Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer | 'The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception'
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LKp4PL3ZW6Q
Quote: "Sharp distinctions like those between A and B films, or between short stories published in magazines in different price segments, do not so much reflect real differences as assist in the classification, organization, and identification of consumers. Something is provided for everyone so that no one can escape; differences are hammered home and propagated. The hierarchy of serial qualities purveyed to the public serves only to quantify it more completely. Everyone is supposed to behave spontaneously according to a 'level' determined by indices and to select the category of mass product manufactured for their type" (Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T. W., et al., 2020, p.97). Quote: "Unending sameness also governs the relationship to the past. What is new in the phase of mass culture compared to that of late liberalism is the exclusion of the new. The machine is rotating on the spot. While it already determines consumption, it rejects anything untried as a risk. In film, any manuscript which is not reassuringly based on a best-seller is viewed with mistrust. That is why there is incessant talk of ideas, novelty and surprises, of what is both totally familiar and has never existed before. Tempo and dynamism are paramount. Nothing is allowed to stay as it was, everything must be endlessly in motion. For only the universal victory of the rhythm of mechanical production and reproduction promises that nothing will change, that nothing unsuitable will emerge. To add anything to the proven cultural inventory would be too speculative. The frozen genres—sketch, short story, problem film, hit song-represent the average of late liberal taste threateningly imposed as a norm" (Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T. W., et al., 2020, p.106-107). Bibliography: Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T. W., et al. (2002). 'Dialectic of enlightenment : philosophical fragments'. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/virinderkalra/kolkata/adorno_culture_industry.pdf https://monoskop.org/images/2/27/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf
