Phil 2222: Philosophy of Art

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Phil 2222 Philosophy of Art

• A brief introduction to Critical Theory

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The Frankfurt School

• Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Marcuse, Neumann,
  Kirchheimer, Lowenthal and Erich Fromm.
• Jurgen Habermas
• The actual school in Frankfurt disbanded in the
  face of Nazism and moved to NY to become The New
  School for Social Research.

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The Problem

• Why was Marx so incredibly right about
  capitalism, but so incredibly wrong about
  communism?
• Others Lukacs, Korsch, Gramsci
• Lukacs forced to denounce his own views by the
  Communists in the 30s
• Korsch was kicked out of the German Communist
  Party for refusing to do the same
• Gramsci was protected from these purges because
  he was held in a fascist prison!

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• The good life at a great price
• That Porsche ad / the Saturn ad

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• 47 Starbucks in Beijing
• 4 in Oman
• 17 in Paris!
• 22 in Instanbul (4 in Ankara)

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The Problem

• Why was Marx so incredibly right about
  capitalism, but so incredibly wrong about
  communism?

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Solutions?

• Broadly speaking, a psychological explanation

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Influences

• Built on the research programs of Max Weber
  Lukacs

Reification
Rationalization
Commodity Fetishism
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Why?

• Webers central contention was this that
  capitalism is not just an economic system it is
  not simply explainable in terms of the impulse
  to acquire.
• It is something more a capitalistic economic
  action is one which rests on the expectation of
  profit by the utilization of opportunities for
  exchange, that is one (formally) peaceful chances
  of profit

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• Capitalism, for Weber, is intimately connected to
  the Protestant ethos it is more than an economic
  system, it is, at least partially, a religion.

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• The Frankfurt school sought similar explanations
  of peoples political and economic behavior
  that is, in terms of psychological states and
  properties.
• Adornos paper has three parts
• Attack on Benjamin
• Use of Lukacs reification to indicate the
  logic of the culture industry
• his own theory of regressive listening, and
  the impossibility of resurrecting listening in
  the current system.

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Lukacs

• Commodity Fetishism turning commodities into
  quasi-spiritual meaning-carrying entities through
  which we define our lives and find meaning.

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Webers 2nd contribution

• The rationalization of beaurocracy treating
  something that depends on human decision and is
  within human control as if it is not.
• (later)

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Reification

• Reification from Lukacs a synthesis of
  Marxs commodity fetishism with Weberian
  rationalization. It occurs when something is
  treated in theory or practice as a marketable
  commodity (I.e. its use-value becomes its
  exchange-value)
• Add to this Webers rationalization and

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• Treating commodities as quasi-spiritual entities,
  and thinking that this is what they are
  objectively in and of themselves.
• (that is, failing to recognize that this
  quasi-spiritual status is dependent on the way we
  treat these objects, not anything they are
  themselves).

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So, how is all this supposed to work?

• Background
• Marx Das Capital Lukacs interepretation
  (commodity fetishism)
• Weber rationlization
• Lukacs and reification
• Then, Marcuse (in brief) and an example of the
  Frankfurt schools reasoning Adorno on Music.

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Marx.

• A commodity is, in the first place, a thing
  outside of us that by its properties satisfies
  human wants of some sort or another.
• But, in reality, commodities have properties
  other than those that satisfy wants people
  collect them, venerate them, are loyal to them,
  and preserve them.
• Where do these mysterious properties come from?

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2 Key premises

• In all states of society, the labor time that it
  costs to produce subsistence is necessarily of
  interest to all mankind.
• From the moment that men in any way work with or
  for oneanother, their labor assumes a social form.

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• Marxs contention
• Science the special status of commodities is
  above and beyond subsistence, the enigmatic
  character of commodities comes from this social
  form of production.

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• The equality of human labor is expressed in
  objects by the equal value of the products (If I
  take 2ce as long to produce a widget than you
  take to produce a fidget, a widget must cost 2ce
  as much as a fidget).
• Thus, the relations between producers take on the
  form of relations between our products.

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• Therefore, a commodity is mysterious because
• In it the social character of labor appears to
  be a property of the object itself. The relations
  between the producers to the sum total of their
  labor (that is, their products) is presented back
  to them as social relations between the products
  they produce. Therefore
• Products of labor become commodities social
  things whose qualities are at the same time
  perceptible and imperceptible by the senses.

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• The social relationship between commodities is
  analogous to the social relationship between
  souls or spirits. They are productions of
  the human mind, yet appear to be independent
  beings endowed with life and entering into
  relations with one another and the human race in
  general.

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• Articles of utility become commodities only
  because they are products of the labor of private
  individuals or groups
• Since producers do not come into social contact
  with one another until they exchange their
  products, the specific social character of each
  producers labor doesnt show itself expect in
  the act of exchange.

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• The labor of an individual is thus a part of the
  labor of society only insofar as it is related in
  exchange with other products, and indirectly,
  then, to the producers.
• Thus the relations connecting the labor of
  individuals are not direct social relations
  between individuals, but are material relations
  between persons and social relations between
  things.

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• And it is only in being exchanged that the
  products of labor acquire uniform social status
  or value distinct from their use-value.
• And when products are produced solely for the
  purpose of being exchanged, then their exchange
  value must be taken into account before
  production.

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• Therefore, the products of labor, to the producer
  of those products, have value only insofar as
  they are desired by others, and since the
  products of labor are merely material expressions
  of the producers labor, the producers labor has
  value only insofar as it is desired by others
  (and, hence, the basis of wage-labor).

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Weber

• The main question is Why advanced capitalism
  only in the west?
• advanced capitalism The rational
  capitalistic organization of (formally) free
  labor this includes the separation of business
  from the household and the rationalization of
  bookkeeping.

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• Western capitalism is highly influenced by the
  development of technological possibilities.
• And those technological possibilities were
  encouraged by certain social-culture mores
  (dissection, e.g.)
• One of these social-culture mores of central
  importance is the particular law (i.e. the Magna
  Carta needed in Islam)

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• Modern rational capitalism has need, not only of
  technical means of production, but of a
  calculable legal systems and of administration in
  terms of formal rules
• (If there were individuals in the country to whom
  the law did not apply would you risk your hard
  earned money in an investment?)

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• When the rationalization of law comes into
  conflict with religion, religion usually wins
  (witness the development of biology in Hindu and
  Buddhist cultures, Islam in the modern world)
• So, there must have been something in the
  protestant, Calvinistic tradition that was
  amenable to the rationalization of law. (we
  talked about that)

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• It is one of the fundamental characteristics of
  an individualistic capitalistic economy that it
  is rationalized on the basis of rigorous
  calculation, directed with foresight and caution
  toward economic success which is sought in sharp
  contrast to the hand-to-mouth existence of the
  peasant, and to the privileged traditionalism of
  the guild craftsman and of the adventures
  capitalism, oriented to the exploitation of
  political opportunities and irrational
  speculation.

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• The development of the spirit of capitalism is
  best understood as part of the development of
  rationalism as a whole and could be deduced from
  the fundamental position of rationalism on the
  basic problems of life (76)

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• So, capitalism is a feature of rationalization of
  society (which is intimately connected to
  religion).
• Its self-justifying
• Its self-verifying
• It takes on a life of its own
• And its seen to be outside of human control.
• Its intimately connected with religion

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Lukacs

• Central thesis in developed capitalistic
  societies, the fetishism of commodities
  penetrates all spheres of social life
• The factory is the model of all social
  relationships
• The fate of the worker is the fate of all
  humanity

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• The world of commodity exchange is seen as the
  estrangement (alienation) of human activity and
  the de-activation of individuality
• Reducing human labor to a commodity abstracts it
  and makes it interchangable with other laborers
  thus undermining individual choice, expression,
  thought, etc.

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• The worker is mutilated reduced to mere
  spectatorship, to mere contemplation of his own
  estranged activity and that of his fellows. He
  is emasculated.

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Marcuse

• Central question
• Why does the comfortable, smooth and reasonable
  unfreedom prevail in advanced industrialized
  society?

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• Comfortable
• Smooth
• Reasonable

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• Marcuse through extending the notion of
  rationalization beyond the relationship between
  people and their products to people and what they
  consume, find this same emasculation in all
  spheres of human life.
• If the market is the model for the family, family
  relationships are rationalized (they just happen)
• If the market is the model for education,
  students are passive recipients, unable to choose
  or interact.
• Etc

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• The facts directing mans thoughts and actions
  are not those of nature which must be accepted in
  order to be mastered, of those of society which
  must be changed because they no longer correspond
  to human needs and potentialities. Rather are
  they those of the machine process, which itself
  appears as the embodiment of rationality and
  expediency.

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• In more detail to the extent that freedom from
  want is decreased, the traditional freedoms of
  freedom of thought, autonomy and opposing
  political views are being deprived of their
  basic critical function in advanced societies
  that can satisfy our every want.

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How?

• Reduce the discussion and promotion of
  alternative political views to those within the
  status quo.
• How?
• non-conformity is socially useless and
• It is of great economic and practical
  disadvantage.
• And, it threatens the smoothness of the society
  as a whole.
• (Co-opting)

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How did this come about?

• Again subsistence.
• Subsistence and liberty are not necessarily
  amenable.
• The freedom to starve, e.g.
• when faced with starvation, people prefer
  security to liberty.

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So, it should follow that

• Increasing the satisfaction of needs should
  increase freedom and liberty
• Once everyones basic needs are met, society
  should be perfectly free and perfectly ordered.
• But thats Marxs theory.
• And it didnt work.

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Technically

• The end of technological society to render
  individual autonomy possible through the
  organization or an apparatus (automation and
  mechanization) of the satisfaction of our basic
  needs.

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• In actual fact, however, the contrary trend
  operates the apparatus imposes its economic and
  political requirements for defense and expansion
  on labor time and free time, on the material and
  intellectual culture.

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• Therefore, society tends to be totalitarian-
• not in the sense of a terroristic political
  organization, but rather in the sense of a
  non-terroristic economic-technical coordination
  which operates through the manipulation of needs
  by vested interests.

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• Society therefore precludes any opposition to the
  whole.
• Note this a bit strong the premise that a
  system manipulates needs and is therefore
  totalitarian, he still hasnt demonstrated that
  that society precludes opposition. But, if we
  charitably give him the notion of the co-opting
  of oppositional ideals, we get the strong thesis.
  And the strong thesis gives us

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Adorno (finally!)

• The decline in musical taste is linked to the
  discovery that music represents both the
  immediate manifestation of impluse (creativity)
  and the locus for taming that impulse (through
  structure / reason / logic)
• NOTE this is all in Plato, as we talked about.

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• In music, the pressure is to obey the
  structure, the tradition, etc to tame the
  impulse to rebel and find a place within the
  structure where people can act on or explore that
  impulse safely.
• Art is not socially radical it is the co-opting
  of dangerous, radical ideas into a safe, socially
  acceptable medium (-Dewey Freud Adorno)

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Why?

• The concept of taste in advanced capitalism is
  outmoded
• What matters is recognition. One does not like
  popular music, one is merely familiar with
  popular music.
• Music is the compliment of the reduction of
  people to silence
• It inhabits the pockets of silence that develop
  between people molded by anxiety, work and
  undemanding docility

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• Everywhere, music is the soundtrack to our sad,
  emasculated lives. It plays the role it did in
  silent films it is merely background filler.
• (Remember High Fidelity he organized his
  record collection biographically).

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2nd Section

• Here, A. s attacking the position that would
  state something like
• Ok, fine, popular music in advanced capitalism is
  like a highway. But classical music, well thats
  different. (or substitute any serious music in
  for classical)

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• Their static separation, which certain
  caretakers of culture have ardently sought the
  totalitarian radio was assigned to the task, on
  the one hand, of providing good entertainment and
  diversion, and on the other, of fostering the
  so-called cultural goods, as if there could still
  be good entertainment and as if the cultural
  goods were not, by their administration,
  transformed into evils the neat parceling out
  of musics social field of force is illusionary.
  (274)

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• The illusion of preference for light music (as
  opposed to serious music) is based merely on
  the passivity of the masses.
• The consumption of light music contradict the
  interests of those who consume it (it is in your
  interest to think, light music doesnt make you
  think),
• BUT the serious music and light music hang
  together in an unresolved contradition the
  light cant introduce one the serious, and the
  serious cant borrow from the light.

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• The serious music then disappears (it is, by
  definition, unpopular), and hence the lower can
  no longer measure itself in contrast to the
  serious.
• Between the standards of banal and
  incomprehensible, there is no room for
  individuality, no room for preference, no option
  for exploration.
• Preference, therefore, is illusory you do not
  like popular music. You simply have no other
  option.

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Fetish

• Musical taste, then, is nothing other than
  fetish as in the case of sexual fetish it is
  based on no more reason than a random exposure,
  probably as a youth.
• The fetish often takes an individual (instrument,
  composer, conductor, voice, etc.) as its object.
• The moments of sensual pleasure are not in
  relation to the music, but are blind and
  irrational

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• Where they react at all, it no longer makes any
  difference whether it is to Beethovens Seventh
  Symphony or to a bikini

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• Music with all its ethereal and sublime
  attributes, serves in America today as an
  advertisement for commodities which one must
  acquire in order to be able to hear music

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Remember Marx?

• Value time you spent on something
• But, in the act of exchange, youre thing get
  valued, so you get valued
• You are alienated from your product, and hence
  yourself, so
• You are now measured by the value you acquire
  i.e. how much you spend on something

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• The music fan is not worshipping the three
  tenors, but rather the amount they spent on the
  ticket to their concert.

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• The use value of a piece of music is presumably
  the enjoyment one gets out of listening to it (or
  something imposed on it in a capitalist system
  stress reliever, etc.) When that music is
  commodified, the use value is replaced by the
  exchange value. Furthermore, in collections, the
  exchange value takes over the use value one
  collects rare records not to enjoy them, but to
  have them collecting for the sake of
  collection (259)

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• The use value in music (buy things to use them,
  in music listening)
• is replaced by exchange value (how much do others
  want this)
• which is then replaced by use value (how much
  could I get for this)
• the use is no longer listening, but trading,
• and the value (which becomes my value) is in the
  having, not in the using.
• This is commodity fetishism

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• A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing,
  simply because in it the social character of
  mens labor appears to them as an objective
  character stamped upon the product of that
  labour because the relation of the producers to
  the sum total of their labour is presented to
  them as a social relation, existing not between
  themselves, but between the products of their
  labour (Marx, Das Capital, something like the
  second page, Quoted (but not cited) in Adorno, p
  528)

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• The commodity is reified we have social
  relations with products, and economic relations
  with people but we treat this institution as if
  it is outside of human control, an unassailable,
  unjustifiable bureaucracy.

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• the transfer of the use value of consumption
  goods to their exchange value contributes to a
  general order in which eventually every pleasure
  which emancipates itself from exchange values
  takes on subversive features (529)

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• The woman who has money with which to buy is
  intoxicated by the act of buying. In American
  conventional speech, having a good time means
  being present at the enjoyment of others, which
  in turn has as its only content being present.
  The auto religion makes all men brothers in the
  sacramental moment with the words this is a
  Rolls Royce, and in moments of intimacy, women
  attach greater importance to their hairdressers
  and cosmeticians than to the situation for the
  sake of which the hairdressers and cosmeticians
  are employed. (p 529)

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• The couple out driving who spend their time
  identifying every passing car and being happy if
  they recognize the trademarks speeding by, the
  girl whose satisfaction consists solely in the
  fact that she and her boyfriend look good, the
  expertise of the jazz enthusiast who legitimizes
  himself by having knowledge about what is in any
  case inescapable all this operates according to
  the same command. Before the theological
  caprices of commodities, the consumers become
  temple slaves (p 529)

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Sadomasochism

• The prisoner loves his cell because he knows
  nothing else.
• Millions of people bought David Helfcotts CD
  (and he played on the oscars), but it sucks.
  they just dont know anything else.

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• Why do people love a system (or a music industry)
  that treats them badly? Why do so many wait
  anxiously for the next crappy record by Mariah
  Carey (e.g.)

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• Because they get their identity from that system
  Im a Mac user Im a VW owner Im a ska
  kid Im in on it
• And that identification is necessary because of
  the stadardization of consumer goods

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• The commercial necessity of connecting this
  identity leads to the manipulation of taste and
  the official cultures pretense of individualism
  which necessarily increases in proportion to the
  liquidation of the individual

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• Declare your individuality! Buy a mass-produced
  product just like thousands of your friends!
• (and remember Music is a mass-produced product)

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Vulgarization

• Music is chopped up, institutionalized and
  frozen in the definitive interpretation on a
  recording device. Vulgarization occurs when the
  music is not appreciated / listened to as a whole
  work of art.
• The 2001 theme, Beethovens 5th, Wagners Wedding
  march are all removed from the complexity of
  their position in larger works of art, digested,
  commodified, and sold to the music consumer as
  individual works of art.

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Arrangment

• Muzak
• Elevator music
• Again, it is the process of removing art from
  its complex context, creating a canonical
  version, and commodifying art.

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The practice of Music

• Toscanini Perfect immaculate performance in
  the latest style preserves the work at the price
  of its definitive reification.
• Like the fascist, we sacrifice freedom, love, and
  all that makes us human for the order,
  predictability and regularity of a standard,
  canonical interpretation.

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The consciousness of mass listeners

• Listeners listen according to a formula
• The concepts of liking and disliking are
  irrelevant the only question is does this fit
  with my economic status?, is this the kind of
  person I want to project to others?

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The regression of listening

• regression is Freudian regressing to the
  infantile stage of listening.
• Listeners lose along with their freedom of
  choice and responsibility, the capacity for
  conscious perception of music but they
  stubbornly reject the possibility of such
  perception (532)

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Vulgarization in pop

• Lyrics are overly important, to the detrimint of
  other aspects of music
• This is extended to the melody itself
• The emphasis on exchange-value dimminishes
  innovation and variation regressive listeners
  are like children who demand the same meal over
  and over
• The music industry responds by preparing the
  same song over and over, by different artists
• Whenever someone wants to extricate themselves,
  the music industry responds and adapts and offers
  them a reified context in which to exorcize their
  revolutions (Punk x2, Ska x3 (or 4?),
  Lalapollusa)