Cultural Industry: The Degeneracy of Art

The last thing the elite wants is an informed, empowered public mobilizing any grassroots movement to oppose financial tyranny.Show more

The term "culture industry" refer to the Society in which the cultural practices of the ruling class are rendered and established as the legitimate culture of that society. That action usually involves the diminishment of critical thought, by undermining intellectual standards of the subordinate social classes. The term was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer in the chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception", of the book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). Consumption of popular culture, made available by the mass communications media, renders people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances. Mass-produced culture, justified by the postmodern concepts of relativism and subjectivity, is dangerous to the more technically and intellectually difficult high arts.