Comments on: You can’t even un­der­stand the lyrics http://blog.voyou.org/2006/10/28/you-cant-even-understand-the-lyrics/ Lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:03:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: voyou http://blog.voyou.org/2006/10/28/you-cant-even-understand-the-lyrics/comment-page-1/#comment-70 voyou Mon, 30 Oct 2006 21:46:21 +0000 http://blog.voyou.org/2006/10/28/you-cant-even-understand-the-lyrics/#comment-70 <p>Yeah, you're right. The last couple of chapters of <em>One Dimensional Man</em> do actually go some way to addressing my complaint with the stuff about a technology of values; and there is that part in the Culture Industry chapter where they complain that people prefer Donald Duck to Betty Boop.</p> <p>Still, although I haven't thought about this enough to be sure, I have a feeling that the Frankfurt types have a theoretical inclination which is more consistent with their mode of critique as lament than with an investigation of new possibilities; the connection of art with the master's inability to act (in the Odysseus analogy in particular) makes it hard for me to see an actual positive theory of the political value of art in Adorno and Horkheimer.</p> Yeah, you’re right. The last couple of chapters of One Dimensional Man do actually go some way to addressing my complaint with the stuff about a technology of values; and there is that part in the Culture Industry chapter where they complain that people prefer Donald Duck to Betty Boop.

Still, although I haven’t thought about this enough to be sure, I have a feeling that the Frankfurt types have a theoretical inclination which is more consistent with their mode of critique as lament than with an investigation of new possibilities; the connection of art with the master’s inability to act (in the Odysseus analogy in particular) makes it hard for me to see an actual positive theory of the political value of art in Adorno and Horkheimer.

]]> By: Owen http://blog.voyou.org/2006/10/28/you-cant-even-understand-the-lyrics/comment-page-1/#comment-68 Owen Mon, 30 Oct 2006 14:21:59 +0000 http://blog.voyou.org/2006/10/28/you-cant-even-understand-the-lyrics/#comment-68 This is pertinent but pretty unfair for the Frankfurters as a whole.  You <em>can</em> find stuff like that in Marcuse- but you can also find all manner of affirmations of new technology and popcult- there's an especially fine passage in Counter-Revolution and Revolt about why dance music is more revolutionary than hippy stadium rock, and 'The Affirmative Character of Culture' shares a bent towards the possibilities of mass culture more similar to Benjamin than Adorno.  And Teddy himself is always at the risk of caricature here too I think: you could set against the One Dimensional Man passage you quote here something from Adorno's essay on Brave New World, where he points out how the sterile sexuality that so horrifies Huxley is actually really very alluring if you don't share his back-to-nature bent.  Incidentally have you read this? (scroll down) <a href="http://freakytrigger.co.uk/old-ft/essays/2003/01/critone/" rel="nofollow">http://freakytrigger.co.uk/old-ft/essays/2003/01/critone/</a>  not sure how successful it is, but interesting nonetheless. This is pertinent but pretty unfair for the Frankfurters as a whole.  You can find stuff like that in Marcuse- but you can also find all manner of affirmations of new technology and popcult- there’s an especially fine passage in Counter-Revolution and Revolt about why dance music is more revolutionary than hippy stadium rock, and ‘The Affirmative Character of Culture’ shares a bent towards the possibilities of mass culture more similar to Benjamin than Adorno.  And Teddy himself is always at the risk of caricature here too I think: you could set against the One Dimensional Man passage you quote here something from Adorno’s essay on Brave New World, where he points out how the sterile sexuality that so horrifies Huxley is actually really very alluring if you don’t share his back-to-nature bent.  Incidentally have you read this? (scroll down) http://freakytrigger.co.uk/old-ft/essays/2003/01/critone/  not sure how successful it is, but interesting nonetheless.

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