Is Adorno's view on mass culture still relevent?

He is best on music that he knows a LOT ABOUT eg "classical" music 1890-1960-ish. He is an easily trivialised writer, pro and con. MINIMA MORALIA is a masterpiece. In his youth, he had been much more generous towards and excited about pop culture: he saw it exploited and hijacked by the nazis and turned bitterly what he considered his own naivety. In later life, he became more ambivalent again, especially in regard to cinema.

Adorno has A LOT to say about our historical moment. From the UFC event, it is very clear that authoritarianism and sadism lurked underneath capitalist spectacle all along. And just the way people are discussing AI, they talk about "people" being replaced rather than labor. The idea of socializing productivity gains is literally unthinkable, a thought taboo.

“The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. The promissory note which, with its plots and staging, it draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged; the promise, which is actually all the spectacle consists of, is illusory: all it actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached, that the diner must be satisfied with the menu.”

this post is inspired by reading a slatestarcodex essay about the frankfurt school where he calls them "insane" and "obscurantist" and "mystical." and yet, the silicon valley TESCREAL people he has sympathy for are the ones who put their faith in technology. not even technology, AUTONOMOUS technology that changes society apart from democratic directives. many of these people also think we live in a simulation. are these ideas "sane" and adorno's concept of nonidentity "insane"? why? because he doesn't think we should be comfortable with suffering? because he takes art seriously?

i think adorno was exactly right in diagnosing "instrumental reason" as the cancer of capitalist society. there is a certain mindset that is hostile to any kind of critical reflection, and these types have been labeling everything that goes on in the humanities "obscurantist" for decades. and they do it because they don't want people to imagine that there might be a better way to live.

“Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology.”

this is another one from dialectic of enlightenment that has proven bang on. the technologists of our time are highly superstitious, sometimes describing the training of LLMS are the "summoning" of a god or demon. and they myth is that change is not just inevitable, but that it isn't something that can be directed by collective agency toward an end that serves human needs.

beep beep boop boop input output npc’s 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

peter theil thinks AI is god

yes and the anti-AI voices --- the people who are concerned about safety, environmental issues, and the human fallout from labor displacement --- are the "antichrist." a convenient view for the ceo of palantir.

or co-founder, rather. that other gentleman is the ceo.

the twat who studied with Habermas!

Did he really? I knew he had a philosophy phd.

off-topic: I got nothing to say about Adorno's view of mass culture, but this thread reminded me how, prior to nu-ilx circa 2005, ILEverything would attracted random student googlers who used it to ask us to do their homework assignments. Now, ofc, they'll just fire up ChatGPT, which gobbled up the entirety of ilxor.com as a light snack during its training.

Back to Adorno...

i feel like if it comes up in conversation that someone else knows who adorno is, it's a sign that we can probably talk about certain things.

any weird tech bro stuff or positive take on AI and i'm literally turning around and walking away from the conversation tho

“His hope for a sort of disembodied political identity, untethered from the inconvenient particularities of family and culture, represented an aspirational cosmopolitanism that has proven insufficient to animate allegiance in the modern era. Put differently, he believed in the possibility of a purely rational public discourse. I believed, and still believe, such a discourse must be rooted in a more corporeal and traditional — and indeed national and cultural — source.”

Palantir CEO Alex Karp describing his disagreement with Habermas, who dropped him as a phd student.

These people scoff at the cosmopolitanism of a liberal philosopher as unrealistic and utopian, and yet they themselves are telling people they are going to overcome death itself. Death is easier to overcome than prejudice, for Alex Karp.

he likes one of those things and doesn't like the other

usually fascists are really into death.

everyone else's i guess.

the smart bois are going to live forever tho

true, I don't think he wants everyone to overcome death, just the right sorts

Ok so reading now it seems he doesn’t go in for the more scifi versions of the singularity. Should note that to be fair to Karp. His politics remain reckless and authoritarian

he looks like one of those star professors who collects sexual abuse allegations