How does ideology shape the way we think - Essay Example

Adorno was a formidable and shrewd dialectician. A considerable amount of his hypothetical work centered on and emphasized the manifest tensions that exist intrinsically within dealings between opposites (Horkheimer and Adorno 2007). In Adornos comprehensive idea of a premise of the social, these dialectical associations function on different levels, and also with each other. Adorno’s Views on Capitalism. Adorno stated that capitalism provided people with the goods from a culture industry, which he viewed as being the opposite of proper art, to keep them passively contented and politically lethargic.

Adorno observed that capitalism had not become more unstable or come close to collapsing, as Marx had forecasted. Rather, it had apparently grown to be more well-established. Where Marx had concentrated on economics Adorno stressed on the function of culture in preserving the status quo. Adorno stated that culture industries are constantly providing an artificial collection of sentimental and unsophisticated products that then substitute the more intricate and significant art forms which have the capacity to compel people to actually challenge the existing social life (Horkheimer and Adorno 2007).

The desire for false, artificial, or unimportant needs is nurtured in people by most culture industries. These are wants and requirements that can be realized by the capitalist structure, and which substitute peoples real desires such as authentic creative happiness, freedom, and the uninhibited expression of human creativity and potential. Commodity fetishism, Adorno stressed, is encouraged by media and advertising enterprises. They are the existing proof that cultural experiences as well as social relations have been objectified for the sake of realizing profits.

Consumers today measure the value of a product or service by their cost. Music products as well as popular media are also typified by pseudo-individualisation and