Page 98 - Critical and Cultural Theory

IDEOLOGY
(Adorno 1977: 191). Kafka, moreover, is said to have 'laid bare
the inhumanity of a repressive social totality' (Adorno 1984: 327).
Despite their differences, both Lukacs and Adorno associate art
with the interplay of knowledge and ideology. Lukacs does so
explicitly by positing Realism as a privileged means of conveying
socio-historical truths. Adorno seems more concerned with the
aesthetic dimension but also refers to the cognitive function - for
example, when he asserts that 'art implies reality because it is a
form of knowledge' (Adorno 1984: 366). As a form of knowledge,
the effectiveness of art grows in direct proportion to its ability to
expose hidden ideological agendas: The greatness of works of art
lies in their power to let those things be heard which ideology
conceals' (Adorno 1984: 155).
Whilst commending Modernism, Adorno is also committed to
separating what he regards as authentic art from popular products
that are merely capable of affording transient gratification.
Adorno sees genuine art as a superior form of cognition and a
foretaste of a better society, in contrast with the spurious fusion of
culture and entertainment fostered by mass production and mass
consumption. These practices, dubbed the pleasure or culture
industry, are forced upon people by a commercial ideology which
subjugates everything to the logic of the market place, thus trans-
forming people themselves into commodified stereotypes, numbing
their responses and condemning them to a destiny of endless
deferral: 'The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of
.
what it perpetually promises' for 'the promise .. is illusory: all it
actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached, that
the diner must be satisfied with the menu' (Adorno and Horkhei-
mer 1986: 139). However, not all members of the Frankfurt
School subscribe to this view of popular culture. For example,
Walter Benjamin, though eager to assess the ideological purposes
which popular images serve, welcomes mass production as a
means of destroying the original artwork's putative uniqueness, or
aura, and hence releasing it into wider and more accessible
cultural domains. 4
In recent years, theories of ideology have been substantially
influenced by Poststructuralism. By examining the cultural

4
l*"Benjamin's theories are examined in some detail in Part III, Chapter 5, The
Machine' and in Part III, Chapter 6, 'The Simulacrum'.

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