On Work and Play devices required for its consumption, devices that, unlike the motion

- In Industrial Society picLures, could be sold to almost everyone. And so it came about that
many of the evenings th e Smith and Millers had formerly spent to-
gether in motion picture Uleaters, they began to spend at home. The
situation that is taken for granted in the motion picture theater-the
THE WORLDAS PHANTOM AND AS MATRIX consttmJ lion of the mass product by a mass of people-was thus done
away with. Needle ' to say, tbis did not mean a slowing-up of mass
production; radler, mass production for the mass man, indeed mass
Gunther Anders production oE the mass man himself, was speeded up daily. Millions of
in: Dissent 3:1(Winter 1956), 14-24. listeners were served the identical product; each of these was treated
as a mass man, "an indefmite article" ; each was confirmed in his char-
acter-or absence of character-as a mass man. But with this difference,
Modern mass consumption is iliat colle tive consumption became su perfluous through the mass pro-
ances)' each consumer an unpaid ho k a sum of solo perform- duction of rece iving sets. The Smiths consumed the mass products en
tion of the mass man~ mewor er employed in the produc- jamille or even sinS"ly; the more isolated they became, the more profits
beco~: ~~=n~;;~ ~~o:e the c~ltural faucets of radio and television had tIley yielded. The mass-produced hermit came into being as a new
human type, and now mjUions of them, cut off from each other, yet
to throng the motio~I~~;:;e I~::~~:~v~:~,:he SmithSi a~d Millers used identical with each other remain jn the seclusion of their homes. Their
the stereotyped mass products manufactured ~~~ ~~~:ctJ.;elY o~humbed purpose, however, is not to renounce the world, but to be sure they
tempted to regard it as cculia 'J . • ne mIg t e won't miss the slightest crumb of the world as image on a screen.
should b th . P l Y appropnate thal the mass produce
e us consumed by a . .
would be mistaken. N t ' , omRact mass. Such a vIew, however, T )5 WELL KNOWN that the principle of industrial cen-
production more comp~e::ygth:tal:'a~tcts .the . essen~ial pt~rpose of mass tralization, which ruJed unchallenged only a generation ago, has now
f ' , . ' SI uatlOn In whIch a smgJe . been dropped. mainly Cor strategic reasons, iii favor of the principle
o a commodity IS sImultaneously enjoyed by several let J bspec.unen
ous, :onsumers. 'Nhether this consumption is a :'ge a .one y numer- of dispersal. It is less known that this principle of dispersal is also
expenence" or merely the sum of man . " nume, communal applied in the proehl tion or the mass man. Although we have so far
matter of . dOff ' Y mdlvldual expenences, is a spoken only of dispersed consumption, we are justified in speaking of
compact rr::ss lase:~~~e ~~t t~e mas~ produ er, , .vIlat he needs is not the production because in this case both oincide in a peculiar way. As
possible number of ~ustome~~s~ r~ken up or atomized into the largest the German proverb has it, Mensch ist was er isst, "man is what he
to consume one and th , e oes not want all of his customers eats" (in a nonmaterialistic sense): it is through the consumption of
e same prod uct he wa t 11 f .
to buy identical products on the basis' of an i~ s a. ; dIllS custom.ers mass commodities that mass men are produced. This implies that the
has also to be produced. entlca emand whIch consumer of the mass commodity becomes, through his consumption,
In countless industries this ideal has more 1 b . one of the workers contributing to his own transformation into a mass
Whether the motion ictu . or ess een achIeved. man. In other words, consumption and production coincide. If con-
ful, bec~use.
this ind:stry r;o~~:~~:Y t~:n t;:~~ti~~i~;et~~ S;~::ed~u~t- sumption is "dispersed," so is the production of the mass man. And this
production takes place wherever consumption takes place-in front of
commodIty It produces is a spectacle designed fo . I r. tIe
sumpti b 1 r Simu taneous con- each radio, in front of each television set.
No wo~~e/ t~atar~: nr~mdI,boeranodf SPt elcta.t~rs. ~uch a situation is obsolete. Everyone is, so to speak, employed as a homeworker-a homeworker
e eVlSlon mdustr'e ld .
~om1etition with the motion picture despite the I l:t~;:'s tr:~::~nto of a most unusual kind: for he performs his work-which consists in
transforming himself into a mass man-through his consumption of the
eve opment: for the two newer industries b ous
bility of marketing, in addition to the commod~~yefittedb from the possi- mass product offered him, i.e., through leisure. Whereas the classical
o e consumed, the homeworker manufactured hi wares in order to secure a minimum of
N~t~: This" article i~ a slightly condensed version f ". consumer goods and leisure, the modern homeworker consumes a
televlSlon whIch appeared in the d" t" .h 0 the [list of three articles on
IS mgms cd German review, Der MerkU1', maximum of leisure products in order to help produce the mass man.
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