Cultural Criticism and Society by Theodor Adorno

In the essay ‘Cultural Criticism and Society’ Theodor Adorno shares Lukacs emphasis on dialectical thinking. Though Lukacs had influenced Arono, the latter differs from the former with respect to whether the opposites of dialects should be reconciled or not.

Adorno is of the opinion that the job of cultural critic is to show the dialectic contradictions but not to reconcile them. He claims that society is full of contradiction which art should depict without any favor or disfavor. As art just has to dramatize the dialectics or negative hovering over the dialectics- a model of criticism that he throws lights on. His model of dialectical criticism should be outside and inside at the same time.

He would oppose all tantalization asserting that the whole is the false. Criticism must, therefore keep moving dialectically. He focuses on such kind of dialectics that never result in to synthesis but go on insisting on contradictions.

Adornian cultural critic does not believe in the singularity of civilization. It means no society is of a single culture. Moreover as a cultural critic, Adorno shows his dissatisfaction with civilization, because master and slave, general and particular embedded in culture. Cultural criticism always looks for plurality and never tries to reconcile or wipe or resolve out one culture at the cost of another. Therefore, the job of the critics is to remain untouched and unbiased to all culture. Here Adorno means to say that criticism that agrees with the status quo is elitist criticism as it negates the different dissonant voices and they lie buried under the carpet. So they focus on to light on the contradiction without an attempt to resolve them.

He advocates a dialectical (immanent) criticism that is social phenomena. In dialectical criticism, the critic is inside the world and he tries to criticize it. Such critics maintain double position inward and outward. The critic at fist goes to the society and studies it. After studying it, he comes out of society and criticizes it keeping the society in his mind. These critics are also unable to see the whole culture. Adorno favors the critics who could blend both immanent and transcendental methods to criticize a culture without showing any sort of prejudice and biases or being neutral.

He alleges that in contrast to the need to reconcile opposites some cultural critics unfortunately are guided by market forces. They are supposed to be objective but they are not. They devote themselves to publicize their art for money and popularity. Because of their strong pursuit in money, they cannot produce better art but the cheaper one. Adorno calls these ‘bourgeois artist’. Therefore, they are transcendental critics who do not interpret the art in terms of historical social political and economic background. As a result they fail to know what is happening in a particular area.

It is the market forces which control the culture. So our culture values are not fixed or determined by cultural criticism but the market forces. The job of cultural critics is to give verdict to the general public but cultural criticism on the contrary guided by the market forces is always irrational as it manipulate the minds of the general public.

Cultural criticism which is supposed to enlighten the mass is deceiving the mass. Adorno says that because of the manipulation of the mind of culture industry, the so called enlightenment society is actually unenlightened and it is because cultural criticism is not free form the influence of a particular ideology. In order to ensure that the mass is not deceived by the culture industry, Adorno insists that cultural critics should be negatively dialectical, should be neutral to both aspects of dialects.

Thus, Adorno in his cultural criticism, pushes for a type of dialectic that never results in synthesis or closure, but that insists on the conceptual tension between opposites. While doing so, cultural critics should be free from the influence of a particular ideology.