Throughout history, even the most abstract philosophers wrote the majority of their work about their daily life, surroundings, and society. As time, society and technology progressed, a similar progression became evident in the writing of modern philosophers. In the twentieth century, many of these writers wrote criticisms and insights on technology, and the modern state of culture. Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer, Hannah Arendt, and Herbert Marcuse all wrote cynical criticisms on the modern society in which they lived, a society that is completely different than any in the past, and therefore plagued with different problems than any other society in the past.
In Adorno and Horkheimer ‘s Dialectic of Enlightenment, the pair offers an interesting analysis of the motivations behind culture. The duo assert that culture is no longer the cumulative social quirks and customs it once was, but has become an industry. They argue that culture is being manufactured and produced to indoctrinate the masses into having identical needs. The companies of the world benefit by being able to mass-produce products that meet consumer's needs, and reap considerable profit. Adorno and Horkheimer deduce that businesses were able to do this by first meeting consumer's needs, and thereby being accepted with no resistance.
[...] Free choice among a wide variety of similar goods and services is not freedom (Marcuse 282). He asserts that the media plays a large role in indoctrination and transplanting social needs into individual needs. Now, he says, the transplant is so effective that any difference in the desires of the person and society is purely theoretical. By giving all of society similar needs, the population can be easily catered to and satisfied and mass distribution can be put into effect. [...]
[...] In Adorno and Horkheimer ‘s Dialectic of Enlightenment, the pair offers an interesting analysis of the motivations behind culture. The duo assert that culture is no longer the cumulative social quirks and customs it once was, but has become an industry. They argue that culture is being manufactured and produced to indoctrinate the masses into having identical needs. The companies of the world benefit by being able to mass-produce products that meet consumer's needs, and reap considerable profit. Adorno and Horkheimer deduce that businesses were able to do this by first meeting consumer's needs, and thereby being accepted with no resistance. [...]
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