Critical media studies, or is an apple still an apple?

Dialectic of enlightenment

Dialectic is an argumentative technique that, very simplified, is based on using opposing viewpoint against each other to reach a conclusion, with logical arguments from both sides being equally heard.

To explain how the authors talk about enlightenment I must first explain how they talk about myth. According to them, myth is the old way of the world, a way to explain creation and destruction that is not based on nature or logic. Instead myth used magic and stories to tell and explain why the world functions as it does. Since the people of old didn’t know why seasons existed they invented a story to explain it that, while it had no basis in reality, still helped people rationalize the absurdities that was their reality. The telling and repetition of such stories gave meaning to life,and that is what the authors refer to as myth.

In the context of this, enlightenment takes the shape of a more logical base for such important issues such as why and how. The way to free us from these mythological bonds is with knowledge. Within enlightenment, knowledge is King and Queen, God itself. However, they also state that were the teachings of enlightenment to stray into being just blindly repeated as truth, without the basics for it being obvious, then it would over time morph into myth.

Enlightenment, in the way the authors of text Adorno and Horkheimer are using it, is a system of thinking that seeks to destroy the old myth-based worldview, and instead replace it with one based and logic and natural laws. It seeks to free the people of the world from the fear and lack of control they were living under before they were enlightened.

Enlightenment is to its nature dependent on the concept of Nominalism. Nominalism denies the existence of single, universal truths and entities. If there were to exist such a thing as an universal apple, then all apples that differ from it would not be apples. If a universal apple does not exist then we must always re-evaluate what an apple is, which then in turn gives us an enlightened way to look at the object that is not risking being based on myth.

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Superstructure and substructure are marxist terms relating to how production is accomplished. A substructure is the actual means in which things are produced, while the superstructure connects and controls, governs, what might be produced. To analyze culture from a marxist perspective is to acknowledge that culture is in no way exempt from these structures, and that you cannot ignore the influence the means of production has on the finished product.

Art created in a fascist context is, according to Benjamin, always reactionary. Propaganda, Hitler’s radio speeches, they are all politics that have been given a veneer of aesthetics. Even war itself can be made a beautiful act in this way. On the other side of the aisle we have the culture Benjamin do believe to be capable of revolution. Progressive art that uses politics in an aesthetic way can according to him truly be revolutionary, but not the other way around.

Perceptions are dependant on the form the object we are observing take. Benjamin talks about the different ways we are capable of appreciating a building to that of a painting. Architecture is visual, but a building is not made to be watched, but to be lived in. Touch, and perhaps even smell and sound are important factors in analyzing houses. Paintings, on the other hand, are only made to be appealing visually. He also talks about the way changes in the form has affected us. Before sound could be repeated exactly on a recording mistakes were not as noticeable, since the performance was fleeting and not repeatable.

When a work of art is produced by an artist by hand it has a place and a time to which it is associated. It is in itself unique because even if the artist was to make another, it would differ in minute ways and would always have been created in another context. When art, and indeed other objects, are being mechanically reproduced it removes the object from the tradition and context that has built it. Benjamin refers to to the “cult” of art, that is, art that has been created not for being viewed by a public, but instead has been created for a spiritual purpose. Producing things for consumption or appreciation, he claims, is the remove the aura of that thing. Objects in nature also has an aura, but one that is based on different things. Benjamin refers to the link between uniqueness and permanence. That a mountain is unique is partially based on the fact that it is permanent. If you were to move it to another location, it would perhaps not be the same mountain.