Monday, January 17, 2011
Does anyone like to be Entertained?
All of the writers read thus far from Adorno to Benjamin to Arendt speak to this notion of the entertainment or culture industry and how it has been affected by mass society. Although these works were written in the 1930s, I find that a lot of their conclusions especially those of Arendt applicable to much of the criticism towards the modern entertainment industry. Many people will read a timeless classic or bestseller and eagerly await the film adaptation. And many people (myself included) will be the first to claim that the book was better than the film and that the director/producer/screenwriter completely butchered the characters and the themes that enthralled the reader. But then usually I concede that the film as a film (forgetting the book it was based upon) was pretty good-though of course that is not always the case. Arendt's comments on the adaptation of classics and such and how they are a manifestation of the decay of mass culture are a bit harsh (284). It is analogous in some ways to Benjamin's criticism of the intellectual in socialist dialectic. Benjamin's essays on Paris especially on Baudelaire's poetry and Hausmann's city planning were fascinating. They, to me, prove how much of the decisions both artistic (through poetry and prose) and architectural with the rebuilding of Paris (to thwart future barricades) are based on political thought. I appreciate French history even more as a result and how politicized the arts manage to be. But at the same time if I understand Benjamin correctly, it seems that he is critical of the mere politicization of arts and of political writings (i.e propaganda). It is not enough to write of rights and oppression but the writer must strive in his or her own way to quell the ills. Basically, a Yale graduate of economics has no right to speak of the oppression of the standard capitalist system when he is living a bourgeois life.
I cannot help but begin to discuss a bit of the prompt since I found the role of the intellectual in both writings similar in the sense that both Benjamin and Arendt think they have an important role to play in the dialogue between mass culture and mass media. At the same time, Benjamin qualifies his statement with the fact that the intellectual's position in the modes of production affect his role (85). I think his basic premise is that the intellectual must be able to relate to his audience. His concluding remarks about how the intellectual must be able to show the incongruence between capitalism and the proletariat and not between capitalism and fascism speaks to Benjamin’s Marxist influence (and thus the proletariat’s vital role in the future of society) (93). Similarly, Arendt warns of the intellectual who caters to the mass media or consumer society. She, unlike Adorno and Benjamin, blatantly counters critics who would surmise that she and her colleagues are against entertainment or may even feel above bourgeois and certainly, proletariat revels (282). That along with other things are why she is my favorite for now!
---Sorry for the length, I promise to shorten it next time!------
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I think that Benjamin's argument that the advent of mass society allows anyone access to be heard by the public (like this very website) is important to his notion of the "author as producer." He seems to be implying that the author, having a Marxist perspective of course, has a responsibility to let the consumers of society know that they can be authors (producers) as well. In your post you discussed the importance of the author relating to his audience. Do you think Benjamin is arguing for this intellectual he describes to primarily focus his efforts on the working class proletariat (the consumers), or on other intellectual authors as well to convert them into producers (who convert others into producers)? Marxists and Communists in the late 19th century and early twentieth century faced a problem that most of the proletariat was uninterested in political philosophy, and so many "proletarian" revolutionaries were actually intellectuals. It seems that the modern state of a more literate and educated mass society would change the nature of the relationship between Marxist intellectuals and their proletarian audience.
ReplyDeleteMs. El Sabbagh, you were one of the only people to comment on the "Paris" essay. I agree with you that it is fascinating, but I would also note something else: both here and elsewhere in his writings, Benjamin often seems more willing to analyze modern culture than to simply decry it, in the way of other mass culture critics. I think this speaks both to the fact that he finds much of this culture aesthetically pleasing, and to his optimism about its democratic potential, an optimism that Mr. Kearney's response also brings up, in terms of the possibilities for democratic cultural participation.
ReplyDeleteI certainly see that now. It may have been that I was too caught up with the latter Paris anecdotes about Hausmann in particular and others and in all honesty did not quite understand the "intellectual" part but in answer to Dylan's question, I think that Benjamin is arguing for both: that the consumers need to become producers and not be as passive or interested as they seemed to be at this time. Also, that the intellectual should not stop with his (or her)'s works which will hopefully convert formerly consumer only fellow intellectuals to more productive individuals.
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