User:Grrrreat/research/notes-03-05-12
"How formalized the procedure is can be seen when the mechanically differentiated products prove to be all alike in the end. That the difference between the Chrysler range and General Motors products is basically illusory strikes every child with a keen interest in varieties. What connoisseurs discuss as good or bad points serve only to perpetuate the semblance of competition and range of choice. The same applies to the Warner Brothers and Metro Goldwyn Mayer productions." (page 2)
"The varying budgets in the culture industry do not
bear the slightest relation to factual values, to the meaning of the products themselves."
What are factual values in their sense, are they to be seen as absolutes?
"It is the triumph of invested capital, whose title as absolute master is etched deep into the hearts
of the dispossessed in the employment line; it is the meaningful content of every film, whatever plot the
production team may have selected."
"The development of the culture industry has led to the predominance
of the effect, the obvious touch, and the technical detail over the work itself—which once expressed an
idea, but was liquidated together with the idea.[...]The totality of the culture industry has put
an end to this. Though concerned exclusively with effects, it crushes their insubordination and makes
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkneimer 3 The Culture Industry
them subserve the formula, which replaces the work. " (page 3,4)
talking about the rigor with which aesthetic rules (or rules of consistency?) are to be followed in the modern day culture industry. on the other hand: semantic realms bound together by aesthetic effects. more navigatable.
"it is to be found in those features in which discrepancy appears: in the necessary failure of the passionate striving for identity. Instead of exposing itself to this failure in which the style of the great work of art has always achieved self-negation, the inferior work has always relied on its similarity with others—on a surrogate identity."