Thursday, December 19, 2013

Summary: Dialectic of Enlightenment / Adorno and Horkheimer

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer – Dialectic of Enlightenment – Summary and Review

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer wrote "Dialectic of Enlightenment" following the atrocities of World War Two. In the introduction to "Dialectic of Enlightenment" Adorno and Horkheimer set forth their goal as an attempt to figure out why "humanity has sunk into a new kind of barbarism instead of shifting into a new state of the human condition". Adorno and Horkheimer saw Nazism and Fascism as phenomena that stems from the destructive dialectic of enlightenment which caused the west to be taken over by instrumental rationality. According to them, fascist totalitarianism is the most extreme conclusion of western enlightenment.

The dialectic of enlightenment is perceived by Adorno and Horkheimer not just in its historical context of the 18th century, but rather in the broad sense of the human attempt to enforce order and meaning on reality, to try and understand the world for the purpose of taking over it, an attempt driven by western rationality for centuries. They argue that by the rational conquest of nature man has attempt to quell his fears from it, but this attempt has led the dangerous developments. The fear driven violence directed by man towards nature has also led it to be directed towards other humans. The rational program of the enlightenment was an attempt to establish man as a differentiated and independent subject from nature. However, the main thesis of "Dialectic of Enlightenment" is that this program involved man taking over its own nature and the repression of urges, feelings, desires and so forth (note here the application of Freudian thinking to culture).  Moving away from nature has thus led, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, to a state in which the principle of oppression has taken over all of human life. This oppression is manifested in the limits of human rationality which has become, as it were, "a one track mind" designed for the sole purpose of subduing and exploiting nature, humans included.

Adorno and Horkheimer establish much of their notions in "Dialectic of Enlightenment" on Max Weber's understanding of instrumental rationality. According to Weber instrumental rationality is the practice of matching means to ends which subjugates subjects to its own needs for the purpose of utilizing everything and anything. Instrumental rationally is opposed to objective and autonomous rationality, which is free and creative and is engaged with the examination of values and ascertaining goals. This type of rationality has been pushed aside by instrumental rationality which supposedly freed man from nature but in to process submerged him in growing violence.

In "Dialectic of Enlightenment" Adorno and Horkheimer argue that enlightenment motivations, already present in ancient societies trying to promote rational thought, have denounced any type of thinking which is not purposeful as primitive. This criterion of purposefulness has turned out to be destructive for it castes aside anything that didn't fall in line with this type of instrumental thinking. The rationality of the enlightenment regarded anything, people included, as an alienated objects to be used and controlled. This is true, according to Adorono and Horkheimer, for both the Nazi regime and capitalism. One of the main features of this violent rationality is the unifying principle which governs it, the one which sees all different things on the basis of a single principle. Rationally urges people to be the same and give up their own autonomous identity. The dialectic of enlightenment has led to growing conformity while erasing any heterogeneity in the name of a false identity which represses any contradiction and difference. This line of thought also makes men exchangeable, since they are all valued by the same instrumental logic, and this leads the for giving up "thou shall not kill" which is based on the singularity of each individual. The main argument posed by Adorno and Horkheimer in "Dialectic of Enlightenment" is that both Fascism and capitalism which see all human beings as numbers. One of the most notable concepts raised by Adorno and Horkheimer in "Dialectic of Enlightenment" is that of the "culture industry" and popular culture's role in subduing the masses.   

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Sunday, May 5, 2013

Walter Benjamin on Aesthetics and Politics "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

The first four chapters of Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" relate to the changing social function of art and the loss of the aura in the age of changing reproduction technologies. As a Marxist, Benjamin view changes in art as indications of changes in the economical base of material power relations. This is why Benjamin employs the theory of dialectical materialism in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" for the sake of analyzing the changes that art goes through in the 20th century.

Walter Benjamin describes the uses of new forms of art as a dialectic struggle between new forms of cultural production. He contradicts fascist uses of art to revolutionary uses of art through two aphorisms: the fascist tactics are characterized by the aestheticization of politics while the communist counter-reaction is characterized by the politicization of the aesthetics. Benjamin himself is of course all for the politicization of art and "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is essentially an attempt to point to art's revolutionary potential.

An interesting point raised by Benjamin in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is the relations between capitalism and fascism. Capitalism and fascism meet at the point of alienation. Marx held that under capitalism the worker is alienated from his own products of work. In fascism this alienation is radicalized by the complete deletion of the individual function. The epitome of fascism according to Benjamin is the aestheticization of war which turns violence into an aesthetic product. This augments alienation since humanity can now joyfully witness its own destruction. People's alienation from their own products blinds them from seeing how these products bear their doom. The aestheticised war turns it away from the political realm into the realm of art where it can be consumed rather than discussed.

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Walter Benjamin's concept of "Aura" and Authenticity in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

 "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" wasn't the first place in which Walter Benjamin introduced his famous concept of "Aure" and his related discussion on authenticity in art, but it was however in which Benjamin fully developed his discussion of the aura.

"Aura" is a name offered by Benjamin in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and elsewhere to designate the one-time experience of a certain object.  Benjamin discusses the different terms for the appearance of the unique and authentic aura. In essence, the aura is the "one-timeness" of the experience, the situation in which the subject meets the object that cannot be reproduced. A similar expression to that of Benjamin's aura is that of "aesthetic experience" albeit Benjamin stresses the unique one-time experience. For Benjamin, an aura can be possessed only the original work of art. The aura distinguished the viewer from the work and creates the necessary detachment for a true aesthetic experience.
This detachment is what allows, according to Benjamin in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", the authenticity of the artwork. The work of art according to Benjamin bears its terms and times of creation which make up its originality and authenticity. These contexts of creation that are born by the original work of art maintain the distance between it and the viewer and maintain the disposition required for a true appreciation of art. Replicas, according to Benjamin, lack the authentic aura of the original. In a sense, Benjamin is fetishistic in attributing the original work of art traits that duplications lack.

Benjamin's ideas about the aura and its relations to authenticity can account, for example, for why original works of art are valued in millions of dollars while anyone can purchase a reproduction for just a few dollars. The reproduction of works of art in modern times causes, according to Benjamin in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", the loss of the aura and the loss of authenticity in the aesthetic experience.

see also:

Reproduction and the loss of the Aura
aesthetic and the political


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Reproduction and the loss of the Aura in Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

In his famous "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Walter Benjamin uses the concept of "aura" to designate the quality of originality and authenticity of the aesthetic experience of an original work of art (to learn more about Benjamin's concepts of aura and authenticity see separate post).

According to Benjamin and the thesis he promotes on "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" advanced reproduction and distribution techniques that have evolved in the early 20th century have had a significant impact on the art world. What Benjamin is arguing is that the social function of art has changed with the appearance of technology based art like the cinema. This historical process is explained by Benjamin as the loss of the aura and the degeneration of art which has its aesthetic value determined by its originality or one-timeness.

Photography and then cinema lead the way in the degeneration of the aura. These mediums are, according to Benjamin, the central agents in the process of the transformation of art's social function. Mechanical reproduction is faster: faster to produce, faster to distribute. Machinery such as the camera assumes the place of the artist of craftsman and denies any authorship of a unique original.

Mechanical reproduction bridges the space-time gap between the subject and object of the aesthetic experience. It makes the artwork the viewer's contemporary. The loss of the aura is accompanied and affected by the mass reproduction and the "flattening" of the work of art. Mass reproduction of art sets the stage for a new type of human perception: collective perception which according to Benjamin allows for the politicization of art later in "The Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction".

The medium for Walter Benjamin is not only the message but also an agent of social and political change. The new type of mechanically reproduced work of art is widely accessible for the masses and it thus positions people in a whole new relation to it. Benjamin, in chapter 12 of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", gives the example of how cinema is consumed when situated in a group on the one hand and as anonymous on the other hand. The crowed regulated itself and in that the individual's position towards the film. This notion is obviously linked to the Frankfurt School notion about the culture industry.   

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Walter Benjamin – The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction – Summary and Review

"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936) is arguably Walter Benjamin's most notable essay. Benjamin's book attempts not only at analyzing the historical process that art goes through in the age of mechanical reproduction but also to see how art can formulate "revolutionary demands" towards political reality. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" can therefore be understood as a programmatic study for understanding and realizing art's revolutionary potential.

Right from the onset of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Benjamin's Marxist approach and terminology are very much apparent. Benjamin uses the Marxist notion of dialectical materialism, which was very popular with the Frankfurt School, in discussing his thoughts about the ties between the aesthetic and the politicalDialectical materialism holds that social changes are the result of power struggles that are present in all forms of material existence. When taking this line of thought to the field of art, Benjamin attempts at explaining how technological changes influenced art and how these relations might have social significance.

"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is also loyal to the Marxist hope of proletariat revolution, and Benjamin wishes to see how changes in the world of art can allow for revolutionary art which promotes social and political change. It should be noted that although Marxism is usually preoccupied with overthrowing Capitalism, Benjamin is more concerned with the "enemy" of his times – Fascism. Walter Benjamin saw how Nazi and Italian Fascism used various art forms in order to strengthen and justify their totalitarian rule. Benjamin tries to understand what allows the Fascist ideology to use art to its own needs, and asks what could be a course of action to free art from Fascist (or Capitalist) exploitation.

Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" was and still is a huge influence not only on Marxist thought but also on art and culture studies which have turned to look at the ways technological advancements influence society through art. 

See also: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - short summary by chapter

   

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Douglas's "Purity and Danger" and Power Structures

Mary Douglas's "Purity and Danger" offers a structuralist take on how cleanness and uncleanness serve as symbolic functions to maintain society's boundaries. The argument, following Emile Durkheim's notions about the relation between clean and unclean, is (very briefly) as follows: being "unclean" is being out of place. The notion of profanity or defilement is in essence the notion of transgressing social boundaries (this can be seen, for example, in how taboos relate to impurity).  The culturally and historically dependant dichotomy between pure and impure, clean and unclean, is to a great extent a means of reinforcing norms, norms being themselves agents of establishing social structures and hierarchies.

If we take Douglas's (revised in 2002) discussion on Jewish Kosher rules as an example, we can hypothesize a social situation in which pig is the cheapest meat customarily consumed by lower and poorer classes. The ruling classes, aiming at reinforcing their privileged social position, maintain pig to be profane, thus fashioning their abstention from pig into an instrument of increasing their symbolic fortune. In other words, the pig refraining ruling classes set society's structure and boundaries, defined by the distinction between pure and impure, to fit their own Habitus and make it central to society while others are marginalized.

In "Purity and Danger" Douglas argued that secular defilement is not that much different from "primitive" ritualistic practices relating to cleaning or "purifying". The social function of defilement can also be seen in modern secular societies. Take for example the ongoing delegitimizing of smoking or junk-food. Obesity is a health hazard, not a personal one but rather a social one, for obesity is associated with being poor. Being poor also makes you unaware and uniformed and the combination of both leads the way to McDonald's or KFC. The upper classes, on the other hand, make sure to eat healthy and refrain from junk food (like the Jews and Muslims do with pig). Thus a new mini-religion is founded on the constructs of social hierarchy, the religion of "healthiness" that decrees a set of codes and regulations about what you can and cannot eat. These new boundaries between deep-fried bad and organic good reinforce the existing social structure and hierarchy.