Critical Theory and Society

Not only are the hit songs, stars and soap operas
cyclically recurrent and rigidly invariant types, but the
specific content of the entertainment itself is derived
from them and only appears to change. The details
are interchangeable
Adorno and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry, (125)
 The Culture Industry
Themes in The Culture Industry: Enlightenment
as Mass Deception:
1. Individuality
2. Homogeneity of Cultural products
3. Culture Industry as Ideology
4. Relation between leisure/amusement and work
5. The trajectory of Culture Industry as Commodity

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 The Culture Industry
Recall Marcuses discussion of the media: To take an
(unfortunately fantastic) example: the mere absence of
all advertising and of all indoctrinating media of
information and entertainment would plunge the
individual into a traumatic void where he would have the
chance to think, to know himself and his society.
Deprived of his false fathers he would have to learn
his ABCs again [The] non-function of television and
allied media might thus begin to achieve what the
inherent contradictions of capitalism did not achievethe
disintegration of the system (114-115).

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 Culture Industry and Individuality
Adorno and Horkheimers claim: culture industry
domesticates individuals in contemporary
capitalist society.
Contrary to what pundits say about the chaos
that comes with the waning of tradition, Adorno
and Horkheimer claim that there is more
UNIFORMITY now than ever.
Films, music, magazines, architecture, fashion
impress the same stamp on everything (120)

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 Culture Industry and Individuality
There is a striking unity of microcosm and macrocosm
in todays culture (120). But it is a false identification of
the general with the particular (ibid).
But isnt this what consumers want?
The needs are calculated. The effrontery of the
rhetorical question, what do people want?, lies in the
fact that it is addressed to those very people who
are deliberately to be deprived of this individuality.
Now any person signifies only those attributes by which
he can replace everybody else: he is interchangeable,
a copy. As an individual, he is completely expendable
and utterly insignificant (145-146).

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 Culture Industry and Individuality
A&H suggest that the individual is a product of
culture industry.
How can this be done?
The individual is constructed by knowledge
knowing what people want through various
market research techniques.

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 Culture Industry and Individuality
Consumers appear as statistics on research
organization charts, and are divided by income
groups into red, green and blue areas; the
technique is that used for any type of
propaganda (123). What are the implications
of such knowledge?
This body of knowledge also allows for the
schematization of the cultural landscape. The
categories of thought (and taste) is provided by
the culture industry (124). Nothing is left for the
consumer to classify (125).
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 Culture Industry and Individuality
Life in the late capitalist era is a constant
initiation rite. Everyone must show that he wholly
identifies with the power which is belabouring
him. The eunuch-like voice of the crooner on
the radio, the heiress smooth suitor are
models for those who must become whatever
the system wants. [Everyone] can be happy if
only he would capitulate fully (153).
The individual is an illusion He is tolerated
only as long as his complete identification with
the generality is unquestioned (154).
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Culture Industry and Individuality
Pseudo-individuality is rife The peculiarity
of the self is a monopoly commodity was
always full of contradiction. Individuation has
never really been achieved. The individual
who supported society bore its disfiguring
mark; seemingly free, he was actually the
product of its economic and social apparatus
(155).
Question: are we only seemingly free?

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 Culture Industry and Individuality
Everybody is guaranteed formal freedom
Instead everyone is enclosed at an early age in
a system of churches, clubs, professional
associations, and other such concerns, which
constitute the most sensitive instrument of
social control. Anyone who wants to avoid ruin
must see that he is not found wanting when
weighed in the scales of this apparatus (149-
150).
Objection: Isnt this just socialization?
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 Culture Industry and Individuality
Perhaps A&Hs point is that the emphasis on
the individual is a by-product of the ideology of
individualism required in the capitalist mode of
production.
How do individuals distinguish themselves from
one another?
A&H: (a) the various options available are pre-
fabricated (125), or (b) if slightly different, it will
be absorbed into the system and spat out as
another model (132).
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 Individuality and Homogeneity
Why is uniformity desirable? Do we want to
stand out?
What is the relation between standing out and
normalcy?
The disciplinary effect of the norm or rule:
standing out, i.e. deviation from the rule, implies
the effect is atypical, not normally expected. Is
being seen as abnormal desirable? What does
abnormal imply?

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Individuality and Homogeneity
The price to pay for standing out: Not to
conform means to be rendered powerless
economically and therefore spiritually (133).
The person is an outsider, a stranger among
us (ibid).
What is the price to pay for conforming?
A&H: Subservient to the power of capitalism.

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 Culture Industry and homogeneity
We have the SAME television shows, the SAME
music, the SAME clothes, the SAME everything.
Any trace of spontaneity is controlled and
absorbed (122). Can you think of an example?
Further, anyone who resists can only survive by
fitting in. Once his particular brand of deviation
from the norm has been noted by the industry, he
belongs to it as does the land reformer to
capitalism (132).

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 Culture Industry and homogeneity
The culture industry has put an end to the idea
of a work of art. Are the products of the culture
industry art?
Can those products be art when there is a
formula for every commodity. Recall the citation
from p. 125: the details are interchangeable.
A&H: [The] formula replaces the work. The
prearranged harmony is a mockery of what had
to be striven after in the great bourgeois works
of art (126)

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 Culture Industry and homogeneity
In the culture industry, the untried is a risk
(134).
As commodities, cultural products must pay
obedience to the established order. And, there is
something is provided for all so that none may
escape. The public is catered for with a
hierarchical range of mass produced products of
varying quality (123).

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 Culture Industry and homogeneity
Products of the culture industry serve as
distractions (135).
But as mere distractions, we can grow tire of
them very easily.
A&H: the products of the culture industry all
suffer from this malady: Pleasure hardens into
boredom, if it is to remain pleasure, it must not
demand any effort and therefore moves
rigorously in the worn grooves of association
(137).

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 Culture Industry and homogeneity
Even criticism has been tamed.
What is criticism today?
We look to comments from the pundits.
Criticism is transformed into mechanical
expertise by a shallow cult of leading
personalities (161).
Further, what connoisseurs discuss as good
or bad points serve only to perpetuate the
semblance of competition and range of
choice (123). Why semblance?

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 Culture industry and ideology
Recall something is provided for all so that none
may escape (123).
What message does the culture industry provide?
Society admits the suffering it has created
and ideology has to take this into account (151).
The message that life is harsh and that the brave
individual with a heart of gold who struggle will be
fine in the end is repeated in various forms from
movies to television to cartoons.

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 Culture industry and ideology
The deceived masses are today captivated by the
myth of success even more than the successful
are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology
which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the
common people for the wrong which is done them
is a greater force than the cunning of the
authorities (134).
Objection: but we can tell the difference between
real life and the movies.
A&H: Can we?

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