Page 54 - Cultural Studies and Political Economy

Genealogy of Political Economy 43

between capital and labor by amalgamating the proletariat and the bour-
geoisie into a “mass class,” he retained the basic Marxist notion of class con-
flict. For Adorno, the mass class is manipulated and oppressed by the elite. 213
Innis had a similar view; he considered class in various civilizations, but in
all of them there is a small elite controlling the means of communication (a
priesthood in control of parchment, an industrial elite in control of radio and
the newspaper, a scientific elite in charge of knowledge at Alexandria, and so
on). Both Innis and Adorno, moreover, proposed a coterie of dissenters:
“high” artists for Adorno who by their independence and superior insight
could see society as it really is; and for Innis, groups at the margin (in former
years often located in universities) contesting domination, or challenging es-
tablished power by introducing new media of communication.
These writers were dialectical in other matters. Adorno saw an opposition
between high art and low art, for example, but thought they were merging as
both became debased by commodification. Likewise, in Innis’ view, popular
culture and science, the vernacular and the scholarly, although in principle
vastly different, are today reinforcing one another to constitute the (space-
binding) monopoly of knowledge of our time. Innis, of course, emphasized an
opposition between time and space as organizing principles, but a similar
dialectic can be discerned in Adorno’s treatment of art: he maintained that
non-commodified art, whether “high” or “low,” critically appraises current
conditions within a temporal (lived historical) context, whereas commodified
art is narcissistic, erases problems from consciousness, and encourages audi-
ences to live in and for the present (“present-mindedness”).
Innis and Adorno were both, consequently, concerned about the waning of
high art and/or critical scholarship. For Innis, space-binding media had be-
come so prevalent that even the universities (last bastions of free expression)
were becoming complicit in supporting corporate and military control. Innis
bemoaned, too, the standardization of cultures once penetrated by the price
system and other space-binding media of communication. He maintained that
only at rare intervals did scholarship and creativity become freed from pres-
sures for conformity. For Adorno, the high arts have been largely emptied of
critical content and have essentially become status goods renowned for their
exchange value. Adorno emphasized standardization and sameness in cultural
artifacts once absorbed by the culture industry, while Innis likewise critically
appraised mechanized media and their need to achieve economies of scale
through standardization.
Adorno and Innis shared dialectical perspectives on knowledge and power.
For Innis the paradox of science was that after becoming freed from the grip
of time-binding control (the Church), it succumbed to space-biased interests
(corporations, military). For Adorno, the irony has been that while science