RECTO RUNNING HEAD - Verlaine

1 RECTO RUNNING HEADADORNO ONPOPULAR CULTUREIn the decades since his death, Adorno s thinking has lost none of its capacityto unsettle the settled, and has proved hugely influential in social and culturalthought. To most people, the entertainment provided by television, radio,film, newspapers, astrology charts and CD players seems harmless Adorno, however, the culture industry that produces them is ultimatelytoxic in its effect on the social process. He argues that modern mass entertain-ment is manufactured under conditions that reflect the interests of producersand the market, both of which demand the domination and manipulation ofmass Robert W. Witkin unpacks Adorno s notoriously difficult critique ofpopular culture in an engaging and accessible style. Looking first at itsgrounding in a wider theory of the totalitarian tendencies of late capitalistsociety, he then goes on to examine, in some detail, Adorno s writing onspecific aspects of popular culture such as astrology, radio, film, television,popular music and jazz.

2 He concludes with his own critical reflections onAdorno s cultural book will be essential reading for students of the sociology of culture,of cultural studies, and of critical theory more W. Witkinis Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter andis the author of Adorno on Music(1998) and Art and Social Structure(1995).INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF SOCIOLOGYF ounded by Karl MannheimEditor: John UrryUniversity of LancasterADORNO ON POPULAR CULTURER obert W. WitkinFirst published 2003by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4 EESimultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group 2003 Robert W. WitkinAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British LibraryLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataWitkin, Robert W.

3 (Robert Winston)Adorno on popular culture / Robert W. cm. (International library of sociology)Includes bibliographical references and Adorno, Theodor W., 1903 1969. 2. Popular Title. II. W58 2002306 .092 dc212002069895 ISBN 0-415-26824-9 (hbk)ISBN 0-415-26825-7 (pbk)This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 0-203-16606-X Master e-book ISBNISBN 0-203-26067-8 (Adobe eReader Format)CONTENTSP refacevii1 Cultural nemesis12 The theory of pseudo-culture163 The Dialectic of Enlightenmentand The Ring of the Nibelungen334 The decay of aura and the schema of mass culture505 Star power686 Situating music socially837 On popular music988 Adorno s radio days1169 Film and television13510 Woody Allen s culture industry15111 Walking a critical line home170 References188 Index191vviAUTHORviiCHAPTER TITLEPREFACEA dorno on Popular Culturecompletes a critical review of Adorno s writingson culture that began with the publication of my earlier book Adorno onMusic.

4 I would like to express my thanks to my good friend, Chris Rojekfor his encouragement to me personally and his enthusiasm for the writingsof Adorno. I am grateful to Mari Shullaw, the senior sociology editor atRoutledge who agreed to take the project on and to find a space for the newvolume in the ILS. Finally, I wish to express my thanks to the LeverhulmeTrust for the award of a Major Research Fellowship (2001 3) which hasprovided me with a period of sustained research and writing time. Most of the chapters of the present text centre themselves around areading of an article sometimes more than one or a chapter of a book byAdorno. This was also the method of Adorno on both volumes, Iopted to undertake a close reading of primary texts and to preserve, for thereader, so far as is possible, the sustained theoretical tension of Adorno sargumentation in the specific writings chosen for discussion.

5 There is inevit-ably a certain degree of thematic overlap among topics but that, too, is afeature of Adorno s own writings which, like the music he admires, develop agreat many variations from a very few basic would be wrong, however, to see this book as a straightforwardexposition of Adorno s ideas. Notwithstanding the care I have taken tocapture his line of argumentation, I have always had an agenda of my ownthat drives my interest in his writings. It will be apparent to the reader atkey points in the text; for example, where I juxtapose Adorno s ideas withthose of others none of them, with the exception of Benjamin, is selectedfrom the pantheon of theorists with whom he is usually associated. Some ofthese juxtapositions reveal the wider associations of Adorno s cultural critiquewith the work of American critics, for example, David Riesman.

6 Adorno isalso confronted with himself in other guises as in the chapter in which aconnection is drawn between the Dialectic of Enlightenmentand Wagner s Ringcycle. In the chapter on Popular Music Adorno s arguments are brought upagainst the very different and in many ways opposed views of WinthropviiiPREFACES argeant, the jazz critic that Adorno himself repeatedly cited in support ofhis ideas. Adorno is also confronted with the very different ideas of Benjaminconcerning the work of art in the modern age, ideas that open the way to acritique of Adorno s theory of popular culture. It is in the last two chapters,however, that I have taken the most theoretical licence, developing a criticalapproach to Adorno s thesis concerning popular culture through pursuingmy own agenda in the sociology of art. In Chapter 10 I have broughtAdorno s work on radio and film into relationship with two movies thatdeal with popular culture of the period in which Adorno was writing,Woody Allen s Radio Days and The Purple Rose of Cairo.

7 In the final chapter, Ihave drawn even more directly on my own theorizing in order to putAdorno s ideas under a degree of critical pressure and to complete the processof walking a critical line that I began in the final chapter of the previousvolume. There are other secondary works, many of them excellent, that discussAdorno s ideas on popular culture and music. There are books, too, that locatehis ideas in the discourse universes of Marxism and Critical Theory to whichhe clearly belongs. If I have chosen a different approach to his work, it islargely because my method has been to narrow my focus in the exposition toa fresh reading of primary texts. Nevertheless, the secondary literature onAdorno has most certainly helped to shape my understanding of his work. Inthis regard, no-one will be surprised to see me name the following as thosewhose books have personally influenced me the most: Rose Subotnik (1990,1996), Max Halle Paddison (1993), Martin Jay (1973), Susan Buck-Morss(1977), Gillian Rose (1978), Jay Bernstein (1993).

8 There are other excellentsecondary sources in addition to these (see Deborah Cook 1996).Notwithstanding the critical agenda that is carried both implicitly through-out and explicitly in the latter part of this book and the disagreements Ihave with Adorno, which are significant, perhaps fundamental it will notescape the reader that this book, like its predecessor, is a critical appreciationof Adorno s ideas with the accent on appreciation . I have learned too muchfrom him for it to be WitkinExeter, January 20021 CULTURAL NEMESISIn the decades since his death, Adorno s thinking has lost none of itscapacity to unsettle the settled, to discomfort those who believe, implicitlyor explicitly, that the world can be mastered, or even that they have asecure home in it. Adorno struck out against modern popular culture in allits forms.

9 He spared nothing in his relentless critique. To most people, thecomforts at the heart of modern living, the entertainment provided bytelevision, radio, film, newspapers, astrology charts and CD players seemharmless enough. The media give pleasure, put people in touch with thewider world, provide amusement, excitement and entertainment, improvethe access of all social classes to what were hitherto the cultural goods ofthe rich, relieve the boredom and loneliness of living alone and so best of their contents are genuinely popular . For Adorno, however,this popularity becomes part of the object of criticism. He challenges thenotion that the elements of popular culture are harmless. He insists ontreating popular culture as a deadly serious business, as something that isultimately toxic in its effects on the social process.

10 If the defenders ofpopular culture have not been persuaded by Adorno, they have often beendiscomforted by him, and his thesis, like a bone in the throat, stillcommands their attention. To appreciate the force of Adorno s critique of popular culture, however, itis necessary to set on one side all those easy judgements to the effect that hisis a snobbish reaction to the vulgarity of popular art advanced by a devoteeof so-called high art. What Adorno offers is not a judgement of taste but atheory concerning the moral and political projects inhering in both serious and popular art. It is not even true to say that he was incapable ofappreciating any popular culture. He was certainly responsive to the films ofChaplin and to the anarchistic humour of the Marx Brothers. And it is clearfrom his writings that he kept abreast of developments in the major media films, radio, television and advertising.