VLVL2 (9) opening lines ... this ain't no hunchback ...soldier

[Terrance]

This ain't no Hunchback ... Ralph/Rochelle  P/M atriarchs & Rackets


Society is full of desperate people and therefore a prey to rackets. In
some of the most significant German novels of the pre-Fascist era such
as Doblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz and Fallada's Kleiner Mann, Was Nun,
this trend was as obvious as in the average film and in the devices of
jazz. What all these things have in common is the
self-derision of man. The possibility of becoming a subject in the
economy, an entrepreneur or a proprietor, has been completely
liquidated. 
Right down to the humblest shop, the independent enterprise, on the
management and inheritance of which the bourgeois family and the
position of its head had rested, became hopelessly dependent. Everybody
became an employee; and in this civilization of employees the dignity of
the father (questionable anyhow) vanishes. 



The attitude of the individual to the racket, business, profession or
party, before or after admission, the Fuhrer's gesticulations before the
masses, or the suitor's before his sweetheart, assume specifically
masochistic traits. 


The attitude into which everybody is forced in order to give repeated
proof of his moral suitability for this society reminds one of the boys
who, during tribal initiation, go round in a circle with a stereotyped
smile on their faces while the priest strikes them. Life in the late
capitalist era is a constant initiation rite. Everyone must show that he
wholly identifies himself with the power which is belaboring him. This
occurs in the principle of jazz syncopation, which simultaneously
derides stumbling and makes it a rule. The eunuch-like voice of the
crooner on the radio, the heiress's smooth suitor, who falls into the
swimming pool in his dinner jacket, are models for those who must become
whatever the system wants. Everyone can be like this omnipotent society;
everyone can be happy, if only he will capitulate fully and sacrifice
his claim to happiness. 

In his weakness society recognizes its strength, and gives him some of
it. His defenselessness makes him reliable. Hence tragedy is discarded.
Once the opposition of the individual to society was its substance. It
glorified "the bravery and freedom of emotion before a powerful enemy,
an exalted affliction, a dreadful problem."4 

Today tragedy has melted away into the nothingness of that false
identity of society and individual, whose terror still shows for a
moment in the empty semblance of the tragic. But the miracle of
integration, the permanent act of grace by the authority who receives
the defenseless person–once he has swallowed his
rebelliousness–signifies Fascism. 



This can be seen in the humanitarianism which Doblin uses to let his
Biberkopf find refuge, and again in socially-slanted films. The capacity
to find refuge, to survive one's own ruin, by which tragedy is defeated,
is found in the new generation; they can do any work because the work
process does not let them become attached
to any. 

This is reminiscent of the sad lack of conviction of the homecoming
soldier with no interest in the war, or of the casual laborer who ends
up by joining a paramilitary organization. This liquidation of tragedy
confirms the abolition of the individual.


The Culture Industry
by Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969)