Dialectic of Enlightenment
1. What is "Enlightenment"?
In Adorno and Horkheimer’s “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, the concept of enlightenment, in their sense, refers to demythologizing of the world and making sense of the unknown, making reason and science the most important factors, instead of religion, tradition and beliefs.
2. What is "Dialectic"?
Dialectic is the process of attaining the truth by discussing logical but different arguments. It’s a way of reasoning through arguments to find the truth. Dialectic isn’t about convincing the opposite part that you are correct, but about together, using ration and logic, finding the truth.
3. What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?
Nominalism denies the existence of abstract and universal objects, objects that doesn’t exist in time and space. According to nominalism, the only objects that exists are physical objects that you can touch and see. It’s an important concept in the text, as the enlightenment follows some of the same ideas, giving facts and reason a much bigger place, shifting focus on science and what is “real”. They argue how dangerous it can be to use abstractions and universals that is not up to date.
4. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
A myth symbolizes the mystic and unknown, and when nothing is longer unknown, people are freed from fear. During the Enlightenment, people started to explain the world through knowledge and science instead of myths.
"The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity"
1. 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?
As I interpreted it, the Marxist perspective describes substructure as everything having to do with production, everything we need to make the world more forward. And superstructure is everything not directly connected to production, but production culture, such as religion, politics, and law. But as both are vital for a society to work, both are connected and in need of the other. If one changes, the other is affected.
According to Marx, the ruling class in a way controls both the super- and subculture. The ruling class controls the workers, substructures must always stay innovative and competitive, and they must adapt to markets. By analyzing culture production, we might get a better understanding of capitalist production, which can help give us a hint of how things will evolve, and help us predict the future of capitalism.
2. 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?
Benjamin argues that culture does have revolutionary potentials, for example he talks about the increased numbers of readers becoming writers, and with that being given the opportunity to reach a great number of people. This has increased even more looking at a modern society, with the great number of blogs, and chroniclers. Today a fashion blog can have even more impact than a professional fashion magazine, and with all the social media and new technology, anyone can have more impact than ever before. Adorno & Horkheimer's perspective means that technology has revolutionary potential, and today I would argue that they correlate. Culture does have revolutionary potentials, f.e. with film, art, or photography, however culture has the opportunity to revolutionize on a greater scale today, and reach a lot more people, due to the evolvement of technology.
3. 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).
Benjamin means that historical conditions affects how we perceive the world, that the same object could be perceived in different ways, depending on the person’s history and previous experiences. We get influenced by our society and the environment we live in, and that will influence the way we perceive things. He proclaims that sense perception is determined by historical circumstances and not only by nature.
I think this correlates a lot with the last theme, about how we know what we know, and what affects our knowledge. Our previous experiences influence how we experience things, if I’m at a concert and hear a song I’ve heard before at a hospital where someone was injured, I might cry, as I would associate that song with a sad previous experience. The person next to might have heard the song at a wedding, and be filled with joy as that person associates the song with a previous happy experience.
4. What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?
When talking about the aura of an art object, Benjamin describes it as its originality, authenticity, and uniqueness. A mechanical reproduction of the art won’t have the same aura, a photography of an artwork, won’t have the same aura as the artwork itself. Maybe the aura is in a sense the history of an object, maybe it’s the same as the object’s soul. The aura of a natural object, might be described as the unique phenomenon of a distance, that when in the presence of beauty, you can actually feel it, standing and looking out of a beautiful view, the aura might be of how the natural object presents itself to you, though warmth, rain, and winds, and sunshine etc.
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