Phil 2222: Philosophy of Art

Phil 2222: Philosophy of Phil 2222: Philosophy of ArtArt

A *brief* introduction to Critical Theory

The Frankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School

Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Marcuse, Neumann, Kirchheimer, Lowenthal and Erich Fromm.

Jurgen Habermas

The actual school in Frankfurt disbanded in the face of Nazism and moved to NY to become The New School for Social Research.

The ProblemThe Problem

Why was Marx so incredibly right about capitalism, but so incredibly wrong about communism?

Others: Lukacs, Korsch, Gramsci– Lukacs forced to denounce his own views by

the Communists in the 30s– Korsch was kicked out of the German

Communist Party for refusing to do the same– Gramsci was ‘protected’ from these purges

because he was held in a fascist prison!

‘The good life at a great price’That Porsche ad / the Saturn ad

47 Starbucks in Beijing4 in Oman17 in Paris!22 in Instanbul (4 in Ankara)

The ProblemThe Problem

Why was Marx so incredibly right about capitalism, but so incredibly wrong about communism?

Solutions?Solutions?

Broadly speaking, a psychological explanation:

+ =

Influences:Influences:

Built on the research programs of Max Weber & Lukacs:

RationalizationCommodity Fetishism

+ =

Reification

Why?Why?

Weber’s central contention was this: that capitalism is not just an economic system – it is not simply explainable in terms of the ‘impulse to acquire’.

It is something more: “a capitalistic economic action is one which rests on the expectation of profit by the utilization of opportunities for exchange, that is one (formally) peaceful chances of profit”

Capitalism, for Weber, is intimately connected to the Protestant ethos –it is more than an economic system, it is, at least partially, a religion.

The Frankfurt school sought similar explanations of peoples’ political and economic behavior – that is, in terms of psychological states and properties.

Adorno’s paper has three parts:Attack on BenjaminUse of Lukac’s ‘reification’ to indicate the logic of the culture industryhis own theory of ‘regressive listening’, and the impossibility of resurrecting listening in the current system.

Lukacs:Lukacs:

Commodity Fetishism: turning commodities into quasi-spiritual meaning-carrying entities through which we define our lives and find meaning.

Weber’s 2Weber’s 2ndnd contribution: contribution:

The ‘rationalization’ of beaurocracy: treating something that depends on human decision and is within human control as if it is not.(later)

ReificationReification

‘Reification’: from Lukacs – a synthesis of Marx’s commodity fetishism with Weberian rationalization. It occurs when something is treated in theory or practice as a marketable commodity (I.e. its use-value becomes its exchange-value)

Add to this Weber’s rationalization and…

Treating commodities as quasi-spiritual entities, and thinking that this is what they are objectively in and of themselves.

(that is, failing to recognize that this quasi-spiritual status is dependent on the way we treat these objects, not anything they are themselves).

So, how is all this So, how is all this supposed to work?supposed to work?

• Background:– Marx – Das Capital & Lukacs’

interepretation (commodity fetishism)– Weber ‘rationlization’– Lukacs and ‘reification’– Then, Marcuse (in brief) and an

example of the Frankfurt school’s reasoning: Adorno on Music.

Marx.Marx.

“A commodity is, in the first place, a thing outside of us that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.”

But, in reality, commodities have properties other than those that satisfy wants – people collect them, venerate them, are loyal to them, and preserve them.

Where do these mysterious properties come from?

2 Key premises:2 Key premises:

1. In all states of society, the labor time that it costs to produce subsistence is necessarily of interest to all mankind.

2. From the moment that men in any way work with or for oneanother, their labor assumes a social form.

• Marx’s contention: – Science the special status of

commodities is above and beyond subsistence, the enigmatic character of commodities comes from this social form of production.

The equality of human labor is expressed in objects by the equal value of the products (If I take 2ce as long to produce a widget than you take to produce a fidget, a widget must cost 2ce as much as a fidget).

Thus, the relations between producers take on the form of relations between our products.

Therefore, a commodity is mysterious because:In it the social character of labor appears to be a property of the object itself. The relations between the producers to the sum total of their labor (that is, their products) is presented back to them as social relations between the products they produce. Therefore:“Products of labor become commodities – social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses.”

The social relationship between commodities is analogous to the social relationship between ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’. They are productions of the human mind, yet appear to be independent beings endowed with life and entering into relations with one another and the human race in general.

1. Articles of utility become commodities only because they are products of the labor of private individuals or groups…

2. Since producers do not come into social contact with one another until they exchange their products, the specific social character of each producer’s labor doesn’t show itself expect in the act of exchange.

3. The labor of an individual is thus a part of the labor of society only insofar as it is related in exchange with other products, and indirectly, then, to the producers.

4. Thus the relations connecting the labor of individuals are not direct social relations between individuals, but are material relations between persons and social relations between things.

5. And it is only in being exchanged that the products of labor acquire uniform social status – or value – distinct from their use-value.

6. And when products are produced solely for the purpose of being exchanged, then their exchange value must be taken into account before production.

7. Therefore, the products of labor, to the producer of those products, have value only insofar as they are desired by others, and since the products of labor are merely material expressions of the producers’ labor, the producers’ labor has value only insofar as it is desired by others (and, hence, the basis of wage-labor).

WeberWeber

The main question is “Why advanced capitalism only in the west?”

‘advanced capitalism’ = “The rational capitalistic organization of (formally) free labor” – this includes the separation of business from the household and the rationalization of bookkeeping.

1. Western capitalism is highly influenced by the development of technological possibilities.

2. And those technological possibilities were encouraged by certain social-culture mores (dissection, e.g.)

3. One of these social-culture mores of central importance is the particular law (i.e. the Magna Carta needed in Islam)

“Modern rational capitalism has need, not only of technical means of production, but of a calculable legal systems and of administration in terms of formal rules”

(If there were individuals in the country to whom the law did not apply – would you risk your hard earned money in an investment?)

4. When the rationalization of law comes into conflict with religion, religion usually wins (witness the development of biology in Hindu and Buddhist cultures, Islam in the modern world…)

5. So, there must have been something in the protestant, Calvinistic tradition that was amenable to the rationalization of law. (we talked about that…)

It is one of the fundamental characteristics of an individualistic capitalistic economy that it is rationalized on the basis of rigorous calculation, directed with foresight and caution toward economic success which is sought in sharp contrast to the hand-to-mouth existence of the peasant, and to the privileged traditionalism of the guild craftsman and of the adventures’ capitalism, oriented to the exploitation of political opportunities and irrational speculation.

The development of the spirit of capitalism is best understood as part of the development of rationalism as a whole and could be deduced from the fundamental position of rationalism on the basic problems of life (76)

6. So, capitalism is a feature of rationalization of society (which is intimately connected to religion).

1. It’s self-justifying2. It’s self-verifying3. It ‘takes on a life of it’s own’4. And it’s seen to be outside of human

control.5. It’s intimately connected with religion

LukacsLukacs

Central thesis: in developed capitalistic societies, the fetishism of commodities penetrates all spheres of social lifeThe factory is the model of all social

relationshipsThe fate of the worker is the fate of all

humanity

1. The world of commodity exchange is seen as the estrangement (alienation) of human activity and the de-activation of individuality

2. Reducing human labor to a commodity abstracts it and makes it interchangable with other laborers – thus undermining individual choice, expression, thought, etc.

3. The worker is ‘mutilated’ “reduced to mere spectatorship, to mere contemplation of his own estranged activity and that of his fellows. He is emasculated.”

MarcuseMarcuse

Central question:

Why does the “comfortable, smooth and reasonable unfreedom” prevail in advanced industrialized society?

• “Comfortable”• “Smooth”• “Reasonable”

Marcuse – through extending the notion of ‘rationalization’ beyond the relationship between people and their products to people and what they consume, find this same emasculation in all spheres of human life.If the market is the model for the family, family

relationships are rationalized (they just happen)If the market is the model for education, students

are passive recipients, unable to choose or interact.

Etc…

“The facts directing man’s thoughts and actions are not those of nature which must be accepted in order to be mastered, of those of society which must be changed because they no longer correspond to human needs and potentialities. Rather are they those of the machine process, which itself appears as the embodiment of rationality and expediency.”

In more detail: to the extent that freedom from want is decreased, the ‘traditional’ freedoms of freedom of thought, autonomy and opposing political views are “being deprived of their basic critical function” in advanced societies that can satisfy our every want.

How?How?

Reduce the discussion and promotion of alternative political views to those within the status quo.

How?1. ‘non-conformity is socially useless’ and2. It is of great economic and practical

disadvantage.3. And, it threatens the smoothness of the

society as a whole.(Co-opting)

How did this come about?How did this come about?

Again: subsistence.Subsistence and liberty are not

necessarily amenable. The ‘freedom’ to starve, e.g.when faced with starvation, people

prefer security to liberty.

So, it should follow that:So, it should follow that:

Increasing the satisfaction of needs should increase freedom and liberty

Once everyone’s basic needs are met, society should be perfectly free and perfectly ordered.

But that’s Marx’s theory.And it didn’t work.

Technically:Technically:

The “end” of technological society: to render individual autonomy possible through the organization or an apparatus (automation and mechanization) of the satisfaction of our basic needs.

“In actual fact, however, the contrary trend operates: the apparatus imposes its economic and political requirements for defense and expansion on labor time and free time, on the material and intellectual culture.”

Therefore, society tends to be totalitarian- not in the sense of a terroristic political

organization, but rather in the sense of a “non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests.”

Society therefore precludes any opposition to the whole.

Note: this a bit strong – the premise that a system manipulates needs and is therefore totalitarian, he still hasn’t demonstrated that that society precludes opposition. But, if we charitably give him the notion of the co-opting of oppositional ideals, we get the strong thesis. And the strong thesis gives us:

Adorno (finally!)Adorno (finally!)

The decline in musical taste is linked to the discovery that music represents both the immediate manifestation of impluse (creativity) and the locus for taming that impulse (through structure / reason / logic)

NOTE: this is all in Plato, as we talked about.

• In music, the pressure is ‘to obey’ – the structure, the tradition, etc – to tame the impulse to rebel and find a place within the structure where people can act on or explore that impulse safely.

• Art is not socially radical – it is the co-opting of dangerous, radical ideas into a safe, socially acceptable medium (-Dewey + Freud = Adorno)

Why?Why?

• The concept of ‘taste’ in advanced capitalism is outmoded– What matters is recognition. One does not

like popular music, one is merely familiar with popular music.

– Music is the compliment of the reduction of people to silence

– It inhabits the ‘pockets of silence’ that develop between people molded by anxiety, work and undemanding docility

• Everywhere, music is the soundtrack to our sad, emasculated lives. It plays the role it did in silent films – it is merely background filler.– (Remember ‘High Fidelity’ – he

organized his record collection biographically).

22ndnd Section Section

• Here, A. s attacking the position that would state something like:

Ok, fine, popular music in advanced capitalism is like a highway. But classical music, well that’s different. (or substitute any ‘serious’ music in for ‘classical’)

“Their static separation, which certain caretakers of culture have ardently sought – the totalitarian radio was assigned to the task, on the one hand, of providing good entertainment and diversion, and on the other, of fostering the so-called cultural goods, as if there could still be good entertainment and as if the cultural goods were not, by their administration, transformed into evils – the neat parceling out of music’s social field of force is illusionary.” (274)

The illusion of preference for ‘light’ music (as opposed to ‘serious’ music) is based merely on the passivity of the masses.

The consumption of light music contradict the interests of those who consume it (it is in your interest to think, light music doesn’t make you think),

BUT the ‘serious’ music and light music hang together in an ‘unresolved contradition’ the light can’t introduce one the serious, and the serious can’t ‘borrow’ from the light.

• The serious music then disappears (it is, by definition, unpopular), and hence the lower can no longer measure itself in contrast to the serious.

• Between the standards of banal and incomprehensible, there is no room for individuality, no room for preference, no option for exploration.

• ‘Preference’, therefore, is illusory – you do not like popular music. You simply have no other option.

FetishFetish

Musical ‘taste’, then, is nothing other than fetish – as in the case of sexual fetish – it is based on no more reason than a random exposure, probably as a youth.

The fetish often takes an individual (instrument, composer, conductor, voice, etc.) as its object.

The moments of sensual pleasure are not in relation to the music, but are ‘blind and irrational’

“Where they react at all, it no longer makes any difference whether it is to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony or to a bikini”

Music with all its ethereal and sublime attributes, serves in America today as an advertisement for commodities which one must acquire in order to be able to hear music

Remember Marx?Remember Marx?

• Value = time you spent on something

• But, in the act of exchange, you’re thing get valued, so you get valued

• You are alienated from your product, and hence yourself, so…

• You are now measured by the value you acquire – i.e. how much you spend on something

The music fan is not worshipping the three tenors, but rather the amount they spent on the ticket to their concert.

“The use value of a piece of music is presumably the enjoyment one gets out of listening to it (or something imposed on it in a capitalist system – stress reliever, etc.) – When that music is commodified, the use value is replaced by the exchange value. Furthermore, in collections, the exchange value takes over the use value – one collects rare records not to enjoy them, but to have them – collecting for the sake of collection” (259)

• The use value in music (buy things to use them, in music: listening)

• is replaced by exchange value (how much do others want this)

• which is then replaced by use value (how much could I get for this)

• the use is no longer listening, but trading,

• and the value (which becomes my value) is in the having, not in the using.

• This is commodity fetishism

“A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labor appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour” (Marx, Das Capital, something like the second page, Quoted (but not cited) in Adorno, p 528)

The commodity is reified – we have social relations with products, and economic relations with people – but we treat this institution as if it is outside of human control, an unassailable, unjustifiable bureaucracy.

the “transfer of the use value of consumption goods to their exchange value contributes to a general order in which eventually every pleasure which emancipates itself from exchange values takes on subversive features” (529)

“The woman who has money with which to buy is intoxicated by the act of buying. In American conventional speech, having a good time means being present at the enjoyment of others, which in turn has as its only content being present. The auto religion makes all men brothers in the sacramental moment with the words: ‘this is a Rolls Royce’, and in moments of intimacy, women attach greater importance to their hairdressers and cosmeticians than to the situation for the sake of which the hairdressers and cosmeticians are employed.” (p 529)

“The couple out driving who spend their time identifying every passing car and being happy if they recognize the trademarks speeding by, the girl whose satisfaction consists solely in the fact that she and her boyfriend ‘look good’, the expertise of the jazz enthusiast who legitimizes himself by having knowledge about what is in any case inescapable: all this operates according to the same command. Before the theological caprices of commodities, the consumers become temple slaves” (p 529)

SadomasochismSadomasochism

• The prisoner loves his cell because he knows nothing else.

• Millions of people bought David Helfcott’s CD (and he played on the oscars), but it sucks. – they just don’t know anything else.

• Why do people love a system (or a music industry) that treats them badly? Why do so many wait anxiously for the next crappy record by Mariah Carey (e.g.)

• Because they get their identity from that system – ‘I’m a Mac user’ ‘I’m a VW owner’ ‘I’m a ska kid’ ‘I’m in on it’

• And that identification is necessary because of the stadardization of consumer goods

“The commercial necessity of connecting this identity leads to the manipulation of taste and the official culture’s pretense of individualism which necessarily increases in proportion to the liquidation of the individual”

• Declare your individuality! Buy a mass-produced product just like thousands of your friends!

• (and remember: Music is a mass-produced product)

VulgarizationVulgarization

• Music is chopped up, institutionalized and ‘frozen’ in the definitive interpretation on a recording device. Vulgarization occurs when the music is not appreciated / listened to as a whole work of art.– The 2001 theme, Beethovens’ 5th, Wagner’s

Wedding march are all removed from the complexity of their position in larger works of art, digested, commodified, and sold to the music consumer as individual works of art.

ArrangmentArrangment

• Muzak• Elevator music –

– Again, it is the process of removing art from it’s complex context, creating a canonical version, and commodifying art.

The practice of MusicThe practice of Music

• Toscanini – “Perfect immaculate performance in the latest style preserves the work at the price of its definitive reification.”

– Like the fascist, we sacrifice freedom, love, and all that makes us human for the order, predictability and regularity of a standard, canonical interpretation.

The consciousness of mass The consciousness of mass listenerslisteners

• Listeners listen according to a formula

• The concepts of ‘liking’ and ‘disliking’ are irrelevant – the only question is ‘does this fit with my economic status?’, ‘is this the kind of person I want to project to others?’

The regression of listeningThe regression of listening

• ‘regression’ is Freudian – regressing to the infantile stage of listening.– Listeners ‘lose along with their

freedom of choice and responsibility, the capacity for conscious perception of music… but they stubbornly reject the possibility of such perception’ (532)

Vulgarization in popVulgarization in pop

• Lyrics are overly important, to the detrimint of other aspects of music

• This is extended to the melody itself• The emphasis on exchange-value dimminishes

innovation and variation: regressive listeners are like children who demand the same meal over and over

• The music industry responds – by preparing the same song over and over, by different ‘artists’

• Whenever someone wants to extricate themselves, the music industry responds and adapts and offers them a reified context in which to exorcize their revolutions (Punk x2, Ska x3 (or 4?), ‘Lalapollusa’)