Theme 2: Reflections

For this week’s theme we read and discussed parts of the book by Adorno och Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). I generally thought the concept of the book to be quite hard to entirely grasp, partially because I’m not particularly used to the language they use and also partially because there were so many examples from old literature that I sometimes had a hard time putting in context with the theme.

But, as opposed to last week, we did have a seminar this time, and this seminar really brought some clarity to the subject. It was really useful to hear my classmates’ interpretations and thoughts about the book. We spoke mostly about chapter 4: The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, how the culture industry affects us even today, comparing mass media now and mass media back when the book was written. We discussed how there are very few big actors producing the content one is exposed to through mass media, and how easily they can manipulate and affect the consumers. I think we also had some really interesting discussions about art - what can be considered as art and how it relates to mass media and the culture industry. Adorno and Horkheimer had a very strict definition of what they considered to be art, and they saw the emerging mass media as the imminent death of art. Discussing the subject of art in relation to mass media really opened up a critical view of Adorno and Horkheimer’s text. They were very one sided and did not take every angle of mass media in consideration – only the ones that supported their point of view, and those were only the negative points. I deem that to be a bit “non-scientific”. How can we view their point of view as truthful if they only give us parts of the truth? And I also find it odd that Adorno, who we learnt to be a quite talented musician, did not consider how the mass media could help to spread art, as opposed to merely destroying it.