Enlightenment empowers men by conquering superstition and disenchanting the myth, it is the yearning for objective, the measurable and quantitative knowledge, hence "Power and knowledge are synonymous".The world if fully knowable by the tools of rationalism and empiricism, in this way enlightenment is meant to wholly dominate the nature and human beings, it is completely totalitarian and ruthless, it allows no transcendence and everything that does not own an imminent nature falls under the name on myth.
Myth were all those knowledges before enlightenment, it comprehends magical aspects and lacks a linear relationship between signifier and signified.
The individual experience and symbols are essential in the mythic ritual which derives its power from fear, what men do not know, the intangible, thus it is the first attempt to explain nature in which we must "become" what we fear by fetishes and symbols in order to control it, throughout the mimetic process we merge together with the unknown.
Thereafter enlightenment is the way human beings have chosen to exploit and spread knowledge, aim that we know being performed by media since memory can walk way back.
What A&H identify as "old" media are those considered as "characteristic" in liberal industrial countries and among them are listed the cinema, radio, jazz and magazines.
These media are themselves spring of elder ones, for example the telegraph soon gave life to telephone, two devices and media which share the feature to liberally permit the participant to act as active subject.
The step from telephone to radio has clearly distinguished the roles, information and communication are no longer cooperatively built by the two subjects but are unilaterally instilled from the board of broadcasters.
From thereafter the old media such as radio and films no longer needs to present themselves as art, any need which might escape the central control is repressed and the merging process is visible both in content and in the inner nature of the media, hence A&H identify as "new" media -for the time beings- the television, in which the trend towards insatiable uniformity is achieved by synthesizing radio and movies together.
A&H were writing this essay in Los Angeles, but with their minds they were in the Germany of WW2 and as men of their time and space they noticed and understood how the control of information and media can be turned into propaganda and become a powerful weapon.
Their pessimistic view on the subject get born from the time they were living but also on the dynamics they observed in what they call the "Culture Industry".
First generally designing something as "culture" we already assume a process of identification and classification which intimates an attempt to administrate it, "only what is industrialized and rigorously subsumed is fully adequate to this concept of culture".
When asking the rhetorical question "what do people want?" the shameless industry consciously lies since "it appeals on people as thinking subjects, whose subjectivity it seeks to annul".
The aesthetic material is helplessly doomed to impoverishment due to the fact that what people are listening, watching or reading is simply turning them into buyers of a final product owned by those whose economic position in society is strongest.
Throughout the mass media the whole world is passed through the filter of the culture industry, enlightenment eventually made up itself and managed to overshadow audience's mind, concept which is fully implied in this chapter's title: "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception".
I found this essay more than interesting because of the antithesis-synthesis of enlightenment and myth -which strongly reminds me the Nietzschean relationship between dionysian and apollonian- but mostly, it amused me for the insights and the further development of the concept of "deception" in the media changeling in particular related to the lately media we have and will see.
Myth were all those knowledges before enlightenment, it comprehends magical aspects and lacks a linear relationship between signifier and signified.
The individual experience and symbols are essential in the mythic ritual which derives its power from fear, what men do not know, the intangible, thus it is the first attempt to explain nature in which we must "become" what we fear by fetishes and symbols in order to control it, throughout the mimetic process we merge together with the unknown.
Thereafter enlightenment is the way human beings have chosen to exploit and spread knowledge, aim that we know being performed by media since memory can walk way back.
What A&H identify as "old" media are those considered as "characteristic" in liberal industrial countries and among them are listed the cinema, radio, jazz and magazines.
These media are themselves spring of elder ones, for example the telegraph soon gave life to telephone, two devices and media which share the feature to liberally permit the participant to act as active subject.
The step from telephone to radio has clearly distinguished the roles, information and communication are no longer cooperatively built by the two subjects but are unilaterally instilled from the board of broadcasters.
From thereafter the old media such as radio and films no longer needs to present themselves as art, any need which might escape the central control is repressed and the merging process is visible both in content and in the inner nature of the media, hence A&H identify as "new" media -for the time beings- the television, in which the trend towards insatiable uniformity is achieved by synthesizing radio and movies together.
A&H were writing this essay in Los Angeles, but with their minds they were in the Germany of WW2 and as men of their time and space they noticed and understood how the control of information and media can be turned into propaganda and become a powerful weapon.
Their pessimistic view on the subject get born from the time they were living but also on the dynamics they observed in what they call the "Culture Industry".
First generally designing something as "culture" we already assume a process of identification and classification which intimates an attempt to administrate it, "only what is industrialized and rigorously subsumed is fully adequate to this concept of culture".
When asking the rhetorical question "what do people want?" the shameless industry consciously lies since "it appeals on people as thinking subjects, whose subjectivity it seeks to annul".
The aesthetic material is helplessly doomed to impoverishment due to the fact that what people are listening, watching or reading is simply turning them into buyers of a final product owned by those whose economic position in society is strongest.
Throughout the mass media the whole world is passed through the filter of the culture industry, enlightenment eventually made up itself and managed to overshadow audience's mind, concept which is fully implied in this chapter's title: "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception".
I found this essay more than interesting because of the antithesis-synthesis of enlightenment and myth -which strongly reminds me the Nietzschean relationship between dionysian and apollonian- but mostly, it amused me for the insights and the further development of the concept of "deception" in the media changeling in particular related to the lately media we have and will see.
No comments:
Post a Comment