Analyzing the Frankfurt School's Critique of the Culture Industry

This essay delves into the Frankfurt School's critical analysis of the culture industry, examining its ideological impact within capitalist societies. It explores the school's Neo-Marxist theory, tracing its origins and key thinkers like Adorno, Horkheimer, and Benjamin. The essay contrasts their views with those of other social critics, highlighting the role of art and culture in a capitalist context. It discusses the school's critique of mass-produced culture, the influence of technology, and the concept of the "culture industry." The essay also addresses the potential of art for social emancipation, referencing the views of Lukács, Bloch, and Kracauer, and considers the dangers of cultural heritage. Ultimately, the essay provides a comprehensive overview of the Frankfurt School's enduring relevance in understanding the complex relationship between culture, ideology, and social relations.

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Introduction
The Frankfurt school, popularised in the 1930s, provided a critical as well as trans-
disciplinary approach towards cultural and communication studies analysing the ideological
impacts of the “culture industry”. The significance of industrialisation as well as mass
produced culture including the commercial imperatives that have been driving the whole
society have been highlighted in accordance to the explanations provided by the Frankfurt
school. The perception of the Frankfurt school has been cross argued with the biased
perception of Benjamin, Adorno and so on. Adopting the argument that art and culture
have an emancipatory role to play in the capitalist society, this essay highlights the
arguments of the Frankfurt school Marxists and other social critiques in order to reveal
the ideological nature of capitalist social relations.
Discussion
The Frankfurt school advocates the Neo-Marxist Theory based social research and
philosophy. This grouping of Marxism emerged from the social research institute of the
University of Frankfurt am Main of Germany, after Max Horkheimer became the director in
the year 1930. The terminology of Frankfurt school is used informally in order to address the
thinkers who are highly influenced by the ideologies of the Social research Institute.
The theorists of the Frankfurt school criticised the orthodox interpretation of the
Marx-Leninism, which incorporates ideas like economic determination, specialised role
played by the communist party and the significance of the workers towards communist
revolution and most importantly the capitalist mass culture of America, which is inspired by
Freud, Max Weber as well as Georg Lukacs (Anderson 2016).
This school of Marxism gathered together dissident Marxists who were severe critics
of capitalism. Such critics also opposed classical interpretation of Marx’s thoughts in context

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to economic determinism and the role played by the Social Democratic parties. Williams
(2017), reflects that after the failure of working class revolutions in the west of Europe after
the First World War and growth of Nazism in in advanced nation like Germany, the Frankfurt
school started to ponder which aspects of Marxism could possibly clarify the social
conditions which Marx had not went through. This school of Marxism attempted to overcome
the limitations of positivism, materialism as well as phenomenology by drawing support from
the critical philosophy of Kant and Hegel, emphasising on the inherent properties like
negation and contradiction as proponents of reality.
The Frankfurt school as a victim of European fascism had a first-hand experience of
the perception of the Nazis while using the instruments of mass culture to produce
submission towards fascist culture as well as society. As revealed in the studies of Storey
(2018), when the members of Frankfurt School were at exile in America, they also came to
perceive the “popular culture” of America which they found to be highly ideological which
promoted the interests of the American capitalists, highly. The culture was controlled by
giant corporations, where the “culture industries” were organised as per the strictures
regarding mass production, developing mass generated products which in turn generated a
culture system which is highly commercial, selling the values, life styles as well as
institutions of the American Way of Life.
As studied by Wolin (2019), the works of the Frankfurt School developed one of the
originators of modern day communication studies, known as the critical approach. Woodford
(2018), highlights that the critical approach is much differentiated from the administrative
approach. In fact, the ideologies of the members of the Social Research Institute were
forwarded by Walter Benjamin who also affiliated with the Institute. Benjamin thoroughly
discerned the modern and progressive aspects related to latest technologies advocating
cultural production like photography, radio as well as film. Benjamin in his book, named The

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Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction highlighted the ways in which new age
spectacles of media had been supplanting the old schools of culture. Similar philosophy have
also been expressed in the articles of Wolfreys, Robbins and Womack (2016), who define
that the new spectacles of artistic production that advocates mass reproduction of
photography, recordings, film as well as publications challenged the originality and “aura” of
the art works in the contemporary period. The Frankfurt school further believed that media
culture have the potential to cultivate more critical individuals with the capability of judging
and analysing their culture, for instance the sports fans are able to dissect and evaluate
athletic activities (Frère and Tulle 2017). Moreover, followers of the Frankfurt School of
Marxism holds that processing the rush of cinematic imaged was able to create subjectivities
that were able to better parry as well as comprehend the flux as well as turbulence of
experiences in the industrialised as well as urbanised societies. As identified by Paddison
(2017), the Frankfurt school argued that progressive creators of culture should be re-
functioning the apparatus of cultural production, converting theatre and films, for evidence
into forums of political enlightenment and discussion, as opposed to being a medium for
“culinary” audience pleasure.
The association between art and society have been the centre of focus for the artists
and the social activists. A commonplace belief in the twentieth century was that art have the
potential to bring about major changes in the world. As stated by Surber (2018), this is the
motivating factor that drove Georg Lukács to defend the concepts of literary realism
advocated by writers like Thomas Mann over the stylistic innovations of James Joyce.
Proponents of the Frankfurt school like Lukács suppose literature to be a particular form that
helps in the reflection of objective reality. Feenberg (2016), argues that as such, literature is
of crucial importance since it helps in depiction of reality in its truest form. Lukács himself
advocated social reality by displaying it in its true colours of contradictory complexity. The

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members of the Frankfurt Marxists belied that the art could easily be used as a medium of
serving the interests of class struggle as well as social emancipation.
However with the spectacle of historical occurrences in the hindsight, the propositions
of Lukács seem quite naive. As studied by Tarr (2017), realism in the Soviet Union also did
not function in order to highlight oppression as well as injustice, rather acted as a vehicle to
enforce it. The art works of the socialist realists had the seal of approval from the board of
censorship and stylistic experimentation was accepted as a direct disregard towards the
ideological orthodoxy. In this context, Suvin (2018) raises the question: Is not mass culture, a
vehicle that serves for the inculcation of the values that are needed for the reproduction of
capital? Is high art anything else than an elitist pursuit of the wealthy and well educated?
In conducting a critical consideration of the potential of art, the theories of Social
Research Institute can be revisited. Thinkers such as Adorno and Horkheimer emphasises the
culture have been corrupted under conditions like technological capitalism (Lee 2016).
Whereas, others like Bloch and Benjamin contemplates about the utopian potential of art at
an age of technological reproducibility.
The theory of culture highlighted in the Spirit of Utopia by Bloch concretises the desires
existing within the material world, itself. Bloch in analogy with Freud believes that human
culture is an outcome of a process that helps in diversion and capturing of our unconscious
desires. On the contrary, Bloch however resists the privileged place memory as well as that of
repression enjoy in the theory of Freud. Again, Bennett (2017), states in contrast that a
different edge of consciousness in visible in art which is known as “not yet conscious”
contrasted to “no longer conscious” of psychoanalysis.
In the Spirit of Utopia, Bloch argues over the cusp of Weimer era of Germany, where
explosion of technologized culture went together with increasingly politically problematic

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valorisation of the volkisch tradition as well as images. Siegfried Kracauer, another eminent
member of the Frankfurt school identified the ambivalence of the technologised culture
through his “mass ornament” (Abromeit 2016).Siegfried Kracauer views that the proliferation
of modern technology did not emphasise the advance of reason, but also implicated in
production as well as reproduction of types of methodologies generally associated with the
pre industrial societies. In this context, the homogenised dance moves of the Tiller Girls can
be highlighted, which is a major portrayal of automated production process. In light of the
above observation, Siegfried Kracauer states that modern culture puts forward an abstract
template by means of which every form of ideology can be projected, which incorporates
dangerous nationalisms (Williams 2019).
The manipulation of the image of Socialist propaganda by political force would
necessarily prove Siegfried Kracauer, right. Both Bloch and Benjamin can be counted among
the contemporaries, who depicted the uncanny ability of the Nazis for fusing values as well as
symbols of traditional and pre-capitalist life style with that of a modern as well as
texhnologised industrial culture which becomes a defining factor in their appeal (Mangion
2018). In Benjamin’s essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological
Reproducibility,”, the conception of aestheticization of politics have been developed in order
to describe the ways in which the fascists nullifies argument as well as persuasion as merely
political tools and on the contrary uses art for exploitation of irrational forces like suspicion,
jealousy as well as hate in the contemporary society (van Ommen 2018).
He in turn argues that critical thinkers as well as artists should challenge the tendency
associated with the “politicization of aesthetics” which implies development of art whch
seeks to expose as well as oppose the reactionary tendencies. As a prominent example, the
name of popular Italian spatialist painter, Lucio Fontanat can be highlighted. As informed by
Chalmers (2019), he began to stab and slash canvases for commenting on the erasure of the

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boundary that exists between the physical and the virtual spaces in an age of technological
reproducibility of art. The monochrome canvases of Fontana, which are clinically gashed
with the help of blunt instruments, shout out at the audience:
“This is not real, it’s only a canvas, look, there’s a wall behind it, don’t be tricked, beware the
image! (Perez 2016)”
Benjamin believed art to be a platform for emancipator politics; however he also
acknowledged the darker side of the “cultural heritage”. The contest over the Indigenous
Australian Art Show of the British Museum in the year 2015 made it evident once again that
what is portrayed in the museums as well as galleries as icons of cultural heritage are actually
what Benjamin perceives to be spoils of a triumphal procession in his “On the Concept of
History” where the victorious in history “tread over those who are sprawled underfoot.
(Thomas 2019)” The depiction of Benjamin that “There is no document of culture that is not
at the same time a document of barbarism” is highlighted specifically and most brutally in the
death camps of the Nazis. In such camps, the officers were involved in to playing Beethoven
and Wagner for personal edification, whereas in the same place people were being gassed as
well as burned in an industrial way.
It is the instrumentalization of the technologies for mass production by the Nazis,
surrendering to the most aberrant politics. This is what prompted Horkheimer to claim that
anyone who is against capitalism should also speak less about fascism. As highlighted by
Rutten, Van Beveren and Roets (2017), the essay “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as
Mass Deception,” also argues that popular culture in the capitalist societies cannot be
considered to be a agent for good anymore. The interests at stake in the mode of mass
production were so overwhelming that the authors of the essay Horkheimer and Adorno
contemplated that the popular culture depicted by large concerns in Hollywood or anywhere

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else is absolutely saturated by the ideology of “big money”. In the same context, Wippel,
Bromber and Krawietz (2016), also argues that mass culture of the contemporary period has
been infecting “everything with sameness”. Again, the same authors of the previously
recalled essay contextualises Kracauer’s analysis of abstract homogenisation of thee
Aesthetics in “The Mass Ornament” in order to argue that major media channels like radio,
films as well as magazines, today can be considered to be a “form of system” which is
unanimous within its own composition and “all are unanimous together”. The same critics
also argue that aesthetic manifestations of the political opposites “proclaim the same
inflexible rhythm.”
In the same context, researchers like Ortlieb and Carbon (2018), state that although in
Kraceuer was capable to celebrate tastes as well as amusements of the masses, Adorno and
Horkheimer argued that there was no scope of revolutionary power in the popular culture of
the contemporary times. In favour of the aforesaid, Peters (2015) argues that their
conceptualisation of culture industry which is still proving to be useful, today, goes on to
ironically undermines their perception of pessimism. Unmasking of the ideological forces in
to play, everywhere, from the films of Disney to that of Hip Hop, the main concept of culture
industry reveals that if not anything else, the popular culture can be considered as both, the
expression of oppressive social relations as well as the means of exposing and countering
those relations (Bennett 2017).
Critics like Lee (2016) saw art essentially perceives art as an outcome of social labour
that is segregated and distributed according to interests. However, Bloch also saw it as a
manifestation of ideology. In spite of that, he still resisted reductionist depiction of culture
that is common among the Soviet Marxists. van Ommen (2018) perceive that the Soviet
Marxists consider art as well as other “super-structural” elements as a reflection of special

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edition of social relations or an enhanced mode of production. However, on the contrary, the
views of Bloch reveal that:
“Being that conditions consciousness, and the consciousness that processes being […]
ultimately only out of that and in that from which and towards which it tends” (Bloch, 1986).
This implies that social reality as well as cultural products pertaining to that reality
always contains more than merely violence, oppression and exploitation as well as their
expression.
In fact, Chalmers (2019), states that art forms can be hardly more explicitly political
that it had been in the case of Pussy Riot, the feminist punk band of Russia who were jailed
for critiquing the repressive regulations of Vlamidir Putin’s government. However, Perez
(2016) states that the analysis of the prison letters of one of the band members of Pussy Riot
reveals that the explicit political inclusions of their art do not imply that their aesthetic is
naive or even simplistic. In fact, critics like Bloch also supports the fact that political value of
art lies in this perpetual are seeking. In anticipation of the sensibilities in postmodern art, in
the essay, “The Art of Speaking Schiller,” Bloch put forward that “decisively dialectical
avant-garde” must make a rediscovery of “[o]bjects that were formerly poeticized through
ideology,” and give them “a fresh significance, through montage”.
Again, as per the ideas of Rutten, Van Beveren and Roets (2017), in the light of
Fredric Jameson’s criticism of the postmodern pastiche, it might be argued that Bloch
overestimated the critical potential of the techniques like as montage. Rather than reactivating
the emancipatory spirit of the modernist aesthetics, as Bloch could predict, Jameson who is
also an active member of the Frankfurt school, argues that the postmodern works simply
integrate the superficial stylistic references with modernism as well as other movements to
develop a “simulacrum” that is critically ineffectual and amounting to nothing better than

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“cannabilization of all styles of the past, the random stylistic play of allusion” (Jameson,
1991).
No matter how positive people are, about the radical potential in art, the sensitivity of
these critical theorists of Frankfurt school helps us in understanding the importance attached
to what Friedrich Schiller called “aesthetic education” of the human folk (Wippel, Bromber
and Krawietz 2016).
Conclusion
In the retrospection, one can perceive the work of the Frankfurt school to be the
articulation of a theory of the position of the state as well as monopoly capitalism which
became dominant in the later part of the 1930s. This era was dominated by the large
companies, which were theorised by Hilferding as organised capitalism. In the stage, the state
and the gigantic organisations had baton of control and individuals had to submit to the state
and to the corporate control. The designation of “Fordism” that is used to describe this age,
actually symbolises the pattern of mass production as well as homogenizing capitalistic
regime which aimed at producing mss desires, behaviour as well as tastes. Hence, the
Frankfurt school of Marxism analyses this era as a representative time frame for mass
production, when the need for production was fostered by the uniformity in the patterns of
consumption as well as homogeneity of the individual needs, thoughts as well as behaviour
which led to the production of a mass society, which the Frankfurt School describes to have
been characterised by the “end of the individual”. As analysed in the essay, the restrictive
forces of the authorities and the powerful corporations left no space for emancipation of
individual perception and action. On the contrary, the unanimity of the society was the
vehicle that drove in social as well as cultural progress. Hence, analysing the social trends
and understanding the analysis of these trends by the proponents of the Frankfurt school, it

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can be summarised that this era referred to a staid, conformist as well as conservative world
where corporate capitalism had its reign. This essay also talks about the theory of culture
industry proposed by the Marxists of The Frankfurt School. The cultural network
incorporative of highly controlled media on the radio and television, the insipid pop music,
glossy movies in Hollywood, magazines and other mass products of culture all worked as
agents of unifying the society under common trends and common tastes, which highly
favoured the capitalistic mass production.
However, constructive criticism against this popular Frankfurt ideology of culture
industry has been provided by other Frankfurt school members like Walter Benjamin, Bloch
and Kracauer. They argued that art acted as the medium for individual emancipation and that
is why artists faced damnation from the capitalistic forces. In the end it can be concluded that
the Frankfurt School articulated that media culture had a crucial role to play during the
regime of capital and in fact the emancipation of art through modern devices under mass
production helped in the commercialisation of art that helped in serving the needs of the
dominant corporate interests and individual empowerment. Art in that time also played a
crucial role in the ideological reproduction, and also in the inculcation of the individuals in to
the dominant framework of needs, behaviour as well as perception.

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