Page 37 - Cultural Studies and Political Economy

26 Chapter One

The “disciplining function” of music has long been known. But, in the age of
the culture industry, the contradictions are taken to a new level. When work-
ing people made their own music, it rebelled against conventions and op-
pression through “impulse, subjectivity and profanation;” when music is pro-
duced by the culture industry, however, “the listener is converted, along his
line of least resistance, into the acquiescent purchaser. . . . Representatives of
the opposition to the authoritarian schema become witnesses to the authority
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of commercial success.” Music complements the reduction of people to si-
lence, filling “the pockets of silence that develop between people moulded by
anxiety, work and undemanding docility.” 84
Adorno and Horkheimer chose the term the culture industry rather than
mass culture to emphasize that non-elite culture for the most part no longer
arises spontaneously from the grass roots; nor is it to be understood as the
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contemporary form of popular culture. Rather, they insisted, the outputs of
the culture industry are consciously and purposefully manufactured by elites
whose intent is to make money. 86 Whereas authentic popular culture, for
Adorno, is not merely rebellious but is also an “expression of suffering and
contradiction [whereby people attempt] to maintain a grasp on the idea of the
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good life,” outputs of the culture industry falsely insist that “the good life”
is attainable here and now, that by conforming to the consumptionist ethic
happiness is available immediately.

Control of Consciousness
Commercial media, then, Adorno claimed, impose “civilizational constraints”
on cultural commodities by removing rebelliousness or calls to dissent previ-
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ously characterizing popular culture. In contrast to genuinely working class
songs and other cultural artifacts, one might note, commercial media rarely
call for picketing or boycotting; rather, voting (for pre-selected and heavily
marketed candidates) is set forth as the hallmark of democratic expression. 89
In his analysis of the astrology column of the Los Angeles Times, for in-
stance, Adorno pointed to its essentially conservative ideology, its justifying
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of the status quo, and its promulgating social conformity. The column im-
plicitly urged readers to adjust themselves “to the commands of the stars at
given times,” emphasizing thereby “the individual’s powerlessness” in the
face of cosmic design, which the column compensated for “with suggestions
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of unexpected good fortune, assistance and the like.” Adorno’s editor, J. M.
Bernstein, adds, “What holds for astrology exemplifies the culture industry
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generally from advertising to film and television.” One wishes that Adorno
might have lived long enough to unfold the conformity-inducing function of
lotteries!