Post Class - 10/27

Looking back on the readings and discussion for this past week, I believe that the Adorno and Horkheimer essay really exemplifies the idea that our society relies on “sameness” in order to succeed.  In class, we discussed the idea that as Adorno and Horkheimer state, “The concept of a genuine style becomes transparent in the culture industry as the aesthetic equivalent of power” (47).  This concept is extremely important, because it illustrates the fact that our society has, overtime, become obsessed with capital, or in other words, money.  The first time I realized the extent as to which this is true, was while reading and discussing Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” especially when pertaining to the idea that artwork – whether it be film, painting, ect. – is produced solely for capital, monetary value as opposed to for pleasure.  I think this idea truly pertains to Adorno and Horkheimer, especially when discussing in class, the Dove commercial.  I remember watching and analyzing this commercial in CMC 100, and focusing on the fact that while the commercial was supposed to encourage natural beauty, instead, the commercial just proved that the woman in the commercial who seemed “naturally” beautiful, was in fact, a result of Photoshop.  This speaks directly to the Adorno and Horkheimer quote stated above, because our society has become one where, instead of focusing on natural beauty, and products that are efficient rather than flashy, we spend our time and money worrying about looking a certain way, and buying a certain product, in order to make others aware of the power that we have.

This idea that power is based on wealth and what one person has that others do not, is something that our society relies on, in order to function.  As Adorno and Horkheimer discuss in their essay, the fact that society relies on capital as a form of power, illustrates just how powerful ideology is in our culture.  Without this ideology, power in the form of wealth wouldn’t be the main focus of our society.