kaymac 3.20.08

I think this reading and class had to be one of my favorites. This reading is what happens when a really smart postmodern theorist gets pissed at our world and decides to write about it. I can just see Adorno and Horkheimer going to Wal-Mart and walking into the shampoo section. Here, you have hundreds of different shampoos, all in different colored bottles and shapes advertising that they can make your hair longer, smoother, curlier, straighter, bouncier, flippier, browner, blonder, natural, permed, unnatural, redder, sexier, stringier, and so on and so forth.

My favorite quote that we discussed in class was this:

“Amusement always means putting things out of mind, forgetting suffering, even when it is on display. At its root is powerlessness.” 57

I really liked how somebody in class related this to the gladiators in Roman times. In a way, our society is still like that. Only this time we have more advanced technology that doesn't actually kill people but ultimately, it's all the same. News programs constantly bombard us with "breaking news!" and "astonishing reveals!" about our society. People watch the news for this. The news says that this is what we want to watch. And relating this back to what Dr. Tillmann said about Anna Nicole Smith's death and people actually not caring about it, what the article failed to mention was that people still watched it. People still watched the stories on the news about Anna Nicole's death while a couple channels over there were stories on the news about the economy and the decline of the public education systems. So what came first, the chicken or the egg?

We have become mindless peons of our society. We perpetuate the sameness that is so apparent in our society. In my paper for Dr. Tillman's class, I spoke about how subcultures form because youth, through the disappointment in not finding an identity through ISAs, turn to each other in order to find their identity and that is how subcultures form. Then, like what A and H were saying:

“The concept of a genuine style becomes transparent in the culture industry as the aesthetic equivalent of power.” 47

which plays out like this: genuine style--->accepted/edited style--->next trend

So we try to oppose our society because we're unhappy with it and the differences are then produced into an accepted style which ultimately becomes the sameness that we opposed in the first place.

Please, tell me, how does this make any sense?

NewYorker 3/20

First of all - that reading for homework was brutal - the pages were single paragraphs, making it very hard on the eyes, and making me almost anxious while reading, as I kept wanting and anticipating a break in the page. However, they did manage to say quite a lot, and some of it was complicated. Today's class would have helped clarify better, for me at least, if we did not break up into groups. It is so hard to discuss the quotes with classmates, because we are never sure if we are saying the right thing, or something even close to the author's intention. It is also harder when people you are paired with did not do the reading, or if they are as clueless as you are. I like the discsussion better when you present it to us first, and we discuss as a whole class together (which is what we wound up doing at the end anyway).
One of the quotes that really interested me that we spoke about was, · “amusement always means putting things out of mind, forgetting suffering, even when it is on display. At its root is powerlessness” (57). I never realized how true this is, and we do this constantly, maybe on a daily basis. When it hit me though was when you showed the characters from South Park. I've only seen the one about Starvin Marvin, so what you said about it I agree with - there are actually people in Ethiopia that look like that, because they are malnutritioned and die rather quickly. It is a true and awful subject, yet here we are in America, poking fun at it by making a cartoon character out of a sad issue. But it is amusing to us, so we push back the sad realities of life to get a quick laugh or enjoy the show being presented to us. We do become powerless, unless we act out and taking a stand saying that it is wrong. But this is such a hard thing to do, especially when it is one versus many - change may be very slow, or even unattainable.

July-->Horkheimer & Adorno

From the reading about The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception I picked out two quotes that were significant to me and for my classmates to consider when reviewing this section. The first quote, “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 strongest (pg. 42). Hegemony plays a major role in this quote because new inventions and media have been producing rapidly but there are steps to this market production. Before these creations are put out on the market it has to receive administrative approval. The administration considers currency productivity before materials are released because it has to compensate for the money put into the product. Karl Marx supports this quote by stating that “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.”

Most products and forms of media displayed on the market are for pleasure rather than for beneficial reasoning. This leads to the quote, “Not only does it persuade them that its fraud is satisfaction; it also gives them to understand that they must make do with what is offered, whatever it may be (pg. 55).” Consumers consume for different reasons but one common motive is being economical. Products promise satisfaction when being advertised, but some don’t live up to their expectations which result to recalls or banishment from the market. America is a short term orientated country, which means we produce at a rapid pace rather than a long and progressive rate. Dr. Rog relates to this type of productivity, he once stated in class that “Our values depend on what it is worth.” Instead of consumers doing their research on their investments they often end-up with dissatisfaction.

kMO Horkheimer and Adorno

On page 50 Horkheimer and Adorno discuss “the relationship to the past.” The comparison of mass culture to late liberalism is based on the idea of the exclusion of the new. Put in simpler terms, in the film industry any manuscript which is not reassuringly based on a best-seller is viewed with mistrust. This hesitation is also seen across most mass-media industries. Horkheimer and Adorno state that “tempo and dynamism are paramount.” This basically means that we are always in motion. We are always searching for something new and living in the moment instead of placing what we already have on a pedestal and letting it sit in time. I recently read an article by Butler and she discusses the difference between art and fashion. She says that art is timeless and is admired for what it is whereas fashion is ever-changing and criticized for what it could be. In my opinion this idea parallels what Horkeimer and Adorno are trying to say. In fact this next quote supports my point. “The frozen genres - sketch, short story, problem film, hit song represent the average of late liberal taste threateningly imposed as a norm. “ An interesting thought that these two theorists brought up was the idea that the more all-embracing that the culture industry has become the more it has forced the outsider into bankruptcy or a syndicate. Apparently some people believe that entertainment or “light art” betrays pure expression….

However, what I would really like to know is what the difference between light art and autonomous art is? If anyone can offer a good explanation I would really appreciate your comment underneath my blog…Thanks!

Sgt. Pepper, Horkheimer and Adorno

While reading Horkheimer and Adorno's article, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception," I found a lot of parallels with other authors we have read. For instance, one of first concepts they talk about is the false reality films give to people, which goes right along with Benjamin's theory of film and its falsities. Both authors also talk about the lack of art found in film today, and how it's becoming mostly politics. A few other people in their posts seemed to be upset by their quote about film and how it no longer should be considered an art, but could be better described as trash. Before jumping all over them though, I think people might be taking what they said too literally and not looking at the factors behind the statement. What I think they meant was that while there are great films being produced every year, there are many many more bad films being produced. These films they are referring to are the corporate-influenced and the corporate-funded films. This goes along with the thesis of their article, which is the overwhelming totality in our culture and how it's affecting every aspect of our lives.

"As a result, the word, which henceforth is allowed only to designate something and not mean it, becomes so fixated on the object that it hardens to a formula."
An interesting point they made was ideology's influence in the development of language. They explained that through advertising, and through how we communicate in response to advertising, our language changes every day. Most definitions in Webster's now have their own little twist thanks to our culture. In the same manner, our emotions and even our thoughts, are all controlled by the ideology of our culture, and also could be argued to be controlled by corporations.

"All are free to dance and amuse themselves, just as, since the historical neutralization of religion, they have been free to join any of the countless sects...But freedom to choose ideology, which always reflects economic coercion, everywhere proves to be freedom to be the same." Horkheimer and Adorno end their article with this quote. Like Hebdige, they claim that we cannot get away from ideology and hegemony the ruling class creates. Ugh.

Bumble: Horkheimer and Adorno

Most of the responses to this piece triggered me to think about what we TRULY feel about this shift in art for arts sake verse art for profit. While it is so easy to attack the notion that the purpose of doing this for money is wrong or even "evil," it is actaully a pretty hypocritical statement. It seems to be sad yet we all recieve enjoyment from it! Jiggy had talked about our progression from the bare minimals to this need or obsession with getting items and commodities. This objectively seems to be very easy to critique. Money can easily be equated with evil, but at the same timne... why do we all want it soooo badly!? If I really thought about it, I would not want to necesarilly live with the bare essentials. We are so accustomed to a life with an abundance of wonderful goods. It is important to not take it for granted, howevwer we would really have no way of knowing the pain of being on the opposite end, starving or not being able to enjoy art which is produced for money's sake. Money is not a quality or value of life, however maybe we should simply appreciate what we have and enjoy it because we are supposed to love and enjoy the guilty pleasures of life.

Kaymac has expressed that it was upsetting as to what is qualified as art today however maybe we should just embrace what is happening with it. We can have a great appreciation for art, but its exciting because in another day an entirely new form of asrt culture might arise!

Also, as starfish said, our art forms are a direct connection with culture and so as cultures are constantly morphing over space and time, so will our art forms.

Horkheimer and Adorno, DetectiveDanny

This was a very interesting article about how culture has been industrialized and marketed to us over the years, but I have one hang up with the article that I cant get over. In the beginning of the article, they argue that “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”. “Trash”? In an industry that run so smoothly that people hardly notice, how can we discern what is trash?
By using the word trash, Horkheimer and Adorno immediately distance themselves from me. When looking at the movie and music industry, of course we have to realize that there is a very visible bottom line. If a movie studio, an important mechanism in the culture industry, releases a movie knowing full well that it is trash and that people will willingly consume the trash then we cant call it trash anymore. Taste evolves with ideology and now as our culture is ruled by apathy, we can not get enough of what they refer to as “trash”.
“Amusement, free of all restraint, would be not only the opposite of art but its complimentary extreme. Absurdity in the manner of Mark Twain, with which the American culture industry flirts with from time to time, could be a corrective to art” but why cant art be amusement? I believe that there is a certain art to amusement and entertainment, an art that is absolutely connected with culture. As we discuss the culture industry and its productions, I cant help but think of Marx and the question of what came first, ideology or individual thought. We can ask the same with culture and art and which of those came first. To me, art is such an intangible force, but as I side with Marx on the previous question, art is definitely a product of the current collective conscious or ideology of the time.