Adorno And Horkheimer's Theory Of Anti-Enlightenment

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Adorno and Horkheimer drew from Marx with regards to capitalism. According to Lorimer and Scannell (1994), “Following Marx, they saw the application of capitalist methods to cultural production as exploitative of the mass of the production” (p. 165). Adorno and Horkheimer believed that mass culture due to capitalism makes it homogenous. The audience then becomes homogenous and unified. Baofu (2009) further explains the culture industry as, “Popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods to manipulate the masses into passivity; the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture make people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances.” (p. 184).
The homogenized is arrived at through deception, this then is the opposite of what Adrono and Horkheimer wrote about with regards to the Enlightenment. Adrono (1991c:92) as quoted in (Witkin 2003) states, “The effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment, in which, as Horkheimer and I have noted, enlightenment, that is the progressive technical domination of nature, becomes mass deception and is turned into a means for fettering consciousness.” (p.49). Advertising plays an important role in creating false needs, for example, instance of when the capitalist advertises to buy this perfume and you will smell like Rihanna. The persuasion by the advertisement and images gives a false reality that is the social control. Social change then cannot be

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