FRANKFURT
SCHOOL
~k.i.s.s.~
The Frankfurt School, officially known as the
Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt,
was basically a German Marxist critique of capitalism in
ideological terms (as opposed to economic terms) with some
Freudianism thrown in for good measure.
Apart from anything else, the Frankurt School provides a
theoretical bridge between traditional Marxist scholarship and
cultural orientation of, e.g., the Birmingham
School of British Cultural
Studies. |
I. Origins of Frankfurt School
1.) Started out as a post-WW I (formed in 1923), Marxist-based
reaction to the crises of war, revolution, and upheaval in Europe.
Although Marxist based, it was also critical of orthodox Marxism.
2.) Set up in 1923 by
Felix Weil as an
interdisciplinary institutional center for research into political
economy (in German Weimar republic) for research into political
economy and cultural production.
3.) Based on a critique of then-standard Marxist doctrine: Lukacs,
for example, (a central figure of the Frankfurt School) was against
what he called deterministic Marxism. He said you had to activate the
proletariat first before you can have action. This reflected the deep
contemporary splits in the communist/socialist parties of Russia and
Europe.
4.) From 1931, the school was under Max
Horkheimer and moved its focus to philosophy, culture, and the
media (this became the main focus for European intellectuals from
the
1930s to 1940s).
5.) In the 1930s, the most of the Institute's members fled
Germany and moved to the United States, where they continued their
research (becoming a major center for exiled European intellectuals in
the 1930s and 1940s).
This is probably important >> Most of the Institute's
scholars had had experience of a mass society turning to Hitler and
Nazism, under the influence of media and propaganda, and had to flee
from that oppressive environment. (Some, like Walter Benjamin, didn't
make it out in time!) This collective experience undoubtedly chad some
impact, coloring their opinions and ideas about the very nature of
society.
II. Ideas
1.) The Frankfurt School's position broadly was that people
are easily fooled by capitalism
("false consciousness") and the culture
industry: An analysis of Freud's
work can be one way of understanding why. (Mass psychology of
Marxism.)
2.) Frankfurt School idea of "reality" was that of bourgeois
society controlling almost everything under capitalism -- culture is
processed through "culture industry" (see over). It criticized
Enlightenment ideas of progressive culture, harmony, authenticity, and
culture encompassing the best creative efforts of people who are
authentically free.
3.) Ideology not a function of authentic individual
beliefs, instead characterized as distortions of reality whose purpose
is to camouflage and legitimate unequal power relations.
4.) While mostly negative, most Frankfurt School scholars did
recognize (as did Gramsci) that an authentic "culture"/cultures could
exist outside of the capitalist elites -- it was just very difficult
for this culture to sustain itself or communicate (see Culture
industries).
CULTURE INDUSTRIES
This includes, in media terms all mass media (in 1920s, 1930s,
newspapers, magazines, the movies, radio) plus most other means of
cultural production (theater, opera, artistic exhibitions, etc.).
Applied to the present day, it could of course cover all the other
mass media in society, such as television and the Web. (See also under subject
index C)
1.) All these forces of media/cultural production are
intertwined: a system.
2.) Culture industry is intricately linked with the
present-day dominant models of the economy/culture; e.g. capitalist
production, distribution, exchange, consumption. So culture is
produced in just the same way as, say, automobiles or refrigerators.
3.) Media serve only to maintain culture industry (as below).
production >>>>>>(artistic)
composition
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distribution >>>>>>reproduction
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Exchange >>>>>>>culture
creation
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| consumption >>>>>reception
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|
(Note: Think about the role of the individual
author in all this. Is the author the creator of a unique
individual work -- the Classical liberal/Romantic idea -- or is s/he
simply reproducing the ideas and values of a system over which s/he
has no control?
4.) The masses are thus systematically manipulated and
progressively unable to criticize their society effectively; they may
have some authentic types of cultural expression, but the mass media/cultural industries prevent culture from being
effectively communicated in any authentic form -- unless it has first
been commodified and changed to fit the capitalist
system.
5.) The culture industry thus commodifies and
standardizes art (music, fashion, etc.) then fools people into
thinking it's "original" in order to sell it.
6.) The only people left who can still meaningfully critique
Enlightenment ideas, capitalism and the culture industry are the
avant-gardes (i.e., the artistic elites -- could be anything from
James Joyce to rap music).
7.) But even "authentic" culture (as defined by bourgeoisie)
has difficulty surviving against capitalism; avant garde expression
tends to quickly get swallowed up by society and become commodified
itself.
~ Food for thought?
~
Think about how you
can apply the ideas of the Frankfurt School scholars to more
recent articulations of cultural expression, such as rock 'n'
roll, punk, or rap/hip-hop music, or the Hippie movement in the
1960s. Are these examples of "avant-garde" or "authentic"
cultural production that have simply been gobbled up by consumer
society and "commodified"? What other examples can you think of?
|
Frankfurt School prominent members included:
Major Influences:
1) Hegel
- saw history as the history of human ideas.
2) Marx
- concentrated on political economy (Lukacs drew Hegel's and
Marx's ideas together).
3) Weber
- said that world had lost its magic and enchantment because of
industrialization. |
~~~~~~~~~~
FRENCH THINKERS,
20th CENTURY
***Click on the names below to find out more about
these
famous Frenchmen!***
Roland
Barthes
French philosopher of the left.
Jean
Baudrillard
If you accept Baudrillard's extreme position on
poststructuralism and postmodernism, you are left with the conclusion
that there is no absolute truth; only different versions of
things.
Albert Camus
Algerian-born French Existentialist
author, thinker.
Jacques
Derrida
"The language deconstructionist." Derrida, a
prominent deconstructionist (1930 - ), studied the nature of language,
knowledge and meaning. He concentrated on deconstructing language and
Western philosophy. When language tries to deal with society as a
whole, signifiers slide into other signifiers without reaching a
signified; only reach meaning when working on a small level.
Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari
Postmodernism's most famous
double act.
Michel
Foucault
"The prison/systems deconstructionist." Foucault
(1926-1984) used the metaphor of the prison to examine the nature of
power in history. Foucault was primarily concerned with the history of
systems of social thought. Foucault takes apart/deconstructs systems
(eg. psychology and sociology) and asks how these disciplines have
imposed theirown needs on how we look at the world; he said it's
better to look at the little bits than the big picture (look at one
prison instead of society as a whole).
Jacques
Lacan
"The toughie." Lacan (French poststructuralist; very
difficult to understand). Lacan's theory decenters the self; says self
is constructed in language. Lacan decenters the source of knowledge
and assumptions of Western thought by destabilizing self.
Claude
Levi-Strauss
French linguist and structuralist.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Existentialist
thinker.
CT. Subject Index
Ff
