2

Theodor Adorno and

Max Horkheimer
The culture industry: enlightenment as
mass deception
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
Adomo and Horkheimer's essay, published in the mid-1940s, remains the
clasic denunciation of the 'culture industry'. It offers ayision of a sO. Qlbat
has lost its capaci! to llourish true freedom al indiYldualit as welt as the
ability to represent the real conditions of existence. Adorno and Horkheimer
blieye this loss results from the fact that cultural production has moyed'from
an artisanal stage, which depended on indiYidual effort and required little or no
inYestment, to an industrial stage. For them, the .modern C,uJil!Ei!stry ..
duGes-safe,_standarjzeRroc:Ucts_geared to the larger demands of the
capitalist economG. does so by representing 'aYerage' life for purposes of /'
Jure enterainment or disio[ as.uctiyely and realistically_osSiIJ"
Thus, for them, Hollywood mOYies, radio, mass-produced journalism, and
adYerising are only different at the most superficial leyel. Furthermore, the \
culture industry has become so successful that 'ar' and 'life' are no longer / <
wholly separable - which is the theme later theorists of postmodernity took
from the essay. (See Jameson 1990; and the Lyotard essay in this yotume.) Of
course, 'high' art still exists as 'mass culture"s opposite, but for Adorno, in a
famous phrase, these are two halves of a whole that do not add up.
Debate about the essay continues, but it is imporant to remember the
situation in which it was written. The Second World War had not quite ended,
and Adorno and Horkheimer were refugees from Nazi Germany living in the
US. Hitler's totalitarianism (with its state cntrol of cultural production) and the
American market system are fused in their thought - all the more easily
because, for them as members of the German (or rather the secularized
German Jewish) bourgeoiSie, high culture, paricularly drama and music, is a
powerful yehicle of ciYil yalues. It is also worth emphasizing that when this
essay was written the cultural industry was less variegated than it was to
bcome, during the 1960s in particular. Hollywood, for instance, was still
'vertically integrated' so that the five major studios owned the production,
Y111 11W1 W1 W7 Y1WYW
distribution, and exhibition arms of the film business between them; television
was still in its infancy; the LP and the single were unknown; the cultural market
had not been broken into various demographic sectors - of which, in the
1950s, the youth segment was to become the most energetic. This helps
explain how Adorno and Horkheimer neglect what was to become central to
cultural studies: the ways in which the cultural industry, while in the serice of
organized capital, also provides the opporunities for all kinds of individual and
collective creativity and decoding.
Furher reading: Adorno 1991 ; Berman 1989; Connerton 1980; Jameson
1990; Jay 1984a.
S.D.
The sociologcal theory that the loss of the support of objectvely estab
lished religion, the dissolution of the last remnants of precapitalism,
together with technological and social differentation or

alization,
have led to cultural chaos is disproved every day; fore now
impresses the same stamp on eve! Fims, radio and magazines
mak" up' system whichii orm as a whole and in every part. Even \
the aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic ?
obedience to the rhythm of the ion system. The decoratve industial
management buildings and exhibition centes in authprtarian countries
are much the same as anywhere else. The huge gleaming towers that
shoot up everywhere are outward signs of the ingenous plnning of
interational concers, toward which the unleaihed entrepren

urial
system (whose monuments are a mass of gloomy' houses and busmess
premises in grimy, spiritless cties) was aleady hastening. Even now the
older houses just outside the concrete cty centres look like slums, and
the new bungalows on the outskis are at one with the fimsy stuctures
of world fairs in thei praise of technical progress and their built-in
demand to be discarded after a short while le empty food cans. Yet the
city housing projects designed to perpetuate the individual as a suppos
"
.-. edly independent unit i a small hygienic dwelling make h all the
more subservient to his adversary - the absolute power of capitalism.
Because the ihabitants, as producers and as consumers, are drawn into
the centre in search of work and pleasure, all the living unts crystalze
into well-organized complexes. The stg unity of microcosm and
macrocosm presents men with a model of their culture: the false identty
of the general and the partcular. Under monopoly all mass culture}s
entical, and the lines of its artficial framework begtn to show througf.
le people at the top are g interested in concealing..mon-

Y 4 W1N

y as !s VOenc

-
b mOre OQen, sO !s _ wer grOw%OVes
andO need nOOnger Qre!end !Obe ar!. Je !ru!h!ha!!heyare us!
busness s made n!O an deOOgy n Order !O us!ly !he rubbsh !hey
debera!ey QrOduce. Jey caL !hemseVes ndus!res; and when !her
drec!Ors ncOmes are Qubshed, any dOub! abOu! !he sOca ut|ly Ol
!he nshedQrOduc!s sremOVed.
n!eres!ed Qartes exQan !he cu!ure ndus!ry n !echnOOgca
krms.!s aeged!ha! because mOns QarbcQa!e n!, cer!anreQrO-
duc!OnQrOcessesarenecessary!ha!neV!abyreQureden!caneedsn
mnumerabe Qaces !O be sabshed w!h den!ca gOOds. Jhe !echnca
cOn!ras! belween !he lew QrOduc!On cen!res and !he arge number Ol
wdey dsQersed cOnsumQbOn QOn!s i sad !O demand OrganZa!On
andQannngbymanagemen!.Im!hermOre,!i camed!ha!s!andards
werebased n !he hrs! Qace On cOnsumers needs, and lOr !ha! reasOn
wereacceQ!edw!hsO!!|eress!ance.Jeresu!s!hecrceOlmanQu-
abOnandre!rOac!Veneednwhch!heun!yOl!hesys!emgrOwseVer
smnger. "o,[QbOn i made e,! e u. c
qq |o __aqmrs_oy OVer socety_s_|gO _er Ol !hOse whOse
ecOnOc )OldsOce!yi grea!sQA !echnOOgca ra!Onae s !he
m!Onae Ol dOmna!On !sel. ! s !he cOercVe nalure Ol sOcety a|e-
na!ed hOm !sel. Au!OmObes, bOmbs, and mOVes keeQ !he whOe
!mng!Oge!herut !hereVeIngeemen!shOws!ss!reng!hn!heVery
wmng whch ! lur!hered. ! has made !he !echnOOgy Ol !he_lure
@JusO.m)e !han.the-cheVemen!_ Ol,s!andardza!On.and.mass_
.Qg}ucbOn, sacrhcngqeyr ved~a~ds!nc!Op_ en !he
g_cOl!hewOrkand!ha! Ol !he_ys!e_Jhss !heresu!nO!Ol+
aw Ol mOVemen! n !echnOOgy as such bu! Ol !s luncbOn n !Odays
ecOnOmyeed whch@gh!1)st,cCnuj ready,De0n
su__essed b_ !he !rt!e dac$ cOusness.e s!eQ
bOm!he!eeQhOne !O !he radO\as cearydsbngushed !he rOes. Jhe
lOrmer s! aOwed !he subscber!O Qay !he rOe Ol subec!, and was
bera|.rsJepg a!c:!luHsa_ar!g an!sn!Os!eners and
u!hOr!a!Vey subec!s !hem !O_brOadcas!__rOammes whch are a
e_ !he sape. ^O machnery Ol reOnder has been deVsed, and
pnVa!e brOadcas!ers are dened any heedOm. Jhey are cOnhned !O !he
aQOcryQha hed Ol !he ama!eur, and asO haVe!O acceQ! Organza!On
bOm abOVe. bu! any !race Ol sQOn!ane!y lrOm !he Qubc n Olhca
brOadcas!ngscOn!rOed and absOrbedby!aen! scOu!s, sludO cOmQe-
bbOnsand OlhcaQrOgrames Ol eVerykndseec!edbyQrOlessOnas.
1aen!edQerlOrmersbeOng!O!hendus!ryOngbelOre!dsQays!hem;
Y11 1W1 W W7 Y1WYIW ,,,,,
otherwise they would not be so eager to ft in. The attitude of the publc,
which ostensibly and actually favours the system of the culture
industry, is a part of the system and not an excuse for it. If one branch of
art follows the same formula as one with a very different medium and
content; if the dramatic itrigue of broadcast soap operas becomes no
more than useful material for showing how to master technical problems
at both ends of the scale of musical experience - real jazz or a cheap
imitation; or if a movement from a Beethoven symphony is crudely
'adapted' for a flm sound-track in the same way as a Tolstoy novel i
garbled in a flm script: then the claim that this is done to satsf the
spontaneous wishes of the public is no more tan hot a. We are closer
ts_plain thphenomn_a ie!nt jt1eJ<nical
sonnapparatus which, down to its last cog, it fopirt c!
.e.. on.IeaniUelecton. In addition there i the agreement
produce or sanction anything that in any way differs from thei own
- or at least the determinaton - of all executve authorities not to

rules, their own ideas about consumers, or above all themselves.

9
.In our age the objective socal tey is incarate in the hidd".
,subjective p! oses of companectorsl the foremost among whoj
re in the most p(rful sectors of industy - steel, petolel(..
tric and chemi Culture monopolies are weak and dependent in
comparson. They cannot afford to neglect their appeasement of the real
holders of power if their sphere of activity in mass society (a sphere
producing a specc type of commodity which anyhow is stl too closely
bound up with easygoing liberalsm and Jewish itellectuals) is not to
.
undergo a series of purges. The dependnce..(!e most. powerful
broadcastng cOlnpany on th electrical indu! , (r of th motion pic
r'
(
:twe indY. e banks, is.
.
o

the whole

phere, hoe _
branches.a:e-thems_ eIEsJO.I9millY !terwoyel. All are in
such close contact that the extreme concentation of mental forces allows
demarc, lines between different frms and technical branches to b
ignored The ruthless unity in the culture industry is evidence of what
will happen i politiarked diferentatons such as those of A and B
flms, or of stories in magaznes in different price ranges, depend not so
much on subject matter as on classifing, organizing, and labelling
consumers.ething is provided for all so that none may escape; thE.
ftS.on.a.pegand.extendegj The public is catered for with
a hierarchical range of mass-produced products of varying quality, thus
advancing the rule of complete quantcation. Everybody must behave
(as i spontaneously) in accordance with his previously determined and
4Z ..
Y 41 W1N
indexed level, and choose the category of mass product tured out for
his type. Consumers appear as statistics on research organization charts,
and are divided by income groups into red, green, and blue areas; the
technique is that used for any type of propaganda.
How formalized te procedure is can be seen when te mechanically
df erentated products prove to be all alike in the end. That the df erence
between the Chrsler range and General Motors products is bsically
illusory stikes every cd with a keen interest in vaetes. wt connois-

sellS ds as good or bad points serve only to peletuate te semblance

of competiton and range of choice. The e applies to the Waer
Bs and Meto Goldwyn Mayer productons. But even the df erencs
between te more expensive and cheaper models put out by the same f
steadily dh: for automobiles, there are such diferences as te num
b of cylnders, cubic cpacty, detils of patented gadgets; and for flms
thee a the numer of stars, the extavagant use of techology, labour,
and equipment, and the intoducton of te latest psychologcal formulas.
Te universal citeron of mert is the amount of 'conspicuous producton',
of blatant cash investent. The varing budgets in the culture industy do
not bear the slightest relation to factual values, to the meanig of the
products themselves. Even the teccal media are relentlessly forced into
unifority. sion aims at a synthesis of radiQandJlm,.and is held up
only because te interested partes have not yet reaced agrement, but it
consequences will be quite enorous and promise tojntensifJhe.impo-_
ment of aesthetc matter.so.drgy,Jhat by tomorow te thinly
veled identty ofan industral cule products can come tiumphanty out
into the open, dersively fuilling the Wagneran dream of te
Gemtkunstwk the fsion of all the arts in one work. Te alliance of
word, image, and music is all te more perfect than in Tristan becuse te
sesuous elements which all approvingly refect te surface of socal rality
are in prncple emboded in te same technical process, the unity of which
bcomes its distnctve content. Tis process itegrates all the elements of
the producton, fom the novel (shaped wit an eye to the fm) to te last
sound efect. It is te tumph of ivested capital, whose ttle as absolute
master is etched deep ito the hearts of the dispossessed in the employ
ment line; it is the meaningfl content of eve flm, whatever plot the
producton team may have selected.
T whole world_is _made_to_pass_throug_the..teLQf.he cultur
.indury. The old experence of the movie-goer, who sees the world
outside as an extension of the mhe has just left (because the latter is

\'
l
\

'

Y111V 11W1 W1 W7 Y1WYW
ntentuponreproduOngtheworIdoleverydaypercepnons), s nowthe
producers gudeIne. 1he more ntenseIy and awIessIy h technques
dupIcate emprcaI obects, the easer t i today lor the IIuson to
prevaIthat theoutsdeworIdsthestraghtlorardconnnuanonol that
presentedon thescreen. 1hspurposehasbeenmrtheredbymechancaI
reproductonsnce theIghmng takeover bythesoundIm.
, Rea[]u
0W
gWQ
ggha Dwmthemoves . 1hesound
lIm, lar suqassng the theatre ol IIuson, Ieaves no roomlor magn
atonor reecton onthepart olthe audence, whosunabIetorespond
wt the structure ol the lm, yet devate nom ts precse detaI
wthoutIosngthethreadolthestory, hencetheImlorcestsvcbmsto
equate t drectIy wth reaIty. 1he stunnng ol the mass
-
meda con
sumers powers ol magnaton and spontanety does not have to be
ttacedback toanypsychoIogcaImechasms,hemustascrbe theIossol
those attrbutes to the obectve nature ol the products themseIves,
especaIIytothemostcharacterstcolthem, thesoundlIm. 1heyares
desgned that quckness, powers ol observaton, and experence are
undenabIy needed to apprehend them at aII, yet sustaned thought s
out ol the queston l the spectator s not tomss the reIentIess rush ol
lacts. ven though the ellort requted lor hs response s sem
automatc, lta 1hose who are so
absorbedby theworIdolthemove- byts mages, gestures,andwords
- that they an unabIe to suppIy what reaIIy makes ta worId, do not
have to dweII on parncuIar ponts ol ts mechancs durnga sceenng.
AII the other Ims and products ol the entertanment ndust whch
they have seen have taught them what to expect, they react automan-
caIIy. Jhe mght ol ndusmaI soOety s Iodged n men's mnds. Te
entertanment$ manulacturers know that the_Qrods,&be c]-
umed w_aIrtnessevenwhp.the.custpper s dsnugh

or

eacgoI
\ them s a modeI ol the huge eom
-
mahqeh _\Iway8
sustand_tqeses

hther at work or at Iesuteyhihs qinto

i
_prk, romeverysoundf andevetybroadcastprogammethesoOaI
ellect can be nlerred whch s excIusve to none but s shared by aII
aIRe. Jhe cuIture ndustry as a whoIe has mouIded men as a type
unlaIngIy reproduced n evety product. AII the agents ol ths process,
bomthe producer to thewomen's cIubs, takegoodcarethat thesmpIe
reproductonolthsmentaIstatesnotnuancedorextendednanyway.
Jhe art hstorans and guardans ol cuItun who compIan ol the
extncnonnthe West olabascstyIe-determnngpowerareWrong. 1he
stereotyped appropranon ol everytmg, even the nchoate, lor the

Y 4 IW1N
purposes of mechanical reproducton surpasses the rigour and general
currency of any 'real style', in the sense in which cultural cognoscenti
celebrate the organic precapitalist past. No Palestrina could be more of
a purist in eliminating every unprepared and unresolved discord than
the jazz arranger in suppressing any development which does not
cnform to the jargon. When jazzing up Mozart he changes him not
only when he is too serious or too diffcult but when he harmonizes the
meody in a different way, perhaps more simply, than is customry
now. No medieval builder can have scrutinized the subjects for church
windows and sculptures more suspiciously than the studio hierarchy
scutinizes a work by Balzac or Hugo before fnally approving it. No
medieval theologian could have determined the degree of the torment
to b sufered by the damned in accordance with the ordo of divine love
more meticulously than the producers of shoddy epics calculate the
torture to be undergone by the hero or the exact point to which the
leading lady's hemline shall be raised. The explicit and implicit, exoteric
and esoterc catalogue of the forbidden and tolerated is so extensive
that it not only defnes the area of feedom but is all-powerful inside it.
Everthing down to the last detil is shaped accordingly. Like its
counterart, avant-garde art, the entertainment industry determines its
own language, down to its very syntax and vocabulary, by the use of
anathema. The constant pressure to produce new effects (which must
conform to the old pattern) serves merely as another rule to increase
te power of the conventions when any single effect threatens to slip \.
tough the net. Every detail is so fly stamped with sameness that c
nothing cn appear which is not marked at birth, or does noimeet with
approval at fst sight. And the star performers, whether they produce
or reproduce, use this jargon as feely and fuently and with as much
gusto as if it were the very language whch it silenced long ago. Such is
the ideal of what is natural in this feld of activity, and its inuence
becomes all the more powerful, the more technique is perfected and
diminishes the tension between the fished product and everyday life.
The paradox of this routine, which is essentially tavesty, can be
detected and i often predominant in everything that the culture
industry turs out. A jazz musician who is playing a piece of serious
music, one of Beethoven's simplest minuets, syncopates it involuntary
and will smile superciliously when asked to follow the noral divisions
of the beat. This is the 'nature' which, complicated by the ever-present
and extravagant demands of the specific medium, constitutes the new
style and is a 'system of non-culture, to which one might even concede

YWCOCW AOCWMC AMO mA HCWWImW

a certain "unity of style" i it realy made any sense to speak of stylized
-barbarity' .
The universal imposition of this stylized mode can even go beyond
what is quasi-offcially sanctoned or forbidden; today a hit song is more
readily forgiven for not observing the 32 beats or the compass of the
ninth tan for containg even the most clandestine melodic or har- .
monic detail which does not conform to the idiom. Whenever Orson
Welles offends against the tricks of the trade, he is forgiven because his
departures fom the norm are regarded as calculated mutations which
serve all the more strongly to confrm the validity of the system. The
constraint of the technically conditioned idiom which stars and directors
have to produce as 'nature' so that the people can appropriate it,
extends to such fne nuances that they almost attain the subtlety of the
devices of an avant-garde work as against those of truth. The rare
capacity minutely to fulfil the obligations of the natural idiom in all
branches of the culture industry becomes the criteron of effciency.
What and how they say it must be measurable by everyday language, as
i logcal positivism. The producers are experts. The idiom demands an
astounding productive power, whih it absorbs and squanders. In a
dabolical way it has overeached the culturally conservative distinction
between genuine and artifcal style. P stle might be called artifcial
which is imposed fom without on the refactory impulses of a form.
But in the culture industry every element of the subject matter has its
origin in te same apparatus as that jargon whose stamp it bears. The
quarrels in which the artistic experts become involved with sponsor and
censor about a lie goig beyond the bounds of credibility are evidence
not so much of an inner aesthetc tension as of a divergence of interests.
The reputation of the specialist, in which a last remnant of objective
independence sometimes fnds refuge, conficts with the business poli
tics of the Church, or the concer which is manufacturing the cultural
commodity. But the thing itself has been essentally objectfed and
made viable before the established authorties began to argue about i.
Even before Zanuck acquired her, Saint Bernadette was regarded by her
latter-day hagiographer as brillnt propaganda for all interested parties.
Tat is what became of the emotions of the character. Hence the 'style of
the culture indust, which no longer has to test itself agamst any
refactory material, is also the negaton of style. The rconciation of te
general and partcular, of the rule and the specifc demands of te
subject matter, the achievement of which alone gves essential, mean
ingful content to style, is fute because there has ceased to be te

Y 4 W1N
` .
slightest tension betweel opposite poles: these concordant extremes a
dsmlly identcl; the general c replace the partcular, and vc versa.
Nevertheless, this caricature of style does not amount to something
beyond the genuine style of the past. In the culture industry the noton
of gnuine style is seen to be the aesthetc equivalent of dominaton.
Style considered as mere aesthetc regularity is a romntic dream of the
past. The unity of style not only of the Christian Middle Ages but of the
Renaissance expresses in each case the different structure of social
power, and not the obscure experience of the oppressed in which the
general was enclosed. The great artists were never those who embodied
a wholly fawless and perfect style, but those who used style as a way of
hardeng themselves against the chaotic expression of suffering, as a
negatve tuth. The style of their works gave what was expressed that
force without which life fows away unheard. Those very art forms
which are known as classical, such as Mozart's music, contain objective
trnds which represent something different to the style which they
incaate. As late as Schonberg and Picasso, the great artists have
rtained a mstrust of style, and at crucial points have subordiated it to
the logic of the matter. What Dadaists and Expressionists called the
untruth of stle as such trumphs today in the sung jargon of a cooner,
i the carefully contrved elegance of a flm star, and even in the
admirable expertise of a photograph' of a peasant's squalid hut. Style
represents a promise in every work of art. That which is expressed is
subsumed through style into the dominant forms of generality, into the
language of music, painting, or words, in the hope that it will be
rconciled thus with the idea of tue generality. This promise held out
b the work of a that it wl ceate truth by lending new shape to the
conventional social forms is as necessary as it is hypocriticaL It uncondi
tionally posits the real forms of life as it is by suggesting that fulfilment
lies in their aesthetic dervatives. To this extent the claim of art is always
ideolog too. However, only in this confrontaton with tradition of
which style is the record can art express suffering. That factor in a work
of a which enables it to transcend reality certainly cannot be detched
fom stle; but it does not consist of the harmony actually realized, of
any doubtful unity of form and content, within and without, of ind
vidual arid socety; it is to be found in those features in which dscrep
ancy appears: in the necessary failure of the passionate striving for
identity. Instead of exposing itself to this failure in which the style of the
geat work of art has always achieved self-negation, the inferior work
has always relied on its similarity with others on a surrogate identity.

COCW AOCWMC AMO mA WCWW1mW
cuture ndus _ths mtatO_ becOmes absOg.
stye,

eveas th
_
attmssectet:
Obedence tO the scia etatchy. JOday aesthetcDarbarty cOmpetes
Wha1Dtmeatened1he crea tOsOlthe sQrtsncetheyweregathered
tOgether as cutut and neuttazed. JO sQeak Ol cutute was aways
cOnttaty tO cutute. Lututeasa cOmmOn denOmnatOt ateadycOntans
n embtyO that schematzatOn and QtOcess Ol cataOgung and cassh-
catOnwhchbrngcututewthnthesQheteOladmnsttatOn. Pndts
Qrecsey the ndusttaIzed, the cOnseguent, subsumQhOn whch en-
ttey accOtds wth ths nOhOn Ol cuture. by subOtdnatng n the same
way and tO the same end a ateasOl nteectua cteatOn, byOccuQyng
mens senses hOm thetme they eave thelactOty nthe evenng tOthe
tme they cOck n agan the next mOrnng wth mattet that beats the
mQtess Olthe abOut QtOcesstheythemseves havetOsustanthrOugh-
Out the day, ths subsumQtOn mOckngy satshes the cOnceQt Ol a
unhed cutute whch the QhIOsOQhers Ol QetsOnaty cOnttasted wth
mass cutute.
Jhe cutute ndustty QetQetuay cheats ts cOnsumets Ol what t
QerQetuay QtOmses. Jhe QtOmssOty nOte whch, wth ts QOts and
stagng, tdrawsOnQeasutesendessyQtOOnged;theQtOmse,whch
s actuay athe sQectace cOnssts Ol, s usOty: atactuaycOnhtms
s that the tea QOnt wl nevet be teached, that the dnet must b
satshed wth the menu. In hOnt Ol the aQQette stmuatedbyathOse
brIant names and mages thete s lnaysetnOmOte than a cOmmen-
datOn Ol the deQtessng evetyday wOtd t sOught tO escaQe. LlcOurse
wOtks Ol att wete nOt sexua exhbhOns ethet. Owever, by teQ-
tesentng deQrvatOn as negatve, theytettacted, as t wete, theQtOst-
tutOn Ol the mQuse and tescued by medatOn what was dened. Jhe
secret Ol aesthehc submatOn s ts teQtesentahOn Ol luhment as a
btOken QtOmse. Jhe cutute ndustty dOes nOt submate; tteQtesses.
by teQeatedy exQOsng the Objects Ol deste, bteasts n a cIngng
sweatet Ot the naked tOtsO Ol the athetc hetO, t Omy stmuates the
unsubmated lOteQeasute whch habtua deQrvatOn has Ong snce
teduced tOa masOchstc sembance. Jhete s nOetOhcstuatOn whch,
whIe nsnuatng and exctng, dOes nOt la tO ndcate unmstakaby
that thngs can nevet gOthat lat. Jhe ays Llhce metey cOnhtms the
rtua Ol Jantaus that the cutute ndustty has estabshed anyway.
WOtks Ol att ate ascetc and unashamed; the cutute ndustty s QOtnO-
gtaQhc and Qrudsh. LOve s dOwngtaded tO tOmance. Pnd, altet the
descent, much s Qetmtted; even cence as a matketabe sQecaty has

YWE COLYOWE 1MOOGYWN
its quota bearing the trade description '-daring'. The mass producton of
te sexual automatically achieves its repression. Because of his ubiquity,
te film star with whom one is meant to fall in love is fom the outset a
copy of himself. Every tenor voice comes to sound like a Caruso record,
and the 'natural' faces of Texas grls are like the successful models by
whom Hollywood has typecast them. Th haIis!1 reRroductipn of
galt,-bih reactonary cultural fanaticism wholeheartedly serves in .
it_Ietocal idolization oiduali!. T.;;r-fo 'that ll!-"
s iatwhl:h.was once essential.o beau!. The trumph over
beauty is celebrated by humour - the Schadenfeude that every successful
deprivation calls fort. There is laughter because there i nothing to
laugh at. Laughter, whether conciliatory or terrible, always occurs when
some fear passes. It indicates liberation either from physical danger or
fom the grip of lOgic. Conciliatory laughter is heard as the echo of an
escape from power; the wrong kind overcomes fear by capitulating to
te forces which are to be feared. It is the echo of power as something
inescapable. U is a medicinal bath. The pleasure industry never fails to
prescribe it. It makes laugter the instrument of the fraud practised on
happiness. Moments of happiness are without laughter; only operettas
and flms portay sex to the accompaniment of resounding laughter. But
Baudelaire is as devoid of humour as Holderlin. In the false society
laughter is a disease which has attacked happiness and is drawing it into
its worthless totality. To laugh at something is always to deride it, and
the life which, according to Bergson, in laughter breaks through the
barrer, i actually an invading barbaric life, self-asserton prepared to
parde its liberaton fom any scruple when the social occasion arises.
Suc a laughing audience is a parody of humanity. Its members are
monads, all dedicated to the pleasure of being ready for anything at the
expense of everyone else. Their harmony is a caricature of solidarity.
What i fendish about this false laughter is that it is a compelling parody
of te best, which is conciliatory. Delight is austere: res severa verum
gaudium. The monastic theory that not asceticism but the sexual act
denotes the renunciation of attainable bliss receives negatve confr
maton in the gravity of the lover who with foreboding commits h life
to the fleeting moment. In te culture industy, jovial denial taes the
place of the pain found in ecstasy and in asceticism. The supreme law is
tat they shall not satisfy their desires at any price; they must laugh and
be content with laughter. In every product of the culture industry, the
permanent denial iposed by civilization is once again unmistakably
demonstated and inficted on its victms. To offer and to deprive them

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of something is one and the same. This is what happens in erotic flms.
Precisely because it must never take place, everything centres upon
copulation. In flms it is more strictly forbidden for an illegitimate
relationship to be admitted without the parties being punished than for
a millionaie's future son-in-law to be active in the labour movement. In
contrast to the liberal era,Jusmalized_aLwell as EPui. aLcul!ure may
_
wingnant at

EitalQut)t ctnce the theat oJ cas

tion. This is fundamllt outlasts the organized acceptance of the
uniformed seen in the flms which are produced to that end, and in
reality. What is decisive today is no longer puritanism, although it still
asserts itself in the form of women's organizations, but the necessity
inherent in the system not to leave the customer alone, not for a moment
to allow-spicin that resistance is possible. The principle
dictates that he should be shown all his needs as capable of fulflment,
but that those needs should be so predetermined that he feels himself to
be the eternal consumer, the object of the culture industry. Not only
does it make him believe that the deception it practises is satisfaction,
but it goes further and implies that, whatever the state of affairs, he
must put up with what is offered. The escape fom everyday drudgery
which the whole culture industry promises may be compared to the
daughter's abduction in the cartoon: the father is holding the ladder in
the dark. The paradise offered by the culture industry is the same old
drudgery. Both escape and elopement are predesigned to lead back to
the starting point. Pleasure promotes the resignation which it ought to
help to forget.
Amusement, i released fom every restraint, would not only be the
antithesis of art but its extreme role. The Mark Twain absurdity with
which the American culture industry fts at ties might be a corrective
of art. The more seriously the latter regards the incompatbility with life,
the more it resembles the seriousness of life, its antithesis; the more
effort it devotes to developing wholly fom its own formal law, the more
effort it demands fom the intelligence to neutralize its burden. In some
revue flms, and especially in the grotesque and the funnies, the possi
bility of this negation does glimmer for a few moments. But of course it
cannot happen. Pure amusement in its consequence, relaxed self
surrender to all kinds of associations and happy nonsense, is cut short
by the amusement on the market: instead, it is interrupted by a surro
gate overall meaning which the culture industry insists on giving to its
products, and yet misuses as a mere pretext for bringing in the stars.
Biographies and other simple stories patch the fagments of nonsense

Y 41V WWVN
into an idiotic plot. We do not have the cap and bells of the jester but the
bunc of keys of capitalist reason, which even screens the pleasure of
achieving success. Ever kiss in the revue flm has to contribute to the
career of the boxer, or some hit song expert or other whose rse to fame
i being glorifed. The deception is not that te culture industry supplies
amusement but that it ruins the fun by allowing business considerations
to involve i in the ideological cliches of a culture in the process of self
liquidation. Ethics and taste cut short unrestrained amusement as
'nave' - naIvete is thought to be as bad as intellectualism and even
restrict technical possibilities. The culture industry is corrupt; not be
cause it i a sinful Babylon but because it i a cathedral dedicated to
elevated pleasure. On all levels, fom Hemingway to Emil Ludwig, from
Mrs Mniver to the Lone Ranger, fom Toscanini to Guy Lombardo,
tere is untruth in the intellectual content taken ready-made from art
and scence. The culture industry does retain a trace of something better
in tose features which bring it close to the circus, in te self-justing
and nonsensical skill of riders, acrobats and downs, in the 'defence and
justifcation of physical as against intellectual art'. But te refuges of a
mindless artistry which represents what is human as opposed to the
socal mechanism are being relentlessly hunted down by a schematic
reason which compels everything to prove its signifcance and efect.
Te consequence is that the nonsensical at the bottom disappears as
utterly as the sense in works of art at the top.
I the culture industy the individual is an illusion not merely because of
te stndardization of the means of producton. He is tolerated only so
long.s.is-eomplete identifcation with the generality is unquestioned.
o indivduali te standardized jErovization to
te exceFtiQJJlst whose hair curls over her eye to demonstat
.gialit- ;- What is individual is no more than the generality's
power to stamp the accdental detail so frmly that it is accepted as such.
Te defant reserve or elegant appearance of the individual on show i
mass-produced lie Yale locks, whose only difference can be measured
i fractions of millimetres. The peculiarity of the self is a monopoly
commodity determined by socety; it is falsely represented as naturaL It
i no more than the moustache, the French accent, the deep voice of the
woman of the world, the Lubitsch touch: finger prnts on identity cards
which are otherwise exactly the same, and into which the lives and faces
of every single person are tansfored by the power of the generality.
Pseudo indivduality i the prerequisite for comprehending tragedy and

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removing its poison: only because individuals have ceased to be them
selves and are now merely centres where the general tendencies meet, is
it possible to receive them again, whole and entire, into the generality.
In this way mass culture discloses the fctitious character of the 'indi
vidual' in the bourgeois era, and is merely unjust in boasting on account
of this dreary harmony of general and particular. The principle of
individuality was always full of contradiction. Individuation has never
really been achieved. Self-preservation in the shape of class has kept
everyone at the stage of a mere species being. Every bourgeois charac
teristic, in spite of its deviation and indeed because of it, expressed the
same thing: the harshness of the competitive society. The individual
who supported society bore its disfiguring mark; seemingly free, he was
actually the product of its economic and social apparatus. Power based
itself on the prevailing conditions of power when it sought the approval
of persons affected by it. As it progressed, bourgeois society did also
develop the individual. Against the wil of its leaders, technology has
changed human beings fom children into persons. However, every
advance in individuation of this kind took place at the expense of the
individuality in whose name it occurred, so that nothing was left but the
resolve to pursue one's own particular purpose. The bourgeois whose
existence is split into a business and a private life, whose private life is
split into keeping up his public image and intimacy, whose intimacy is
split into the surly partnership of marriage and the bitter comfort of
being quite alone, at odds with himself and everybody else, is already
vitually a Nazi, replete both with enthusiasm and abuse; or a modern
city-dweller who can now only imagine friendship as a 'social contact':
that is, as being in social contact with others with whom he has no
inward contact., Te only-eason why the culture industry can-.-al so

essfu with inh_is,_ thatJheJatte)as _always reroduced

the fagsocet,,- On the faces of private individuals and movie
heroes put together according to the patterns on magazine covers
vanishes a pretence in which no one now believes; the popularity of the
hero models comes partly fom a secret satisfaction that the effort to
achieve individuation has at last been replaced by the effort to imitate,
which is admittedly more breathless. It is idle to hope that this self
contradictory, disintegrating 'person' wil not last for generations, that
the system must collapse because of such a psychological split, or that
the deceitful substitution of the stereotype for the individual will of itself
become unbearable for mankind. Since Shakespeare's Hamlet, the unity
of the personality has been seen through as a pretence. Synthetically
9Z
YHE COLYOWE IMOOGYWN
produced physiognomies show that the people of today have already
forgotten that there was ever a notion of what human life was. For
centuries society has been preparing for Victor Mature and Mickey
Rooney. By destroying they come to flfil.