PM Fiction ADMBurns 20 February 1994Response to Horkheimer/Adorno

These people are paranoid. Digging deep into the notion of Donald Duck as analog

to the proletariat is a fundamentally paranoid way of looking at these things.

Mickey Rooney does not neccesarily mean the end of art, the death of the

individual. Betty Boop is neither more nor less culturally significant than any of

Disney’s characters. The idea that popular culture will kill high art is alarmist and

arrogant. Jazz is a freedom, not a slavery, and it does not pollute “higher” forms of

music. Hierarchies in general, I think, are paranoid, since they give the low end

reason to suspect a loss of control, and give the higher end a reason to suspect

revolution. Adorno and Horkheimer are no exception to this. They, as critics of

high art, are naturally fearful of a lower art that is more difficult to critique.

Contrary to what they suggest, lower art forms are not plots executed by masters;

they are means of empowerment for those who are traditionally robbed of a culture

of their own. Adorno, as a Marxist, is too quick to see the persecution of the proles

in all the texts he reads. Were he a little more relaxed, a little more open-minded,

he might enjoy the comedy of Donald Duck, rather than look for dialectics.

The ills of technology, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, are related to the

commodification of culture. The culture industry, they argue, reproduces flat

copies of art already achieved, or it modifies the art with some kitsch variation such

as jazz. This collapses the aesthetic sensibility of millions into a single,

unquestioning taste for whatever the industry puts forward. Such a sweeping idea,

put in the form of this sytem, is also paranoid. The masters are not in complete

control of either art or the masses.

Adorno and Horkheimer believe the culture industry can take away indiviudual

identity. “The public is catered for with a hierarchical range of mass-produced

products of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of complete quantification.

Everybody must behave (as if spontaneously) in accordance with his previously

determined and indexed level, and choose the category of mass product turned out

for his type” (123) The pair fails to realize that no one is holding a gun to the head

of the consumer. To the contrary, manufacturers provide a wide array of choices,

perhaps marketed to certain tastes, but certainly not bland or without variation.

Their argument that “mechanically differentiated products prove to be all alike in

the end,” whether an types of automibiles or movies does not work. Too many

choices, made available by too many companies, as a practical matter, eliminate the

possibility. Products differ beyond their marketing campaigs. Certain cars run

better, certain movies offer more enjoyment.