This week's reading offers a lot of intertextualities, specifically, between Horkheimer & Adorno, while many connections with Walter Benjamin. This validity of this connection comes from, The Age of Mechanical Reproduction. We are experiencing a time in the world that is quite paradoxical with the overflow of repeated and constantly reproduced information. One point Horkheimer imposes is the automobile industry as there is an amazing ray of options. 'Options' is the keyword that gives leaks the realm of capitalism and exposes how wealth has driven way too many global economies. This inherently exposes the message of the essay, which is, Mass Deception. The idea that we might feel like actors or actors in this age of capitalism and the cycle of trying to fully understand the media and how to feel full fulfillment. Horkheimer & Adorno say, "In reality, a cycle of manipulation and retroactive need is unifying the manipulation and retroactive need is unifying the system ever more tightly. What is not mentioned is that the basis on which technology is gaining power over society is the power of those whose economic position in society is the power of those whose economic position in society in society is strongest" (Horkheimer, Adorno, 2012, p. 54). This quote truly reinforces the manipulation aspect that technology and artificial intelligence can be more in control than the biological living organisms that inhabit this planet. Horkheimer brilliantly puts it, "Everything comes from consciousness" (Horkheimer, Adorno, 2012, p. 55). This ideology gives us choice or at least the depiction in which it seems like we have a choice. This reading allowed me to deeply understand the overall purpose of culture and our existence in society means.
Thought-Provoking Quote: "All mass culture under monopoly is identical and the contour of its skeleton, the conceptual armature fabricated by monopoly, are beginning to stand out. Those in charge no longer take much trouble to conceal the structure, the power of which increases the more bluntly its existence is admitted. Films and radio no longer need to present themselves as art. The truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce" (Horkheimer, Adorno, 2012, p. 53).
I appreciate your thoughts on this topic. I, too, thought of Walter Benjamin’s piece “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” while reading Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno’s thought provoking work “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” In today’s highly commodified society, there is a constant need for reproducing and reconstructing products to catch the consumer’s attention. Benjamin argued in his piece, “Quantity has been transmuted into quality” (p. 47). In other words, to connect to Horkheimer and Adorno, companies understand that the more opinions available on the market, the more outlets there are to make money. This concept can be seen in drugstores. If you walk into any local Walgreens, you will find an entire aisle dedicated to hair. There's even a section dedicated to a wide array of hairbrushes. How many opinions of hairbrushes do we really need? I’ve caught myself standing in one of these aisles for several minutes contemplating which color, bristle, and shape suits me best. Why do I do this? Horkheimer and Adorno explain in their text that we do this because we like to feel that we have a choice. However, this choice is an illusion. My choice of a blue detangling brush does not grant me freedom. I am still a consumer and my job is to buy.
ReplyDeleteI like your argument that the message of the essay is mass deception. This makes me think of the idea that we are surrounded and defined by ideology. We do not question ideology because it has become common sense to us, in other words, we are subject to mass deception. However, understanding it is the best thing we can do as Critical Media scholars. We may not be able to escape ideology, but we can be aware that we are surrounded by it, allowing us to be less susceptible to mass deception.