When a Marxist theory is brought up, most people's first thought is Karl Marx's observation of capital and what is wrong with having a capitalistic society. He developed a philosophy that went in-depth about the struggle between the capitalists and the workers. However, it would be essential to note that he did not necessarily think that the world before the rise of capitalism was better. But benefit and harm can both be the consequences of the same system. Marx believed in two social classes, the bourgeoisie (the business owners) and the proletariat (the workers), which was also a defining label of their economic status in the society. A person's economic situation is critical, according to Marx, since the system under which the proletariat must work will cause revolutionary communism. While capitalism and wage labour is the problem's diagnosis, we will observe how it psychologically affects the individual. One of the most significant consequences of the rise of capitalism is alienation. Alienation is the disorienting sense of exclusion and separation.
Before we study where this resulting alienation can be observed, we must acknowledge the "essence" of a being that Marx speaks of. The essence is what makes a person and what we
contribute to the world. Alienation is one's separation from their essence, in this case, due to something Marx observed as commodity fetishisation. Commodity here is not restricted to material aspects but also includes one's ideas and thoughts. This assignment can be an example of it since I am commoditizing my thoughts to be put forward for grades. Marx believes that economically, this kind of society that depends on a system of fetishizing commodities will become unsustainable in itself. Although alienation is felt and resisted, I believe that it is not as subjective as it may seem. It is objective in its experience and result of living in a capitalist society.
There are different kinds of alienation that we can recognize. A stimulant to the other forms of alienation is the alienation from the product of labour and from the labour itself. The modern world is heavily involved in mass production. Due to this system, most workers are responsible for producing a specific part of a product. The only jurisdiction that they have in this matter is putting together that one part. With little to no input in the product the workers are helping in the production of, the separation from the product is observed. The power over the product only lies with the business owners. The more the top produces and thus gains, the lesser the workers get. Essentially the workers do their menial, monotonous tasks to fulfil the needs of the bourgeoise and gain certain profit. However, the owners themselves retain this profit, and the only thing the workers receive as a result of their labour is its cost, that is, their wages. The more productive ability the worker possesses, there is more for the capitalists to own, control, and exploit. The workers will work hard all their life to survive, but in the end, they will have no more than they had in the beginning because of the capitalistic nature of the system. Then the very point of work becomes somewhat redundant. The instant the proletariat realise this inevitable predicament of theirs, they are bound to isolate themselves more from their product.
Then we have the alienation from others. Since the worker is alienated from their product and their labour, it is evident that they would feel alienated from the others in the society. Capitalism brings a certain sense of competitiveness. This means that people will continuously isolate themselves based on the difference in wages, positions at jobs, and their assigned tasks.
Lastly, we have alienation from oneself. This is where our "essence of being" matters most. Since our creativity brings about our work, our creativity essentially defines what our essence is. This creative self is repressed due to the monotonous tasks that the system's capitalist nature pushes the proletariat to restrict themselves. We slowly lose our essence, thus alienating ourselves from our identity itself. Due to our material privilege, we can separate ourselves from cases as we please, in this way, alienating ourselves from these matters completely. Alienation of oneself in the workers is because they are forced to do repetitive tasks every day, making them feel a loss of purpose. They will slowly realise their lack of control in the way of their work. They will begin to recognise their objectification and how they are merely a few "cogs in a machine" that serves the capitalist's purpose.
The workers are people with diverse identities, all being accumulated in one place. However, the more people that are brought in, the more their identities are suppressed, uniting them. Since they are all oppressed by one entity, the capitalists, they all have the same purpose. This is why Marx believed that a revolution would occur by unionizing the workers in a highly industrialized society. But no revolution took place, which implies that there were certain aspects that Marx did not account for. Frankfurt's school then observed these aspects.
We can link the two ideologies by Karl Marx's mention of "essence" and Walter Benjamin's mention of "aura." They both believe that the absence of these in the age of mechanical reproduction is the cause of alienation, the former in oneself, and the latter in art. We have already viewed the impact of the absence of the essence of being. The lack of aura means that the art no longer possesses its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. It is now void of the history that it was subjected to through its existence. The plurality of its copies substitutes the uniqueness of the art. The reproduced versions of art means that we can no longer view the art in its most natural form.
Due to the rise of mass production, art has become a very consumerist form. Mass production aims to lessen the distance between the product and the beholder. Still, it compromises the aura, the history, and meaning, of the art to form a poor quality depiction.
Both Adorno and Horkheimer, and Walter Benjamin align their observations with Neomarxism. The difference between these two is that Benjamin did not get the opportunity to escape Germany and observe the American culture industry as the other two did. Since Walter Benjamin is said to be Adorno's mentor, we can assume that Adorno carried along with Benjamin's ideology of "everything is an aesthetic" and related it to the American culture industry at that time.
They observed a certain kind of aesthetic is standardised, as a result of which the beholders of this aesthetic view it with particular disconnect. This observation helped them draw comparisons between Fascist Germany and the American film industry.
The film industry that industrially produces content that does not leave room for a person's imagination and instead provides them with the things they should be thinking. This method can promote a certain kind of propaganda, which ultimately stunts a person's individuality. It is glaringly similar to how fascist political leaders used propaganda to promote ideology and acts of military aggression.
The Hitler regime manipulated Nazi culture and aesthetics to create a backdrop for political ideology and the coordination of all cultural expressions during the Nazi period. They invaded the arts and film industry with fascist politics and tapped into the access to the masses. This is similar to how the American culture industry functioned as Adorno and Horkheimer observed it. The film industry provided the produced content so that the only task of the masses is to view said content. They offer a deceptive identity to the art. The only aesthetic principle of the art that remains is the elaborate calculation of the spectator's response to the last nuance.
Culture became standardized to serve as a commodity for the capitalist-driven entertainment industry. Due to mass production, all the content is homogenous, and there is very little diversity present in the content produced and put out to the masses. Like most industries nowadays, the cultural industry is economical in nature and functions to be an economic success. It is vividly different from the authentic culture in that authenticity in art is not goal- oriented but rather the end itself. While authentic culture is open to interpretation and an individual's imagination, the culture industry does not allow independent thought. The mechanical reproduction of art at a mass production level is essentially the aestheticization of politics, war, and fascism.
The Frankfurt School's ideologies align itself with the contemporary world, dominated by a digital landscape and the cybercultural industry with its social media and streaming services. A technological super giant that most people are aware of is Apple. Apple has used the culture industry and its impact as a way to boost itself as a company. They try to promote their product's uniqueness and individuality as a new model comes into the market and make it seem like they always upgrade it to fit the consumer's needs. This, however, is a false depiction of only small changes in each model, like the change in the size, the thickness, the battery and storage capacity, etc. Through the Frankfurt School's ideas, we can see that this is simply a standardization of a commodity, making it look original but at the same time remaining completely homogeneous.
Even the entertainment industry, particularly the film industry, had progressed from when Adorno and Horkheimer studied it, but only to feed more into the culture industry theory they established. There are individual stories and ideas that they choose to standardize and display and sell to the beholders. A common one is the introduction of a hero and a villain. This is a very overused trope, but it's still prevalent, as we can see through the Marvel series. There has been an entire franchise based on this plotline with tiny variations, and yet people will continue to pay money to watch the slight variations. Something essential to observe with the Marvel series, in particular, is that the consumers are less likely to stop watching it even while knowing the truth of its production because of their personal attachments that have developed. This could be a significant reason why the consumers would be averse to defying the culture industry.
Another aspect that is brought into the film industry is social justice. There are vivid descriptions and exciting storylines written about movements against the Government and the good vs. evil. This is hugely interesting since social justice is essentially against the capitalists. But these stories are fed to us by the capitalists themselves. And by paying to watch these stories, we are paying the capitalists. It's a very ironic predicament that we find myself. Another exciting aspect observed when it comes to social justice representation in media is that we believe that we are part of that movement when we watch that story . Even with a product marketed under a particular campaign, we think we're participating in that campaign by buying that product. But essentially, we are just feeding into the capitalistic nature of the current culture industry.
Social media is essentially a platform that was created to unite alienated people. With social media, as well, our happiness is more reliant on the likes we get on our pictures rather than the pictures themselves. Something that I observed personally was during New Year's Eve last year. My family doesn't make a big deal of celebrating that occasion, and I was okay with it since it has always been that way. But it was when I went on to Instagram and saw all my friends partying and having fun did I start to get upset. That is also when I imagined scenes of the kinds of fun they would be getting on to. It makes me realize that all that imagery that pushed me to become unhappy then was all the idea propagated by social media and the films we see. I had been happy until I saw imagery of what happiness is meant to be, which is interesting since happiness is subjective and feels it so differently.
The culture industry has surpassed from being under someone's control and has become its own entity. It has its own life and can no longer be separated from our society since it moulded itself into the foundation of production and, consequently, into all the products we receive and own. It is essential then to look beyond all these structures and recognize what, or rather who, we are feeding into.
Sources:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ&list=PLeWD5xZP8pbQtw F62Zg7WmU9jf_KDxk8I&index=29
www.youtube.com/watch?v=30HeJvE9KCg&list=PLeWD5xZ P8pbQtwF62Zg7WmU9jf_KDxk8I&index=31&t=14s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQeHs4YVeug&list=PL eWD5xZP8pbQtwF62Zg7WmU9jf_KDxk8I&index=32
etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ucin1463130930&disposition=inli ne
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The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 1935
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