Critical Thinkers of

Mass Culture
UNIT 8 THEODORE W. ADORNO: CULTURE
INDUSTRY
Structure
8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Adorno: Life and Times
8.2.1 Adorno: A Biographical Sketch
8.2.2 Cultural and Intellectual Context
8.3 Capitalism and Freedom
8.3.1 Capitalism and Commodities
8.3.2 Enlightenment and Freedom
8.4 Culture as Commodity
8.4.1 Culture Industry and Mass Culture
8.4.2 The Products and Process of Culture Industry
8.4.2.1 Standardisation
8.4.2.2 Psuedo-Individualisation
8.5 Let Us Sum Up
8.6 References
8.7 Specimen Answers to Check Your Progress

8.0 OBJECTIVES
After studying this Unit, you should be able to:
• Explain the socio-political context of Adorno;
• Discuss the nature of commodity fetishism and capitalism;
• Grasp the fundamental elements of culture Industry;
• Relate Adorno’s ideas to your contemporary entertainment industry.

8.1 INTRODUCTION
In our previous unit we have tried to capture some of the central ideas that were
offered by the Frankfurt School against mass culture, among others. In this unit
we will be discussing Theodor. W. Adorno’s works, in particular his writings that
discuss the Culture Industry.
To fully grasp how the socio-political context which shaped Adorno’s writings,
we start the unit by understanding the times he lived in and his own life’s


Contributed by Dr. Gaytri Nair, Assistant Professor, Indraprastha Institute of Information
Technology, Delhi and Prof. Kiranmayi Bhushi, IGNOU.
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journey. Following this, the unit addresses some essential questions Adorno was Theodore W. Adorno:
Culture Industry
addressing such as; why do human beings allow authoritarian regimes and
structures and how is that they also become willing subjects of capitalist market
regimes?
To answer these questions Adorno turns to Marx and takes by a critique of
Enlightenment which was supposed to offer freedom to individuals but it has
failed to deliver its promise. We start by delineating two aspects of Adorno’s
foundational ideas: one which extends Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism in
the context of affluent consumer society of Post WW II, particularly America.
And the second is questioning the enlightenment project. Enlightenment, with its
scientific progress instead of liberating human beings enslaved human being.
Adorno like other critical theorists, argued that capitalist societies of the West
produced conformity, not through coercion but willingly. Adorno studied the role
of mass communication and culture and observed how ‘mass society’
undermined individuality and freedom of the individual and in turn had a
negative impact on collective action by the working classes and their
participation in the democratic process. The subsequent section deals with the
main ideas of Adorno and Horkheimer’s work on culture industry.

8.2 ADORNO: LIFE AND TIMES

Adorno is considered one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th Century. His
collected works comprise some twenty-three volumes. He wrote on range of
themes and subjects, which included philosophical analysis, on music- most
notably on jazz, a critical study of astrology for Los Angeles Times etc. Although
he wrote on a wide range of subjects, his central concern was human suffering—
especially modernity’s effects upon the human condition. In trying to understand
the writings of this complex philosopher and critique of modernity, one can begin
by asking oneself what are his motivations, his life’s journey and intellectual
influences that inform his writing. We shall have a brief look at his biographical
sketch and the various intellectual influences in the sub sections below.
8.2.1 Adorno: A Biographical Sketch
Theodor
Wiesengrund
Adorno was
born in 1903 in
Frankfurt,
Germany to
relatively
affluent parents
in central
Germany. His
mother Maria
Calvelli-
(Pic credit : https://static.dw.com) Adorno della
Piana was a gifted singer, of Italian descent, and his father was a Jewish wine
merchant. Adorno grew up with an interest in music, due to his mother and aunts,
and could play Beethoven's pieces on the piano at the age of 12 years. 111
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Adorno was musically gifted child who in early 1920 studied music under Alban
Berg in Vienna and his talent was recognised by the music greats like Berg and
Schoenberg. However, in the late 1920 he joined University of Frankfurt as a
faculty where he devoted his time to studying and teaching philosophy.
Adorno’s Jewish heritage forced him to seek exile from Nazi Germany, this state
of exile was to have deep impact on his life and thinking and which is reflected in
his writings. Adorno moved to England in 1934, in the wake of the ‘Nazi’
oppression of the Jews. He registered as a doctoral student at Merton College,
Oxford and then, as a member of the University of Frankfurt’s Institute for Social
Research, in New York and eventually moving to Southern California. In the US,
he worked at 'Princeton' (1938–1941). He later got involved in the 'Research
Project on Social Discrimination' at the 'University of California, Berkeley’
(1941–1948).
In 1949, Adorno returned to the 'University of Frankfurt' and co-founded the
'Institute for Social Research.' and where he was the professor of philosophy and
sociology. He also re-energised the 'Frankfurt School' which was known for its
critical thinking, especially on capitalist mass culture. The various scholars who
gathered at the Institute such as Herbert Marcuse 1898-1979 ( about whom you
will learn in the next unit) Mark Horkheimer 1895-1973 Walter Benjamin,1892-
1940 Erich From 1900-1980 were grappling with the issues pertaining to the
modern industrial capitalist society. Like Karl Marx whose ideas they followed,
the critical theorists were also interested to understand the social, political and
economic conditions that would make freedom from oppressive structures
possible for human beings. The societal conditions of early and mid 20th century
Western Europe and North America made them question the liberating
possibilities of enlightenment.

8.2.2 The Cultural and Intellectual Context

The Frankfurt School was started in 1923 and was subsequently closed down
during the Nazi regime in Germany. Many of the scholars associated with
institution had to escape from the persecution of intellectuals in Nazi Germany
and took refuge in United States of America. The Frankfurt school focused
intently on technology and culture, indicating how technology was becoming
both a major force of production and formative mode of social organisation and
control. In the realm of culture, technology produced mass culture that habituated
individuals to conform to the dominant patterns of thought and behavior, and thus
provided powerful instruments of social control and domination.
Adorno and Horkheimer another member of the Frankfurt School, who later
collaborated with, observed the use of technology In Nazi Germany both in war
fare and in the concentration camps where modern technology and science was
deployed to kill Jews in mass scale. They also witnessed the use of broadcast
technology in entertainment industry of cinema, radio, newspaper, magazines and
advertisement which aided capitalist consumerist oriented market. In both these
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cases people seem to willingly accept the dominating power of the authoritarian Theodore W. Adorno:
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regime like Nazism or the compelling power of advertisement and consumerism.
Frankfurt School, as we mentioned in our previous unit, was influenced greatly
by Marxist ideas. However, the critical school wanted to extend Marx’s ideas to
contemporary society of 20th century Post World War affluent society. Karl
Marx suggested and hoped that capitalism will gave way under the force of its
own contradictions and the ‘revolution of the proletariat’ and that it would usher
in a new phase of communism; however this did not happen. Capitalist societies
of the West had become affluent and seemed to have solved the problems of
hunger and want; the working-class seemed to be thoroughly integrated in it and
seemed to have lost its revolutionary potential. Social control was not by force
but rather by promoting ‘false needs’ for more and more consumption. In order to
fulfil these needs, human beings would cooperate with the system, and not
question or challenge it. It was important for Adorno to understand the context
that produces a consciousness which was different from the consciousness that
was specific to late 19th century society which Marx was talking about.
Let us look at Adorno’s central ideas to understand better what he and
Horkheimer mean by culture industry.

8.3 CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM

They could clearly visualise how the ‘culture industry’ and mass media would
keep the populace in control and enforce conformity with the dominant ideology,
namely, consumerist capitalism. For Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), a member of
the Frankfurt School of Critical theory, culture was a serious matter. Culture,
according to him, was central to the human condition and as such he argued that
culture ought to be reflective of society. Adorno - along with Horkheimer -
considered the question of culture carefully because they felt that culture could
speak about the nature of society itself. Such a view emerges from their claim
that society and culture were not to be treated as two distinct elements but to be
seen in totality.

8.3.1 Capitalism and Commodities

As we mentioned earlier, the Frankfurt School was influenced by Karl Marx’s
thesis on capitalism but wanted to examine his ideas in the light of contemporary
culture of mass production. Frankfurt School’s critique of capitalism was not just
as an economic system but also an ideological one that sustains it. An important
concept elaborated by Marx is the notion of commodity fetishism; where
commodities are treated as neutral objects. The value that commodities have
seem to emanate from itself. The attribution of value to a commodity that does
not intrinsically have it, in fact hides the social relations and production processes
that have gone into the making of the commodity; especially the human relations
which are part of the production process. We understand what we can do with the
commodity that is it’s use value but we do not get to see the various elements that 113
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have given value to the commodity. For instance when we buy a bar of chocolate,
we of course enjoy it, but rarely do we know that chocolate comes from cocoa
bean sourced from either central Africa or South America where often child
labour is employed in the harvesting and production of it. Marx believes that the
lack of transparency on the actual production process is a socially important form
of mystification; the market society erases the relations of domination and
exploitation on which it depends.
Adorno and Horkheimer, like others of the Frankfurt School ask why is that
human beings do not seem to not only realise the real exploitative conditions that
go into capitalist production but there seems to be very little resistance to such
market-oriented mass production. They experienced this in United States’
affluence and market oriented consumptive lifestyles during their time there.
Adorno and Horkheimer also experienced fascism in Germany, as we mentioned
earlier, where people accepted authoritarian regime; such as the Nazism under
Hitler willingly, believing that is good for them? Coercion often makes people
follow rules, regulations or oppressive systems but Adorno found that people also
willingly give into oppressive systems, whether it is capitalism which is
exploitative and homogenising or totalitarian regimes. To delve deeper into these
questions they turned to Freud and psychoanalysis. Alongside this the Frankfurt
School in general and Adorno among them began to question the promise of
enlightenment as project which offered dignity and freedom to humankind.

8.3.2 Enlightenment and Freedom

Central to Adorno and Horkheimer’s development of the concept of the Culture
Industry was the notion that enlightenment, which allowed for a technical
domination over nature with advances in science and technology have become
mechanism for control; whether they are used for warfare or for industrial and
mass production of goods or culture. They cite how technology was used for
genocide in Nazi Concentration Camps, they also point to the corporate
production of entertainment—the movies, radio etc.
Box 8.1
Enlightenment
Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that
dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. This movement was
preceded by scientific revolution and the French Revolution where the
monarchy was overthrown by the people and the idea of republic had taken
root, along with the ideas of freedom and fraternity. Separation between
church and state was sought as an ideal. The enlightenment included range
ideas such as human and individual freedom and happiness, the pursuit of
knowledge through reason and observation. These ideas found resonances
across the globe.

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Adorno and Horkheimer urge that we need to address the question as to why Theodore W. Adorno:
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inequality, hunger and other forms of human sufferings persist despite advances
in science and technology that is supposed to deliver us from these conditions.
The root cause, Adorno says, lies in how capitalist relations of production have
come to dominate society as a whole, leading to extreme inequality, although this
inequality has become deceptive. As people are led to believe that they have
choice and freedom they can buy goods, and consume objects of desire and
pleasure as long as they work hard and have the money to buy. This deception
that you have choice and individuality is cleverly deployed by advertisements
and such other narratives through various new technologies of mass media.
This deception works to prevent the development of an autonomous
consciousness amongst individuals. Marx believed the workers will eventually
rise up against capitalist system for the extreme inequalities it would generate
and therefore create its own contradictions. But Marx proved wrong in post-WW
II America where consumption that was mass produced by corporations lulled
them into a consumerist paradise and prevented a disruption of the social order
that was based on the subordination of the working classes. In creating its
standardised cultural products that at once brought pleasure but dulled critique, it
prevented individuals from thinking and judging for themselves. However an
autonomous consciousness and freedom of the individual are critical conditions
needed for the survival of a democracy. For political, economic and social
freedom to exist therefore, cultural freedom must exist too. For Adorno therefore,
if a society was premised on freedom then its culture would reflect the promise of
freedom and would enable autonomous individuals to develop. If, however, this
is not the case, and we instead find ourselves at a time when society itself is
under repression and freedom is limited, then culture will reflect this. Culture
Industry was an essay that Adorno and Horkheimer initially wrote as part of their
work Dialectics of Enlightenment; their concern which underscores their life’s
work emerges here when they consider the possibility that enlightenment in
society is integrally linked to the question of culture.
Adorno’s position on culture was reflective of the political times he was living
through (the book published in 1944 comes at a time when Nazism in Germany
still reigned), but his work was also particularly of interest because it was
indicative of the constraints that society - and by extension culture - were
suffering under the process of capitalism. It is in light of this that he carefully
stipulates on what he terms as mass culture.

Check Your Progress 1

Note: i) Use the space given below for your answer.
ii) Check your answer with those given at the end of the unit.
1) Why did Adorno and Horkheimer escape Germany?
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2) What is meant by commodity fetishism?
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8.4 CULTURE AS COMMODITY

For Adorno and Horkheimer culture industry involves commodification of art.
Whenever one thought of art one thought of creative process that has, perhaps a
higher purpose or certain use value. But like commodities, Adorno and
Horkheimer argue, art or culture as such became commodified. Many art
collectors buy art for investment purposes, an artist is considered successful if he
has managed to sell his art work for high price. Culture expression which are not
part of the exchange value that is purely for the purpose selling but may be a
cultural expression to express inequality or resistance to oppression however can
also be subjected to the market driven capitalist logic where selling for the largest
number people becomes the crucial thing. When Adorno and Horkheimer were
talking of culture industry they were referring to the entertainment industry in
particular, which they happen to witness first hand while they were in exile in the
USA .

8.4.1 Culture Industry and Mass Culture

When Adorno and Horkheimer talk of culture industry they are referring to
standardised cultural corporation produced creations —films, radio programmes,
magazines, etc. They argue that consumption of these turns the mass society into
passive, unimaginative , non-creative, compliant beings. Mass communication
technologies makes it all the more pervasive, this is so true of the present age
where there is a widespread use of various digital technologies that facilitate the
entertainment industries. No matter how poor or difficult the circumstances the
pursuit of pleasure offered by the steady stream of mindless entertainment
renders one complacent and passive, says Adorno. The danger of capitalist
ideological framework is that it creates false sense of satisfaction and individual
choices and opportunities and takes the attention away from the structural
inequalities. Take for instances shows which offer opportunities to shine and
achieve monetary success such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire; a global
franchise which has Indian equivalent in Kaun Banega Crorepati. The ‘reality’
setting provided and the supposed escape from the mundane has an appeal that
touches not just the deprived but general populace alike. In that sense mass
culture creates such cultural products that appeal to a large number of people.
Unlike the Marxist notion of polarisation of working class and the wealthy,
where each held a separate domain, the consumption of mass produced
entertainment erode the distinction between the two classes, both are under the
spell of mass entertainment which hides the material and structural inequities,
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according to Adorno. Also, Adorno and Horkheimer choose the term culture Theodore W. Adorno:
Culture Industry
industry over mass culture, as the common understanding often seems think of
mass culture as spontaneous expressions of masses.
In a later essay that Adorno published titled ‘The Culture Industry Reconsidered’
he explains why he moved away from the term mass culture to culture industry.
He writes,
“ In our drafts we spoke of ‘mass culture’. We replaced that expression with
‘culture industry’ in order to exclude from the outset the interpretation agreeable
to its advocates: that it is a matter of something like culture that arises
spontaneously from the masses themselves, the contemporary form of popular
culture” (The Culture Industry Reconsidered, 2012, p.98)
What is instructive is that Adorno clearly distinguishes mass culture from popular
culture. He is in other words not merely referring to culture that enjoys a wide
dissemination particularly amongst the more widespread classes. Rather he is
indicating that the nature of culture has shifted. He finds the term culture industry
useful in this regard because it clarifies what has changed about the nature of
culture; culture now has taken the form of a commodity. It is tied to a purpose,
whereas the true nature of art and culture should tend against purposiveness, it
should lend itself to a reflection of the human condition. Instead, the culture
industry now “transfers the profit motive to cultural forms” (Adorno, The Culture
Industry Reconsidered), it turns aspects of culture which should highlight the
conflicts and contradictions of the human condition into products that can instead
be purchased to dissipate the very tensions that it ought to reflect.
Adorno and Horkheimer especially perceived mass-produced culture industry as
dangerous to the more technically and intellectually difficult high arts, as the
culture industry is the cultivation of false psychological needs that can only be
met and satisfied by the products of capitalism; In contrast, true psychological
needs are freedom, creativity, and genuine happiness, which Herbert Marcuse
also refers to, which you shall read in your next unit.
Further, culture starts imitating commodities. Mass production and
standardisation of it appear to be the norm in the production of culture. Consider
for instance the formula film, with its standardised story line. The plot or the
formula remains the same, the context shifts- whether it be a college romance, or
a romantic story set in the bustle of a city or the quiet settings of a village. There
exist the boy and the girl, a villain in the form of a strict unwilling family or
father or an external force of some kind, and the happy resolution of the conflict.
Nothing changes, it all remains the same. It is this standardisation of culture that
Adorno was anxious about; in its depiction of conflict and its resolution it
fulfilled two important tasks that highlighted its quality as a product of the
culture industry. One, it reduces conflict and brings it to the level of the banal;
the conflict represented in the culture industry is not reflective of the
contradictions of the times. It creates an individual villain and does not let us 117
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view the system or structures as a problem and resolves these conflicts in a way
that is rarely imaginable in the real world. Is the father of the heroine a villain in
stopping her from running away or is the system of patriarchy that pushes her to
seek his permission to lead her independent life? The second is that it represents
culture as being objective and hollows out the division between empirical reality
and culture as represented through art. In doing so it begs for itself to be
considered true and objective- an illusion of truth, so to speak, is created.

8.4.2 The Products and Process of the Culture Industry

Adorno urges the readers to not take the term culture industry in the literal sense.
The reason why the word industry is used is to refer to the process of production
in an industrial factory where there is standardisation and where rational
production processes are used furthermore they are atomised. Each element is put
together by several units and subunits. The standardisation is achieved so as to be
able to sell to the largest audience. Look at how movie or music industry is all
about sales. In the culture industry, Adorno argues (borrowing from Marxist
theory), the standardised products of culture are reduced to their exchange value
instead of their use value.
He claims:
“Everything has value only in so far as it can be exchanged, not in so far as it
is something in itself. For consumers the use value of art, its essence, is a
fetish, and the fetish—the social valuation, which they mistake for the merit
of works of art— becomes its only use value, the only quality they
enjoy” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2002:3).
Discussions around the cost of works of art, for instance, as indicative of whether
they are good or not, reflect how art has been transformed into a commodity in
the culture industry. In such conditions, according to Adorno, high art is reduced
to its commodity form through claims of value, while art emerging from the
lower rungs of society which have the potential to push for resistance to the
system are severely constrained by the force of the culture industry. Take for
example hip-hop or rap music, which emerged in the streets and the black
neighbourhoods of US. This musical form which emerged organically from the
African American people often as an expression of their marginalised lives and
resistance thereof, however, soon became fully integrated into the commercial
format of the culture industry.
8.4.2.1 Standardisation
The essential characteristic of the culture industry is repetition argue Adorno and
Horkheimer. Unlike “serious music” popular music is all about standardisation,
as early as 1936, in his essay on Jazz, Adorno points out this essential feature of
popular music, even where there is apparent circumventing of standardisation the
formulaic elements of which music will have mass appeal will be in place. The
118 different parts of a standardised music have substitutability which is not possible
in serious music. Serious music is a “concrete totality”; “every detail derives its Theodore W. Adorno:
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musical sense from the concrete totality of the piece” if a detail is omitted, "all is
lost."(Adorno, 1941:19)
The standardisation of the cultural product leads to the standardisation of the
audience. "Man as a member of a species has been made a reality by the culture
industry. Now any person signifies only those attributes by which he can replace
everybody else; he is interchangeable." (Adorno, 1947: 147) The standardised
products produce gratification for the masses as well as enable order to prevail.
In doing so the masses, for whom the products of the culture industry exist, are
not the subject but the object itself. The motive of the production of cultural
products is predetermined, it serves to provide instant gratification, fun and a
sense of escape from the conflict and contradiction ridden social conditions that
individuals find themselves in. Adorno invokes the Distraction Thesis.
"Distraction" is a correlate of capitalism; this mode of production, "which
engenders fears and anxiety about unemployment, loss of income, war, has its
'non-productive' correlate in entertainment; that is, relaxation which does not
involve the effort of concentration at all" (Adorno: 1941, 37-38).
8.4.2.2 Psuedo-indvidualisation
In order to be mass marketed, "a song-hit must have at least one feature by which
it can be distinguished from any other, and yet possess the complete
conventionality and triviality of all others." (Ibid: 17). Without pseudo-
individualisation, what the marketing industry calls "product differentiation," the
song could not be successfully marketed. Without standardisation, it could not be
"sold automatically, without requiring any effort on the part of the customer;" it
could not be mass-marketed at all (ibid).

Activity 1
Watch some soap operas from Indian Television; such as the genre of Saas
Bahu( Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law ) Serials. And delineate the
various elements that make them popular. How are the different serials
similar and different? What makes them standardised and what makes them
pseudo-indivdualised? Share your ideas with your fellow learners at the study
centre.

In this regard, the consumers of such products, the masses, are likely aware of the
deception at work- yet he argues they buy into it. If it grants them a momentary
pleasure, they willingly consume the products because it would appear to them as
their life would be more tolerable for it. In a life monopolised by the forces
limiting societal freedom, Adorno argues, people willingly give in to the charms
of the culture industry because they “know or suspect that this is where they are
taught the mores they will surely need as their passport in a monopolised life.”
(The Culture Industry Reconsidered, 2012: 92). The role of celebrities and ‘heart-
throbs’ is critical in the culture industry, to propagate the notion of a certain way 119
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of life and being, which gives in to commodification completely. Our attempts to
dress, act and talk like famous personalities are all borne from our complete
immersion in the culture industry. Is there a possibility then for an autonomous
consciousness to develop under such conditions?

Check Your Progress 2

Note: i) Use the space given below for your answer.
ii) Check your answer with those given at the end of the unit.
1) What do Adorno and Horkheimer mean by “culture Industry”?
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2) What is distraction thesis according to Adorno?
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8.5 LET US SUM UP

We started the unit by locating Adorno in the socio-political context of his time.
As you can see his life’s trajectory, his experiences and his many intellectual
influences shaped much of his writing. Adorno is influenced by Karl Marx’s
ideas which he extends to the contemporary culture. It was important therefore to
have a brief discussion on commodity fetishism. It was also important that unlike
many traditional Marxist who believed in the possibilities offered by science and
enlightenment, Adorno questioned and critiqued the enlightenment project of
freedom in the light of how technology has become means of subjugation of
society, whether willingly through deception or through coercion.
The culture Industry is the new form of deception or false consciousness that
people willingly engage in.

8.6 REFERENCES
M. Horkheimer and T. W. Adorno, ed. G. S. Noerr, trans. E. Jephcott,2002.
(1947) Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford: Stanford
University Press
Theodor Adorno, (1941) "On Popular Music," Studies in Philosophy and Social
Sciences , Vol. IX, No. 1
Adorno, T. W., & Rabinbach, A. G. (1975). Culture Industry Reconsidered. New
German Critique, (6), 12-19.

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8.7 SPECIMEN ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR Culture Industry
PROGRESS
Check Your Progress 1
1) Adorno’s Jewish heritage forced him to seek exile from Nazi Germany, the
Nazism under Hitler persecuted Jewish community in large numbers, Many
Jews had to flee Germany in this period. This state exile was to have deep
impact on his life and thinking and which is reflected in his writings.
2) Commodity fetishism is when commodities are treated as neutral objects. The
value that commodities have seem to emanate from the commodity itself. The
attribution of value to a commodity that does not intrinsically have it in fact
hides the social relations and production processes that have gone into the
making of the commodity; especially the human relations which are part of
the production process. We understand what we can do with the commodity
that is its use value but we do not get to see the various elements that have
given value to the commodity. For instance, when we buy a bar of chocolate,
we of course enjoy it but rarely do we know that chocolate comes from cocoa
bean sourced from either in central Africa or South America where child
labour is often employed in the harvesting and production of it.

Check Your Progress 2

1) When Adorno and Horkheimer talk of culture industry they are referring to
standardised cultural corporation produced creations —films, radio
programmes, magazines, etc. culture now has taken the form of a commodity.
It is tied to a purpose, whereas the true nature of art and culture should tend
against purposiveness, it should lend itself to a reflection of the human
condition. Instead, the culture industry now transfers the profit motive to
cultural forms.
2) "Distraction" is an integral aspect of capitalism, where the anxieties, fears.
loss etc. which emanate from real conditions of poverty or deprivation or
social structures and relations are downplayed by escaping from these
anxieties and realities by mindless entertainment that is, relaxation which
does not involve the effort of concentration at all.

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