Unit 1: Alternative Approaches to Cultural Studies Flashcards
Enlightenment
- Intellectual and Philosophical Movement (the age of reason)
- Movement away from relying on religious explanations towards one based on rationality and reason
- Using ones, “the subject,” reasoning to make ethical matters and decision making rather than submission to authority; autonomous, rational subject
Frankfurt School
- Critical theory research indicated alternative paths to realizing the social development of a society and nation
- Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany
- Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse
- Dialectic of Enlightenment, Bourgeois Freedom, Culture Industry
Dialectic of Enlightenment
The Dialectic of Enlightenment as proposed by Adorno and Horkheimer outlines the contradictions between human freedom and reason in terms of enlightenment. They criticized the concept because they frequently understood “reason” as a form of social domination. Horkheimer, Adorno, and Habermas suggested that enlightenment rationality could also operate as a system of social control leading through liberalism toward authoritarian exercises of power and “enlightened despotism.”
It also means that, when the enlightened subject is exercising reason, the belief that he or she is rational overlooks the importance of myth and irrationality in shaping the subject’s perspective, interests, and desires. We never stop being part of the world and of nature, and nature does not exercise reason. By using reason as an instrument to understand the world, we also come to see the world as something to be used in our rational projects, not as something that we and our projects are part of.
Instrumental Reason
- the use of reason as an instrument for determining the best or most efficient means to achieve a given end
- This way of thinking, Horkheimer and Adorno argue, obscures the fact that what we think of as reason is always the product of a negotiation between the rational and the irrational, the subjective and the objective, between that which can be proved empirically and that which cannot.
- By making reason central to human social life, we reject the possibility of discussing a real world outside of the social, and we would need to acknowledge that philosophy is created by its social circumstances rather than based on some universal truth. These results make most people deeply uncomfortable.
Repressive Desublimation
- Repressive desublimation refers to the freeing of individual desire in modern Western cultures to increase social control. Herbert Marcuse argues that the increase in freedom to consume, which had been repressed, has made citizens more susceptible to coercive control. By desublimating desires, society more thoroughly regulates the individual than it had previously done—hence we have repressive desublimation (freeing) of desire.
- Proposed by Herbert Marcuse
- For instance, in Western culture there used to be a higher degree of social control over libidinal forces (sublimation of desires into such things as art, work, or cultural accomplishment). We see the change, for example, in the increased availability and distribution of erotic materials. The desire for these materials is now less sublimated than before, which we might believe reflects a greater level of freedom.
Bourgeois Freedom
The general concept was originally that we achieve freedom as individuals by diminishing our collective potential for solidarity with fellow citizens or collective action. By pursuing individual rather than shared interests, a person could feel freer, but this freedom leaves the person less able to agitate for better conditions. An individual is less likely than a collaborative group to be effective in achieving such goals. The pursuit of individual freedom can mean the expansion of control over the person, regardless of the feeling of freedom.
Culture Industry
- Proposed by Adorno & Horkheimer
- Driven by a capitalist system, the culture industry creates popular culture which produces standardized cultural goods that are used to control society’s behaviour and beliefs.
- It creates false needs that can only be satisfied by the products of capitalism
The Birmingham School
- Scholars from the University of Birmingham
- Richard Hoggart, Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams
- They were concerned with culture as part of class struggle
Cultural Hegemony
- Proposed by Antonio Gramsci
- One class in a society rules another or all the others by presenting its own values (and the perpetuation of the values that keep it in power) as the normative social values
- To be effective, hegemony must be normalized and brought into quotidian reality; cultural norms must appear to be natural and inevitable
- Manipulative power of the culture industries
Raymond William’s three-part definition of culture
- The Ideal (canonical culture): culture is the process of refining and perfecting human tastes and conducts. This includes the tendency to see a timeless order or a permanent reference to the human condition.
- The Documentary (recorded culture): the surviving cultural materials from any period or place give us the best way of accessing information about that culture.
- The Social (lived culture): the social definition of culture relates to a particular way of life.
Advertising (according to Williams)
- advertising initially was information intended to assist product users but was changed, through regulatory systems, to consumer-oriented constructions of value that are distinct from the products themselves
- a move from advertising to propaganda and public relations, as well as an emotional appeal that is distinct from the product or topic itself
Toronto School
- Concerned with the physical medium and its impact on the content, reception, and comprehension of the message. How the limitations and unique features of the medium would implicate content.
- Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan
Bias of Communication
- Proposed by Harold Innis
- the materiality of the communications product mark the meaning and content it is capable of communicating based on its material nature
- time-biased media carry stories and messages that last for many generations, but tend to reach limited audiences. Examples: stone tablets, manuscripts
- space-biased media convey information to many people over long distances, but have short exposure times
The Medium is the Message
- Proposed by Marshall McLuhan
- what is important about mass culture was not content, but the technological form transmitting the content; that technology interacts with the senses to determine not just how a new technology is enjoyed, but how the culture and society will develop from then on
- mediums are an extension of human senses
Annales School
- “Annales” is the name of a periodical, the Annales d’histoire économique et sociale (the Annals of Economic and Social History)
- It is instead a principally social history and shows history as a discipline variously engaging with the European schools of critical theory and social thought. Most importantly, it emphasizes the importance of an entire social system in history, rather than distinct events.
- Culture as a driving force in historical change.
- Rather than critiquing Enlightenment, they would consider its role as part of culture in effecting historical change
- important concepts: (1) its role in pioneering cultural history; (2) its emphasis on demography and geography rather than economics; (3) its concept of total history
