Dialectic of Enlightenment
1. What is “Enlightenment"?
Broadly understood as the advancement of thought.
“For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed with suspicion.” - page 3
Enlightenment was an era were superstition and fate was no longer considered knowledge and no longer relevant in science. People start to think for themselves and are not just blindly following a religion or myth. Since according to Horkheimer and Adorno knowledge is power and therefore I think people embraced the enlightenment to get it.
2. What is “Dialectic"?
Dialectic is when you with reasoned arguments and counter arguments cancel out everything in a concept or idea that is false. This will eventually result in a conclusion and maybe new insights.
3. What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?
Nominalism rejects the idea of abstract objects or universals. Just because someone describes an object as small it does not mean that it is small compared to everything or perceived the same way for everyone.
4. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
Myth was used to explain things that people did not understand. The fear of the unknown made people believe in these stories. Myth was also used to record the history. Myth is not built on logic or nature, it’s only a way to explain concepts in the world in a way that we can understand.
"The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity"
In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analysing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?
Substructure comprehends everything that is about production. E.g. the tools that are used in production and the working conditions. The superstructure is everything that is not directly connected to production. E.g. culture, art, politics and religion. Benjamin talks about how the substructure is much faster to change than the superstructure and the superstructure adapts and eventually conforms to the substructure. The point of analysing this is to analyse the basic conditions of capitalistic production to foresee the future of capitalism.
2. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?
Film for example has no more revolutionary merit than promoting criticism of traditional concepts. But by promoting criticism a revolution could potentially happen. Since film can spread to a larger portion of the population than theatre more people will hear the message and be affected by it.
3. Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).
Perception historically speaking is how we perceive the world differently because of culture and events that happened and so on. The enlightenment was an era that changed the thoughts and perception of unnatural things for many and therefore the perception was historically determined. Perception that is naturally determined is not affected by culture and other external circumstances but is more or less the same for everyone.
4. What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?
The aura of an object is its uniqueness. A staty made by someone by hand has a strong aura because of its presence in time and uniqueness. There is no way that the artist could make an exact copy of that statue, therefore it’s completely unique. When a perfect reproduction of a piece of art is made it will loose its uniqueness and therefore its aura. The aura of a work of art also includes the tradition and culture that its surrounded with.
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