Jeff Binder

Position paper on The Schema of Mass Culture

Adorno begins his essay, "The Schema of Mass Culture," by discussing the pervasiveness of cultural products in modern society.  Advertisements have reduced aesthetic semblance to a means of imparting commodities with a �sheen” (61), which reinforces their identity as such, and from very young ages children are exposed to works of children’s literature that reassure a child that “he does not have to renounce any of his dreams if he eventually becomes an engineer or a shop assistant” (62).  This application of aesthetics to reality is accompanied by a blurring of the line between art and the real world, as when fans “send trousers to the lone ranger and saddles to his horse” (64).

After this initial discussion, Adorno argues that culture has undergone a “levelling down process” as it has become a mass product.  As the boundary between culture and reality has faded, culture has necessarily become self-reflective, so its productions have become reiterations of those that have been previously successful.  In addition, cultural products themselves have become temporally leveled, as in variety shows, in which “waiting for the thing in question, which takes place as long as the juggler manages to keep the balls going, is precisely the thing itself” (70) and in jazz music, in which “all the moments which succeed one another in time are more or less directly interchangeable” (71).  As he extends this idea of levelling to novels and film, he develops it further into an erosion of conflict which results from the fact that in many cases the success of the narrative’s hero is certain from the start.  He identifies this with the rise of monopoly over competitive industry and the way in which the “hero” of mass society “no longer makes any sacrifices but now enjoys success” (76).

Adorno goes on to discuss the results of this erosion of conflict in terms of information and sport.  The social purpose of films and other works are, in the new circumstances, reduces to that of bearers of information.  One goes to see a film not to be surprised, but to “learn what Lana Turner looks like in a sweater” (82).  The curiosity, the desire to possess information for no other reason that that it is information, results in mass culture taking on the form of a sport.  The consumers compete on what is meant to be a level playing field, operating by the same, arbitrary set of rules.

Using the metaphor of sport, Adorno finally discusses what he calls the “schema of mass culture” and relates it back to aesthetic semblance (89).  As sporting events “are nothing but what they are,” and represent nothing, aesthetic images “increasingly participate in this imagelessness the more they turn into a form of sport themselves” (89).  As a result of this, he argues in his concluding paragraph, human activity turns into a sort of mimesis, as jazz dancers “merely depict the gestures of sensuous human beings” (95).  Adorno concludes by expressing the sense of anxiety, of the sense that the current order could break at any moment.  Through the abstraction of culture into a sport, and the degradation of the aesthetic image, society has replaced truth with masks.

· Why does Adorno use the term “schema?”  What does he mean by this?

· In this essay, Adorno touches on the sort of montage techniques used by Eisenstein.  Does he think that they can no longer be effective?  If so, why?

· How does Adorno’s concept of the “sheen” compare with Benjamin’s idea of the “aura?”  Does the focus on information as an end in itself reflect on the degradation of the aura, or on the creation of false auras?

· Gossip and public curiosity about celebrities has been a force since classical times.  How does Adorno think its manifestation has changed in the modern era?  How has it changed since Adorno’s time, with the advent of the Internet?