The Culture Industry

[Phylum of Alexandria]

I've been re-reading Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment, in conjunction with some of Adorno's other essays on popular music. The richest chapter in the book for me has always been their take on "The Culture Industry."

They were writing around the same time as George Orwell was writing 1984, yet it's notable that their portrait of cultural totalitarianism bears more resemblance to Huxley's World State in Brave New World than to Big Brother's Oceania. That is, beyond any overt gestures of domination a state might choose to maintain power, there is a more insidious form of social control via the insipid entertainment and self-gratification of all-pervasive consumerism.

Reading it now, in 2023, it's scary how relevant a lot of its passages still are. And given that H&A are talking about a cultural decline, what they describe is far worse today than it was in 1947! I'm sure Benny Goodman could sound like bubblegum when compared to the modernist composers Adorno preferred, but he's like Bach compared to some of the stuff that's out there today!

If Adorno knew some of the things I've listened to and watched--multiple times, with only a little bit of guilt--his head may have exploded.

But the world has changed so much, that it makes sense that our coping strategies would differ from H&A's. Not that the authors really go into coping strategies in much detail, but at least I gather that the authors advocate for serious-minded art that can wake people up to harsh realities, and/or strengthen their resolve against easy certainty and indulgence. 

I agree that such works, when given full attention and engaged in earnest, do potentially have power to work against the stupefying effects of mass consumerist culture. 

I admit, I have not heard a piece of 12-tone serialism that I love. But, I do find listening to Berg or Schönberg to be a worthwhile exercise, if only to pay attention to how one listens and responds to different melodic conventions and other aspects of music. I find Cage even more rewarding. Though it almost never stops being an exercise.

Exercise is a metaphor that H&A don't really rely on, to the detriment of their argument. Perhaps the ideal citizen would be listening to John Cage every night, or composing their own chance compositions, but it's not enough to simply declare that most people are far from that ideal. How might we get people there?

I say: with practice, and the gradual ramping up of challenge. A practical way to gradually strengthen one's critical faculties would be to seek out pop works that nevertheless have some challenging elements to them. In a more contemporary parlance, "pop art."

Of course, H&A--and especially Adorno--are too purist to ever condone such a thing. They condemn pop art as an empty facsimile of serious art. Maybe so, but I find it surprising that they never consider the possibility that Benny Goodman could serve as a stepping stone to something slightly more challenging, like Duke Ellington. Which could take a listener to Gershwin's compositions, and then to Debussy or Dvorak, and so on.

Maybe listeners will never get to the point where they can listen to John Cage. Even so, serious engagement with the more challenging aspects of popular art can strengthen someone's critical faculties, and better prepare them for the harsh realities of the world.

Personally, I think it's likely the process of engagement that matters most; the details of what is pleasant and what is challenging are largely in the ear of the beholder. Someone does not become a better citizen simply because they can enjoy a work by Scriabin or Ruggles. A different person can come to a similar state of critical engagement with an album by Charles Mingus. Or, a film by Hayao Miyazaki. The important thing would be to encourage that process of training, of a gradual increase in challenging or reflective content to counterbalance the constant narcotic effects of our current media culture of distraction and infotainment.

The fantasy book series that this entire forum has been founded on is one excellent example of pop art that can challenge audiences and really get them thinking about their own world. Should it be dismissed as culture industry trash simply because it indulges in some derivative tropes and a penchant to entertain? I argue that even the snobs should regard this type of work, at the very least, as an important intermediate. As a bridge to take people from the land of insipid easy pleasures to more demanding exercises. 

Still, I don't want to minimize the power of Horkheimer and Adorno's argument. What they outline is a reality that we don't like to admit, yet it's truer than ever now. 

What do you think? What is the best preventive medicine for the dark sorcery that keeps our public complacent and distracted?

Any good commodities you recommend I consume?

Edited September 25, 2023 by Phylum of Alexandria
typos

[Theda Baratheon]

I don’t think we can ever completely sever the strain of classism that flows as a nasty undercurrent to a lot of this type of cultural criticism and snobbery. I say that as someone whose family is from a traditionally working class background and yet I now work in museums. 
 

the fact of the matter is, popular entertainment, whether that is soap operas, radio music or the latest films in the cinema, can often reach people much easier than loftier art might. Most working people are in a mini sort of time loop - wake up, shower, eat, go to work, come home, eat, go bed. Yes, there is also ideally time for hobbies, family time and time spent with friends. There is ideally time for going to the gym, visiting cultural institutions, walking etc. 

but that is the ideal, not always the reality…

I’d strongly question and challenge the morals, belief system, political beliefs and social understanding of the person who believes this of less social, artistic value and relevance to normal people than this. Both can and should be valued, valuing one higher than the other seems silly to me. Ren, today’s ‘bard’ who sings of chronic illness, generational trauma, psychosis, medical service failures, and more is directly relevant to how a lot of disenfranchised people feel, let down by various elements of society. Bach’s music has been read in a number of ways, especially his sacred music as a manifestation to a devout relationship with a perceived god. Both of these music forms are valuable, and will relate to different people for different reasons and neither should be discouraged or mocked for example. 
 

anyway I doubt I’m coherent, im tired and writing this on my phone but I encourage as many people as possible to listen to Ren. 
 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Schönberg (well 12 tone music in general) is a pain to listen to. Our eears have developed musical habits. We are used to certain melodic structures and consider them pleasent, or unpleasent. If you want to submit yourself to the torture of the rather unfamiliar. Try to find some Chinese Opera on youtube. Compared to that Schönberg is bliss.

I mean, I always found good old Theodor Wiesengrund a bit snobbish and grumpy wrt culture. Given that for him Wagner was kinda kitsch, I just assume forcing him to watch any Andrew Lloyd Webber show would've probably sent him either into a deep depression or homicidal rage. And of course there's no bottom. No need to guess, what his opinion on those X-factor, somewhere got talent etc. would be.

 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

41 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I don’t think we can ever completely sever the strain of classism that flows as a nasty undercurrent to a lot of this type of cultural criticism and snobbery. I say that as someone whose family is from a traditionally working class background and yet I now work in museums. 

Yeah, agreed. The purism is just taken way too far. 

41 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

the fact of the matter is, popular entertainment, whether that is soap operas, radio music or the latest films in the cinema, can often reach people much easier than loftier art might. Most working people are in a mini sort of time loop - wake up, shower, eat, go to work, come home, eat, go bed. Yes, there is also ideally time for hobbies, family time and time spent with friends. There is ideally time for going to the gym, visiting cultural institutions, walking etc. 

To their credit, they do explicitly mention this notion in Dialectic. People come home from work, they relax with pleasant distractions, and then go back to work. It's a loop that keeps the system running.

But beyond pointing out the problem, they don't seem to think any viable solution is workable. I give them some leeway at least in 1944, because they had just escaped the horrors of Nazi Germany--I'd be pretty fucking bleak too--but even later on, the perspective is this pervasive pessimism, part of which stems from their sense of purism. If it ain't perfect, it's completely fucked.

41 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I’d strongly question and challenge the morals, belief system, political beliefs and social understanding of the person who believes this of less social, artistic value and relevance to normal people than this. Both can and should be valued, valuing one higher than the other seems silly to me. Ren, today’s ‘bard’ who sings of chronic illness, generational trauma, psychosis, medical service failures, and more is directly relevant to how a lot of disenfranchised people feel, let down by various elements of society. Bach’s music has been read in a number of ways, especially his sacred music as a manifestation to a devout relationship with a perceived god. Both of these music forms are valuable, and will relate to different people for different reasons and neither should be discouraged or mocked for example. 

I had never heard Ren, and I do wonder what Adorno might think of him. He almost comes off like a contemporary version of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, who Adorno admired--at least more than most dabblings with popular sounds.

Regardless, your general point holds. Even thinking about artists he might have heard when writing that book, what did he think of Coleman Hawkins? Of Duke Ellington? Of Woody Guthrie? Of Billie Holiday? Part of me really wants to know, yet I fear that he'd be just as dismissive and insulting as he was with Benny Goodman.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Phylum of Alexandria

[Phylum of Alexandria]

16 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Schönberg (well 12 tone music in general) is a pain to listen to. Our eears have developed musical habits. We are used to certain melodic structures and consider them pleasent, or unpleasent. If you want to submit yourself to the torture of the rather unfamiliar. Try to find some Chinese Opera on youtube. Compared to that Schönberg is bliss.

I mean, I always found good old Theodor Wiesengrund a bit snobbish and grumpy wrt culture. Given that for him Wagner was kinda kitsch, I just assume forcing him to watch any Andrew Lloyd Webber show would've probably sent him either into a deep depression or homicidal rage. And of course there's no bottom. No need to guess, what his opinion on those X-factor, somewhere got talent etc. would be.

Yeah, like Schönberg, Adorno can be hard to take if you're not in a very generous mood. It's a good point about habits. I do think that part of what Adorno was getting at is the positive psychological and civic effects of breaking free from those habits. But expecting people to suddenly do so without practice (or any incentive to do so), is tantamount to expecting a miracle.

[Kalbear]

Look, if we can't kill all of Ukraine we can't have ballet anymore, and is that the world we want to live in?

[maarsen]

Theda makes a very important point. One cannot assume that art consumed by those of a higher social status is superior to that culture that appeals to those of us without much social standing. The only difference is the higher classes have more time to produce art and can, in theory, produce more and better art. In real life, not so much. Talent and genius both seem to strike at random with the only difference being access to the market for art.

Shakespeare was a commoner and knew well that he needed to show his roots as a common person in his plays. Look at any list of musicians, writers or artists and you don't find that being born into a higher class gives you any advantage, unless you are wealthy and powerful enough to appropriate the original art and get away with it.

A corollary is that having a  taste for the so called highbrow stuff doesn't make you a better person either. I cannot stand listening to jazz. Something about it bothers my brain. The only use I have for it is if I need to stay awake at night and then I listen to it as it riles my brain and keeps me awake. If I am going to listen to music, as I get older I go back to the old rockin' blues or the old rock'n'roll before it was made safe, or punk rock. Simple stuff, and not even 3 chords at times but that seems to be what I enjoy.

[Zorral]

53 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Shakespeare was a commoner and knew well that he needed to show his roots as a common person in his plays.

That he was a player and, a playwright, he was low status; just like all of the others practicing these jobs. Art wasn't a word in use for what they did at that time.  What he did in his job was something everyone who could pay the admission price had access to, and the admission price was deliberately not exorbitant.  Unlike now, say, to attend an opera (which also used to be 'merely' popular/people's entertainment, and o did the Italians love it! and still do, even now!), or the ballet, or even many museums in the US (unlike in the EU which it and the nations provide actual support for all the arts)  -- the price of a ticket to the Metropolitan Museum of Art currently has increased again to $30.

However, here, a ticket to see a really stupid film is close to $30 too.  Baseball games . . . To attend a retro Hot Tuna show this week, elderly white guys whose prostates couldn't handle the beer so the lines to the mens' rooms wrapped around the arcade -- $150 for the least expensive.  It's highly doubtful that anyone regards "Fucking Hot Tuna!" as art. (Quote directly provided to me by Partner and friend who were gifted with tix -- they left the 3 hour show after the first hour. Ha!)

Shakespeare didn't change his status by his work, even though Yay! he was successful with it, and made decent enough money from it, which many of his peers did not, to retire decently when the time came.  Nor did he or anyone else expect his status would change.

Back in those days some painters and chapel choir masters, etc. were in company in different ways and times with even royalty as well as nobility.  But they still arrived by separate entrances, still bowed, etc.

Things were very different in those times than they had become even by the time of the late 1800's, after we started to have universal education and many colleges and universities, which weren't established in either the Renaissance or the Enlightenment -- these movements came post the Revolutionary era.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Zorral

[Phylum of Alexandria]

30 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Theda makes a very important point. One cannot assume that art consumed by those of a higher social status is superior to that culture that appeals to those of us without much social standing. The only difference is the higher classes have more time to produce art and can, in theory, produce more and better art. In real life, not so much. Talent and genius both seem to strike at random with the only difference being access to the market for art.

Shakespeare was a commoner and knew well that he needed to show his roots as a common person in his plays. Look at any list of musicians, writers or artists and you don't find that being born into a higher class gives you any advantage, unless you are wealthy and powerful enough to appropriate the original art and get away with it.

A corollary is that having a  taste for the so called highbrow stuff doesn't make you a better person either. I cannot stand listening to jazz. Something about it bothers my brain. The only use I have for it is if I need to stay awake at night and then I listen to it as it riles my brain and keeps me awake. If I am going to listen to music, as I get older I go back to the old rockin' blues or the old rock'n'roll before it was made safe, or punk rock. Simple stuff, and not even 3 chords at times but that seems to be what I enjoy.

Heck, I'm someone who jams out to the "Chicken Yodel" song unironically.

To the extent that Adorno's writing reflects classist snobbery (and it is definitely there sometimes), I agree with that critique. But that's not quite what the authors are trying to get at.

For one, they also disparage plenty of "elite" musicians like Wagner, and also avant garde art in general. They don't like when art is too easily pleasant or catchy, but also they don't like art that's too combative. Whether it's popular or elitist, they criticize art that crowds out or shouts down the audience's own thinking. They think of both as different kinds of totalitarianism.

The heart of what Horkheimer and Adorno were writing about in their "Culture Industry" chapter and Dialectic of Enlightenment in general is something distinct from mere snobbery. It's trying to answer the question of "why are the people of liberal democracies so complacent?" Being neo-Marxists, they certainly have no love of capitalism or its effects on workers.

Now, I don't think it's all that helpful to quibble about particular music styles of art movements as better or worse--and I tried to say as much in my original post. These authors do plenty of such quibbling, but I disagree with it. Still, I think the general critique has a lot of truth to it.

These days, it's hard not to be overwhelmed by our ultra-sensational, ever-distracting, omnipresent commercial culture machines. Right wing politics looks more and more like cuts from a pro-wrestling show. And all politics are covered by journalists who have to cater to the profit demands of their corporate overlords, and they gave to pursue clicks like a radio company used to pursue listeners. Infotainment is everywhere.

There's always going to be decent art available, but companies recycle the same characters and plots with a boldness and speed that borders on open contempt for their audiences. And yet the audiences love it. Or they're too overwhelmed to really care.

I'm of the mind that pop art is perfectly sufficient to give consumers a taste for something a little different. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance. The episode "The Body" was a beautiful meditation on death and loss, and the numbness that comes from it. Plenty of fans started the show for the quippy banter and the lo-fi horror schlock fun, but along the way they got some gripping character moments and cultural commentary to help fans navigate this crazy thing we call life.

But it does take a desire to do so, and the effort to try to better oneself, whatever the art used to do so may be.

 

[Zorral]

54 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I cannot stand listening to jazz.

What sorts of jazz do you listen to?  I would say I love jazz, but there are whole genres of it that I actively dislike -- and those tend to be the sorts that deliberately eschewed rhythm, for instance, with the idea of being serious and compositional, to show their worthiness to be included in the class of the Symphony Composers, etc. 

People used to be able to dance to jazz.  So women were there, and that brought in the audiences.  You can't dance to blip blop +screech minus rhythm, so women stayed away. So nobody dancing showed the serious highminded art of blip blop. 

Well, that's a very short description of this evolution of certain sort of music, which leaves out a fair amount.

But New Orleans classical jazz and so much more, o yes, I love it!  And you betcha the women were there dancing!

[Phylum of Alexandria]

4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

What sorts of jazz do you listen to?  I would say I love jazz, but there are whole genres of it that I actively dislike -- and those tend to be the sorts that deliberately eschewed rhythm, for instance, with the idea of being serious and compositional, to show their worthiness to be included in the class of the Symphony Composers, etc. 

People used to be able to dance to jazz.  So women were there, and that brought in the audiences.  You can't dance to blip blop +screech minus rhythm, so women stayed away. So nobody dancing showed the serious highminded art of blip blop. 

Well, that's a very short description of this evolution of certain sort of music, which leaves out a fair amount.

But New Orleans classical jazz and so much more, o yes, I love it!  And you betcha the women were there dancing!

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the New Orleans stuff, but Sydney Bechet and Louis Armstrong are both goddamned wonders of the world, Theodor Adorno be damned.

My favorite stuff is I guess late bop--Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Ahmad Jamal, Dave Brubeck, etc. But over the past few years have started to dig into older stuff, like Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman. Some great stuff, even if the big band arrangements are not my favorite.

[Larry of the Lawn]

20 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

 

These days, it's hard not to be overwhelmed by our ultra-sensational, ever-distracting, omnipresent commercial culture machines. Right wing politics looks more and more like cuts from a pro-wrestling show. And all politics are covered by journalists who have to cater to the profit demands of their corporate overlords, and they gave to pursue clicks like a radio company used to pursue listeners. Infotainment is everywhere.

.

 

I think this sentiment is frequently exaggerated.  Sure, dominant pop culture has lots of "worthless" entertainment.  It's also incredibly easy to simply ignore it or not consume it.  

I think it's incredibly difficult to have a functional definition of what makes art "valuable" or "meaningful" that doesn't tie itself in hypocritical knots, ignore a vast amount of culture that billions of people appreciate and find to be meaningful, or devolve into straight-up snobbery.  

Would the world be a better place if Stravinsky was on the radio more than the Beatles?  If more people read Harold Bloom's top 50 over Stephen King and Patricia Cornwell? 

What's the job/goal of an artist or art?  

I'm guessing Kurt Vonnegut's answer* to that question would be different than Adorno's.  

*iirc it was something to the effect of "an artist's purpose is to make people enjoy being alive even if it's just for a moment. "

 

Edit: great topic by the way

Edited September 25, 2023 by Larry of the Lawn

[Phylum of Alexandria]

13 minutes ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

I think this sentiment is frequently exaggerated.  Sure, dominant pop culture has lots of "worthless" entertainment.  It's also incredibly easy to simply ignore it or not consume it.  

I think it's incredibly difficult to have a functional definition of what makes art "valuable" or "meaningful" that doesn't tie itself in hypocritical knots, ignore a vast amount of culture that billions of people appreciate and find to be meaningful, or devolve into straight-up snobbery.  

Would the world be a better place if Stravinsky was on the radio more than the Beatles?  If more people read Harold Bloom's top 50 over Stephen King and Patricia Cornwell? 

What's the job/goal of an artist or art?  

I'm guessing Kurt Vonnegut's answer* to that question would be different than Adorno's.  

*iirc it was something to the effect of "an artist's purpose is to make people enjoy being alive even if it's just for a moment. "

Well, it doesn't sound like we disagree too much.* I get that the musical snobbery side of Adorno is hard to get past, but I do think that there is a valuable cultural critique beyond it. 

What do you think of my idea of art to "wake people up to harsh realities, and/or strengthen their resolve against easy certainty and indulgence"? As I had said, there's plenty of art that can do that, or at least do it to some small extent.

Given GRRM's harsh words for a lot of fantasy fiction out there, I think he holds a fairly similar outlook on art to mine. Perhaps Adorno would scoff and call us "middle brow" or whatever, but the point stands that some art is more willing to challenge audiences, and some audiences are more willing (whether by trait or by circumstance) to be challenged.

That's the dynamic that I'm advocating for here, as a possible medicine against the other media opiates that bombard us.

 

* Edit: well, I disagree that it's easy to ignore, especially in this day of smart phones. But even when I go to the dentist, it's an assault on my eyes and ears, with like three different things playing at once. We should avoid it, but it's often not easy.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Phylum of Alexandria

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

What sorts of jazz do you listen to?  I would say I love jazz, but there are whole genres of it that I actively dislike -- and those tend to be the sorts that deliberately eschewed rhythm, for instance, with the idea of being serious and compositional, to show their worthiness to be included in the class of the Symphony Composers, etc. 

People used to be able to dance to jazz.  So women were there, and that brought in the audiences.  You can't dance to blip blop +screech minus rhythm, so women stayed away. So nobody dancing showed the serious highminded art of blip blop. 

Well, that's a very short description of this evolution of certain sort of music, which leaves out a fair amount.

But New Orleans classical jazz and so much more, o yes, I love it!  And you betcha the women were there dancing!

Zorral, when I wrote of my dislike of jazz, I was thinking of you and how you would respond. As you so well put it if one can't dance to it, one can't listen to it. The newer stuff from the 50s onward where understatement and mood became as important as the notes that weren't played is the jazz that annoys me. I watched a movie a few weeks ago about Little Richard. Now that man could entertain! He was everything modern jazz isn't.

[Kalbear]

I'm sure that if I spent a bunch of time understanding how difficult certain things are to do, how innovative some people are, how amazing some of the improvisation is that I could appreciate it.

But it sounds at best like background music for a more interesting thing going on in the world. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

 

What do you think of my idea of art to "wake people up to harsh realities, and/or strengthen their resolve against easy certainty and indulgence"? As I had said, there's plenty of art that can do that, or at least do it to some small extent.

.

I don't know.  I think there's plenty of art out there that doesn't do this, by design or result, and that doesn't diminish it.

I suppose the Big Corporate Brother opiating us through entertainment would be bad, but I'm not sure that getting stoned and putting on Let it Bleed instead of listening to Mingus is what's keeping the rent prices high, or reading Joe Abercrombie over Moby Dick is what's stopping us from seizing the means of production.

LIke, I can question the utility of watching reality TV or professional sports but I don't know how you make people like stuff that just isn't that popular or accessible.  

I think there's value in art that just makes you feel something or moves you, whether or not it's challenging or "improving" or anything.  I don't think more complex = better.

 

[maarsen]

1 minute ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

I don't know.  I think there's plenty of art out there that doesn't do this, by design or result, and that doesn't diminish it.

I suppose the Big Corporate Brother opiating us through entertainment would be bad, but I'm not sure that getting stoned and putting on Let it Bleed instead of listening to Mingus is what's keeping the rent prices high, or reading Joe Abercrombie over Moby Dick is what's stopping us from seizing the means of production.

 

LIke, I can question the utility of watching reality TV or professional sports but I don't know how you make people like stuff that just isn't that popular or accessible.  

I think there's value in art that just makes you feel something or moves you, whether or not it's challenging or "improving" or anything.  I don't think more complex = better.

 

Sometimes complexity is its own reward. Considering you are now reading a very subtle and complex book (Dhalgren). I have to admit that it has been over 30 years since my last reread of the above but it stays with me still. That is great art.

[Kalbear]

Art can be used as a protest to show people harsh realities when those are being faced - or it can be used as a ray of shining hope in those same harsh realities. Beauty is also a way to fight fascism. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

Yeah, I agree that there's more than one good way to utilize art. Just saying that Horkheimer and Adorno's hope for art as an anti-opiate has merit, particularly in our crazy post-industrial world.

They would not agree with my recommendation for Mingus, of course. But on that count, fuck 'em.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Phylum of Alexandria

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, maarsen said:

He was everything modern jazz isn't.

Right now in New Orleans, so many of the roots of jazz, are meeting again, and the music just sizzles: the grand NO traditions set up by Louis Armstrong and the earlier, prior recording age, artists, and now Haitian and Cuban musicians, coming together.  It is SO Exciting!  It is absolutely New Orleans jazz, it is absolutely Cuban, it is absolutely Haitian in their own bands -- but they are cross dancing/cross playing.  It's wonderful.  I hadn't been this excited by new music in quite a while.