The Frankfurt School is not an actual school, but a collection of
social theorists primarily associated with the University of Frankfurt’s
Institute for Social Research. Having a deep Marxist background, these
theorists tend to be critical of both communist and capitalist thought,
and they seek to find alternative paths of social change and growth.
For students of cultural literacy and critical theory, the Frankfurt
School should already be required reading. The philosophers and their
analyses of language, education, and material culture, as well as their
in-depth looks into the social, political and historical significance of
art, commerce, psychology and, well, pretty much everything else have
left an enduring and important critical legacy.
To your average Joe Sixpack, this may seem like all kinds of
high-falutin’ postmodern jibba-jabba. But it isn’t. The problem is,
putting these scholarly writings into plain speak is sometimes difficult
to do — there are some nuances, which under normal circumstances would
need a full paragraph to be fully expressed, that can be quickly summed
up in one 15-syllable word. But it’s important to get over the academic
hurdle and look at the meaning behind the works.
Fun though it is to rail against this stuff without knowing really
what it is, I’ve gathered some tidbits and snippets from five notable
Frankfurt writers in the hopes that Rush Limbaugh will read this and
say, “Wow, Obama’s not like this at all.” As you read through, please
bear in mind that these are mere teasers — very incomplete
encapsulations of schools of critical thought that you can learn much,
much more about by visiting your local internet. Bring a large coffee.
Walter Benjamin. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
(1935) is Benjamin’s most often-discussed work, and most people aren’t
even aware that they’re referencing it. Whenever a piece of work is said
to have “an aura,” that’s Benjamin talking. In a nutshell, a work of
art’s aura encompasses, and is also made up by, not only the work
itself, but also its exclusivity.
Before reproductive methods were widely used, works of art could only
be experienced by traveling to them. To see a painting in a gallery or
to hear an aria in an opera house was an event unto itself. This
experience factored into the enjoyment of the art work; the ritual of
the journey to and the contemplation of a piece went hand-in-hand with
the work itself. But then came the printing presses, photographs, and
phonographs and all of a sudden, art was accessible to the masses. In
fact, art forms like photographs and movies exist purely in the
reproduced realm — a print can be completely indistinguishable from the
original, and therefore a new sense of aura and reverence must be
recognized.
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Adorno and
Horkheimer also took a critical eye to the culture industry, arguing
that popular culture tended to pacify the masses. In “The Culture
Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” (1944), a section of The Dialectic of Enlightenment, they argued that culture industries create false needs, and the desire to have these needs fulfilled (must…get…that…new…Hannah…Montana… doll… now…) often overrode one’s true needs of life, love, freedom and so on.
This was one of the first works studying the culture industry in
general, and popular culture specifically, and how modern society is
shaped by this industry, rather than the other way ‘round.
Jürgen Habermas. Habermas was a sociologist who wrote theories of societal evolution and modernization. In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
(1962), Habermas considered the idea of the public sphere, a place
where private individuals and government authorities could meet and have
rational, critical debates about public matters. Discussions took place
in coffee houses, bars, and town halls, among other places, and in
newspaper and magazine articles.
The idea of the public sphere as an open communication space decayed,
brought about by the influence and influx of commercial mass media, and
a once-critical public turned into a passive consumer public.
According to Habermas, we now have the mere illusion of a public sphere,
and real news has been cast aside in lieu of infotainment. You know,
like how we all read People instead of The Economist.
Herbert Marcuse. One-Dimensional Man (1964)
is a critique of capitalism and communism that documents the
simultaneous rise of social repression and decline of the revolutionary
in each type of society. Like Adorno and Horkheimer, Marcuse felt that
our modern, industrial society has created a set of false needs that
are reinforced via mass media, advertising, and a sense of upholding the
status quo. Marcuse proposes a “great refusal” — a rejection of the
capitalist norm. Once we free ourselves from thinking we need the house
with the white picket fence and the two-car garage, we can focus upon
what it is that we really do need.
These philosophers take a close, hard look at the world around them
and their writings were attempts to reconcile Marxist theory with the
reality of their environment. Some of their outlooks are bleak, others
may seem unduly harsh, but underlying everything is a sense of
positivism. They seem to say, hey, if we just stop and look around a little bit we can figure out what it is we truly need and find a way to get it. Ya just gotta think on it a little bit harder.
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