Where is Imagination?

In Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s article “The Culture Industry as Mass Deception,” they discussed how culture plays a critical role in nearly everything. They claim that culture has made everything become identical in a sense since nowadays films, radio, and even magazines make up a uniform system. Why has it come to this?

Horkheimer and Adorno claim that it may be the result of having to reproduce large quantities for consumption. There are only a few production centers that need to provide for many consumers. This, naturally, requires that there be an adequate amount of organization. Since the process was originated around the consumers’ needs, there was little to no resistance at first. But now things just seem to be too uniform.

So the question comes into play: why don’t we just make some changes? Horkheimer and Adorno claim this is because “any trace of spontaneity from the public in official broadcasting is controlled and absorbed by talent scouts, studio competitions, and official programs of every kind selected by professionals” (1037). This, in the end, puts a large nail into the coffin of creativity and uniqueness.

Culture even shapes the way we think in different ways. We each are our own individual but the uniform nature finds a way to reach us all through different means. Something has been provided so that none of us may escape a story. There really isn’t a stress on subject matter any more but instead on classifying and labeling consumers. This allows different magazines or television stations to adapt their story to be more suiting for their audience. Through this means, everyone receives the headline the media would like us to hear and can apply any information to our lives accordingly.

We are so exposed to mass-produced products that we aren’t even aware of how much we as consumers are being handled. Consumers simply appear as statistics businesses use to organize charts and determine how they can better reach everyone. Horkheimer and Adorno blame a lot of what is occurring on the sound film. These films are designed to give us quick facts. There is so much going on in them that a spectator is unable to differentiate what really makes a world and what is in the world they are viewing. The failure to make this distinction is taken back to the real world where they become a molded consumer.

Where is the distinction between culture and our own beliefs? How much can digital culture interfere with our own belief system before it destroys man’s imagination entirely? Substance needs to be something today’s culture rethinks.