Culture Industry Reconsidered, Essay Example

Popular culture is inundated with books, films, music and other forms of entertainment. Such myriad forms of entertainment may be taken at face value; as a way to engage in culture without effort. It has been said that an audience is the laziest of all entities—taking purely for hedonistic purposes the value inbred in any art form. Although such elements of popular culture may breed indolence, there is another level to such artistic forms—that of reflection. Art reflects life. Art puts a mirror up to the psychology of living and allows a person or peoples to view themselves in that mirror. Thus, by watching a Shakespearean play a person (an audience) is exposing themselves to a more reflective state—the characters on stage are meant to parody our own lives; their troubles are mere echoes of our own real and palpably troubles. Art is a way to communicate the human existence, the ethos and pathos of it, and ultimately when we engage in art (no matter the form) we are in turn engaging in an inner dialogue with ourselves. Art is a vehicle that aids us in questioning or morality, mortality, ethics, and humanistic behaviors. When we listen to music, the music is enjoyed because it is stating a truth that we find fundamental in our own lives. When we watch a movie and it moves us to tears, it is a way of relating with the character’s struggles because they echo our own struggles. At it’s most basic definition, art in popular culture does not incite laziness (perhaps hedonism) from an audience, but instead reflects our humanity back to ourselves and thereby connects us to a broader understanding of selfhood, and self in relation to others. This paper will focus on popular culture in its myriad forms and argue that such culture aids us in understanding ourselves better.

Williams breaks down culture into three separate segments: ideal (defined as seeking human perfection), documentary (in which culture reflects the attitudes and beliefs of artists and is then recorded), and social (in which culture is defined as a way of living) (32). In each definition the aim is “communicative power” (32). Williams goes on to state that it is the relationship between each of these subcategories of culture that should capture one’s attention. Williams is stating that the thread that ties culture together is found in all three, not separated, but combined. Williams gives the example of Sophocles’ Antigone, “we can analyze it in ideal terms – the discovery of certain absolute values, or in documentary terms – the communication of certain values by artistic means…the first will point to the absolute value of reverence for the dead; the second will point to the expression of certain basic human tensions through the particular dramatic form of chorus and double kommos” but Williams makes it clear that neither definition for Antigone is a complete definition. Williams states that a work of art, any art, but be studied and this study should be contingent upon the society in which the work of art was created (34). Williams states then that if a work of art is to be studied, it must be studied as a “form of human energy” (35) for this is what comprises a society and forms the functions and definitions of a culture: “Thus art, while clearly related to the other activities, can be seen as expressing certain elements in the organization which, within that organization’s terms, could only have been expressed in this way” (35). In this definition then, it isn’t a question of art being an integral part of society, but rather art being the only form of expression of culture (Williams 35).

Steven Johnson furthers this argument of art as integral and in fact as part of the definition of culture. Johnson gives a caveat to his analysis of popular culture by stating that most of it, in whatever form, will not replace our canons of greatness as exemplified through the genius of Joyce or Chaucer (Johnson 5). Johnson does state that elements of popular culture are enhancing our evolution as a human race in various ways. Thus, the art from culture is being turned into scientific research. Johnson cites television pros and cons as well as video game pros and cons as examples of how people feel popular culture is ruining our youth because they stay inside all day and play these games and are exposed to gratuitous violence, sex, and offensive language. On the other hand, Johnson rightfully argues that video game playing may “enhance visual memory skills” (5) and that “popular culture has been growing increasingly complex over the past few decades, exercising our minds in powerful new ways” (5). Johnson goes on to argue the line between haters of popular culture and enthusiasts for it by stating readers’ statistics in visiting museums and doing charity work while non-readers, or gamers who are non-readers, have settled into a state of apathy, doing none of these aforementioned activities. Johnson does a compare and contrast between reading books and playing video games, the latter being the more ingrained piece of art in popular culture. Johnson states that when reading a book, one engages in cognitive abilities because the book awakens in that part of the brain, receptive and message stimulus such as memory, attention, etc. and while proponents standing in opposition to video games would argue video games do not offer these cognitive faculties, video games are in fact enhancing (especially over the past thirty years) and their power of story-telling has become more advanced and almost novelistic (Johnson does argue that gamers see this portion of the game as one of the least interesting) (Johnson 7). Johnson’s main argument is that popular culture is breeding new and exciting ways to view art and by extension life and ourselves and is in fact “honing different mental skills” (7) that are similar to ones exercised when reading and play just as important a role in popular culture as books once did.

Adorno and Rabinbach agree that culture marries the old and the new (12); “The seriousness of high art is destroyed in speculation about its efficacy; the seriousness of the lower perishes with the civilization constraints imposed on the rebellious resistance inherent within it as long as social control was not yet total” (12) and thereby making the consumer the object instead of the reason for art. Art is then kept around for its value to culture, meaning that an object was only as good as its market value. Popular culture tends to gravitate toward teens because they set the trend as can be seen in their clothes, music, attitudes, role models, etc. Being a teenager has become synonymous with being an industry, or at least, an industry representative. If one wants to get their pulse on the culture of a society, all one has to do is look to the teenagers of that society, as they are walking representations of it. Thus, in Adorno and Rabinbach’s culture, people are seen as mere commodities and not as persons, thereby negating any kind of cultural identity and instead this identity is replaced by an industry identity: a branding as it were, “The more dehumanized its methods of operation and content, the more diligently and successfully the culture industry propagates supposedly great personalities and operates with heart-throb” (14). Our engagement in this type of culture has less to do with art and more to do with commerce and avarice.

Andrae talks about culture as a personal identity marker, as a type of expression of self through art. Andrae brings up Hegelian metaphysics and Marxism to support his point that there is a “dialectic by presuming an identity theory — the belief that “an ultimate oneness of subject and object, essence and appearance, particular and universal underlies the contradictions of the apparent world” (34). Andrae continues to argue for a dialectic in understanding culture and that it is art that is the saving grace of culture. With the current forms of popular culture however, the author worries that art is being replaced by “mere reproductions” (35) and “being subject to a positivist form of calculation and planning” (37). Suffice it to say that Andrae believes that popular culture has effectively destroyed high art.

It seems that Johnson best has his finger on the pulse of the marriage between art and popular culture. One expresses the other, is integrated in the other, and has effectively forced a conglomeration of the two halves. Popular culture is an umbrella term that holds under it all forms of art from high to low (museum worthy to HD worthy). Art is a way that culture and the people within the culture have an outlet or a way to explore and express their identity. This is shown in Picasso’s work to Banks’s graffiti in Venice to Afghanistan. Popular culture allows for this freedom—it gives people a chance to explore those hidden recesses in themselves that art used to be the only outlet for. As technology advances we don’t become commodities of our culture, or walking advertisements, we choose our representative forms. In that choice is it’s own art. Popular culture engages people to think of the world around them, its progresses through technological advances and its breadth of understanding of the human psyche.

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor and Anson G. Rabinbach. “Culture Industry Reconsidered.” Duke University Press. 6. 12-19.  Print.

Andrae, Thomas. “Adorno on Film and Mass Culture: The Culture Industry Reconsidered.” Jump Cut. 20. (1979). 34-37. Print.

Johnson, Steven. “Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter.” New York City: Penguin Group, 2005. Print.

Williams, Raymond. “The Analysis of Culture.” Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Pearson Longman, 2009. Print.