The Great Man's Influence: Wallowing in Agreement?

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Carlton Fist schrieb:

> The Frankfurt school distrusted low
> culture not because they were elitist snobs but because they were convinced
> (and rightfully so) that the totalitarian experiments of the first half of
> the 20th century were often created and sustained (at least partially)
> through low culture (recall, for instance, the millions of radios sold
> throughout Germany in the 30s with only one station on the dial, as well as
> the films produced under Goebbels' watch).

Right, but this is surely not an argument against "popular culture" which is as
diverse as "high culture". It is more a matter of technology and how you use it
for propagandistic aims. At least as far as music is concerned, the protagonists
of the Frankfurter Schule may well be perceived as elitist snobs because they
filed all popular forms alike under "Kulturindustrie". Implied in this is an
anti-Americanism that to this day unites the left and the right in Germany (this
is the broad brush, I know). But certainly the musical forms of jazz, blues,
rock, pop contained and expressed liberating values, especially as far as the
African-American community is concerned, apart from the fact that they produced
masterpieces as deep as anything in the European high art tradition. You simply
cannot put Robert Johnson or John Coltrane or Marvin Gaye or Public Enemy into
the same category as Britney Spears or Ron Bon Jovi, which is basically what
Adorno did, and the same goes for the Beatles, Robert Zimmerman or the Sex
Pistols.

This said, nowadays the views of Adorno, Horkheimer etc. to me seem to be more
relevant than ever. Especially because they are mostly perceived as being
irrelevant and naive in today's Germany, often by people who come out of exactly
that tradition. And popular culture seems indeed to come closer and closer to
becoming just the thing Adorno saw in it forty years ago.

Thomas