Blog Post 4 (Ching Yee)
The authors, Horkheimer and Adorno focused on the culture industry and how mass culture under monopoly is identical. While some might argue that the industry is established on consumers’ need for standardised forms, it is in fact the cycle of manipulation and retroactive need that unifies the system more tightly. Although people seek novelty and to disagree, mechanically differentiated products are ultimately all the same. Instead of straying from the norm, society is just conforming to what is accepted. Moreover, the term “culture” in itself already contains the process of identifying, cataloguing, and classifying, which subsumes it under the realm of administration. In this age, anyone who does not go along with what society delineates as tolerable or forbidden is subjected to financial barrenness and ostracised for being eccentric.
This phenomenon of the world transforming into a homogenous place with the same culture everywhere is becoming more visible in daily life. This can be seen from many, if not the majority of people jumping on the bandwagon of what is now defined as mainstream or popular culture. It has infiltrated our lives in many ways, most notably in the form of music, shows, fashion, and even food. These fads suggest the ever-changing landscape of culture and at the same time, highlights the similarities in mindsets that people share across time. There is an inherent pressure for people to be aware of and keep up with such trends because being able to do so is now viewed in a positive light – retaining one’s position in the majority is seen as desirable or “woke”, and hence, part of the in-group. Such are the inevitable outcomes of processes like globalisation and capitalism working hand in hand. Even though such occurrences have made many products more accessible everywhere, it has also eroded the uniqueness that differentiates one culture from the next.
