Theme 2: post-reflection

The Dialectics of Enlightenment was a dense piece of literature to try and get at. I almost lost faith a handful of pages into The Concept of Enlightenment because I doubted that between all of the references to theories I hadn't read and the unfamiliar, almost totalitarian style of agumentation, there would be much left for me to compehend. It was made much more accessible, however, by meta-reading for a bit; some online lectures on the work as well as a couple of summaries of the main ideas made it feel a bit easier on the mind.

I went into the reading with prejudice that it contained something very interesting. I feel like I got that feeling confimed, but I also feel like the morepart of the theory is inaccessible to me, because of lack of backgroundknowledge and time to study. However, I'll have to presume that we weren't supposed to get to a very high level of understanding.

I was mostly fascinated with the descriptive part of the book, the conceptualizing of sociological phenomena and their relation to philosophical and psychological theories. (Yes, the part I understood the least of, but also a major part of the book.) I was not as impressed by the conclusions they drew from them, interesting as they were, they felt a bit reductio in absurdum, and, given the amount of septicism, not very inspiring or constructive.

I would have liked more time at the seminar for discussion, preferably with some questions or propositions as guidance. That said, the discussion that did happen was interesting. We touched briefly on a point that I find very interesting: in present time we talk about how internet with its democratizing characteristics turns culture consumers into producers aswell. What happens when you look at the productive aspects of social media through the lens of Adorno and Horkheimer? I'm not quite sure. On one hand, it's not a phenomenon that can without problem be compared to others in their time, but on the other hand, they discuss amateur producers and how they too are stuck in perpetuating the agenda/ideology of the powerful. At one point in chapter 4, Adorno writes that talented performers are a part of the system long before they are "discovered" and put on stage. The very fact that they produce something that works as entertainment or culture in the system makes them eager to be a part of it. The brainwashing has already gone full circle, if one is to interpret the text in the same resigned, frustrated manner it was written in. I think, that with critical theory in mind, it will be much more interesting to not only think about who produces the content in our present media landscape, but also what type of content is produced by people, inside which frameworks, testing which boundaries and repeating/confirming which patterns/ideologies.

If Adorno and Horkheimer have a point in their analysis on mass culture, then it seems that the masses becoming producers of content themselves would be one of the most interesting ways to asses the state of things. But that almost sounds optimistic, and I don't mean to be optimistic. I concur with the authors on all points. Culture is doomed and communication is impossible if we don't raze all and build new. </frustration>