Hey Veeky Forums, STEMtard here...

They're more like "Even less empirical sociologists", but sociology isn't well defined either, so whatever.

The frankfurt school were pioneers in empiric sociology. Look up the study on the authoritarian personality.

Top OP, that's kind of a stupid question from your prof. Why would ask if someone is a philosopher but then tell you that you can only provide proof from one of the least philosophical sections of their work ??

Anyways, you can say that the culture industry is really just an elaboration on the whole idea of the dialectic of the enlightment. The culture industry is just the end result of the total supression of all authentic culture through the enlightments tendency to kill all the myths and everything non-rational and produce stone-cold inhumane rationality. If you want to have fun you could make some links between their analysis of the Odysee and look for traces of the culture industry there. They don't actually say that, but there's obviously a line there that you could follow.

Great video.

Damn, this board moves much faster than Veeky Forums, didn't expect that. Thanks for keeping the thread up.

Thanks for that, it clarifies many of Adorn's problem with processed culture.

Ok, let's see, the "mass culture" poke refers to the standardised education system and even giving us the opportunity to write essays about anti-ideological critical theory is a way of the bourgeoisie to keep us docile?

The irony of the video is that he hates jazz because it's simplified? not sure about that.

That's a good way of starting the essay and explaining his argument. I get his argument about the industry spitting processed products to pacify the workers I assume, prevent them from using critical thinking and keep them from developing class consciousness.

I don't get this part though
>enlightments tendency to kill all the myths and everything non-rational and produce stone-cold inhumane rationality
What's with the myths? Elaborate? Also, I thought his critique was on how "science" and rationality is used to subvert true freedom, or is he actually attacking rationality?

Also, some general questions:

Adorno's position is that he wants to free people from this cultural oppression brought on by the capitalist economical reality, allowing them to be "free" intellectually, no? Therefore I can argue that he is a normative philosopher because he believes in changing society into how it "ought" to be. But that position is based on his morality, right? So can I argue that he is a philosopher because of his ethical recommendations (moral philosophy)?

Unrelated to the essay, but what is the end game of this intellectual liberation, or there isn't any?

Finally, I'm guessing that Adorno is against hedonism?

>is he actually attacking rationality?
Only the empirical notion of 'rationality' wherein religion, myths and other pictorial representations are considered 'irrational' as if civilized humans could do anything irrationally.

>Only the empirical notion of 'rationality'
So basically how popsci enthusiasts fancy themselves being rational and atheistic and ridiculing religious people?

But isn't belief in God without enough evidence irrational? Or is it that people consider the evidence, however weak, to be enough in order to believe in a God and receive all the mental benefits of being religious (which happens subconsciously)?

Reading is for plebs

You're still within the parameters of empirical thought, that's not how it works. Pictorial representations are the product of creative reason, that is free and master over itself. In the beginning of all sciences and human endeavors, myths are essential because they make the consciousness at ease and comfortable with the content, that will reveal itself in a more 'pure' form, as explicit thought, in the form of philosophy, later. Of course, for the middleman, those explicit thoughts that are the truth of religion or mythology might never appear, because representations are just easier.

Maybe this passage from Aristotle will help my argument:
"For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. And this is confirmed by the facts; for it was when almost all the necessities of life and the things that make for comfort and recreation had been secured, that such knowledge began to be sought. Evidently then we do not seek it for the sake of any other advantage; but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's, so we pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake. "

Ok, this does help clarify your argument about myths not being irrational, which is fair enough.

Thanks for the help, I'm off to sleep now so hopefully this thread doesn't die in the meantime. If you have any more arguments about my mistakes in understanding Adorno in , be sure to post them.

Hey, user from here.

>
>What's with the myths? Elaborate?

I will answer your questions in one paragraph instead of quoting every question individually. Okay, so I would say is right, the problem is in a way that enlightment pretends we can get rid of myths but in that foolish assumption we essentially produce new myths, the myths of capitalism, scientcism etc.
But remember that their idea of the myth and the central thesis of the book is quite crazy, to quote Zizek "do you know how crazy is (dialektik der aufklärung)?" They spent a whole chapter analyzing Oddyseus as essentially the start of the whole enlightment project, even in the greek myth we already have fragments of the enlightment. For them, non-enlightment society is the primal society of what they call "mana", the primitive early nature religions etc. that were essentially just explanations for basic natural phenomena like thunder. This is central to their thesis because they think that in this primal, pre-myth society, subject (human) and object (nature) were almost one of the same, totally connected. But in the Odysee for the first time, a human, Odysseus, tricked the primal powers of nature through human reason. They see this in all the trials he goes through. But crucially, in every trial he has to sacrifice something, in this very birth of the enlightment project there is an element of self-sacrifice that is totally mythical. And with Odysseus tricking the primal powers they think the human subject started this kind of addiction to control all of nature, the subjects drive to enslave the object, that ultimately led to fascism, capitalism, the culture industry etc.
So this IS all kind of crazy, but remember, the dialectic of enlightment was written during the war, it's basically just a dark, depressed, fiery rant against civilization. It's not normative, because they don't really give explicit suggestions on what one ought to do, they just say what's wrong with their world. They do this old marxist thing where they think that really, bourgeoise morality is just a product of the underlying system. They took about that a lot in the chapter on De Sade, they see him as some kind of oracle that already saw the horrors of the 20th century. So at least in that book, there isn't really an explicit endgame. Implied is that we ought to look to create a new kind of enlightment, Adorno and Horkheimer aren't reactionaries, they thing we ought to keep the important parts of the enlightment, that doesn't pretend it can do everything rational. In terms of saving authentic culture, again this is only implied, but Adorno especially was obviously huge into music, so the creation of authentic art is one way to restore authentic culture. I mean, Adornos idea of what authentic music is was quite elitist but really, I think any kind of art that is made with pure intentions and not just to fullfill some kind of market duty, the drive to produce cultural goods.

First define what a philosopher is, then what philosophy is and subsequently if their critique of the culture industry falls under your previously established definition of philosophy.

How old are you? 12?

>>First define what a philosopher is, then what philosophy is and subsequently if their critique of the culture industry falls under your previously established definition of philosophy.
philosophers are not able to do this

A philosopher is somebody who engages in philosophy. Philosophy is "the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience" (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Two steps taken care of already.

Thanks for the extensive explanation. Everything makes sense except for:

>It's not normative, because they don't really give explicit suggestions on what one ought to do
But the very critique of some values requires relation and comparison to a different set of values that the "philosopher" holds. Also
>Implied is that we ought to look to create a new kind of enlightenment
Isn't that an example of what Adorno thinks we OUGHT to do as a result of his critique of the culture industry and by extension capitalism? I thought this was the reason Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy state that Critical theory has a normative dimension.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory

As such, couldn't one argue that the connection of his social theory to the critique of an economic/social system relative to his own ethical code makes him a (moral) philosopher?

In the end it comes down to the definition of what moral philosophy is. Critical theory self described goal was to be presprective above all, not normative. But, as you've noted, when you are dealing with this kind of grand philosophy analyzing society, it is of course impossible to stay completely presciptive and I think it would be foolish to assume that. But the definition of moral philosophy that academic philosophy has is quite narrow, it's the kind of philosophy that basically exlusively concerns itself with explicit moral matters. Especially anglo moral philosophy has a very specific vocabulary, if you look at the SEP page for moral themes and scroll through some texts, you will quickly notice that. And then in moral philosophy, there is a very strict split between normative and prescriptive philosophy. Meta-ethics talks about things like values all day long but it's not seen as normative because it doesn't concern itself with specific normative questions, on what one should day in a specific situation. So instead of asking, what should we do with the enlightment, it would be a specific question, like is racism justified, is science allowed to violate a humans rights, are we obliged to help others etc. Adorno and Horkheimer don't really do that.