Theme 2: Critical Media Studies (Pre-blog)

Dialectic of Enlightenment

What is "Enlightenment"?

According to Kant "Enlightenment" means the liberation of authority. However, Adorno and Horkheimer refer to the liberation of fear and to overthrow myths with knowledge and as an end result, to become the master of nature. 

What is "Dialectic"?

The word "dialectic", which can be traced back to Plato and his dialogues involving Socrates, is nowadays used as a mean to seek the truth. A dialectic method investigates the truth on the basis of arguments.

  

What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

Nominalism is described to be the prototype of bourgeois thinking. Its furthermore a philosophical way of thinking that excludes all abstract objects. Adorno and Horkheimer use this in a socio-historic context of the national socialism, where Nazis used abstract concepts as arguments. 

What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?

Humans tried to explain the world through myth for a very long time; it was a way to understand things the best way they could, before scientific reasoning replaced (or enlightenment) this way of thinking. 

"The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity"

In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

These concepts have been created by Karl Marx in order to describe the society. Substructure describes everything related to the production, i.e. the resources, the machinery and the people in charge of the machinery. The superstructure includes everything else but the production, meaning art, philosophy, entertainment. It's important to analyze cultural production from this perspective, because according to Marx, the substructure influences the superstructure and this has an effect on our behavior as well. 

Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

According to Benjamin culture does indeed have revolutionary potentials. As he says "photography freed the hand of the most important artistic functions which henceforth devolved only upon the eye looking into a lens" (I, Benjamin). Now that works of art can be reproduced the public sphere will be more aware of them. 

Adorno and Horkheimer disagree on this one. As far as I understand, they don't see culture as having revolutionary potentials, but instead technology does. 

Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

It means, that we do not only perceive our surroundings based on our human nature, but also based on the historical context. Benjamin gives the example of the birth of the late Roman art industry and the Vienna Genesis which was newly interpreted by Riegl and Wieckhoff under the perception of that specific time. Another example might be the evolution women's rights- for a long time it seemed to be quite natural to subordinate women to men. But in the last decades equality has been an important topic in society and culture and therefore it is unthinkable to go back based on our achievements in women's rights through time. 

What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

Benjamin refers to the term aura when he writes about the uniqueness and permanence of art. Natural objects differ from art objects in the sense that there's a lack of authenticity in the latter.