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Transcript: The Frankfurt School (BBC)

00:00 I know to write poetry after Auschwitz

00:03 is barbaric
00:04 That’s the German thinker Theodor Adorno
00:06 in the wake of the Second World War. This
00:09 famous aphorism was more than a bleak
00:11 one-liner it came from the heart of a
00:13 philosophy that Adorno and his
00:15 intellectual comrades had developed over
00:17 the previous quarter century of turmoil
00:19 Adorno, Max Horkheimer or Benjamin and
00:22 others had come together in an
00:24 independent Institute set up at
00:25 Frankfurt University in the aftermath of
00:27 the first world war the Frankfurt School
00:29 as they became known set themselves the
00:31 goal of making sense of 1920s Germany
00:34 how they wanted to know did capitalism
00:36 keep workers and consumers cooperating
00:39 to find out they turned not to the
00:40 economy but to culture but then in the
00:43 1930s they were forced to flee the Nazis
00:45 and ended up in California where these
00:47 austere German mandarins crashed into
00:49 the full-tilt alien technical a
00:51 brashness of the 1940s popular culture
00:53 It spurred them into developing a highly
00:56 influential worldview that sought to
00:58 make sense of both Hollywood and the
01:00 Holocaust. With me to discuss the ideas
01:02 and impact of the early Frankfurt School
01:04 are Roman Goiz professor in the Faculty
01:06 philosophy at the University of
01:08 Cambridge as the Lesley professor in
01:11 political aesthetics at Birkbeck College
01:12 University of London and Jonathan Wright, a
01:15 freelance historian and philosopher.
01:16 Jonathan Wright can you set the
01:18 political and intellectual scene of
01:20 1920s Germany for us please? Well, I think
01:24 when we look back at it from the point
01:25 of view of the 21st century we tend to
01:27 think of it as the prelude to the rise
01:29 to power of Hitler and the Nazi Party.
01:32 But, of course, that wasn't how it felt to
01:34 people at the time and it's very it's
01:37 very difficult to make sense of the
01:38 twenties in Germany; it's very
01:40 paradoxical because it's dominated by
01:41 two completely different moods -- there's a
01:43 mood of despair. There's been the
01:45 experience of defeat in the 1914-18
01:48 war I think something like to two million
01:51 people dead and four million injured in
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01:54 the war. It was a war of choice which had

01:57 led to a humiliating defeat and peace
02:00 terms -- reparation terms which were deeply
02:03 resented, so there was that. There was…
02:05 there was the experience of depression
02:06 and defeat but there was also
02:08 paradoxically an extraordinary feeling
02:10 of hope and this
02:12 art historian called Fritz Axel who
02:14 was in in Berlin in, I think, 1918, and he
02:18 said we've lost the war but we've gained
02:20 hope. And there was a sense that an oath
02:25 an outdated 19th century culture had
02:29
died and that something new and youthful
02:32
was going to come was going to replace
02:34
it it was it was that if you like it was
02:36
a kind of Obama moment it was a moment
02:38
of the youth and hope and the idea was
02:40
that the the bad old past was over but
02:43
swirling around was unrest was inflation
02:46
just over there was the image of the
02:49
Russian Revolution and the power that
02:51
that might bring and a power of thought
02:53
a thought that it might have seemed
02:54
Marxism to take over a vast continent of
02:56
the country so that was playing into it
02:58
as well and some people thought that
03:01
because of all this Germany might have
03:03
expected to face some sort of revolution
03:07
of some sort of mass political unrest go
03:10
for communism but they didn't so why
03:13
then people ask what begin to ask why
03:15
did that not happen you know as an old
03:17
friend of mine sadly no longer alive was
03:20
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a little girl in Berlin in the end she

03:24
remember her first memory was 1917 and
03:26
her mother coming into the bedroom and
03:28
saying miner kinder miner kinder my
03:30
children there is revolution in Russia
03:32
and we are all going to be free and I
03:35
think that that was not an unusual thing
03:38
I mean Germany was in turmoil you can
03:40
talk about a German revolution in
03:42
nineteen eighteen nineteen as well as
03:44
the Soviet revolution in 1917 and it was
03:47
possible to see them as part of a part
03:49
of a sequence um the the Communists when
03:55
the comments party got the German
03:56
Communist Party did get something like
03:58
ten or fifteen percent of the vote
04:00
throughout the twenties so there was a
04:01
continuing appeal of the Soviet ideal
04:05
but on the other hand the left in
04:07
Germany was unbelievably fractious one
04:11
of the leaders of the left said yeah we
04:12
socialists a very good struggle but
04:15
unfortunately but we struggle with
04:16
socialists and not with capitalists and
04:19
I guess that the the the problem was
04:21
that the Communists were a Marxist party
04:25
obviously and so
04:26
with to some extent the Social Democrats
04:28
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but they had different ideas about what

04:29
Marxism implied there was this script
04:31
about where Marx where the working class
04:33
was supposed to rise up and defeat
04:37
capitalism and so the question on
04:39
everybody's it the question that the
04:41
left was divided about was why isn't the
04:44
working class acting the role assigned
04:46
to it in mark in the Marxist plot yes
04:48
because it was ten or fifteen but they'd
04:51
expected a bigger or lesser Lesley 9024
04:53
this Institute for Social Research was
04:55
set up privately and very importantly
04:58
independently of the state can you
05:00
introduce us to the key figures involved
05:02
well in the initial period it's it's set
05:08
up by a vehicle for its vial and then
05:10
Karl Grunberg takes control of it but I
05:14
think the period when it's coming into
05:16
its own in the later twenties there's
05:19
max Horkheimer as certainly a
05:22
significant figure who takes over
05:23
directorship of the Institute from 1930
05:26
and he brings into its orbit Ted or
05:31
Adorno and as time goes on a number of
05:36
other figures Herbert Marcuse Irish from
05:39
Valtor benjamine on the fringes of it so
05:43
these are some of the main players
05:45
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within the Institute and and viol is a

05:49
Jewish businessman why did he put his
05:52
money and his own is is his mind to
05:55
doing that I think he's caught up in the
05:58
sort of tendencies fascinations hopes
06:02
and interest that Jonathan has been
06:04
describing as in Germany of the 1920s
06:09
this sense that change may happen could
06:13
happen the proximity to Russia and the
06:19
Soviet revolution and the the fact of
06:22
various uprisings in Germany not just in
06:26
eighteen and nineteen but on until 1923
06:29
really where there are small Soviet
06:33
republics declared in various parts of
06:36
Germany vile even though he was a
06:39
you know was also confident and hopeful
06:43
that Germany too could become a
06:46
Bolshevik or communist country and the
06:49
Institute is set up to in a sense
06:53
explore that process in in some ways
06:56
forward that process as that wave
06:59
recedes it becomes much more about why
07:03
has the process not happen what is
07:05
workers consciousness and and they get
07:08
involved in various sort of empirical
07:09
studies to think about what is the
07:11
average German white-collar worker or
07:14
blue collar worker thinking what is
07:16
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their relationship to Germany and to cap

07:20
the capitalist society within which they
07:22
find themselves
07:23
as I understand in universities were
07:24
very bound into the state sometimes if
07:27
there are fruitful results particularly
07:28
in science for instance and mean it's
07:31
important i I use the word independent
07:32
in my introduction to this and the fact
07:34
that this was an independent Institute
07:36
for Social Research was important wasn't
07:39
it the independence was a very important
07:41
factor although it does have a position
07:44
within the University of Frankfurt by
07:48
and Horkheimer when he takes over
07:51
directorship of it is a professor of the
07:53
university of frankfurt but it it does
07:56
sit very askew with normal German
08:01
academic process and it was certainly
08:03
established to do that to be absolutely
08:05
critical of the two main tendencies
08:09
within Germans scholarly thought at that
08:14
time so Adorno presents himself as a
08:16
social philosopher to overturn
08:21
traditional philosophical metaphysical
08:24
thinking as it might be carried out
08:27
within the university and at the same
08:29
time to present the institute as a
08:33
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scientific body that can do science

08:36
better than the scientists in the
08:37
university who are too tied up in the
08:40
matter that they're looking at to have
08:43
any kind of social understanding of the
08:45
effects of science and technological
08:47
progress and development so I never talk
08:50
about independent minded men marks for
08:51
climates see
08:52
Adani order Benjamin as I'm Fred I call
08:55
him and and later from and Mikasa and
08:58
but let's order those three and yet
09:00
there were they're known as a Frankfort
09:01
school is it possible to say briefly
09:04
what they had in common what was their
09:07
aim as a school did they bring something
09:10
between them as one or two main points
09:13
that drove through I think that the
09:19
notion of a school is a coherent set of
09:24
ideas is a little bit difficult in that
09:27
it develops over time and they one of
09:30
the key factors of their thinking is
09:34
that thinking is tied up early to the
09:36
historical moment and everyone thinks
09:38
about the historical moments at Germany
09:40
passes through from 1923 to 1969 or
09:46
whenever we want to sort of close the
09:48
the period that there are many different
09:51
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exigencies and contingent moments so

09:54
it's hard to have a summary but I think
09:56
all of them are united by a sense that
10:03
philosophical thinking is necessary but
10:08
it needs to think the world in its
10:10
entirety it can't take off into this
10:12
metaphysical plane and just say
10:17
Universal timeless truths about human
10:20
action philosophy is grounded in social
10:23
reality and in living experiencing human
10:27
beings on the one hand and that science
10:31
is a strong force within the world but
10:39
it is being used predominantly to
10:45
exploit nature to make money for the
10:54
capitalist system or to dominate and
10:59
oversee social groups and so it's not
11:03
being used in order to forward any sort
11:05
of aim of human
11:06
liberation and human liberation would be
11:08
I suppose one of the central ways in
11:11
which the Frankfurt School thinks theory
11:13
should be used to further that cause
11:15
Roman guys these people are on the
11:17
political left so you might expect them
11:19
to concentrate on the economy but they
11:22
seem to concentrate more on Germany's
11:24
culture how surprising was that and why
11:27
did they choose to do that or just to
11:30
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take up the points that the two previous

11:32
speakers made I think one of the really
11:35
important things that holds them
11:36
together to the extent to which you can
11:38
hold them together is the idea that
11:40
philosophy has to be critical that is uh
11:44
it shouldn't be like science it
11:46
shouldn't be descriptive of the world
11:48
it shouldn't affirm the world it has to
11:51
criticize the world now what it means to
11:53
criticize the world is very very
11:55
different and they have their own views
11:57
about that but their view is always it
11:59
has to be critical now in the particular
12:03
situation which they found themselves of
12:05
course they expected along with everyone
12:07
else for the German working class to
12:10
rise up and overthrow the capitalist
12:12
mode of production that didn't happen
12:15
and now the question is why didn't did
12:17
you expect a man to be for a moment did
12:20
expect that happen because of a theory
12:21
or because they they they were getting
12:24
messages from the people or it look like
12:27
that from various little soviet enclaves
12:31
they were time-bar which were just
12:32
referred to
12:33
well they stabbed at the end of a long
12:35
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tradition of social democratic thought

12:37
and left-wing thought which assumes that
12:40
the only way to understand this society
12:42
is to understand it as a society that's
12:44
based on the exploitation of workers and
12:46
that the workers won't put up with this
12:48
forever so they have this theory and
12:51
then they have the egg the example of
12:53
the Soviet Union in front of their eyes
12:55
and so it's almost inevitable for them
12:58
to think that well this is what's going
13:00
to happen but it doesn't happen and
13:02
again to just to pick up what what
13:04
Jonathan said for a philosopher failure
13:08
is much more important than success
13:10
failure is the thing that stimulates you
13:13
to think if your society puts all of its
13:15
efforts into a war and it
13:18
you have to ask the question why if it
13:21
succeeds you don't have to ask the
13:23
question why because you can
13:24
complacently think that you succeeded
13:26
because of course you're naturally
13:28
superior that's what every society
13:30
thinks about itself so this moment of
13:32
defeat after the First World War is a
13:35
moment of great stimulation and the
13:37
failure then of the proletariat to rise
13:39
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up and imitate the the the the things

13:43
that happened in the Soviet Union is
13:45
also a big a theoretical moment for them
13:48
because it causes them to reflect on
13:51
what was wrong with the natural leftist
13:54
assumptions that they took over from
13:56
this tradition namely that all of this
13:58
would happen by itself that the
14:00
exploitation of the workers would be
14:02
more and more severe and they would
14:05
there and overturn the system and why
14:07
hasn't that happened why hadn't I
14:09
haven't they turned to culture because
14:10
they saw as I understand it please
14:12
please try Vella that capitalism had
14:17
induced or given or the proletariat had
14:21
accepted you disentangle that and their
14:25
their obedience to the system and
14:28
inculcated at what they called a false
14:30
consciousness and that was one of the
14:32
things they concentrate on why was this
14:34
false consciousness there that that
14:36
repressed with connivance of those who
14:39
were repressed what they should have
14:41
done which was rise up they thought that
14:44
the whole tradition of social democratic
14:46
thought in which they grew up was too
14:48
focused on the economy and wasn't
14:51
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sufficiently interested in other aspects

14:53
of the society and they thought that if
14:56
you understood society as a whole you'd
14:58
see that there was an economy but there
15:00
was also a culture and the two of them
15:02
in Turkey were interconnected in various
15:04
ways and so part of the reason why the
15:06
proletariat did rise up was of course
15:08
because the capitalist class was very
15:10
strong but another part of the reason
15:12
was because the members of the working
15:14
class had the wrong form of
15:16
consciousness they were deceived about
15:18
their own interests and therefore it was
15:20
a task which previous social democratic
15:23
thinkers had not posed for themselves
15:25
the task of understanding why the
15:27
workers had the false consciousness that
15:29
they had
15:30
Jonathan briefly Horkheimer said he
15:33
wanted to develop develop a critical
15:34
theory to explore and perhaps make and
15:41
exploded this false consciousness what
15:43
was new about that well he made this
15:46
contrast between traditional theory and
15:49
critical theory and some people say that
15:50
really he was using the word critical
15:51
theory because he was a bit too
15:53
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frightened to use the word Marxism

15:55
that's not quite true I mean the general
15:57
idea of criticism is his saying critical
16:00
theory recognizes that every theory is a
16:03
response to a certain interest that the
16:06
theorist has and critical theory is
16:10
based on the interest the future
16:12
interests of the oppressed traditional
16:15
theory is based on complacency about the
16:17
status quo that's the general
16:19
distinction but there is a there's a
16:21
deeper point in this idea of criticism
16:23
the word criticism is one that is all
16:25
over the work of Karl Marx but the
16:28
Marxism of the Communist Party didn't
16:30
make much of this idea of criticism the
16:32
Marxism of the Communist Party thought
16:33
in terms of laws of iron laws of history
16:38
that were propelling the historical
16:40
process what Horkheimer and the other
16:43
members of the Institute were very
16:45
impressed by was an argument of Marx's
16:47
right at the beginning of Volume one of
16:49
capital about where Marx talks about the
16:52
fetish character of the commodity and
16:54
the idea here is that it's not just
16:57
consciousness that is false there's
16:59
something about the whole economic
17:00
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system that is false because what

17:02
capitalism brings about is the idea that
17:05
commodities can't be understood just in
17:08
terms of what they sow things can't be
17:09
understood just in terms of what they
17:11
are in themselves but in terms of what
17:13
they can be exchanged with everything
17:15
becomes replaceable by something else
17:17
that's what that's the essence of
17:19
fetishism in Marx's theory so that the
17:21
idea that the task of critical theory is
17:24
to undo this work of fetishism and
17:27
enable us to see objects as they really
17:30
are in themselves rather than just see
17:32
them in terms of their exchange ability
17:33
with other things and clearly that's one
17:35
of the tasks that art the idea that we
17:37
to bring us into confrontation with
17:39
objects as they really are in themselves
17:40
and not just in terms of their
17:42
equivalents
17:43
Bremen goes can you take that on can you
17:45
take us into the way Johnston's outlined
17:47
very clearly where that takes us into
17:49
the the use or examination of or belief
17:52
in and the centrality of culture to any
17:55
debate about levering the working
17:57
classes out of what they saw as passive
17:59
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repression repression well I think they

18:03
all think that there is an inherent
18:06
problem in all forms of culture
18:09
including art they think that forms of
18:13
art have a natural tendency to make
18:16
people conformist because a work of art
18:19
in fact is connected with the pleasure I
18:22
take pleasure in a work of art otherwise
18:24
we wouldn't produce works of art and we
18:26
wouldn't consume them but the pleasure
18:28
that I take in a work of art is
18:31
therefore naturally connected with a
18:34
certain sense of relaxed acceptance of
18:37
the world in which that work of art
18:38
exists so they think that in fact if you
18:43
want to understand how you might resist
18:47
the the the the domination of the of the
18:51
economic factors that exist in the world
18:53
at the moment you one of the ways you
18:56
can do that is to try to see whether you
18:58
would get a form of art which turned
19:01
itself against itself so you could find
19:04
you could find a form of culture that
19:06
was negative rather than being
19:08
affirmative this distinction between an
19:10
affirmative culture and a negative
19:12
culture or an affirmative culture in a
19:14
critical culture is very important for
19:16
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them and so they find avant-garde works

19:19
of art like bear of particular
19:22
importance so for them the point of the
19:24
work of art is not to make me happy but
19:27
as Adorno says in a famous passage the
19:30
point of the work of art is to make me
19:31
unhappy
19:32
because if I'm happy I'm going to accept
19:35
the world in which I live really what
19:38
the work of art should do is it should
19:40
be oppositional it should make me
19:42
unhappy and focus that unhappiness on
19:45
motivating me to see what the true
19:48
horrors of the world in which I exist
19:50
are as well as do they drew on many
19:53
ideas but I'd like to pick up Sigmund
19:56
Freud on
19:57
they drew which I think relates to what
19:58
Roma just said can you bring that into a
20:03
remark or sorry a paragraph or two about
20:05
the way Freud played into what they were
20:08
doing about culture thinking about
20:09
culture sorry I think through it's very
20:13
important for them in terms of this
20:17
whole question of acceptance and
20:19
conformism so the elements of Freud
20:23
which they take over in particular would
20:25
be questions around regression or
20:32
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sadomasochism or you know what why do we

20:36
get pleasure out of watching other
20:41
people's charmed lives being played out
20:45
on screen or what why do we take
20:48
pleasure in Donald Duck taking a beating
20:50
in the cartoons and find that amusing
20:52
and Adorno's verdict or matters it's
20:55
accommodating us to our own beatings
20:57
because essentially we are
21:00
sadomasochistic subjects within a
21:02
society that keeps us endlessly
21:04
suffering and turns that suffering into
21:06
a type of pleasure and one could see
21:08
then how fraud yein notions of
21:11
regression might play a role there and
21:14
and this also come comes to be part of
21:19
the explanation for why people become
21:22
susceptible to the charms of the
21:24
dictator equally as to the charms of the
21:27
Hollywood star who who addresses the
21:30
audience as infantilized subject whose
21:34
desires can be fulfilled by this other
21:36
figure it does suggest that they have a
21:38
feeling of the malleability of the
21:40
proletariat but these people just yield
21:43
surrender to what's given to them and
21:45
they don't read have any minds of their
21:46
own and that has been part of the
21:52
18

criticism but I don't think it's part of

21:56
the impulse for the thinking it's trying
22:01
to address the fact that there's an
22:03
incredible totality that emanates from
22:07
the mode of production that capital is
22:10
and the fetish of the commodity and the
22:13
social relations on which it's based on
22:15
all of its values of competition and so
22:18
on is is forced outwards across the
22:22
whole society and it is as if everybody
22:25
affected by that is its is trapped in a
22:29
kind of cage of only certain modes of
22:33
existence and and nobody can resist that
22:37
in a sense and their analysis is not
22:39
just directed at the working class as
22:42
dupes allure dopes of these systems for
22:45
everybody you know from the scientists
22:47
to the journalists to the bureaucrat is
22:51
carrying out the the logics of the
22:54
society can I just saw reporting around
22:56
before we move on would you almost be
22:59
saying would they almost be saying that
23:01
if you're happy you do really don't know
23:03
what's going on if you're happy or
23:05
missing out on the real world your your
23:08
feeling of and your acceptance of or
23:11
you're seeking for happiness is
23:13
basically unreal and profoundly well
23:16
19

let's put it's a third right um they

23:20
think that if you're happy in any
23:23
society known to us you're liable to be
23:27
happy only by virtue of being rather
23:30
obtuse and that being happy will make
23:32
you rather obtuse you're not going to go
23:35
further well how far would you like me
23:39
to go I'm happy to go as far as you
23:41
don't use that word is mad I can't use
23:45
which word happy use that I've had very
23:46
good Freud has this very useful concept
23:49
I think it talks about gain through
23:51
illness and the idea is that people
23:53
become neurotic not actually because
23:56
because because it it actually gets them
23:59
something you produce neurotic symptoms
24:01
and that actually makes your life easier
24:03
to live and I think that's rather the
24:05
way to think about the there's the
24:07
possible happiness of the working class
24:09
that they gain through working as if
24:12
there was nothing nothing possible
24:15
except a commodity society annexed an
24:17
exchange society so it's not completely
24:19
false it's not completely crazy to think
24:21
that if you're a conformist
24:23
get on better right there is a way I
24:26
mean there is a way which I think is
24:27
20

very important to keep in mind in which

24:28
they're not worried about not being
24:31
affirmative they're happy to be
24:34
completely negative that's one of the
24:36
things they hated most about the United
24:39
States they go to the United States and
24:41
the first thing they're confronted with
24:43
is people telling them to keep smiling
24:45
all the time people telling them to be
24:47
happy people telling them to breasts at
24:50
one point says it's really exhausting to
24:53
live in this country everybody's always
24:55
telling me to keep smiling but sometimes
24:57
I just prefer to be depressed and look
24:59
in the air and not do anything
25:00
and so they have no objection to to this
25:03
Schopenhauer Ian's view that the world
25:05
is basically the world's we live in is a
25:07
basically a horrible place and an evil
25:10
place because it could be so much better
25:13
but it is only what it is so it could be
25:17
paradise Adorno says but instead of
25:20
being paradise it's really just
25:22
California which takes us to America
25:25
Jonathan they left and the Nazis got
25:28
busy they knew they had no place that
25:30
are these people and so they went first
25:32
Geneva and then to America
25:34
21

Benjamin alas that took his own life in

25:38
he was trapped and the others and in
25:41
America they joined people in Brecht and
25:42
Thomas Mann on the west coast why didn't
25:45
they go to the Soviet Union I don't get
25:47
cross their mind to go to the Soviet
25:49
Union I mean one of the points about
25:51
their analysis of contemporary society
25:52
was that they thought capitalism had
25:54
changed it wasn't just of Marxism needed
25:57
to be reformed it was that the world had
25:59
changed and they used this phrase late
26:01
capitalism or state capitalism to and
26:04
the and the idea was that that actually
26:06
the Soviet Union was a capitalist
26:08
country - they were never tenth well
26:11
Benjamin was tempted by the solutely and
26:13
the other copper Union um George Lucas
26:16
where he wasn't glad of the group
26:17
absolutely he was no cohere was no
26:19
intellectual beer um and you know they
26:22
they were rich prosperous bourgeois
26:24
people they depended on the vast
26:26
investments which the IAM which had gone
26:28
into the into the Institute at its
26:31
foundation as Esther was explaining and
26:33
Max Horkheimer was sensible enough to
26:35
move the
26:36
22

into to Switzerland and then to America

26:39
they were because they thought that
26:42
everybody was compromised by the system
26:44
they didn't they weren't trying to make
26:47
themselves into into Saints into into
26:50
pure into heroes of of political purity
26:54
America was much the most convenient
26:56
place for them to go and actually they
26:57
they were anti-american but they were
26:59
also especially after after the second
27:03
world war they were also very anti
27:04
anti-american right let's stick with
27:07
America for a moment as the they start
27:09
in New York they earn a they obviously
27:12
keep their own language keeper and
27:14
magazines keep very much to themselves
27:15
or regarded as strange mandarins but
27:18
then that's not nothing new in America
27:19
all sorts of groups coming and regarded
27:22
as strange that's one of the strengths
27:23
or characters of the country but when
27:25
they get to Hollywood that's where they
27:27
meet consumer culture that's where they
27:30
meet public capitalism that's where they
27:32
meet what we nowadays call celebrity
27:35
what did they make of that I think this
27:38
was a very striking experience
27:41
especially for Adorno and Horkheimer who
27:44
23

are in Los Angeles in Hollywood at the

27:49
heart of the Beast of American mass
27:51
popular culture and it is as if they
27:55
have turned up somewhere that is the
27:57
antithesis to all that they remember
28:00
about Europe which of course has been
28:02
destroyed by the Nazis but a tradition
28:04
of high modernist music difficult
28:10
avant-garde culture all that is being
28:13
destroyed by the Nazis and they
28:15
personally have left it all behind to
28:17
turn up in a place of slip-on shoes
28:19
and off the peg clothing and cheap
28:24
plastic goods and Hollywood stars and
28:28
advertising this whole environment
28:31
glaring down at them from billboards and
28:33
in terms of their sensibility they just
28:36
find it repulsive what it enables them
28:42
to think about is this notion that
28:44
culture this place that should
28:48
be a space for subjective expression and
28:51
with a little glimmer of sort of utopian
28:54
non instrumentalized life in it has
28:56
become industrialized and so they talk
28:59
of the culture industry which should be
29:01
an anatomy but it's not it's it's what
29:03
powers the whole of California in their
29:06
writings Wilder in America they changed
29:08
24

the game when they came back Europe is

29:10
there any trace of the fact that yes
29:12
it's all they say it is all the things
29:14
you say a German is full of high culture
29:16
and ology but the German high culture
29:18
led to them going into voluntarily going
29:20
into a massive war and the Americans
29:24
slipped slip-on shoes and was struggling
29:27
towards producing and uh what people
29:30
think of as a great democracy did they
29:32
not ever make that comparison I think
29:36
also things that people wanted to see
29:39
yeah they well I mean obviously they
29:43
they realize the for all the culture
29:47
that was produced in Germany it could
29:48
not it did not prevent the ultimate
29:51
barbarism of Nazism which is did
29:55
disappear in their writings and I'm not
29:56
trying to be I'm not I am interrogator I
29:59
didn't mean to be I just was interested
30:01
so then afterwards but what about well
30:03
in America don't they see it while
30:04
leather none between 40 and 45 no six a
30:08
remand you want to come see your again
30:10
presupposing that there must be a
30:12
solution if it's not European high
30:15
culture it's going to be American
30:17
culture industry and that's exactly what
30:20
25

they're rejecting they're rejecting the

30:22
necessity to choose there we get
30:24
rejecting the view that well if it's not
30:26
one it must be the other there they're
30:28
standing up for their ability to say no
30:31
it's not that and it's not also not the
30:34
only other alternative that's around at
30:35
the moment and then if you say to that
30:37
well what are you to do well that's the
30:39
question that really disturbs them and
30:41
they don't know what to say about that
30:42
but they still stand up for their
30:44
ability to reject both sides of any
30:46
given Toccata me yeah
30:47
Adorno has this wonderful little essay
30:51
that he wrote when he was in America
30:52
about Hollywood films he says it's Avera
30:55
it's like these children's stories where
30:58
a witch is
31:00
offering some poison broth to some
31:02
children and she's saying young young
31:04
yeah this is really gorgeous you're
31:05
really going to enjoy this and he says
31:08
this is the basic trick that Hollywood
31:10
plays and he says where did they learn
31:11
this prep trick they learned this trick
31:13
from Richard Wagner the great you know
31:15
the operatic could be the composer of
31:19
26

music dramas of in 19th century Germany

31:22
in Encino from some people's point of
31:23
view that the great hero of German
31:25
culture so if there's something wrong
31:27
with Hollywood where does it come from
31:28
it comes from the hearts of what's
31:30
rotten in Germany ruin guys they seem to
31:33
thought the top of the culture was
31:34
subtly oppressive as well not not fun
31:37
sadly present but there was but high art
31:40
of the glimpses of her could you address
31:42
those two points please well if you
31:46
think that popular culture has as its
31:49
function to make people satisfied with
31:52
the status quo and to hide from them the
31:58
reality of the life they're living then
32:00
it isn't surprising that you think
32:02
there's something deficient about that
32:04
the the model of an alternative way of
32:10
doing art which they think might have
32:13
some critical potential is something
32:16
like the music of alban berg Adorno had
32:20
been a trained musician as you know and
32:23
and work with a student of composition
32:25
of barek and so if you think of Barracks
32:28
operas like lulu or or watt sec that's
32:32
the model i think that they have of what
32:34
kind of art could be both liberating and
32:39
27

encourage reflection and there the basic

32:42
idea is that this is a work of art
32:44
that's inherently negative it presents
32:48
happiness but it presents happiness only
32:51
in the form of a contrast with
32:55
everything that's presented in the world
32:57
so you see the world in which votes act
32:59
lives it's horrible he's oppressed by
33:02
the captain he's oppressed he's betrayed
33:04
by his wife everything goes wrong and
33:06
somehow the presentation of that work of
33:09
art of that world of horror in a way
33:12
that is still
33:13
old comprehensible to people with the
33:15
appropriate ascetic sensibility as
33:18
something that they can enjoy gives you
33:20
a negative image of what the world could
33:23
be like the world could be like exactly
33:25
the opposite of the world that's that's
33:28
that's described in but second because I
33:30
think that that's interesting to reflect
33:34
back on the culture industry is
33:36
precisely not giving an image of
33:38
difference or other nurses until Adorno
33:41
has this phrase the dreams do not dream
33:45
that popular culture is precisely not an
33:47
escapism it's precisely the pushing
33:51
through of exactly the same values that
33:53
28

exist in the sphere of work and

33:55
everywhere else or the kind of
33:56
domination competition between people
34:00
and and so on whereas hi this this
34:02
different avant-garde culture also
34:05
embodied in Beckett even in its blacks
34:10
dumpy negativity at least proposes that
34:13
things could be different from what we
34:16
have it could be other world if you
34:18
think of a holic there's a famous
34:19
Hollywood film from the 40s called It's
34:21
a Wonderful Life and that is it where
34:24
sums up what they thought about the
34:26
nature of these Hollywood films they
34:28
were kitschy sentimental ways of saying
34:31
the life you live is wonderful
34:33
and that was the thing they were most
34:34
and of course but sec doesn't say the
34:37
life this person leads is wonderful he
34:39
says it says the life he leads is really
34:42
terrible think to yourself about what
34:44
something different might be but that is
34:46
no the popular culture is it I mean they
34:48
saw the Hollywood by the puppet culture
34:50
but there's also some other popular
34:51
culture going going in the States I mean
34:53
people singing protest songs strumming
34:55
guitars in the Midwest on railroads
34:57
29

writings which actually pointed to the

34:59
other side of America etiquette
35:00
Steinbeck and grab the brass I mean
35:02
there's a lot of evidence going all over
35:04
the place there was Mark Twain as well
35:06
underdog has definitely had a soft spot
35:07
for Mark Twain it's and we should
35:09
remember actually that these guys were
35:11
not just theorists and I mean they
35:12
wanted to be artists in a way I'm
35:15
Benjamin was a translator he wrote an
35:17
extraordinary I mean he was a he was an
35:19
essayist he was a developer of the art
35:21
of the essay all of them were interested
35:24
in using a four isms were writing sort
35:26
of philosophy in the form of
35:27
poetry rather than in the fourth and I
35:29
think the word theory but gets us off on
35:31
and you know Adorno in the in in the
35:34
thirties planned to write a opera he
35:36
wrote on the brighter of it brett-o for
35:38
his called des des indiana jo it's a
35:41
it's a it's an opera about Huckleberry
35:43
Finn and Tom Sawyer that was what that
35:46
that would have been his masterpiece if
35:48
he'd managed to become the great
35:49
musician that he wanted to be
35:50
can we talk when they come back to
35:52
30

Europe Roman guys after the defeat of

35:54
the Nazis they returned to Frankfurt
35:56
Adorno and Horkheimer do would what did
35:59
how did they how would that what was
36:02
their thinking now after Germany after
36:06
fascism after so did that he can change
36:08
how did they imply how did they apply
36:11
their philosophy as it were in the late
36:13
forties in Germany - Germany did it
36:15
change they thought would give it I'm
36:16
saying yes well um I have what I think
36:20
is a rather non-standard view one that's
36:22
not shared by most people which is that
36:24
I think they're real theoretical work
36:26
was the work they did in the United
36:28
States they hated it but precisely
36:30
because they hated it so much it was
36:32
very productive for them and so when
36:34
they went back to Frankfurt they
36:37
essentially continued doing the same
36:39
sorts of things they had done in the 40s
36:42
developing the position they they they
36:45
had their Adorno at one point says and I
36:48
think this is very important for the
36:49
discussion the only thing that's true
36:51
are exaggerations and so I think you
36:55
have to see that all of their
36:57
theoretical activity is an attempt to
36:59
31

draw attention to certain things by

37:02
exaggerating certain salient features so
37:06
of course they knew that there were
37:07
parts of popular culture that were not
37:09
quite like Hollywood they knew that but
37:11
they also thought that exaggerating it
37:13
by presenting the culture industry as if
37:16
that was the only thing was a kind of
37:18
wake-up call and it was cognitively very
37:21
important and so they go back to Germany
37:23
and they attempt to bring - to bring
37:26
back the sense of the seriousness of the
37:29
seriousness of a certain kind of high
37:31
culture without allowing that to be
37:34
compromised by the National Socialist
37:36
past
37:37
and I think also they take the kind of
37:41
partly empirical work they've been doing
37:43
into the personality and so on in
37:45
America and reapply that back in Germany
37:47
to ask how could these people have
37:49
become susceptible to Nazism are there
37:52
still traces of fascism or Nazism within
37:55
gem society what is democracy how do you
38:00
keep democracy and and it's those
38:05
questions that play very closely into
38:08
the the German student movement of the
38:10
sixties who then start to perceive
38:13
32

elements of continuing fascism within

38:17
the society and so there's this direct
38:19
kind of inflow of their ideas into 68
38:22
and they're mobilizing students but
38:24
their belief in the redeeming the
38:26
possible redeeming place of high art
38:30
isn't that not challenged by what we
38:32
began this program with a quotation from
38:34
Adorno to write poetry after Auschwitz
38:36
is barbaric Johnson well you know I took
38:42
her back a bit I think that it was as
38:44
they when they got back to Germany they
38:46
thought of themselves as anachronism I
38:48
think one very important point is the
38:49
death of felter Benjamin in was it 1940
38:54
was that that sort of brought that that
38:58
really knocked the stuffing out of them
39:00
I think they they all regarded Benjamin
39:02
as the most talented of them all and
39:04
they felt that they hadn't treated him
39:06
very well they were very rude to him in
39:08
a way but they thought that that was
39:09
going to stimulate him into new work
39:11
which was never going to be and I think
39:12
there was a real sense of mourning bound
39:15
they went on living but it was a kind of
39:16
afterlife and obviously when they got
39:19
back and but if the sixties were
39:21
33

confronted by left-wing students they

39:23
were they were completely puzzled by
39:25
this I mean Adorno writes about how very
39:27
strange it is to have him find himself
39:28
constantly being attacked as a cultural
39:31
and political reactionary because he'd
39:33
spent his whole life sort of tried to
39:35
core to the opposite criticism so
39:37
raymond goes did bleak worldview
39:41
continued um yes he um when Adorno as
39:47
the previous figures have said
39:50
Adorno and Horkheimer become kind of
39:52
patron saints of the of the student
39:55
movement in the 60s and then at a
39:59
certain point there's a rupture between
40:01
the students and the two of them famous
40:04
occasion as you know students occupy the
40:07
Institute for Social Research and it
40:09
Rona calls the police to have them
40:10
thrown out so he reacts just in the way
40:13
every other bourgeois professor would
40:14
have acted in they in similar
40:16
circumstances and the interesting part
40:18
about it is that he is completely
40:21
nonplussed by the students reaction to
40:23
this he says oh I only thought I was
40:28
describing some theoretical models and
40:31
they tried to realize these with Molotov
40:34
34

cocktails and so you see that by this

40:36
point he's got completely out of touch
40:39
with the world I think Jonathan was
40:40
right benjamine in a funny way was a
40:44
stable he didn't look like it at the
40:46
time but he was a kind of stabilizing
40:47
element in the whole thing and they
40:49
somehow lose a bit of touch with reality
40:52
back in the new Germany finally and
40:55
briefly so do you think they've used a
40:57
relevant and prevalent today
41:00
I think Adorno do knows thinking on mass
41:04
culture which went through a period of
41:06
being very unfashionable post-modernism
41:08
which embraced popular culture hated
41:11
Adorno he was the bogeyman but I think
41:13
in an era of X Factor earning and
41:16
creative industry PLC Britain his ideas
41:20
have come back quite forcefully and he's
41:21
been certainly read again well thank you
41:24
very much so Lesley Jonathan ray Raymond
41:26
guys thank you for hurtling through that
41:28
and next week we'll be talking about the
41:32
Glencoe massacre 1692 thank you for
41:35
listening