Brad isdrab Watkins
#0539232
How does Adorno define total society? What is the dialectic of enlightenment? How does society co-opt art in the process of creating the “culture industry”? Why does Adorno focus so much on modernism as his paradigm? How does fragmentation fit into what he is getting at? What is the relationship between truth and the work of art?
“Total society also attempts to co-opt art and rid it of its moment of opposition to the status quo.”
Society lost its chance at enlightenment by appeasing its own antagonisms. This is known as the dialectic of enlightenment. Rather than overcome obstacles, it merely appeases them, and in doing so takes them into itself. The proletariat (working man) has been integrated into the very fabric of the society. Society has neutered him of his chance to be heard. Any revolutionary potential is gone. In this way the total society is the society that has removed all oppositional thought. By integrating these opposing forces the society is made total.
The mechanism by which it does this is referred to as “The culture industry”. The culture industry (the example is Hollywood) makes things that would be mistaken for art. However these things have no content, that is to say that there is no thought stimulated by these things. The products of the culture industry are merely sources of passive entertainment. One could easily think of movies such as “American Pie”. The people in turn accept this “art”-product, and in consuming it are entertained, however this entertainment is actually only the absence of critical thought.
The public can participate in “art” like this without risk of having revolutionary thoughts, without risk of challenging the industry itself. The things it makes are mass produced commodities. These are created to fulfill a function within the society, namely to keep people sedate (TV as the opiate of the masses). While the products of the culture industry do fulfill a need for the people who consume them, it is important to note that those needs are also a manufactured product of the culture industry.
Art in contrast to the “art”-products of the culture industry, is both an effect of the social, and is autonomous. The work of art is a monad. While it is linked to the social sphere, it is also free from the rules and laws ordering it. “The unsolved antagonisms of reality return again in the works of art as the immanent problems of their form.” It is the role of Art to resist the mainstream culture. Art is a tool to destroy the total society. Any constructive effort made towards society would only be taken in to the culture industry.
Adorno’s interest is in non-realist work. He favors the microcosm, the fractured element. His view of the potential of art is like that of a hammer, a tool to use to take down the establishment of the total society. He is very interested in the fragment that hints at the whole, the party from which can be deduced a world. This is the only thing that makes sense compared to the thought produced by the system, which only negates its own moment. Adorno dislikes unity and harmony in work. He is very interested in the fragment that hints at the whole, the party from which can be deduced a world. . “Art of the highest order pushes beyond form as totality toward fragmentation.”
Truth is contained within the great work of Art. But the entirety of this Truth is unexplainable. This is the Truth that provokes thought, that challenges Philosophy to explain it. This Truth contained in Art is art in need of an interpreter. In order to gain translation into language, Art needs a participant. The Truth in Art only becomes apparent when it is interpreted, and neither the Truth nor the Art are erased in the translation. The work of Art remains enigmatic even after interpretation.
The process of receiving this truth is not a passive one. One does not simply glance over at the work of art and receive enlightenment. This process takes active participation on the part of the recipient. The viewer must look at the work and think. Through this contemplation the self falls away and the work is seen from the point of objectivity. That is where truth occurs in art.
