“What is ecological crisis if not another form of proletariatization? We are being deprived of the natural substance of our existence. What is all the struggle for intellectual property if not an attempt to deprive us of the symbolic substance of our lives?”- Slavoj Zizek What Does it Mean to be a Revolutionary Today? Marxism 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GD69Cc20rw
In every scope of our existence, we are being controlled, manipulated, and\or oppressed. We really do need to be radical if we hope to escape the capitalist system and truly be free from oppression. The culture industry permeates, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, everything, even film and other forms of entertainment, perpetuating the maintenance of the imbalance of power. I can now see the exploitation of resources as a means of maintaining power and not just a means of accumulating wealth.
Considering the recent BP oil spill and the ecological damage it will cause to fragile ecosystems globally for years to come, I can see that many people may predict the rise of gas prices. They may even predict a corporate push for alternative energy, a market that will become commercialized and regulated- where we, the consumer, will pay for services rendered, taxes, and fees when now, if we can afford it, we can harness alternative energy for free if we can afford the complex systems to do so- just like the electric industry. Overall however, people will most likely not yet realize that the created dependency on oil and other raw materials- energy, steel, petroleum, and chemicals- is pushed through the cycle of manipulation, whose sole purpose is to maintain the power held by the few over the many. This crisis is just another way of maintaining economic dominance over the common people (Adorno and Horkheimer 1223-1225).
Adorno and Horkheimer see culture as a means of domination and oppression. They say that the manipulation of the ruling class is evident through culture because “the formalization of procedure is seen through the end product similarities” (Adorno and Horkheimer 1225). Everything we experience is filtered through the culture industry, and reality is becoming interchangeable with the manufactured worlds of music, television, and film. We are no longer free to imagine; when we interact with the culture industry; we emit programmed reactions to situations and events. There is no original style anymore either. To the culture industry, style is just the aesthetic form of domination (1225-1227).
Great artists, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, did not and will never have flawless style. They claim that artists are those people who “used style as a way of hardening themselves against the chaotic expression of suffering” (Adorno and Horkheimer 1228). They say that great artists are cautious of both culture and style, especially when style is conveyed in art. Style in art is always ideological, and style cannot be separated from the thing which makes art able to transcend reality (ibid.).
Baudelaire would agree with Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis of style. He saw style as representations of professions and classes from history in various combinations. The culmination of style is the dandy because they create themselves out of the desire to express their originality. Baudelaire, in contrast with Adorno and Horkheimer, believes the origin of style is the soul or spiritual reality. An extension of this belief is the notion that nature teaches nothing but crime; Baudelaire assesses that people need man-made cosmetics and form of entertainment to truly learn. Baudelaire is an advocate of the culture industry (Baudelaire 800).
Arnold would call the culture industry anarchy. The cycle of manipulation and culture industry are mechanisms that deter culture from its true purpose, the understanding and pursuit of perfection. Individuals are too busy with the created distractions of the culture industry to realize there is a higher function of man. Arnold says, “Perfection, as culture conceives it, is not possible while the individual remains isolated” (Arnold 828). Adorno and Horkheimer would explain that it is both the culture machine and film industry that isolate everyone, create false identity, and perpetuate their own existences by claiming that it is a business that millions of people participate in them, especially with regard to the film and entertainment industries.
Benjamin would concur with Adorno and Horkheimer when they claim that the film industry doesn’t even pretend to be art anymore. Benjamin gives two reasons why mass and mechanically reproduced pieces of art are not art. First, process reproduction can bring out features that may not have been seen clearly in the original piece. Second, copies can be in places, both in time and space, that the original might never have had the opportunity to travel to. Film, it follows, is not art.
Benjamin says that Fascism, through all facets, especially art via film, organizes the proletarian masses without effecting the current structures for the maintenance of power. True salvation, Benjamin says, comes from giving people the chance to express themselves instead of giving them what they want. He sees the maintenance of power and domination as war.
Zizek has reminded me that we are constantly at war with the unseen bourgeoisie. We are enslaved by the division of resources and the crises created by those who have power as well as by those who want power. I always knew the world man created was not natural. This world, especially money, isn’t natural, and the people who are glorified in our society are those who lie to us for a living; they are actors. Those who have made- and continue to make- decisions that shape our ever-changing, dramatic landscape, both the natural and artificial world of Man do so to take away our abilities to truly provide what we need to survive in this world ourselves. The longer our resources are kept away from us and manipulated into vastly different consumable forms, the longer the oligarchy can ensure their power over the masses. The less access we have to the natural world, the more divided we are based on the allocation and exploitation of resources.
Works Cited
Arnold, Matthew. “Culture and Anarchy: From Chapter 1. Sweetness and Light.” The Norton
Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Leitch, Vincent B. Norton: New York (2001)
Print. 825-832.
Baudelaire, Charles. “Painter of Modern Life.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
Ed. Leitch, Vincent B. Norton: New York (2001) Print. 791-801.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.” The
Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Leitch, Vincent B. Norton: New York
(2001) Print. 1167-1185.
Horkheimer, Max and Adorno, Thomas. “Dialectic of Enlightenment.” The Norton Anthology
of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Leitch, Vincent B. Norton: New York (2001) Print. 1223-
1239.
Zizek, Slavoj. What Does it Mean to be a Revolutionary Today? Marxism 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GD69Cc20rw
No comments:
Post a Comment