A Comparative Study Of Benjamin And Adorno's Thoughts On Popular Culture

Benjamin and Adorno's research on mass culture originated in the 1930 s.Faced with the pressing of capitalist totalitarian rule and fascism,Benjamin and Adorno tried to find a way to save freedom and liberation.For this reason,three famous controversies about mass culture have been issued.The study of Benjamin and Adorno's thoughts on popular culture has rich theoretical significance and profound practical significance.The Adorno-Benjamin Debate cannot be simplified as a binary opposition,and a contextual comparative analysis is needed.First of all,from the perspective of theoretical basis,the different generational contexts created the differences in the positions of Benjamin and Adorno in mass culture.On the basis of philosophy,Benjamin inherited the "universality" of material production and spiritual production in Marxist production theory,and hope that culture can achieve "Messianic redemption" through "struggle”.While Adorno attaches importance to the "particularity" of material production and spiritual production.Only by constant "negation" and "re-negation" can culture achieve freedom and liberation.Secondly,from the perspective of the core content,in the face of technology constantly devouring culture,Benjamin chose to stand on a populist standpoint to discuss the subordination of "artwork”.While Adorno embraced elitism and criticized general"cultural products",which also directly led them to have different views on the result of the disappearance of the "halo".Benjamin and Adorno also have different understandings of the ideological functions of mass culture.Benjamin believed that the mass culture with the theme of "struggle" has a bottom-up subversive power,but Adorno believed that " mass culture has become social cement".At this point,mass culture is no longer a purely cultural category issue,but a political issue for the construction of future social forms.Therefore,Benjamin and Adorno tried to explore the value orientation of popular culture from the theoretical and practical levels.In order to realize human freedom and liberation,Benjamin combined Messianic redemptionism,resorted to history,and advocated that the public should remain shocked when viewing cultural works,waiting for the coming of the Messiah,and hoping to establish a "classless society”.Adorno placed his hope on the negation of art and hoped to establish "aesthetic utopia".In order to achieve the same goal by different routes,Benjamin believed that art can be penetrated into the masses by eliminating the"halo" of art,inspiring the revolutionary vitality of mass culture,and realizing "art politicization".Adorno pointed out that the path of artistic salvation can only be " Art for the sake of art".Regrettably,regardless of political and economic development,one would hope to appeal to art itself rather than social revolution.Both of these ideas are utopian.Since the emergence of Benjamin's and Adorno's thoughts mass culture,the academic circles have roughly formed two theories of "opposition" and "dialogue".Putting Benjamin and Adorno's thoughts of popular culture in the same framework for contextual interpretation,it can be concluded that there is no principled deviation between the two people's thoughts of popular culture,and the difference in perception is mainly due to the emphasis on the discussion of popular culture.On the other hand,the interpretation of Benjamin and Adorno's mass culture thought from within Western Marxism can better reflect the abundance of mass culture theory itself.Their mass cultural thoughts have difficulties in their historical subject,social development motives,and goals,but this theoretical core is similar to the construction of contemporary Chinese culture.Therefore,in terms of ideology,fundamental standpoint,and technology application,the thoughts provide important practical enlightenment for my country's cultural construction in the new era.