Kiwi, Horkheimer and Adorno

(This first part of my blog is a continuation off of last weeks blog where you said I needed to elaborate more… I combined some points from my elaborations with this weeks reading, however my “new” blog for this week starts after my second quote.)
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being which determines their consciousness.” I think that this quote really explains our society in the fact that society constructs the way that we think. While individuals have their own thoughts, it is society that constructs more of who we are. An example of this is the ruling class and how we are simply constructed by the ruling class who are the ones that become in control simply because they have more money therefore they have more material. It is the ideologies of who we are which we get from the ruling class. Like Althusser says.. there are two kinds RSA and the ISA which are both contributed to our being in society. I think that it is sad how our society subconsciously thinks that the ruling class are always the ones in control , however I do believe that this is something that will never change because our
(new blog starts here)“Culture today is infecting everything with sameness”(43, Horkheimer and Adorno ) . Horkheimer and Adorno say that we are creating the same things. They say that we are mashing up everything old material and creating new , however it is al the same. I thought this was very interesting when I read this I was able to connect it to Lyotard and Bricolage- which is taking all the leftover of culture and putting them together. Lyotard would argue that is the fundamental aesthetic of our culture. It is not new, its just old stuff put together. He argues that, “what is valuable is what people buy, what people purchas.” Again this goes back to Horkheimer and Adorno’s quote about how our culture is being effected with the “sameness”. Horkerimer and Adorno say that, “ Mechanically differentiated products are ultimately all the same”( 43). I myself as well as Lyotard would both probably be able to agree with them that this is true and this is how our society works. Something that I thought of right away when I read this was T.V shows (reality) and how they are all the same. Just think of how many reality tv shows there are now on tv? Tons! There are so many these days that we don’t know which one to pick to watch. In my opinion, it really wouldn’t make a difference which reality show you might pick because they are all pretty much the same exact thing, all having the same ideas. Why is this? Because this is what our media chooses to do… “they show us what we want to see” (Benjamin) “ They use the technique of reproduction which detaches the reproducing objects from the domain of tradition.” (21 Benjamin)
I thought that reading Horjeimer and Adorno was very interesting and I thought it was pretty neat how many different theorists I could connect them to and correlate their thoughts with others. I’m starting to be able to put little things together from class and the readings and now create a whole picture from everything and I think that is really cool :0) I look forward to our class discussion as well as our next reading and hope that I will be able to connect more information with other things that we have already learned.