What is Enlightenment?
Enlightenment aiming at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed with suspicion in a way of gaining access to a view of more critical thinking.
What is the meaning and function of “myth” in Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument?
The increase: in economic productivity which creates the conditions for a more just world also affords the technical apparatus and the social groups controlling it a disproportionate advantage over the rest of the population. The enslavement to nature of people raday cannot be separated from social progress.
Enlightenment aiming at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed with suspicion in a way of gaining access to a view of more critical thinking.
What is the meaning and function of “myth” in Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument?
The increase: in economic productivity which creates the conditions for a more just world also affords the technical apparatus and the social groups controlling it a disproportionate advantage over the rest of the population. The enslavement to nature of people raday cannot be separated from social progress.
False clarity is only another name for myth. something that´s not true and lacks of reason.
As an example of today the defrauded masses cling to the myth of success still more ardently than the successful. Just like they mention in the text myth can be used to imbue the outside world with an arbitrary meaning and used as a tool to mass deception.
Enlightenment stands in the same relationship to things as the dictator to human beings. He knows them to the extent that he can manipulate them and here myth can be used as an instrument of control.
What are the “old” and “new” media that are discussed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment?
Those in charge no longer take much trouble to conceal the structure. the technology of the culture industry confines itself to standardization and mass production and sacrifices what once distinguished the logic of the work from that of society.
Those in charge no longer take much trouble to conceal the structure. the technology of the culture industry confines itself to standardization and mass production and sacrifices what once distinguished the logic of the work from that of society.
As an example they mention the telephone and the radio and their different impact. the former liberally permitted the participant to play the role of subject when the later Democratically makes everyone equally into listeners, in order to expose them in authoritarian fashion to the same programs put out by different stations and where private transmissions where condem. the listeners were degraded to passive listeners
This is still how it works today but with the development and impact of internet more and more people actively contribute to “new” media and as traditional mass media actors struggles to keep up we see a small change in who is gaining the most impact today.
Easy saying: more usergenerated content in todays “new” media landscape.
What is meant by “culture industry”?
Its millions of participants demand reproduction processes which inevitably lead to the use of standard products to meet the same needs at countless locations.
Its millions of participants demand reproduction processes which inevitably lead to the use of standard products to meet the same needs at countless locations.
Films and radio call themselves industries, and the published figures for their directors incomes quell any doubts about the social necessity of their finished products. The standardized forms, it is claimed, were originally derived from the needs of the consumers: that is why they are accepted with so little resistance.
What is the relationship between mass media and “mass deception”, according to Adorno and Horkheimer?
The mentality of the public, which allegedly and actually favors the system of the culture industry, is a part of the system. The industries are tightly clustered which leave smaller space for a wider range of broadcaster which affects the public and creates a more unity of politics. Sharp distinctions that you find in between A and B movies for example do not so much reflect the real differences as assist in the classification, organization and identification of consumers of the Mass medias.
The mass medias hierarchy serial qualities purveyed to the public serves only to quantify it more completely. The audience is supposed to behave spontaneously according to a selection of mass product manufactured for their type which gives a mass deception of a wide range of products but its actually only a few providers behind it.
The mass medias hierarchy serial qualities purveyed to the public serves only to quantify it more completely. The audience is supposed to behave spontaneously according to a selection of mass product manufactured for their type which gives a mass deception of a wide range of products but its actually only a few providers behind it.
As seen here:
Please identify one or two concepts/terms that you find particularly interesting. Motivate your choice.
Unified standard of value:
conspicuous production, the amount of investment put on show. Is the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power.
conspicuous production, the amount of investment put on show. Is the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power.
This is relevant when discussion ecological issues and highlight our strive to gain better status through mechanically differentiated products which are ultimately all the same.
Promissory note of pleasure:
That the promise disdainfully intimates that there is nothing more to come, that for example that the dinner must be satisfied with reading the menu. The desire inflamed by the glossy names and images is served up finally with a celebration of the daily round it sought to escape.
Its basicly the culture industries endlessly cheating its consumers out of what its endlessly promising.
Hello!
SvaraRaderaYou wrote "Enlightenment stands in the same relationship to things as the dictator to human beings. He knows them to the extent that he can manipulate them and here myth can be used as an instrument of control."
I remember reading that in the book and it's a very philosophical statement. I don't have a clear understanding of what really is meant. It's like, if the Enlightenment was a person, it would be a dictator. I can understand that as most of us seek enlightenment and basically worship it, but is it really manipulating us? I don't think it's clear where the end of enlightenment is, so we can always continue to (try) enlighten ourselves. Whether it's bad or good enlightenment, aren't both good in a way as they both serve some kind of enlightenment, in the sense that they enlighten you to seek further even if it was bad for example.. Hm, what do you think?