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The Culture Industry The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer Editing and footnotes in process by Arun Chandra HE sociological theory that the loss of the sup- The striking unity of microcosm and macrocosm Tport of objectively established religion, the presents men with a model of their culture: the false dissolution of the last remnants of precapitalism, identity of the general and the particular. Under together with technological and social differentia- monopoly all mass culture is identical, and the lines tion or specialization, have led to cultural chaos is of its artificial framework begin to show through. disproved every day; for culture now impresses the The people at the top are no longer so interested same stamp on everything. Films, radio and maga- in concealing monopoly: as its violence becomes zines make up a system which is uniform as a whole more open, so its power grows. Movies and radio and in every part. Even the aesthetic activities of need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obe- are just business is made into an ideology in order to dience to the rhythm of the iron system. The deco- justify the rubbish they deliberately produce. They rative industrial management buildings and exhibi- call themselves industries; and when their directors’ tion centers in authoritarian countries are much the incomes are published, any doubt about the social same as anywhere else. The huge gleaming tow- utility of the finished products is removed. ers that shoot up everywhere are outward signs of Interested parties explain the culture industry in the ingenious planning of international concerns, to- technological terms. It is alleged that because mil- ward which the unleashed entrepreneurial system lions participate in it, certain reproduction processes (whose monuments are a mass of gloomy houses are necessary that inevitably require identical needs and business premises in grimy, spiritless cities) was in innumerable places to be satisfied with identi- already hastening. Even now the older houses just cal goods. The technical contrast between the few outside the concrete city centers look like slums, production centers and the large number of widely and the new bungalows on the outskirts are at one dispersed consumption points is said to demand or- with the flimsy structures of world fairs in their ganization and planning by management. Further- praise of technical progress and their built-in de- more, it is claimed that standards were based in the mand to be discarded after a short while like empty first place on consumers’ needs, and for that rea- food cans. Yet the city housing projects designed son were accepted with so little resistance. The to perpetuate the individual as a supposedly inde- result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive pendent unit in a small hygienic dwelling make him need in which the unity of the system grows ever all the more subservient to his adversary—the abso- stronger. No mention is made of the fact that the lute power of capitalism. Because the inhabitants, basis on which technology acquires power over so- as producers and as consumers, are drawn into the ciety is the power of those whose economic hold center in search of work and pleasure, all the liv- over society is greatest. A technological rationale is ing units crystallize into well-organized complexes. the rationale of domination itself. It is the coercive ADORNO/HORKNEIMER 1 The Culture Industry nature of society alienated from itself. Automo- these phenomena as inherent in the technical and biles, bombs, and movies keep the whole thing to- personnel apparatus which, down to its last cog, it- gether until their leveling element shows its strength self forms part of the economic mechanism of se- in the very wrong which it furthered. It has made lection. In addition there is the agreement—or at the technology of the culture industry no more than least the determination—of all executive authorities the achievement of standardization and mass pro- not to produce or sanction anything that in any way duction, sacrificing whatever involved a distinction differs from their own rules,their own ideas about between the logic of the work and that of the so- consumers, or above all themselves. cial system. This is the result not of a law of move- In our age the objective social tendency is in- ment in technology as such but of its function in carnate in the hidden subjective purposes of com- today’s economy. The need which might resist cen- pany directors, the foremost among whom are tral control has already been suppressed by the con- in the most powerful sectors of industry—steel, trol of the individual consciousness. The step from petroleum, electricity, and chemicals. Culture mo- the telephone to the radio has clearly distinguished nopolies are weak and dependent in comparison. the roles. The former still allowed the subscriber to They cannot afford to neglect their appeasement of play the role of subject, and was liberal. The latter the real holders of power if their sphere of activity in is democratic: it turns all participants into listen- mass society (a sphere producing a specific type of ers and authoritatively subjects them to broadcast commodity which anyhow is still too closely bound programs which are all exactly the same. No ma- up with easygoing liberalism and Jewish intellectu- chinery of rejoinder has been devised, and private als) is not to undergo a series of purges. The de- broadcasters are denied any freedom. They are con- pendence of the most powerful broadcasting com- fined to the apocryphal1 field of the “amateur,” and pany on the electrical industry, or of the motion pic- also have to accept organization from above. But ture industry on the banks, is characteristic of the any trace of spontaneity from the public in official whole sphere, whose individual branches are them- broadcasting is controlled and absorbed by talent selves economically interwoven. All are in such scouts, studio competitions and official programs of close contact that the extreme concentration of men- every kind selected by professionals. Talented per- tal forces allows demarcation lines between differ- formers belong to the industry long before it dis- ent firms and technical branches to be ignored. The plays them; otherwise they would not be so eager to ruthless unity in the culture industry is evidence of fit in. The attitude of the public, which ostensibly what will happen in politics. Marked differentia- and actually favors the system of the culture indus- tions such as those of A and B films, or of stories in try, is a part of the system and not an excuse for magazines in different price ranges, depend not so it. If one branch of art follows the same formula as much on subject matter as on classifying, organiz- one with a very different medium and content; if the ing, and labeling consumers. Something is provided dramatic intrigue of broadcast soap operas becomes for all so that none may escape; the distinctions are no more than useful material for showing how to emphasized and extended. The public is catered for master technical problems at both ends of the scale with a hierarchical range of mass-produced prod- of musical experience—real jazz or a cheap imita- ucts of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of tion; or if a movement from a Beethoven symphony complete quantification. Everybody must behave is crudely “adapted” for a film sound-track in the (as if spontaneously) in accordance with his previ- same way as a Tolstoy novel is garbled in a film ously determined and indexed level, and choose the script: then the claim that this is done to satisfy the category of mass product turned out for his type. spontaneous wishes of the public is no more than Consumers appear as statistics on research organi- hot air. We are closer to the facts if we explain zation charts, and are divided by income groups into 1Apocryphal: of doubtful authenticity: spurious ADORNO/HORKNEIMER 2 The Culture Industry red, green, and blue areas; the technique is that used it is the meaningful content of every film, whatever for any type of propaganda. plot the production team may have selected. How formalized the procedure is can be seen when the mechanically differentiated products HE man with leisure has to accept what the prove to be all alike in the end. That the differ- Tculture manufacturers offer him. Kant’s for- ence between the Chrysler range and General Mo- malism still expected a contribution from the indi- tors products is basically illusory strikes every child vidual, who was thought to relate the varied experi- with a keen interest in varieties. What connoisseurs ences of the senses to fundamental concepts; but in- discuss as good or bad points serve only to per- dustry robs the individual of his function. Its prime petuate the semblance of competition and range of service to the customer is to do his schematizing for choice. The same applies to the Warner Brothers him. Kant said that there was a secret mechanism in and Metro Goldwyn Mayer productions. But even the soul which prepared direct intuitions in such a the differences between the more expensive and way that they could be fitted into the system of pure cheaper models put out by the same firm steadily reason. But today that secret has been deciphered. diminish: for automobiles, there are such differ- While the mechanism is to all appearances planned ences as the number of cylinders, cubic capacity, by those who serve up the data of experience, that details of patented gadgets; and for films there are is, by the culture industry, it is in fact forced upon the number of stars, the extravagant use of tech- the latter by the power of society, which remains ir- nology, labor, and equipment, and the introduction rational, however we may try to rationalize it; and of the latest psychological formulas.
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