Transcript Adorno

Phil 2222: Philosophy of Art
A *brief* introduction to Critical
Theory
The Frankfurt School
Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Marcuse,
Neumann, Kirchheimer, Lowenthal and Erich
Fromm.
Jurgen Habermas
The actual school in Frankfurt disbanded in the
face of Nazism and moved to NY to become
The New School for Social Research.
The Problem
Why was Marx so incredibly right about
capitalism, but so incredibly wrong about
communism?
Others: Lukacs, Korsch, Gramsci
– Lukacs forced to denounce his own views by the
Communists in the 30s
– Korsch was kicked out of the German Communist
Party for refusing to do the same
– Gramsci was ‘protected’ from these purges
because he was held in a fascist prison!
‘The good life at a great price’
That Porsche ad / the Saturn ad
47 Starbucks in Beijing
4 in Oman
17 in Paris!
22 in Instanbul (4 in Ankara)
The Problem
Why was Marx so incredibly right about
capitalism, but so incredibly wrong about
communism?
Solutions?
Broadly speaking, a psychological
explanation:
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Influences:
Built on the research programs of Max
Weber & Lukacs:
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Reification
Rationalization
Commodity Fetishism
Why?
Weber’s central contention was this: that
capitalism is not just an economic system – it
is not simply explainable in terms of the
‘impulse to acquire’.
It is something more: “a capitalistic economic
action is one which rests on the expectation
of profit by the utilization of opportunities for
exchange, that is one (formally) peaceful
chances of profit”
Capitalism, for Weber, is intimately
connected to the Protestant ethos –it is
more than an economic system, it is, at
least partially, a religion.
The Frankfurt school sought similar explanations of
peoples’ political and economic behavior – that is, in
terms of psychological states and properties.
Adorno’s paper has three parts:
Attack on Benjamin
Use of Lukac’s ‘reification’ to indicate the logic of the
culture industry
his own theory of ‘regressive listening’, and the
impossibility of resurrecting listening in the current
system.
Lukacs:
Commodity Fetishism: turning
commodities into quasi-spiritual
meaning-carrying entities through which
we define our lives and find meaning.
Weber’s 2nd contribution:
The ‘rationalization’ of beaurocracy:
treating something that depends on
human decision and is within human
control as if it is not.
(later)
Reification
‘Reification’: from Lukacs – a synthesis of
Marx’s commodity fetishism with
Weberian rationalization. It occurs
when something is treated in theory or
practice as a marketable commodity
(I.e. its use-value becomes its
exchange-value)
Add to this Weber’s rationalization and…
Treating commodities as quasi-spiritual
entities, and thinking that this is what
they are objectively in and of
themselves.
(that is, failing to recognize that this quasispiritual status is dependent on the way
we treat these objects, not anything
they are themselves).
So, how is all this supposed to
work?
• Background:
– Marx – Das Capital & Lukacs’
interepretation (commodity fetishism)
– Weber ‘rationlization’
– Lukacs and ‘reification’
– Then, Marcuse (in brief) and an example of
the Frankfurt school’s reasoning: Adorno
on Music.
Marx.
“A commodity is, in the first place, a thing
outside of us that by its properties satisfies
human wants of some sort or another.”
But, in reality, commodities have properties
other than those that satisfy wants – people
collect them, venerate them, are loyal to
them, and preserve them.
Where do these mysterious properties come
from?
2 Key premises:
1. In all states of society, the labor time
that it costs to produce subsistence is
necessarily of interest to all mankind.
2. From the moment that men in any way
work with or for oneanother, their labor
assumes a social form.
• Marx’s contention:
– Science the special status of commodities
is above and beyond subsistence, the
enigmatic character of commodities comes
from this social form of production.
The equality of human labor is expressed in
objects by the equal value of the products (If I
take 2ce as long to produce a widget than
you take to produce a fidget, a widget must
cost 2ce as much as a fidget).
Thus, the relations between producers take on
the form of relations between our products.
Therefore, a commodity is mysterious because:
In it the social character of labor appears to
be a property of the object itself. The relations
between the producers to the sum total of
their labor (that is, their products) is
presented back to them as social relations
between the products they produce.
Therefore:
“Products of labor become commodities –
social things whose qualities are at the same
time perceptible and imperceptible by the
senses.”
The social relationship between
commodities is analogous to the social
relationship between ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’.
They are productions of the human
mind, yet appear to be independent
beings endowed with life and entering
into relations with one another and the
human race in general.
1. Articles of utility become commodities only
because they are products of the labor of
private individuals or groups…
2. Since producers do not come into social
contact with one another until they
exchange their products, the specific social
character of each producer’s labor doesn’t
show itself expect in the act of exchange.
3. The labor of an individual is thus a part of
the labor of society only insofar as it is
related in exchange with other products,
and indirectly, then, to the producers.
4. Thus the relations connecting the labor of
individuals are not direct social relations
between individuals, but are material
relations between persons and social
relations between things.
5. And it is only in being exchanged that the
products of labor acquire uniform social
status – or value – distinct from their usevalue.
6. And when products are produced solely for
the purpose of being exchanged, then their
exchange value must be taken into account
before production.
7. Therefore, the products of labor, to the
producer of those products, have
value only insofar as they are desired
by others, and since the products of
labor are merely material expressions
of the producers’ labor, the producers’
labor has value only insofar as it is
desired by others (and, hence, the
basis of wage-labor).
Weber
The main question is “Why advanced
capitalism only in the west?”
‘advanced capitalism’ = “The rational
capitalistic organization of (formally)
free labor” – this includes the separation
of business from the household and the
rationalization of bookkeeping.
1. Western capitalism is highly influenced by
the development of technological
possibilities.
2. And those technological possibilities were
encouraged by certain social-culture mores
(dissection, e.g.)
3. One of these social-culture mores of central
importance is the particular law (i.e. the
Magna Carta needed in Islam)
“Modern rational capitalism has need, not only
of technical means of production, but of a
calculable legal systems and of
administration in terms of formal rules”
(If there were individuals in the country to whom
the law did not apply – would you risk your
hard earned money in an investment?)
4. When the rationalization of law comes into
conflict with religion, religion usually wins
(witness the development of biology in
Hindu and Buddhist cultures, Islam in the
modern world…)
5. So, there must have been something in the
protestant, Calvinistic tradition that was
amenable to the rationalization of law. (we
talked about that…)
It is one of the fundamental characteristics of an
individualistic capitalistic economy that it is
rationalized on the basis of rigorous
calculation, directed with foresight and
caution toward economic success which is
sought in sharp contrast to the hand-tomouth existence of the peasant, and to the
privileged traditionalism of the guild
craftsman and of the adventures’ capitalism,
oriented to the exploitation of political
opportunities and irrational speculation.
The development of the spirit of
capitalism is best understood as part of
the development of rationalism as a
whole and could be deduced from the
fundamental position of rationalism on
the basic problems of life (76)
6. So, capitalism is a feature of rationalization
of society (which is intimately connected to
religion).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
It’s self-justifying
It’s self-verifying
It ‘takes on a life of it’s own’
And it’s seen to be outside of human control.
It’s intimately connected with religion
Lukacs
Central thesis: in developed capitalistic
societies, the fetishism of commodities
penetrates all spheres of social life
The factory is the model of all social
relationships
The fate of the worker is the fate of all
humanity
1. The world of commodity exchange is seen
as the estrangement (alienation) of human
activity and the de-activation of individuality
2. Reducing human labor to a commodity
abstracts it and makes it interchangable
with other laborers – thus undermining
individual choice, expression, thought, etc.
3. The worker is ‘mutilated’ “reduced to
mere spectatorship, to mere
contemplation of his own estranged
activity and that of his fellows. He is
emasculated.”
Marcuse
Central question:
Why does the “comfortable, smooth and
reasonable unfreedom” prevail in
advanced industrialized society?
• “Comfortable”
• “Smooth”
• “Reasonable”
Marcuse – through extending the notion of
‘rationalization’ beyond the relationship
between people and their products to people
and what they consume, find this same
emasculation in all spheres of human life.
If the market is the model for the family, family
relationships are rationalized (they just happen)
If the market is the model for education, students are
passive recipients, unable to choose or interact.
Etc…
“The facts directing man’s thoughts and actions
are not those of nature which must be
accepted in order to be mastered, of those of
society which must be changed because they
no longer correspond to human needs and
potentialities. Rather are they those of the
machine process, which itself appears as the
embodiment of rationality and expediency.”
In more detail: to the extent that freedom
from want is decreased, the ‘traditional’
freedoms of freedom of thought,
autonomy and opposing political views
are “being deprived of their basic critical
function” in advanced societies that can
satisfy our every want.
How?
Reduce the discussion and promotion of
alternative political views to those within the
status quo.
How?
1. ‘non-conformity is socially useless’ and
2. It is of great economic and practical
disadvantage.
3. And, it threatens the smoothness of the society
as a whole.
(Co-opting)
How did this come about?
Again: subsistence.
Subsistence and liberty are not necessarily
amenable.
The ‘freedom’ to starve, e.g.
when faced with starvation, people prefer
security to liberty.
So, it should follow that:
Increasing the satisfaction of needs should
increase freedom and liberty
Once everyone’s basic needs are met, society
should be perfectly free and perfectly
ordered.
But that’s Marx’s theory.
And it didn’t work.
Technically:
The “end” of technological society: to
render individual autonomy possible
through the organization or an
apparatus (automation and
mechanization) of the satisfaction of our
basic needs.
“In actual fact, however, the contrary trend
operates: the apparatus imposes its
economic and political requirements for
defense and expansion on labor time
and free time, on the material and
intellectual culture.”
Therefore, society tends to be totalitariannot in the sense of a terroristic political
organization, but rather in the sense of a
“non-terroristic economic-technical
coordination which operates through the
manipulation of needs by vested interests.”
Society therefore precludes any
opposition to the whole.
Note: this a bit strong – the premise that a system
manipulates needs and is therefore totalitarian, he
still hasn’t demonstrated that that society precludes
opposition. But, if we charitably give him the notion
of the co-opting of oppositional ideals, we get the
strong thesis. And the strong thesis gives us:
Adorno (finally!)
The decline in musical taste is linked to
the discovery that music represents
both the immediate manifestation of
impluse (creativity) and the locus for
taming that impulse (through structure /
reason / logic)
NOTE: this is all in Plato, as we talked
about.
• In music, the pressure is ‘to obey’ – the
structure, the tradition, etc – to tame the
impulse to rebel and find a place within the
structure where people can act on or explore
that impulse safely.
• Art is not socially radical – it is the co-opting
of dangerous, radical ideas into a safe,
socially acceptable medium (-Dewey + Freud
= Adorno)
Why?
• The concept of ‘taste’ in advanced capitalism
is outmoded
– What matters is recognition. One does not like
popular music, one is merely familiar with popular
music.
– Music is the compliment of the reduction of people
to silence
– It inhabits the ‘pockets of silence’ that develop
between people molded by anxiety, work and
undemanding docility
• Everywhere, music is the soundtrack to
our sad, emasculated lives. It plays the
role it did in silent films – it is merely
background filler.
– (Remember ‘High Fidelity’ – he organized
his record collection biographically).
2nd Section
• Here, A. s attacking the position that
would state something like:
Ok, fine, popular music in advanced
capitalism is like a highway. But
classical music, well that’s different. (or
substitute any ‘serious’ music in for
‘classical’)
“Their static separation, which certain
caretakers of culture have ardently sought –
the totalitarian radio was assigned to the task,
on the one hand, of providing good
entertainment and diversion, and on the
other, of fostering the so-called cultural
goods, as if there could still be good
entertainment and as if the cultural goods
were not, by their administration, transformed
into evils – the neat parceling out of music’s
social field of force is illusionary.” (274)
The illusion of preference for ‘light’ music (as
opposed to ‘serious’ music) is based merely
on the passivity of the masses.
The consumption of light music contradict the
interests of those who consume it (it is in your
interest to think, light music doesn’t make you
think),
BUT the ‘serious’ music and light music hang
together in an ‘unresolved contradition’ the
light can’t introduce one the serious, and the
serious can’t ‘borrow’ from the light.
• The serious music then disappears (it is, by
definition, unpopular), and hence the lower
can no longer measure itself in contrast to the
serious.
• Between the standards of banal and
incomprehensible, there is no room for
individuality, no room for preference, no
option for exploration.
• ‘Preference’, therefore, is illusory – you do
not like popular music. You simply have no
other option.
Fetish
Musical ‘taste’, then, is nothing other than fetish
– as in the case of sexual fetish – it is based
on no more reason than a random exposure,
probably as a youth.
The fetish often takes an individual (instrument,
composer, conductor, voice, etc.) as its
object.
The moments of sensual pleasure are not in
relation to the music, but are ‘blind and
irrational’
“Where they react at all, it no longer
makes any difference whether it is to
Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony or to a
bikini”
Music with all its ethereal and sublime
attributes, serves in America today as
an advertisement for commodities which
one must acquire in order to be able to
hear music
Remember Marx?
• Value = time you spent on something
• But, in the act of exchange, you’re thing
get valued, so you get valued
• You are alienated from your product,
and hence yourself, so…
• You are now measured by the value you
acquire – i.e. how much you spend on
something
The music fan is not worshipping the
three tenors, but rather the amount they
spent on the ticket to their concert.
“The use value of a piece of music is
presumably the enjoyment one gets out of
listening to it (or something imposed on it in a
capitalist system – stress reliever, etc.) –
When that music is commodified, the use
value is replaced by the exchange value.
Furthermore, in collections, the exchange
value takes over the use value – one collects
rare records not to enjoy them, but to have
them – collecting for the sake of collection”
(259)
• The use value in music (buy things to use
them, in music: listening)
• is replaced by exchange value (how much do
others want this)
• which is then replaced by use value (how
much could I get for this)
• the use is no longer listening, but trading,
• and the value (which becomes my value) is in
the having, not in the using.
• This is commodity fetishism
“A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing,
simply because in it the social character of
men’s labor appears to them as an objective
character stamped upon the product of that
labour; because the relation of the producers
to the sum total of their labour is presented to
them as a social relation, existing not
between themselves, but between the
products of their labour” (Marx, Das Capital,
something like the second page, Quoted (but
not cited) in Adorno, p 528)
The commodity is reified – we have social
relations with products, and economic
relations with people – but we treat this
institution as if it is outside of human
control, an unassailable, unjustifiable
bureaucracy.
the “transfer of the use value of
consumption goods to their exchange
value contributes to a general order in
which eventually every pleasure which
emancipates itself from exchange
values takes on subversive features”
(529)
“The woman who has money with which to buy is
intoxicated by the act of buying. In American
conventional speech, having a good time means
being present at the enjoyment of others, which in
turn has as its only content being present. The auto
religion makes all men brothers in the sacramental
moment with the words: ‘this is a Rolls Royce’, and in
moments of intimacy, women attach greater
importance to their hairdressers and cosmeticians
than to the situation for the sake of which the
hairdressers and cosmeticians are employed.” (p
529)
“The couple out driving who spend their time
identifying every passing car and being happy
if they recognize the trademarks speeding by,
the girl whose satisfaction consists solely in
the fact that she and her boyfriend ‘look
good’, the expertise of the jazz enthusiast
who legitimizes himself by having knowledge
about what is in any case inescapable: all this
operates according to the same command.
Before the theological caprices of
commodities, the consumers become temple
slaves” (p 529)
Sadomasochism
• The prisoner loves his cell because he
knows nothing else.
• Millions of people bought David
Helfcott’s CD (and he played on the
oscars), but it sucks. – they just don’t
know anything else.
• Why do people love a system (or a
music industry) that treats them badly?
Why do so many wait anxiously for the
next crappy record by Mariah Carey
(e.g.)
• Because they get their identity from that
system – ‘I’m a Mac user’ ‘I’m a VW
owner’ ‘I’m a ska kid’ ‘I’m in on it’
• And that identification is necessary
because of the stadardization of
consumer goods
“The commercial necessity of connecting
this identity leads to the manipulation of
taste and the official culture’s pretense
of individualism which necessarily
increases in proportion to the liquidation
of the individual”
• Declare your individuality! Buy a massproduced product just like thousands of
your friends!
• (and remember: Music is a massproduced product)
Vulgarization
• Music is chopped up, institutionalized and
‘frozen’ in the definitive interpretation on a
recording device. Vulgarization occurs when
the music is not appreciated / listened to as a
whole work of art.
– The 2001 theme, Beethovens’ 5th, Wagner’s
Wedding march are all removed from the
complexity of their position in larger works of art,
digested, commodified, and sold to the music
consumer as individual works of art.
Arrangment
• Muzak
• Elevator music –
– Again, it is the process of removing art
from it’s complex context, creating a
canonical version, and commodifying art.
The practice of Music
• Toscanini – “Perfect immaculate
performance in the latest style
preserves the work at the price of its
definitive reification.”
– Like the fascist, we sacrifice freedom, love,
and all that makes us human for the order,
predictability and regularity of a standard,
canonical interpretation.
The consciousness of mass
listeners
• Listeners listen according to a formula
• The concepts of ‘liking’ and ‘disliking’
are irrelevant – the only question is
‘does this fit with my economic status?’,
‘is this the kind of person I want to
project to others?’
The regression of listening
• ‘regression’ is Freudian – regressing to
the infantile stage of listening.
– Listeners ‘lose along with their freedom of
choice and responsibility, the capacity for
conscious perception of music… but they
stubbornly reject the possibility of such
perception’ (532)
Vulgarization in pop
• Lyrics are overly important, to the detrimint of other
aspects of music
• This is extended to the melody itself
• The emphasis on exchange-value dimminishes
innovation and variation: regressive listeners are like
children who demand the same meal over and over
• The music industry responds – by preparing the
same song over and over, by different ‘artists’
• Whenever someone wants to extricate themselves,
the music industry responds and adapts and offers
them a reified context in which to exorcize their
revolutions (Punk x2, Ska x3 (or 4?), ‘Lalapollusa’)