THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND THE CULTURE INDUSTRY

Criticism on the Frankfurt School

• The School’s perspectives, according to some critics, have become both narrow and outmoded;
• It would be very difficult to understand the study of popular culture without understanding the
work of the Frankfurt School.

The Founders of the Frankfurt School

• Theodor Adorno
(1903-1969)
• Max Horkheimer
(1895-1973)
• Herbert Marcuse
(1898-1979)
• Walter Benjamin
(1892-1940)

The Origin of the Frankfurt School

• The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (the Frankfurt School) was set up in 1923, in
Germany;
• The founders are left-wing German, Jewish intellectuals drawn from the upper and middle
classes of German society;
• Among its activities was the development of critical theory and research;
• Aimed to reveal the social contradictions and underlying the emergent capitalist societies of the
time, and their typical ideologies, so as to construct a theoretical critique of modern capitalism;
• The School was engaged in a critique of the Enlightenment;
• The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason (17th Century)
– reason over emotion
– society over individual
– proper decorum at all times
• It thought that the promise of the Enlightenment to extend human freedom through scientific
and rational progress had turned into a nightmare because science and rationality were instead
stamping out human freedom.

“... The total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment, in which...enlightenment,
progressive technical domination, becomes mass deception and is turned into a means of
fettering consciousness. As such, it impedes the development of autonomous, independent
individuals who judge and decide consciously for themselves...while obstructing the
emancipation for which human beings are as ripe as the productive forces of the epoch permit.”
- Adorno 1991:92

WHAT IS COMMODITY FETISHISM?

• It is the basis of a theory of how cultural forms can secure the continuing, political, economic
and ideological domination of capitalism;
• The money – the price of commodities or goods- defines and dominates social relations in a
capitalist society.
• “When the price becomes the important thing”
• “When the price becomes the important thing”

EXCHANGE VALUE vs REAL VALUE?

• REAL VALUE refers to the usefulness of the good for the consumer, its practical value or the
utility as a commodity

• EXCHANGE VALUE refers to the money that a commodity can command on the market, the
price it can be bought or sold for;

• Will always dominate use value in capitalism because the production, marketing and
consumption of commodities will always take precedence over people’s real needs
• Deceptively takes over the functions of use value;
• Determines the production and circulation of the commodities
“People buy happiness or believe because they can buy some things, their ‘needs’ are being
met.”

FRANKFURT SCHOOL’S THEORY OF MODERN CAPITALISM?

• Capitalist productive forces can generate vast amounts of wealth through waste production
which means that ‘false needs’ can be created and met;
• Creates “false needs” for the masses

FALSE NEEDS
• Serve as a distractor from “true/real” needs;
• Come to superimpose upon true/real needs, and work to deny and suppress them
• “As false needs are met, the culture industry produces new forms of false needs"
• “Consumption of false needs further enslaves them (us) to capitalism”

THE CULTURE INSDUSTRY

• The culture industry reflects the consolidation of commodity fetishism, the domination of
exchange value and the ascendancy of state monopoly capitalism;
• It shapes the tastes and preferences of the masses, thereby molding their consciousness by
instilling the desire for false needs.
• The commodities produced by the culture industry are governed by the need to realize their
value on the market. The profit motives determine the nature of cultural forms.
• The profit creates planned obsolescence
• Cultural production is a process of standardization whereby the products acquire the form
common to all commodities
• But it also confers a sense of individuality...the more cultural products are actually standardized
the more they appear to be ‘individualized.’
Individualization is an ideological process which hides the process of standardization.
• The culture industry deal in falsehoods not truths, in false needs and false solutions, rather than
real needs and real solutions. It solves “only in appearance,” not as they should be resolved in the
real world. It offers the semblance not the substance of resolving problems, the false satisfaction
of false needs as a substitute for the real solution of real problems. In doing this, it takes over the
consciousness of the masses.
BENJAMIN AND THE CRITIQUE OF THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL
• Walter Benjamin’s analyses appears to differ from Adorno;
• He wrote in mid-1930’s what some regard as one of the most seminal essays on the popular arts
in the twentieth century, “The work of art in the age of mechanical production” (1973, originally
published in 1936
• Benjamin aims to assess the effects of mass production and consumption, and modern art
technology, upon the status of the work of art, as well as their implications for contemporary
popular arts or popular culture
• He argues that the work of art acquired an “aura” which attested to its authority and
uniqueness, its singularity in time and space, as a result of its original immersion in religious
rituals and ceremonies.
• The focus of artistic attention began to shift from religious to secular subjects;
• The effects of ‘the age of mechanical production’ concerns Benjamin most;
• The work of art which is reproducible has lost its aura and autonomy, but has become more
available to more people. The ritual value of the work of art is replaced by its exhibition value.
• Mechanical production of the art changes the reaction of the masses toward art by allowing
them to participate in its reception and appreciation. The new popular arts are more accessible
and afford them a role in their critical evaluation.
• Mechanical production of the art changes the reaction of the masses toward art by allowing
them to participate in its reception and appreciation. The new popular arts are more accessible
and afford them a role in their critical evaluation.
• Benjamin stresses the democratic and participatory rather than the authoritarian and repressive
potential of contemporary popular culture.