Horkheimer & Adorno – Melanie Roth

I enjoyed reading about Horkheimer and Adorno’s theories. My attention was initially grabbed in the introductory paragraph, where it states, “Culture today is infecting everything with sameness” (Horkheimer and Adorno, 53). I initially related this statement back to some of our other theorists, but as I continued reading, I realized that Horkheimer and Adorno used a different approach when theorizing the culture industry.

Horkheimer and Adorno claim, “Nothing is allowed to stay as it was, everything must be endlessly in motion” (59). Our history of music in the different eras within the United States is proof of this. This morning in my History of Rock and Roll class, we learned about the transition from the hippie generation that arose in the 1960’s, to heavy metal in the 1970’s. In the documentary that I watched, a heavy metal rock star stated that they were tired of the laid back thing, so they “stabbed the heart of the love generation”. This new idea of music was alarming to the public at first, and then like past musical movements, heavy metal turned into a phenomenon. The processes of these musical movements in our society ”perpetuate the appearance of competition and choice” (Horkheimer and Adorno, 55).

When we look back on these two musical era’s we see how “The permanent compulsion to produce new effects which yet remain bound to the old schema, becoming additional rules, merely increases the power of the tradition which the individual effect seeks to escape” (Horkheimer and Adorno, 57). Not only did the music completely change, but the performances of the two rock ages shifted dramatically as well. The rock shows in the 1970’s incorporated theatrics that had never been used before. By hiring Broadway set designers, incorporating smoke and lightshows, and by wearing intricate costumes to create an iconic stage persona, these heavy metal rock artists introduced a new culture industry to society. The set designs were extravagantly constructed, providing the audience with much more stimulation without distracting them from the music. This goes along with Horkheimer and Adorno’s theory because people who attended the concerts were not “entirely transfixed by the special operations of the machinery at the moment of the performance” (56).

Music is just one of the many things constantly changing in our society, and I agree with Horkheimer and Adorno when they state “The routine translation of everything, even of what has not yet been thought, into the schema of mechanical reproducibility goes beyond the rigor and scope of any true style – the concept with which culture lovers idealize the recapitalize past as an organic era” (56). I am looking forward to leaving class tomorrow with a more in-depth understanding of Horkheimer and Adorno’s theories and hope to discover more examples from my everyday life.