Culture in Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Book Dialectic of Enlightenment

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“Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” is a chapter in Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s book “Dialectic of Enlightenment” it goes onto discus the conflicts presented by the “culture industry.” Adorno states that the culture industry is a main phenomenon of late capitalism, encompassing all products from Hollywood films, to advertisements, and even extending to musical compositions. Adorno is very deliberate in noting the term “culture industry” over “mass culture” this was done to specifically distinguish, that it is not to be understood as something which spontaneously stems from the masses themselves. Products of the culture economy take on the appearance of artwork but are in fact dependant on industry and economy, meaning that they are subjected to the interests of money and power and producing a profit “The whole world is passed through the filter of the culture industry” . To Adorno the production of art and consumerism is driven and shaped by the logic of capitalist rationality, meaning consumer products are created on the basis of whatever will sell best. ...

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