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Kracauer
bySiegfried
Die Linien des Lebens sind verschieden,
Wie Wege sind, und wie der Berge Grenzen
Was hier wirsind, kann dortein Gott
ergainzen
Mit Harmonien und ewigem Lohn und Frieden.
-Hdlderlin
I
An analysis of the simple surface manifestations of an epoch can contribute more to determining its place in the historical process than judgments
of the epoch about itself. As expressions of the tendencies of a given time,
these judgments cannot be considered valid testimonies about its overall
situation. On the other hand the very unconscious nature of surface manifestations allows for direct access to the underlying meaning of existing
conditions. Conversely, the interpretation of such manifestations is tied to
an understanding of these conditions. The underlyingmeaning of an epoch
and its less obvious pulsations illuminate one another reciprocally.
II
A change in taste has been taking place quietly in the field of physical
culture, always a popular subject in illustrated newspapers. It began with
the Tiller Girls. These products of American "distraction factories" are no
longer individual girls, but indissoluble female units whose movements are
mathematical demonstrations. Even as they crystallize into patterns in the
revues of Berlin, performances of the same geometrical exactitude are
cccurring in similarly packed stadiums in Australia and India, not to
mention America. Through weekly newsreels in movie houses they have
managed to reach even the tiniestvillages. One glance at the screen reveals
that the ornaments consist of thousands of bodies, sexless bodies in bathing
suits. The regularity of their patterns is acclaimed by the masses, who
themselves are arranged in row upon ordered row.
These spectacular pageants, which are brought into existence not only by
the Girls and the spectators at the stadium, have long since taken on an
* First
publishedin Frankfurter
Zeitung,July9 and 10, 1927. Appeared later in Siegfried
am Main, 1965). The essayappears hereforthe
Kracauer,Das Ornamentder Masse (Frankfurt
firsttime in Englishwith the permissionof SuhrkampVerlag.
69
radiations of spiritual life. Hereafter, the Tiller Girls can no longer be reassembled as human beings. Their mass gymnasticsare never performed by
whole, autonomous bodies whose contortions would deny rational
understanding. Arms, thighs and other segments are the smallest
components of the composition.
The structure of the mass ornament reflects that of the general
contemporary situation. Since the principle of the capitalist production
process does not stem purely from nature, it must destroy the natural
organisms which it regards either as a means or as a force of resistance.
Personality and national community (Volksgemeinschaft) perish when
calculability is demanded; only as a tiny particle of the mass can the
clamber up charts and service machines.
individual human being effortlessly
A systemwhich is indifferentto variations of form leads necessarily to the
obliteration of national characteristics and to the fabrication of masses of
workers who can be employed and used uniformlythroughout the world.
- Like the mass ornament, the capitalist production process is an end in
itself. The commodities which it creates are not actually produced to be
possessed but to make unlimited profits.Its growth is bound up with that of
the factory. The producer does not work for private gains of which he can
only make limited use--the surplus profits in America are transferredto
cultural accumulation centers such as libraries, universities,etc., in which
intellectuals are groomed who through their later activity reimburse with
interestthe capital advanced to them. The producer works for the expansion
of the business; values are not produced for values' sake. Though such work
may once have concerned itself with the production and consumption of
values, these have now become side effects which serve the production
process. The activitieswhich have been invested in the process have divested
themselves of their substantial meaning. - The production process runs its
course publicly in secret. Everyone goes through the necessary motions at the
conveyor belt, performs a partial function without knowing the entirety.
Similar to the pattern in the stadium, the organization hovers above the
masses as a monstrous figure whose originator withdraws it from the eyes of
its bearers, and who himself hardly reflects upon it. - It is conceived
according to rational principles which the Taylor system only takes to its
final conclusion. The hands in the factory correspond to the legs of the
Tiller Girls. Psycho-technical aptitude tests seek to compute emotional
dispositions above and beyond manual abilities. The mass ornament is the
aesthetic reflex of the rationality aspired to by the prevailing economic
system.
Certain intellectuals have taken offense at the emergence of the Tiller
Girls and the image created by the stadium pageants. Whatever amuses the
masses, theyjudge as a diversion of the masses. Contrary to such opinion, I
would argue that the aesthetic pleasure gained from the ornamental mass
movements is legitimate. They belong in fact to the isolated configurations
of the time, configurations, which imbue a given material with form. The
masses which are arranged in them are taken fromofficesand factories. The
structural principle upon which they are modeled determines them in reality
as well. When great amounts of reality-contentare no longer visible in our
world, art must make do with what is left, for an aesthetic presentation is all
the more real the less it dispenses with the reality outside the aesthetic
sphere. No matter how low one rates the value of the mass ornament, its
level of reality is still above that of artistic productions which cultivate
obsolete noble sentiments in withered forms--even when they have no
further significance.
III
The process of historyis a battle between weak and distant reason and the
forces of nature, which in myth ruled over heaven and earth. After the
twilightof the gods, the gods did not abdicate; the old nature within and
outside of human beings contiunes to assert itself. The great cultures of
humanity have arisen from it, and they must die just like all creatures of
nature. The superstructuresof mythological thinkinggrow from this source,
affirmingnature in its omnipotence. With all the differencesin its structure,
71
IV
73
Nature is deprived of its substance in the mass ornament, and this indicates
the condition under which only those aspects of nature can assert themselves
which do not resist illumination through reason. (This is why the trees,
ponds and mountains of old Chinese landscapes were painted as spare
ornamental signs.) The organic center is removed and the remaining parts
are composed according to laws yielding knowledge about truth, however
temporally conditioned such knowledge might be--and not according to
laws of nature. Also, only remnants of the human complex enter into the
mass ornament. Their selection and compilation in the aesthetic medium
result from a principle which representsform-burstingreason in a purer way
than those other principles which preserve humanity as an organic unity.
Viewed from the perspective of reason, the mass ornament stands revealed
as mythological cult wrapped in abstractness. The weight granted to reason
in the ornament is therefore an illusion which the ornament assumes in
contrast to physical presentations of concrete immediacy. In reality it is the
crass manifestation of inferior nature. The more decisively capitalist
rationale is cut off from reason and bypasses humanity vanishing into the
emptiness of the abstract, the more this primitive nature can make itself
felt. The natural in its impenetrabilityrises up in the mass pattern, despite
the rationality of this pattern. Certainly people as organic beings have
disappeared from the ornaments, but that does not bring basic human
nature to the fore; rather, the remaining mass particle isolates itself from
this essence just as any formal general concept does. Certainly the legs of the
Tiller Girls and not the natural units of their bodies swing in unison with
one another; and certainly the thousands in the stadium are also one single
star. But this star does not shine, and the legs of the Tiller Girls are the
abstract signs of their bodies. Wherever reason breaks down the organic
unity and rips open the cultivated natural surface, it speaks out; there it
dissects the human formso that undistorted truthitselfcan model humanity
anew. But reason has not permeated the mass ornament, whose patterns are
mute. The rationale which gives rise to the ornament is strong enough to
attract the masses and at the same time to expunge life from the figures. It
is too weak to find human beings in the masses or to render the figures of
the ornament translucent to knowledge. Since this rationale flees from
reason into the abstract, uncontrolled nature grows prodigiously under the
pretense of rational expression, and uses abstract signs to portray life itself.
Nature can no longer convert itself into patterns which are powerful as
symbols, as was possible during the times of primitive peoples and religious
cults. Such power of symbolic speech has withdrawn from the mass
ornament under the influence of the same rationality which keeps the
THE MASSORNAMENT 75
ornament mute. So, in the end, mere nature is all that remains, nature
which resistseven the statement and formulation of its own meaning. In the
mass ornament we see the rational, emptyform of the cult stripped of any
express meaning. As such, it proves itselfto be a regression to mythology(a
greater regression is scarcely imaginable)--a regression which once again
reveals the intransigeance of the capitalist rationale to reason.
That the mass ornament is an offspringof the purely natural is confirmed
by the role it plays in social life. The privileged intellectuals, who do not
accept the fact that they are an appendage to the prevailing economic
system, have not even understood the mass ornament as a sign of this
system. They dismiss the phenomenon while continuing to edify themselves
at fine arts events, untouched by the reality present in the stadium pattern.
The masses who so spontaneously took to the pattern in openly acknowledging facts in their rough form, are superior to those intellectuals who
despise it. With the same rationality that masters them in real life, the
bearers of the patterns are swallowed up by the physical nature of the event,
thus perpetuating present reality. Songs praising physical culture are sung
today not only by the likes of Walter Stolzing.1 It is easy to perceive their
ideological nature though the term "physical culture" combines two words
which make sense together. The immense importance attributed to the
physical cannot be derived from the limited value which is due to it.
Though its supporters are not entirelyaware of this, it can only be explained
by the alliance (Bundesgenossenschaft) that organized physical education
maintains with the status quo. Physical training expropriates energies;
production and mindless consumption of the ornamental patterns divert
from the necessityto change the currentorder. Reason is impeded when the
masses into which it should penetrate yield to emotions provided by the
godless mythological cult. Its social meaning is much like that of the Roman
circus games sponsored by tyrants.
VI
There are numerous attempts being made, which for the sake of reaching
a higher sphere, are about to give up the rationality and level of reality
reached by the mass ornament. The exertions of physical culture in the field
of rhythmicalgymnastics have set a goal beyond that of personal hygienenamely the expression of appealing emotional contents, to which in turn the
teachers of physical culture often add world views. Even disregarding their
1.WalterStolzingwas a famousopera singerof thisperiod, who oftenhad major rolesin the
operas of Richard Wagner.