Duy, Ben, Kevin, Scott - The culture industry

In ‘the culture industry’ Horkheimer and Adorno explain that all people have an equal chance of achieving, but not by effort. Ideal types are stripped of details, and of individuality so the public can identify with their similarities. The culture industry is a self-feeding machine, which produces content that is designed for its own needs. Everything is calculated in advance, never going too far, always staying within it’s own pre-set bounds. The authors also explain how popular culture is constantly recycling ideas while convincing the public that they are new. ‘True art’ is defined as the art of the bourgeois class, which was withheld from the lower classes of society. Instead they have been presented with unlimited amounts of ‘untrue art’—popular culture and it’s mediums such as television. Until the 18th century, the artists’ creativity depended on their patrons and their objectives; now high art is available to everyone for free. Art became a species of commodity, marketable and interchangeable. The ones in power create trends, which establish the norms of the industries, but they do serve the products in different qualities so that they can make it seem like a need to every social classes of a society.

Fellowship and the abolishment of individuality were pointed out as elements of social control, discussion of these led to the instance of a fellowship exhibiting “individuality,” contrary to the larger system. Advertising becomes Art: The Art of Advertising. Big corporations with big budgets can afford advertising for its own sake and as an expression of power in the attempt to monopolize the market and create barrier to newcomers. Fight club might be a good modern example of a film which criticizes society while at the same time being appropriate enough to be marketed to the masses (specifically, as a not-so-successful in the box office but cult hit in DVD sales). Realism is usually depressing and this text is no exception. It is certainly wonderful to be enlightened of the hideous sides of western existence, but it would be advisable if solutions could be brought up to the table and let the reader finish on a good note which could then lead to a prosperous extrapolation of a possible solution.

Question: Would this text cause the same reaction on the part of the reader if it didn’t have a Nihilist approach or is this approach necessary?