Looking
back at my blog post and comparing it to the discussions we had during today’s
seminar it is clear that there are a few concepts that I have misunderstood,
but also one that I have failed to grasp entirely.
To begin
with, I understand Adorno & Horkheimer’s criticism of the enlightenment
better. Initially I only focused on how they described the progress of
enlightenment, how it encourages industrial development, rationalistic thinking
and transforming the world’s resources into utility. When we discussed the
enlightenment in the group I brought up the idea of how the goal of controlling
the nature also encourages the control of people, which leads to hierarchal
structures. It was later explained that enlightenment was accused by Adorno
& Horkheimer, of using the system to maintain social structures – which
confirmed my idea. The way of standardization and generalisation ultimately
oppresses people instead of making them free individuals. I believe that
enlightenment can be describes as an ideology with good intentions, but the
greed and power of knowledge and development has created unequal conditions in
the society.
Further on,
we also discussed how nominalism and it’s rejection of universal truths affects
the society within the enlightenment. Someone proposed that nominalism’s idea
of a world without categorization can be compared with Kant’s idea of faculties
of knowledge. I wouldn’t necessarily agree on it as Kant’s faculties
categorises the different ways of how we understand the world, while nominalism
deals with other sort of categorization, rejecting the idea of conceptual
generalization (like nationality and similar).
It was
explained to us that the texts by Adorno & Horkheimer and Benjamin were
written almost a decade apart, therefore their ideas of the possibilities of
media differs widely. Considering the time and circumstances when Adorno &
Horkheimer wrote their text, it comes more naturally to accuse media of being
oppressive, than seeing it’s democratic potential. During the seminar we discussed how media was
supposed to provide escapism for the lower social classes who could not afford
a superfluous lifestyle, however by showing content that was similar to their
daily life, the social structures were confirmed and maintained. This way,
being convinced the structures were a natural part of society, people did not
think of questioning the inequality caused by he enlightenment.
Personally,
I believe in the democratic potential of media, especially considering how the
21th century’s IT-development have made information available on a larger scale
than ever before. In addition to that, most people have a way of contributing
to the content (through comment sections, Youtube-channels, blog etc.).
I believe
there has been a profound change during the last years, not only in the
substructure and production of media – but also in the attitude and morals we
impose on it (superstructure). The notion of producer/distributor and
reader/audience has been blurred out. There used to be a division on who was
competent enough to produce information, and who was not, which made only an
elitist group be able to spread their ideas in the media channels. Today, we do
not impose that role on one specific group of people as everyone can in some
way distribute their ideas.
Further on,
I also questioned Benjamin’s idea of the “aura” in unique art. As understood
it, Benjamin referred to other objects than just paintings (more historical
artefacts), which might be why I do not se his opinion to be as relevant
considering today’s art production. Of course, the value of a piece of art
decreases as it is reproduced, but the original will still keep some cult value
(e.g. Mona Lisa). The aura of an art piece does not necessarily leave the
original; it simply does not rub off on the reproduced copies.
Overall, I
believe enlightenment and the concepts following it might be a bit dated, but
in many ways it is still relevant today. The philosophy behind it is quite
interesting and could be discussed far more and in far greater detail.
Thank you for a nice reflection!
SvaraRaderaI agree with you and believe in the democratic potential of media, too. The innovation-boom of media technology has indeed led to increased possibility of democracy, but in my eyes it has also brought up new questions regarding what democracy really is. Is democracy simply to make everyone able to speak their mind, or is democracy really for the governing elites to listen to those voices as they make policies for society?
I have thought about if the concept of aura could be transferred to the "art" of an idea. The aura is intact as long as the idea is, but with the fast information flow of today, ideas get slightly changed as they are reproduced (and hence their aura "rubs of" as you so nicely put it). Perhaps this could contribute to governing organs to not take the ideas coming from the internet as serious as ideas presented to them already in the elite's discussions. Food for thought!
Hola,
SvaraRaderaYou make a great point talking about IT in this century. it has been I believe a very important step for humanity and access to information.
I completely agree with you on that point. That before only the elitist people would be allowed thanks to their past and/or money, therefore it was a vicious circle since you needed money to get money. Now with free access for everyone, even if you come from nothing you have a chance to success if you invest yourself in what you do and share with the world.
And about the point made on Benjamin's definition of aura. I think to put in with actual perspective. Imagine a car, you say to your customers that this car has been produced 10 times in the entire world, you will be able to sell it twice or three times the actual prices and people will do whatever they can to acquire it. Now if you say that this car has been produced 3 billions times, you will be able to see it twice or 3 times less that the actual price and the customer won't do much to get it since it can be everywhere. I think this is the aura of an object, the idea we get from it. The example of painting is interesting because the original has only made ONE.
But I do agree on the others points, very good reflection.
Hi! Firstly, your reflected idea "standardization and generalization ultimately oppresses people instead of making them free individuals" made me think about nowadays society. We live in a standardized society even now, we all have established moral norms, we have rules and laws, so we can also say we are not actually "free" we just have an imitation of being free. I agree to your idea that media has democratic potential, especially, in a way it involved the whole society for contribution of it. Finally, I totally agree that we can see enlightenment and nominalism concepts in our today's society. In a way how it is categorized, how social media effects each of us and how controlled we are without really understanding it. Thank you for a great reading !
SvaraRaderaI really like how you explained the Enlightenment and I can see that you have detailed understanding of it.
SvaraRaderaAs for how the culture industry provides the subordinate classes with a false escape, I think Adorno and Holkheimer put it best – that the culture industry promises an “escape from everyday drudgery” and that escape is “predesigned to lead back to the starting point” (Dialectic of Enlightenment, 1979:142). Imagine a crushed poor person watching Sex and the City 2. The film helps him forget his everyday hardships, but at the same time reminds him that he will never be able to afford the life of the 4 main characters, or at least that, to do so, he would have to work, work, work and face his everyday hardships. (I chose precisely this film as an example, as I remember reading that it was heavily criticized because it came out during the 2008 financial crisis when people had lost and were still losing a lot of money and their jobs and taking on huge debt. Critics thought it was a bad time to release a movie about 4 women going on a free holiday in Abu Dhabi and having their own Maybachs and personal drivers). Moreover, popular music combined with monotonous work in capitalist societies promotes “passive listening”. People are sucked dry of their energy to consume “authentic culture” (like classical music) that can really give them the desired escape, because it requires them to use their imagination, so they resort to standardized popular music which is always consumed in a passive manner and hardens the existing norms in society.
With regard to the democratic potential of the media, I think it is important to also consider opposing views. One is that of Andrew Keen (“The Cult of the Amateur”, 2007), who argues that this blurring of the boundaries between content producer and content consumer is destructive to our culture, because it allows incompetent people (“amateurs”) to express uninformed viewpoints and influence others into making uninformed decisions. Moreover, he states that it is difficult to find the needle (quality content) in the haystack of low-quality user-generated content. I’m not saying I agree with him completely, but there is a lot of truth in what he says. Perhaps a good lesson to take away from his book is to be particularly careful which sources we trust. Thanks for the interesting reflection!
Your reflective thoughts on how standardization and generalization oppresses people instead of making them free can also be applied to modern society. The dialectic between an increased production of media and the increased passivity from the audiences to take in the information, would be interesting to study further. I could really identify with what Aleksandra wrote in her comment above, referencing Adorno and Horkheimer about the ”escape from everyday drudgery”. When working full-time I did not have the energy when arriving home after work to consume media that required a lot of thought and cognitive capacity. I rather watched Lyxfällan, which is interesting, because it is fleeing into a world were people have problems, which ultimately are solved. It is a classic narrative technique, and I guess that’s is also to be considered a false escape. I liked how you referred to enlightenment as an ideology, which according to Marx is a set of ideas imposed by the bourgeoisie to justify that there are class inequalities. I am sure diving into how this concept applies to neo-marxism in the globalized world and looking at the world from dialectic materialistic standpoint would raise some interesting questions. To conclude I liked that you mentioned the time and circumstance surrounding the texts, that you wrote about the sub- and superstructure in a modern context and the democratic potentials of media.
SvaraRaderaYou wrote, ”Enlightenment can be describes as an ideology with good intentions, but the greed and power of knowledge and development has created unequal conditions in the society”. Adorno & Horkheimer criticizes exactly this concept. Capitalism is highly unequal and causes a hierarchy structure; capitalism failed to treat people equally. The mechanical revolution and the mass production of art and popular culture caused passive satisfaction and lack of interest of the system. People care more about being rich, having a nice house and car then society. The media industry reproduces images, people tend to go to a movie and see the same thing as they already sees. Adorno & Horkheimer criticizes this social passivity, and lack of interest in overthrowing the capitalism.
SvaraRaderaI like your statement that enlightenment is "an ideology with good intentions, but the greed and power of knowledge and development has created unequal conditions". It shows that you understood the idea behind enlightenment but that it at the same time failed to deliver these ideas.
SvaraRaderaI see the democratic potential of media slightly more critical than you. While you are right that it has some potential, I say that this potential is not being used: There are several cases today where modern media and especially the internet might have had democratic value, but in the end did not actually change anything. Sometimes on the contrary: If you look at Julian Assange or Edward Snowden, they published very critical information that should have lead to at least some law suits, maybe even some governmental overthrows, reelections or a change of system and a bigger skeptical view on governments, it did nothing the like. Yes in the beginning there was a huge outcry, but it did not change anything. On the contrary: when it became clear, that Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate, illegally copied E-Mails from government servers to an unsecure, unprotected public server (for which she should have faced the same trials that Edward Snowden might face should he ever go back to the United States) the public was numbed down already and while some people confronted her, she still is running for president and it won't affect her candidature anymore.
And the same goes for the annexation of the crimea, the whole situation in turkey and so on.
That being said, you are not wrong. Just that you (like Benjamin) believe stronger in the potential of media than I do (like Adorno and Horkheimer).