P1: humans are born into a world of interpretations, these interpretations were passed on by the

previous generations through human speech and symbols and meanings. Most of the interpretations
and so called solid facts… are established by the cultural apparatus.

I: The apparatus is all the organizations and mediums in which artistic, intellectual and scientific work
goes on and by which information and entertainment is produced and distributed. It contains a lot of
institutions (schools, museums, newspapers…). These institutions are standing between mean and
events and meanings. They are shifting the meanings until it’s almost impossible to recognize between
source (original event) and image (representation)

II: all over the world some intellectuals play leading roles in the politics of their nation. Even if they don’t
want to, they’re ultimately working for the state. All Scientific advancements have military, economic,
and political relevance. Even artists are contributing to cultural prestige without their knowing.

The cultural apparatus as a whole is established and used by dominant institutional orders.

III: the cultural apparatus is always a part of a national establishment. the essential feature of any
establishment is a traffic between culture and authority, a tacit co-operation of cultural workmen and
authorities of a ruling institution (cooperation between classes). These classes exchange cultural
prestige which means two different things to each class:

 To the powerful, cultural prestige gives them “weight”. (It gives their decisions and authority, an
unquestionable credibility) that’s why Cultural apparatus is closely linked with national authority
 To the workman, cultural prestige gives him “dignity”. Dignity about his work, his culture, and to
himself

the major uses of the cultural apparatus. In the end, what is “established” are definitions of reality,
judgments of value, canons of taste and of beauty.

IV: without money, cultural activities cannot even be established. A set of publics is also required
(publics are groups and cultural apparatus makers and influencers)

Three stages of “natural history of modern culture”

1. the modern cultural apparatus begins as a patronage system: patrons personally support culture
and also form the public for which it is produced. The cultural apparatus here is based on a
feudal system (to secure loyalty to a prince, to follow the church, and later even to bourgeois
high class men) By his work, the cultural workman brings prestige to such higher circles
(authorities I’ve mentioned before, such as king, church…) and to the institutions over which
they rule.
2. When the patronage system starts to decline and the bourgeois publics take over (bourgeois
public means people who own factories and are paying workers money in order to work (this in
itself is a cultural apparatus)) this change from patronage to depending on “publics”. Because it
allowed the people to have the thought of being free from authority and the influence of
patrons; which most artists, writers and even scientist appreciate.
3. It remarks the change from both the previous stages where the cultural workman becomes a
man who is qualified, politically or commercially. Both money and public are “provided” and
Commercial agencies or political authorities support culture, but, unlike older patrons, they do
 not form its sole public. In this stage everything is monitored and controlled by the authorities
as if it was a modern totalitarianism.
Any establishment of culture means the establishment of definitions of reality, values, taste.
But in the third stage these definitions are subject to official management and are being
monitored by the state and the orders of the state is enforced upon them.
 Today, all three stages of establishment exist side by side, in one nation or another, in one
division of culture or another.

V:

In the underdeveloped countries: The cultural apparatus is usually confined to very small circles.
Often it consists of only a few distributors and consumers, linked by education to the cultural
machineries of more developed nations.

In many underdeveloped countries the main task of “the intellectuals” is ‘political creation of a
national economy and a national state’. For them the cultural task and the political struggle are
clearly one.

Because they were educated in western nations, they are often condemned to be homeless in their
own countries as well as in the countries they studied in. Their western experience have affected
them highly, because in their own countries, the ruling positions are reserved for men from the
governing nation.

In their own minds they have rejected western capitalism because they believe it is linked with
imperialism that has subjected their countries to domination in all spheres, therefore they have
embraced socialism.