Theme 2: Critical media studies

This is my reflection of the texts Dialectic of Enlightenment by Adorno & Horkheimer (1944) and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin (1936). Now with pictures.

Enlightenment vs myth

Adorn & Horkheimer, from now on A&H, talks about enlightenment in opposition to myth (later we will see that this opposition is actually false, in a way), where enlightenment on one side stands for the known, the measurable and objectivity, and myth is, on the other hand, the immeasurable and the unknown. While both myth and enlightenment are attempts to understand the world, myth tries to imitate and relate to nature, and accepts that there are unknowable qualities to it. Enlightenment tries to rule nature and determine the outcomes, giving us objective knowledge of the world, but at the same time putting us above and further away from nature. A&H argues that the reasoning of enlightenment creates a single system for the world, and to do that all objects must be made similar and abstract, which clashes with the nominalist view that no such abstract things exist. With enlightenment subjectivity is lost, things are reduced to the same abstract concept. This thought kind of goes hand in hand with Benjamin's text where he talks about an object's aura and which is lost in reproduction, but more on that later.

In the end, and I’m not sure I’m following A&H’s logic here, myth is already enlightenment and enlightenment is myth as well. They argue that myth tries to understand and explain nature in order to control it, hence it is enlightenment (enlightenment also tries to control nature, remember?). This argument is kind of easy to follow. But why is enlightenment reverting to myth? One argument could be that the more object-focused we become (through the enlightenment), we ourselves are reduced to objects. Thus, enlightenment has imitating qualities just like myth has. As a result, myth and enlightenment is really standing in a false opposition.

Aura and nominalism vs reproduction

In Benjamin’s essay he writes that technical advancements has made reproduction of art easier, changing our perception of art and art itself. This process makes art lose its aura (that he defines as the unique distance to and object). Using a Marxist dialectic approach, Benjamin talks about superstructure and substructure (base). The substructure consists of the ‘material things’, i.e technique and economy, everything related to production. These are the same thing that makes up the base of the Marx’s dialectic as well, which is a kind of materialist view. The superstructure the other fluff, art for example.

As I see it, the aura is what makes the object unique, it stands for subjectivity and quality. With the reproduction of objects (art in this case), the object is reduced to an abstract thing, giving us quantity and sameness. According to nominalism, abstract objects do not exist, there can only be particular and individual things. As I see it, when reproducing art and reducing it to an abstract thing, it goes against the nominalist view of the world. Taking an individual and subjective piece and turning it into something objective and abstract is working against that idea. I hope it makes sense.

A&H vs Benjamin

Since all three are from the Frankfurt School there’s a lot of resemblance between them, with the influence from Marx’s ideas. Despite all the similarities, I got the feeling that Benjamin had an overall more positive view of the change in culture and art, seeing both the good and the bad sides with mass production. A&H seems more pessimistic and think we are all being brainwashed. I’m positive you could give a more nuanced view of their ideas, but that’s the main difference that I see. 

I wish I had more time to really understand and analyze the texts but this was the best I could do. Thanks for reading!