SOCI 3251 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Frankfurt School, Culture Industry, Social Forces
Document Summary
Critical theory based on materialist world, based in marxism. The alienation of humanity and the obstacles to realizing a perfected social order lie in distorted consciousness. The source of distorted consciousness in the irrationality of rationality. Is the lifeblood of bureaucratic administration of human affairs. Is precisely the bureaucratic form of rationality that is most responsible for creating an oppressive overly routinized and depersonalized society. Bureaucracy is the iron cage that has stifled individual freedom. The modern liberation of sexuality provides only false freedom. The more people seek satisfaction through sexuality the more we are being repressed trying to find liberation through that. Adorno 3 major contributions: leisure time becomes toxic, examined how the working and middle classes relax. This approach was rejected by modern sociologists as being too psychological and revised to consider the ways in which cultural and social forces can enable fascist modes of action and order. Individualistic rationality is a critical and oppositional attitude that derived.
