde ich es.
Absolut unbequemes Buch, schwer zu lesen und unverständlich. Wenn man sich reinhängt, könnte man sich wünschen, nie verstanden zu haben was Adorno schreibt.
Lebensverändernd im Sinne, dass die Welt einfach ein Zirkus ist und die von Adorno angesprochene Entfremdung in ALLEN alltäglichen Dingen wiederzufinden ist.
Ich verstehe jetzt wieso die Frankfurter Schule und die Kritische Theorie so renommiert ist.

[Madhab Dwibedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Things when r created not for the shake of consumption , bt r created for the shake of calling it freedom and forcing u to buy for the shake of being urself , u can never stop to consume bt just beg to be free to consume

[Francesca · Rating 5 out of 5]

graduated from tumblr to substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/franbea...

[Opal · Rating 4 out of 5]

realized i forgot this terrible app exists; star rating is a laughable shorthand way of saying there’s some sprinkling of bullshit and then theses just as relevant to today as 80 years ago so there is certainly much to be extrapolated

(enlightenment as mass deception)

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is this book essential reading for anyone? Almost definitely not, though the message is pertinent. Does that make this book any less great? No.

Like all brilliant, glimmering Adorno, I understand perhaps half. The lengthy rants against people in the office questioning why he doesn't have a suntan or hobbies are unironically a joy to read. Adorno at his best.

[nicolaskm09 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 ⭐️

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was pretty torturous. Adorno frequently speaks in meaningless koans. Adorno is not a good communicator and tries to find the most complicated and esoteric way of expressing his ideas (though he does get to be a wee bit less of a wanker in his later essays). Also, his ideas are not particularly complex. He frequently gets lost in his own rants and meanders through his arguments. Adorno correctly identifies the problems with modern capitalist society but provides no solutions. He then attempts to justify his lack of solutions in his final essay "Resignation" implying that the one who truly thinks is without anger and therefor will not incite others to anger. The implied consequence of anger being action.

For someone without anger here is the list of things that Adorno rails against in "The Schema of Mass Culture":

- ideal fiction
- popular fiction
- Bourgeois society
- advertising
- modern/postmodern art
- mono-culture
- monopoly of business/industry
- loudspeakers in small nightclubs
- digests
- beautiful actresses with perfect make-up in filmic situations where their appearance would be more chaotic
- lack of real conflicts
- variety acts
- Tchaikovsky and Dvorak
- all literature since Joyce and Proust
- Clark Gable
- Fascists and fascism in all appearances
- the omnipresence of technology
- jazz music
- The German hit song "Kannst du tanzen, Johanna? Gewiss kann ich das"
- people who are good at quizzes
- sport and sporting events
- detective stories

Things Adorno likes:

- Henrik Ibsen (somehow)
- Freud and psychoanalysis
- the intellectual elite

It's not even that I generally disagree with Adorno (apart from jazz music (which is great) and Ibsen(which is terrible) and postmodern literature (which can be either)). I agree that mass culture is mostly vapid and hollow but Adorno is just flinging shit here. And if I have to wade through 200pgs of periphrastic prose I need to come out with something more than a cranky old man's list of shit I shouldn't like. And no, I'm not angry Adorno, just disappointed.

[Schedex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein parataktisches Geflecht an rhetorischen Feinheiten und treffendsten Aphorismen, deren Sinngehalt bis heute nur noch virulenter geworden ist:

"Unweigerlich reproduziert jede einzelne Manifestation der Kulturindustrie die Menschen als das, wozu die ganze sie gemacht hat. Darüber, daß der Prozess der einfachen Reproduktion des Geistes ja nicht in die erweiterte hineinführe, wachen alle seine Agenten, vom producer bis zu den Frauenvereinen."

"Von Kultur zu reden war immer schon wider die Kultur. Der Generalnenner Kultur enthält virtuell bereits die Erfassung, Katalogisierung, Klassifizierung, welche die Kultur ins Reich der Administration hineinnimmt. Erst die industrialisierte, die konsequente Subsumtion, ist dies Begriff von Kultur ganz angemessen. Indem sie alle Zweige der geistigen Produktion in gleicher Weise dem einen Zwecke unterstellt, die Sinne des Menschen vom Ausgang aus der Fabrik am Abend bis zur Ankunft bei der Stechuhr am nächsten Morgen mit den Siegeln jenes Arbeitsganges zu besetzen, den sie den Tag über selbst unterhalten müssen, erfüllt sie höhnisch den Begriff der einheitlichen Kultur, den die Persönlichkeitsphilosophen der Vermassung entgegenhielten."

"Was widersteht, darf überleben nur, indem es sich eingliedert. Einmal in seiner Differenz von der Kulturindustrie registriert, gehört es schon dazu, wie der Bodenreformer zum Kapitalismus. Realitätsgerechte Empörung wird zur Warenmarke dessen, der dem Betrieb eine neue Idee zuzuführen hat."

"Der Herrscher sagt dort nicht mehr: du sollst denken wie ich oder sterben. Er sagt: es steht dir frei, nicht zu denken wie ich, dein Leben, deine Güter, alles soll dir bleiben, aber von diesem Tage an bist du einm Fremdling unter uns. Was nicht konformiert, wird mit einer ökonomischen Ohnmacht geschlagen, die sich in der geistigen des Eigenbrötlers fortsetzt."

"Das Neue der massenkulturellen Phase gegenüber der spätliberalen ist der Ausschluß des Neuen. Die Maschine rotiert auf der gleichen Stelle. Während sie schon den Konsum bestimmt, scheidet sie das Unerprobte als Risiko aus. Mißtrauisch blicken die Filmleute auf jedes Manuskript, dem nicht schon ein bestseller beruhigend zu Grunde liegt. Darum gerade ist immerzu von idea, novelty und surprise die Rede, dem, was zugleich allvertraut wäre und nie dagewesen. Ihm dient Tempo und Dynamik. Nichts darf beim Alten bleiben, alles muß unablässig laufen, in Bewegung sein. Denn nur der universale Sieg des Rhytmus von mechanischer Produktion und Reproduktion verheißt, daß nichts sich ändert, nichts herauskommt, was nicht paßte."

"Ihr Sieg ist doppelt: was sie als Wahrheit draußen auslöscht, kann sie drinnen als Lüge beliebig reproduzieren."

"Neu aber ist, daß die unversöhnlichen Elemente der Kultur, Kunst und Zerstreuung durch ihre Unterstellung unter den Zweck auf eine einzige falsche Formel gebracht werden: die Totaliät der Kulturindustrie. Sie besteht in Wiederholung. Daß ihrer charakteristischen Neuerungen durchweg bloß in Verbesserungen der Massenreproduktion bestehen, ist dem Interesse ungezählter Konsumenten an die Technik, nicht an die starr repetierten, ausgehölten und halb schon preisgegebenen Inhalte"

"Soviel ist richtig daran, daß die Gewalt der Kulturindustrie in ihrer Einheit mit dem erzeugten Bedürfnis liegt, nicht im einfachen Gegensatz zu ihm, wäre es selbst auch der von Allmacht und Ohnmacht. - Amusement ist die Verlängerung der Arbeit unterm Spätkapitalismus. Es wird von dem gesucht, der dem mechanisierten Arbeitsprozeß ausweichen will, um ihm von neuem gewachsen zu sein. Zugleich aber hat die Mechanisierung solche Macht über den Freizeitler und sein Glück, sie bestimmt so gründlich die Fabrikation der Amüsierwaren, daß er nichts anderes mehr erfahren kann als die Nachbilder des Arbeitsvorgangs selbst. Der vorgebliche Inhalt ist bloß verblaßter Vordergrund: was sich einprägt, ist die automatisierte Abfolge genormter Verrichtungen."

"Donald Duck in den Cartoons wie die Unglücklichen in der Realität erhalten ihre Prügel, damit die Zuschauer sich an die eigenen gewöhnen."

"Fun ist ein Stahlbad. Die Vergnügungsindustrie verordnet es unablässig. Lachen in ihr wird zum Instrument des Betrugs am Glück."

"Vergnügtsein heißt Einverstandensein. Es ist möglich nur, indem es sich gegenüber dem Ganzen des gesellschaftlichen Prozesses abdichtet, dumm macht und von Anbeginn den unentrinnbaren Anspruch jedes Werks, selbst des nichtigsten, widersinnig preisgibt: in seiner Beschränkung das Ganze zu reflektieren. Vergnügen heißt allemal: nicht daran denken müssen, das Leiden vergessen, noch wo es gezeigt wird. Ohnmacht liegt ihm zu Grunde. Es ist in der Tat Flucht, aber nicht, wie es behauptet, Flucht vor der schlechten Realität, sondern vor dem letzten Gedanken an Widerstand, den jene noch übriggelassen hat."

"Zur Demonstration seiner Göttlichkeit wird das Wirkliche immer bloß zynisch wiederholt. Solcher photologische Beweis ist zwar nicht stringent, aber überwältigend. Wer angesichts der Macht der Monotonie noch zweifelt, ist ein Narr. Kulturindustrie schlägt den Einwand gegen sich so gut nieder wie den gegen die Welt, die sie tendenzlos verdoppelt."

"Die Arbeiter, die eigentlichen Ernährer, werden, so will es der ideologische Schein, von den Wirtschaftsführern, den Ernährten, ernährt. Die Stellung des Einzelnen ist damit prekär."

"Das lückenlos geschlossene Dasein, in dessen Verdopplung die Ideologie heute aufgeht, wirkt umso großartiger, herrlicher und mächtiger, je gründlicher es mit notwendigem Leiden versetzt wird. Es nimmt den Aspekt von Schicksal an. Tragik wird auf die Drohung nivelliert, den zu vernichten, der nicht mitmacht, während ihr paradoxer Sinn einmal im hoffnungslosen Widerstand gegen die mythische Drohung bestand. [...] Tragisches Lichtspiel wird wirklich zur moralischen Besserungsanstalt."

"Der herrschende Geschmack bezieht sein Ideal von der Reklame, der Gebrauchsschönheit."

"Was man den Gebrauchswert in der Rezeption der Kulturgüter nennen könnte, wird durch den Tauschwert ersetzt, anstelle des Genusses tritt Dabeisein und Bescheidwissen, Prestigegewinn anstelle der Kennerschaft."

"Jeder Film ist die Vorschau auf den nächsten, der das gleiche Heldenpaar unter der gleichen exotischen Sonne abermals zu vereinen verspricht: wer zu spät kommt, weiß nicht, ob er der Vorschau oder der Sache selbst beiwohnt."

"Die intimsten Reaktionen der Menschen sind ihnen selbst gegenüber so vollkommen verdinglicht, daß die Idee des ihnen Eigentümlichen nur in äußerster Abstraktheit noch fortbesteht: personality bedeutet ihnen kaum mehr etwas anderes als blendend weiße Zähne und Freiheit von Achselschweiß und Emotionen. Das ist der Triumph der Reklame in der Kulturindustrie, die zwanghafte Mimesis der Konsumenten an die zugleich durchschauten Kulturwaren."

[Gizem Kendik Önduygu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adorno Selamlar,

Seninle Uluslararası İlişkiler zamanı Eleştirel Kuram, Frankfurt Okulu’nda şeyyapmıştık. Uluslararası İlişkilerde sana çok yer vermiyorlar söylemem lazım. Ben kültür endüstirisine şimdi gelebildim. İlla ama illa kültürün sistematiğini, sahteliğini çözecem diyenlerin kaynak metinlerindensin. Sanırım Türkiye’de radyo televizyon, iletişim, sanat tarihi ve marxisim çalışmalarında biraz daha fazla itibarın var.

Horkheimer ile 1947’de ortaya attığın kültür endüstrisinin üzerine çok şey oldu. Bazı şeyleri öngörememen normal ama hala benzer sistematikler işliyor, rahat.

Kültür endüstrisi, endüstriyel kültürün ilkeleri, yapay haz, tikellik ve bireysellik, amaçsallık, deneyimsiz sözcük kullanımı ve reklama girmişsin. Jazz üzerine yazdıklarını okumadım ama burada da jazzdaki normlaştırılmış doğaçlamaya giydirmişsin. Sağolasın.

Bir de gerçekten okuldaki öğrenci protestoları olayının seni ölüme götüren kalp krizine etkisi varsa ona üzüldüm.

[Philip Crowther · Rating 5 out of 5]

didn't *actually* finish it yet on this read-through, but every essay that I have read since I picked it up, I've read at least two or three times bc this shit is dense, and spaced re-readings are the only way I'm going to retain most of the information in here in a way that I'll be able to re-apply it to my own lived experience. anyways, this text is excellent; sometimes, adorno will lose me for a couple of pages, but once I'm at a part that I'm able to tune in for, it's like constant mental lighting strikes. looking forward to finishing it, however long that takes me (like I said, it's dense, so it really depends on how much energy I have for that kind of thing)

[Cavanşir Gadimov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adorno ve Horkheimer'in kültür endüstrisi kavramı üzerinde üç makalenin yer aldığı bir kitap. Özellikle sosyal bilimler ve iletişim bilimleri ile ilgilenen ve okuyan kişilerin Frankfurt okulunun bu üyelerinin geliştirdiği kültür endüstrisi kavramını anlayabilmek için güzel bir kitap.
https://kitapokurum.blogspot.com.tr/2...

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Magistral concept, even way before the ideology one of Althusser.

The problem is that it is used with racist, classist and discriminatory ends.

Another title of the book, without the proposal of the
concept, should be: “I hate Jazz”. I really despise Adorno.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great and all, but Adorno loses points for being a curmudgeon.

[Kelvin Dias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Li em uma sentada.

Pensar o capitalismo como um sistema de contradições. O triunfo ideológico do liberalismo ressoa no que é difundido como "técnico" e "cultural". Também, na fase tardia a característica é um aperfeiçoamento das ferramentas de dominação. Somos instados a crer que somos livres enquanto somos explorados de maneira mais sutil. "Aí, o patrão não diz mais: ou pensas como eu ou morres. Mas diz: és livre para não pensares como eu, a tua vida, os teus bens, tudo te será deixado, mas, a partir deste instante, és um intruso entre nós."

O tempo livre segue sendo reificado a medida que nos movimentamos na lógica da produtividade. O que seria lazer e divertimento nestas condições? Não só, a indústria cultural também se movimenta em torno da dominação e docilização de corpos, não apenas em relação ao lucro. Portanto, pensar a crítica de arte exclusivamente na relação entre cultura e comércio é superficial. Se o crítico de arte pensa na obra só neste ponto de reprodutibilidade técnica rentável, mas não pensa a fome e a questão de classe como algo maior, torna-se apenas mais um instrumento de dominação burguês. O paradoxo está em pensar que seria algo subversivo, enquanto só reforça o status quo.

A própria noção de separação entre os tipos de trabalho é algo cultural (manual e intelectual). É necessário abolir a cultura nesse sentido. Outros tipos de trabalho que não braçais também são exaustivos, fazendo com que essa separação sirva para camuflar esse entendimento. Isso torna mais fácil explorar as pessoas, implicando em exaustão física e mental. Outrossim, o que separa "alta cultura" e "cultura popular" ou "arte" e "artesanato" tem suas raízes no elitismo e no racismo.

Gosto de pensar o local de fala como ferramenta da análise de discurso. É muito interessante ler marxistas em campos de estudo fora da especificidade econômica. Os autores da escola crítica de Frankfurt, e do campo da cultura em geral, muitos não se reivindicavam marxistas, acredito que, em grande medida, pelo contexto da época. O marxismo era, então, sinônimo de economicismo. Paulo Freire também parece ter se distanciado do rótulo pelo mesmo motivo. Mas como não classificá-los como marxistas, para além da questão identitária, se as bases fundacionais ontológicas estão todas lá? Neste ponto, também penso muito em Gramsci e todo seu impacto no pós-positivismo.

Nesta passagem parece haver uma crítica ao marxismo ortodoxo e como insistir no economicismo é anti-dialético:
"Simultaneamente, porém, a teoria dialética — caso não queira sucumbir ao mero economicismo e a uma mentalidade que acredita que a transformação do mundo se esgota no aumento da produção — está obrigada a assumir para si mesma a crítica cultural, que é verdadeira na medida em que traz a inverdade à consciência de si mesma. Se a teoria dialética mostra-se desinteressada pela cultura enquanto um mero epifenômeno, acaba contribuindo para que a confusão cultural continue a se propagar e colabora na reprodução do que é ruim. O tradicionalismo cultural e o terror dos novos déspotas russos possuem o mesmo sentido. O faro de que ambos afirmam seu compromisso com a cultura como um todo, ao mesmo tempo que proscrevem todas as formas de consciência não ajustadas, não é algo menos ideológico do que a atitude da crítica que se limita a denunciar diante do seu tribunal uma cultura desorientada, ou responsabilizar seu alegado negativismo pelo que há de nefasto. Aceitar a cultura como um todo já é retirar-lhe o fermento de sua própria verdade: a negação. O entusiasmo pela cultura está em consonância com o clima produzido pela pintura de cenas de batalha e pela música militar. O que distingue a crítica dialética da crítica cultural é o fato de a primeira elevar a crítica até a própria suspensão [Aufhebung] do conceito de cultura."

Leitura obrigatória!

[Viktoria Chipova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's a 5/5 star review for "The Culture Industry" by Theodor W. Adorno (and Max Horkheimer):

5/5 Stars - A Prophetic and Indispensable Critique of Modernity

"The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" (originally published as a chapter in Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer) is not merely a book; it is a foundational text of critical theory and a chillingly prescient analysis of modern society. Though dense and demanding, its insights are so profound and enduringly relevant that it stands as an absolute masterpiece, deserving of every one of its five stars.

Adorno and Horkheimer dissect the phenomenon of the "culture industry"—a term they coined to describe the systematic production and dissemination of standardized cultural goods (films, music, radio, magazines, etc.) under capitalism. Their central argument is that this industry, far from offering genuine enlightenment or liberation, actually serves to pacify the masses, stifle critical thought, and integrate individuals seamlessly into the existing power structures. They argue that mass culture, despite its veneer of entertainment and choice, is inherently manipulative, offering only "pseudo-individualism" and reinforcing conformity. Leisure, rather than being a space for true freedom, becomes another extension of the labor process, preparing individuals for their roles as consumers and compliant citizens.

What makes this work so utterly brilliant and deserving of a perfect score is its astonishing foresight. Written in the 1940s, long before the advent of widespread television, the internet, or social media, Adorno and Horkheimer accurately predicted many of the anxieties and critiques we grapple with today regarding media saturation, consumerism, and the homogenization of culture. Their analysis of how entertainment becomes a form of control, how dissent is co-opted, and how art loses its critical edge when commodified feels more pertinent than ever in our hyper-mediated world.

Yes, Adorno's prose is notoriously challenging, dense, and uncompromising. It demands careful, slow reading, and often a willingness to reread passages multiple times. This is not light reading; it is rigorous philosophical inquiry. However, the intellectual reward for this effort is immense. Every sentence is packed with meaning, every argument meticulously constructed, revealing layers of societal critique that resonate deeply.

"The Culture Industry" forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the nature of mass culture and its impact on individual autonomy and critical thought. It's a wake-up call, a powerful tool for understanding the subtle mechanisms of power at play in our everyday lives. For anyone interested in media studies, sociology, philosophy, or simply understanding the world around them, this is an essential, transformative, and utterly brilliant work. It doesn't just describe the problem; it illuminates the very structure of modern deception.

[Pongprapas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodor Adorno: the original snob before it was cool, criticizing listeners of popular music for being stupid, regressive, childish, whose primitivism is that of “the forcibly retarded.” I like him.

Nonetheless, it would be off the marks, if not plain wrong, to say that Adorno is a snob in the first place: he is not an elitist (or is he?) who looks down upon the masses. What he intends to attack is not the listeners, but rather the culture industry itself, which includes the entertainment industry in charge especially of the production of popular music, and those in control, who must rely on, inter alia, commodification of art, infantilization of the masses, and exclusion of the other, to maintain order and the status quo. His whole objective is to reclaim art’s autonomy and its ability to truly negate and criticize from the culture industry which entirely subsumes such negative elements.

In The Culture Industry, Adorno’s essays cover a wide range of topics, in his (I assume) usual dense prose, with an overarching focus on the culture industry and the production of art. While I can only write about the tiniest bit of the book here, it is appropriate to say that it deserves to be read and is perhaps more relevant than ever in the age of Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify.

—

“On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening,” in The Culture Industry, ed. J. M. Bernstein (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 46-47:

“They are not childlike, as might be expected on the basis of an interpretation of the new type of listener in terms of the introduction to musical life of groups previously unacquainted with music. But they are childish; their primitivism is not that of the undeveloped, but that of the forcibly retarded. . . . They are not merely turned away from more important music, but they are confirmed in their neurotic stupidity, quite irrespective of how their musical capacities are related to the specific musical culture of earlier social phases. . . . Together with sport and film, mass music and the new listening help to make escape from the whole infantile milieu impossible.”

Ibid, 51:

“There is actually a neurotic mechanism of stupidity in listening, too; the arrogantly ignorant rejection of everything unfamiliar is its sure sign. Regressive listeners behave like children. Again and again and with stubborn malice, they demand the one dish they have once been served.

A sort of musical children’s language is prepared for them; it differs from the real thing in that its vocabulary consists exclusively of fragments and distortions of the artistic language of music. In the piano scores of hit songs, there are strange diagrams. They relate to guitar, ukelele and banjo, as well as the accordion—infantile instruments in comparison with the piano—and are intended for players who cannot read the notes.” (!!!)