WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.660 Have you ever had that really specific, slightly 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:07.019 uncanny feeling when you turn on the radio? Maybe 00:00:07.019 --> 00:00:09.119 you're just mindlessly scrolling through a new 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:12.699 releases playlist and you get hit with this wave 00:00:12.699 --> 00:00:16.800 of... of deja vu it's that sensation where you 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:19.219 swear you've never heard this specific song before 00:00:19.219 --> 00:00:21.519 it's brand new but at the same time you feel 00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:22.899 like you've already heard it a thousand times 00:00:22.899 --> 00:00:25.920 it's the pop song paradox yes it feels fresh 00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:28.800 but it's completely familiar it's safe it's catchy 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:30.679 it hooks you but it doesn't you know it never 00:00:30.679 --> 00:00:32.920 actually surprises you exactly it's haunting 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:35.700 in a way or okay think about those personalized 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:38.399 ads you buy one pair of running shoes just one 00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:41.710 and suddenly the entire internet decides your 00:00:41.710 --> 00:00:43.509 whole identity is marathon runner. Oh, yeah. 00:00:43.590 --> 00:00:46.390 Everything is targeted. It feels like the machine 00:00:46.390 --> 00:00:48.920 knows you, but it's actually just... It's just 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:51.579 shoving you into a prefabricated box. It feels 00:00:51.579 --> 00:00:54.079 manipulative. It feels manipulative because, 00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:56.719 well, in many ways it is. And while we tend to 00:00:56.719 --> 00:00:59.600 think of this as a very modern problem, you know, 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:02.020 a symptom of the algorithm age of big tech and 00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:04.959 all that, there was a man who predicted this 00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:08.239 exact state of affairs. He did. Decades before 00:01:08.239 --> 00:01:10.379 the Internet was even a glimmer in a computer 00:01:10.379 --> 00:01:13.599 scientist's eye. And today we are unpacking the 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:17.200 life and mind of that man, Theodore W. Adorno. 00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:20.099 He was a German philosopher who looked at the 00:01:20.099 --> 00:01:22.980 bright, happy world of pop culture and saw a 00:01:22.980 --> 00:01:25.680 factory floor. This is a guy who fled the Nazis, 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:29.299 hated jazz with a burning passion, and argued 00:01:29.299 --> 00:01:31.879 that our leisure time, our weekends, our movie 00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:33.939 nights, is actually just an extension of our 00:01:33.939 --> 00:01:37.140 workday. He is a fascinating, difficult, and 00:01:37.140 --> 00:01:39.640 often very intimidating figure. I mean, he was 00:01:39.640 --> 00:01:41.879 a man of massive contradiction. Like walking 00:01:41.879 --> 00:01:44.140 contradiction. Totally. He was a Marxist who 00:01:44.140 --> 00:01:46.579 was constantly accused of being an elitist snob. 00:01:47.049 --> 00:01:48.909 He's a victim of fascism who was later attacked 00:01:48.909 --> 00:01:51.090 by left -wing students for being too conservative. 00:01:51.250 --> 00:01:53.689 And my personal favorite. Yes. He was a classical 00:01:53.689 --> 00:01:56.829 music prodigy who also analyzed horoscopes to 00:01:56.829 --> 00:01:58.890 understand the decline of Western civilization. 00:01:59.189 --> 00:02:01.829 Which is a bold combination of interests, you 00:02:01.829 --> 00:02:04.049 have to admit. It is. Yeah. But our mission today 00:02:04.049 --> 00:02:07.329 is to get past that intimidation factor. We are 00:02:07.329 --> 00:02:10.240 going to look at his journey. From being a wunderkind 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:13.520 in Frankfurt to an exile in sunny California, 00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:16.439 writing about the devil with Thomas Mann. And 00:02:16.439 --> 00:02:18.479 we're going to tackle his most famous, his most 00:02:18.479 --> 00:02:20.840 heavy -heating concept, the culture industry. 00:02:21.560 --> 00:02:24.259 And we have quite a stack of sources today. It 00:02:24.259 --> 00:02:26.620 ranges from, you know, biographical accounts 00:02:26.620 --> 00:02:29.759 of his early life to his incredibly dense philosophical 00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:32.780 works like Dialectic of Enlightenment. And then 00:02:32.780 --> 00:02:35.240 on the other side, critiques from modern musicologists 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:37.719 who think he just got it all completely wrong. 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:39.639 So it's a heavy stack. It is, but we're going 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:40.840 to break it down. So let's start at the very 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:44.680 beginning. Who was this guy before he became 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:49.099 this? grand hotel abyss of philosophy. Can you 00:02:49.099 --> 00:02:51.500 paint the picture for us? Yeah. To really understand 00:02:51.500 --> 00:02:53.620 Adorno, you have to visualize his environment. 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:56.159 If you could look into his childhood room, you'd 00:02:56.159 --> 00:02:59.560 see a messy desk, just towering stacks of sheet 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:03.300 music, thick philosophy books, and this looming 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:05.780 shadow of the early 20th century in Germany. 00:03:05.979 --> 00:03:09.460 He was born in 1903 in Frankfurt. But here is 00:03:09.460 --> 00:03:12.960 the first interesting detail. His name wasn't 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:15.919 originally Adorno. He was born Theodor Ludwig 00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:18.819 Weissengrind. Weissengrind. That sounds, well, 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:21.460 that sounds significantly more German and very 00:03:21.460 --> 00:03:23.860 different from the name we all know him by. Where 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:26.360 did the change come from? Well, it reflects the 00:03:26.360 --> 00:03:28.039 duality of his background, which is absolutely 00:03:28.039 --> 00:03:31.300 crucial to understanding his worldview. His father, 00:03:31.500 --> 00:03:34.259 Oscar Weisingrind, was a wealthy wine merchant 00:03:34.259 --> 00:03:37.800 and an assimilated Jew who had converted to Protestantism. 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:40.580 Okay. His mother, Maria Calvella Adorno della 00:03:40.580 --> 00:03:43.240 Piana, was a Catholic from Corsica and a professional 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:46.699 singer. So he had the business side and the artistic 00:03:46.699 --> 00:03:48.620 side right there in his genetics. Yeah. A wine 00:03:48.620 --> 00:03:50.639 merchant father and a singing mother. Very much 00:03:50.639 --> 00:03:53.139 so. And the artistic side was absolutely dominant 00:03:53.139 --> 00:03:55.560 in his childhood. He actually dropped Weisingrind 00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:57.860 and took his mother's surname, Adorno, later 00:03:57.860 --> 00:04:01.039 in life, specifically when he became... a naturalized 00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:04.439 U .S. citizen. It was partly a move to distance 00:04:04.439 --> 00:04:07.479 himself from a German identity that had so violently 00:04:07.479 --> 00:04:11.159 rejected him, but also an embrace of that maternal 00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:14.939 artistic lineage. I mean, growing up, he wasn't 00:04:14.939 --> 00:04:17.500 just hearing music, he was breathing it. His 00:04:17.500 --> 00:04:19.560 mother had performed at the imperial court in 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:22.480 Vienna, and her sister, his aunt Agathe, lived 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:25.300 with them. She was also a brilliant pianist and 00:04:25.300 --> 00:04:27.310 singer. It sounds like a house where you just 00:04:27.310 --> 00:04:29.670 couldn't walk into a room without tripping over 00:04:29.670 --> 00:04:32.050 a piano sonata or interrupting an auraria. It 00:04:32.050 --> 00:04:34.949 was exactly that. And Adorno wasn't just a passive 00:04:34.949 --> 00:04:37.769 listener. This is so important. He was a prodigy. 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:40.259 By the age of 12, he wasn't just playing chopsticks. 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:43.819 He was playing Beethoven on the piano with really 00:04:43.819 --> 00:04:46.779 serious proficiency. Wow. So when we talk about 00:04:46.779 --> 00:04:49.019 him later analyzing music, you have to remember 00:04:49.019 --> 00:04:50.899 he isn't just the theorist looking at it from 00:04:50.899 --> 00:04:53.040 the outside. He knows how the sausage is made 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:55.100 because he can make it himself. That's a great 00:04:55.100 --> 00:04:58.000 point. He has the practical skill. He does. But 00:04:58.000 --> 00:04:59.680 of course, the books were there, too. I mean, 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:02.040 by the time he graduated top of his class from 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:04.819 the gymnasium, he was already reading incredibly 00:05:04.819 --> 00:05:07.600 dense philosophy works by people like Gergely 00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:10.139 Lukacs and Ernst Bloch. I think back to my high 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:13.519 school years and I I barely survived reading 00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:16.199 The Great Gatsby. This kid is reading Marxist 00:05:16.199 --> 00:05:19.259 theory and Hegelian dialectics before he can 00:05:19.259 --> 00:05:22.279 even vote. It speaks to the, well, the sheer 00:05:22.279 --> 00:05:24.879 intensity of his intellectual upbringing. He 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:27.060 didn't have a normal childhood in the sense of, 00:05:27.100 --> 00:05:29.680 you know, playing soccer in the street. His playground 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:32.920 was the intellect. And he had a guide. He struck 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:34.879 up this very important friendship with a man 00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:37.600 named Siegfried Krakauer. Krakauer, okay. Krakauer 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:39.980 was a literary editor and significantly older, 00:05:40.180 --> 00:05:42.500 but they would spend their Saturday afternoons 00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:45.300 together reading Immanuel Kant's Critique of 00:05:45.300 --> 00:05:48.259 Pure Reason. Saturday afternoon reading Kant. 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:50.889 That is a very... specific definition of fun. 00:05:51.029 --> 00:05:52.990 It is. But I'm guessing they weren't just reading 00:05:52.990 --> 00:05:55.490 it to pass a test. No, and this is the key. This 00:05:55.490 --> 00:05:57.730 really sets the stage for everything Adorno does 00:05:57.730 --> 00:06:00.889 later. Adorno said that under Krakauer's guidance, 00:06:01.170 --> 00:06:04.610 they didn't read Kant like a textbook. They weren't 00:06:04.610 --> 00:06:07.129 just analyzing epistemology, you know, how we 00:06:07.129 --> 00:06:10.029 know what we know. Right. They read it as a coded 00:06:10.029 --> 00:06:13.069 text. They were trying to read the spirit of 00:06:13.069 --> 00:06:15.949 history through the philosophy. They believed 00:06:15.949 --> 00:06:17.750 that if you looked hard enough at these dense 00:06:17.750 --> 00:06:20.610 texts, you could uncover the hidden truth of 00:06:20.610 --> 00:06:22.509 the historical situation they were living in. 00:06:22.920 --> 00:06:24.860 That's a fascinating way to look at philosophy. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:28.040 It's like they were detectives. Yeah. Like they 00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:30.639 were looking for clues about the social structure 00:06:30.639 --> 00:06:34.060 of the 18th century hidden inside the dry logic 00:06:34.060 --> 00:06:36.720 of Kant. Precisely. They believe that a philosopher 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:39.100 isn't just writing about abstract ideas. They 00:06:39.100 --> 00:06:41.519 are unconsciously writing down all the tensions 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:44.019 and contradictions of their own society. And 00:06:44.019 --> 00:06:46.699 that method looking for the social truth hidden 00:06:46.699 --> 00:06:48.860 inside a piece of art or a philosophical text 00:06:48.860 --> 00:06:51.740 that became Adorno's signature move. He would 00:06:51.740 --> 00:06:53.600 later do the. exact same thing with a pop song. 00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:55.279 He'd listen to it and say, I'm not listening 00:06:55.279 --> 00:06:57.120 to the melody. I'm listening to the economic 00:06:57.120 --> 00:06:59.779 structure that produced it. But before he fully 00:06:59.779 --> 00:07:02.540 committed to being a philosopher, he had to chase 00:07:02.540 --> 00:07:06.079 his first love, which was music. So in 1925, 00:07:06.220 --> 00:07:10.040 he moves to Vienna and Vienna in the 20s. I mean, 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:11.220 that must have been the center of the universe 00:07:11.220 --> 00:07:13.819 for a serious musician. It was the center of 00:07:13.819 --> 00:07:16.899 the avant -garde universe for sure. Adorno went 00:07:16.899 --> 00:07:19.889 there to study composition with Albenberg. Now, 00:07:19.910 --> 00:07:22.310 Berg was a disciple of Arnold Schoenberg, and 00:07:22.310 --> 00:07:24.490 together they were the core of what was called 00:07:24.490 --> 00:07:27.529 the Second Viennese School. Okay, we need to 00:07:27.529 --> 00:07:29.589 pause on Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School 00:07:29.589 --> 00:07:31.430 because this comes up constantly in Adorno's 00:07:31.430 --> 00:07:34.449 work. What was their deal? Why were they so controversial? 00:07:34.870 --> 00:07:37.490 They were rebels in the truest sense of the word. 00:07:37.819 --> 00:07:40.259 They felt that traditional tonal music, the stuff 00:07:40.259 --> 00:07:42.360 that sounds nice to our ears, the music of Mozart, 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:45.639 Beethoven, even Wagner, that it had run its course. 00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:47.939 It was exhausted. They believed that the whole 00:07:47.939 --> 00:07:50.519 harmonic system where a song starts in a key, 00:07:50.680 --> 00:07:52.839 goes on a little journey, and then resolves back 00:07:52.839 --> 00:07:55.079 home. They thought that was a lie. They felt 00:07:55.079 --> 00:07:56.920 it was a kind of fake comfort. So they developed 00:07:56.920 --> 00:07:59.899 the 12 -tone technique, or atonality. For the 00:07:59.899 --> 00:08:02.680 listener who isn't a music theory buff, how would 00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:05.100 you describe the sound of atonality? What does 00:08:05.100 --> 00:08:07.589 it feel like to listen to? It sounds dissonant. 00:08:07.589 --> 00:08:11.329 It's jarring. It's anxious. It deliberately refuses 00:08:11.329 --> 00:08:14.170 to give the listener an easy, comforting melody. 00:08:14.370 --> 00:08:17.850 There is no home key to return to. It's meant 00:08:17.850 --> 00:08:20.129 to capture the feeling of being locked, of being 00:08:20.129 --> 00:08:24.069 unmoored. He liked this. He didn't just like 00:08:24.069 --> 00:08:27.029 it. He morally supported it. He called Albanberg 00:08:27.029 --> 00:08:30.670 his master and teacher. For Adorno, this kind 00:08:30.670 --> 00:08:33.490 of music was honest. It reflected the fractured, 00:08:33.490 --> 00:08:36.090 chaotic, anxious reality of the modern world. 00:08:36.269 --> 00:08:38.870 He started writing these essays just trashing 00:08:38.870 --> 00:08:41.549 stabilized music composers like Richard Strauss, 00:08:41.629 --> 00:08:44.230 who were still writing this pretty romantic stuff. 00:08:44.509 --> 00:08:46.309 So for him, pretty music was dishonest music. 00:08:46.470 --> 00:08:48.769 Exactly. He thought that kind of music was deceptive. 00:08:48.769 --> 00:08:50.649 It was trying to tell people the world was beautiful 00:08:50.649 --> 00:08:53.059 and orderly. And in fact, it was falling apart 00:08:53.059 --> 00:08:55.419 at the seams. That's a recurring theme with him, 00:08:55.480 --> 00:08:57.860 isn't it? The morality of aesthetics. If the 00:08:57.860 --> 00:09:00.360 art is too pretty, it's probably lying to you. 00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:03.960 So he's in Vienna. He's hanging out the radicals, 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:07.779 writing at Tonal Music. When does this shift 00:09:07.779 --> 00:09:10.559 happen? When does he realize he's more of a philosopher 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:13.240 than a composer? Well, it was a gradual realization. 00:09:13.419 --> 00:09:18.000 He saw that his true talent really lay in analyzing 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:21.039 the music rather than creating it. He wrote to 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:23.259 Berg at one point, admitting that he felt his 00:09:23.259 --> 00:09:26.240 future was in theory. He was a good composer, 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:28.019 but he was a brilliant thinker. But there was 00:09:28.019 --> 00:09:30.480 an event that forced his hand. A massive one. 00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:32.580 The real turning point, the thing that shattered 00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:34.539 his world and forced him to change his entire 00:09:34.539 --> 00:09:37.440 trajectory, was the rise of Nazism. Right. 1933, 00:09:37.779 --> 00:09:40.679 Hitler seizes power. And Adorno's world collapsed 00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:42.450 almost. overnight. You have to remember he is 00:09:42.450 --> 00:09:44.549 an intellectual. He was associated with Marxist 00:09:44.549 --> 00:09:46.629 thought and he was of Jewish descent. He was 00:09:46.629 --> 00:09:49.149 the trifecta of what the Nazis hated. A prime 00:09:49.149 --> 00:09:52.210 target. Absolutely. His right to teach was revoked. 00:09:52.269 --> 00:09:54.509 His house in Frankfurt was searched by the police. 00:09:54.950 --> 00:09:57.690 And then came the rejection letter from the right 00:09:57.690 --> 00:09:59.990 chamber of literature. I read about this in the 00:09:59.990 --> 00:10:02.129 sources. The wording is absolutely chilling. 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:04.820 It's bureaucratic cruelty at its finest. They 00:10:04.820 --> 00:10:07.360 denied him membership because he was non -Aryan. 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:10.139 And the letter explicitly stated that because 00:10:10.139 --> 00:10:12.960 of his background, he was unable to feel and 00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:15.120 appreciate an obligation to the German nation. 00:10:15.539 --> 00:10:17.960 Imagine being told that. Yeah. That you were 00:10:17.960 --> 00:10:20.299 incapable of feeling an obligation to your own 00:10:20.299 --> 00:10:22.960 home, the place you were born, the language you 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:26.399 speak. Just because of who your father was? It's 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:29.220 devastating, and it forced him into exile. This 00:10:29.220 --> 00:10:31.559 kicked off a 15 -year journey that would take 00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:34.059 him from the hallowed halls of Oxford, where 00:10:34.059 --> 00:10:37.000 he was, kind of humiliatingly, treated like a 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:39.059 student again, despite being a brilliant scholar, 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:42.019 to the bustling streets of New York City, and 00:10:42.019 --> 00:10:43.919 then eventually to the sunny coast of California. 00:10:44.600 --> 00:10:46.580 Let's talk about that New York chapter, because 00:10:46.580 --> 00:10:49.139 this is where I think the Adorno versus the world 00:10:49.139 --> 00:10:52.480 dynamic. Starts to get, well, it's funny, in 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:54.940 a dark sitcom kind of way, he gets involved in 00:10:54.940 --> 00:10:56.820 something called the Radio Project, right? Yes, 00:10:56.919 --> 00:11:00.039 the Princeton Radio Project. It was funded by 00:11:00.039 --> 00:11:02.700 the Rockefeller Foundation and led by a sociologist 00:11:02.700 --> 00:11:06.019 named Paul Lazarsfeld. Lazarsfeld was brilliant, 00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:09.850 but he was very... What do you mean by that? 00:11:09.990 --> 00:11:12.830 He was a positivist. He believed in data, in 00:11:12.830 --> 00:11:15.190 numbers, in charts. He wanted hard empirical 00:11:15.190 --> 00:11:18.149 evidence. So you have Adorno, this intense European 00:11:18.149 --> 00:11:20.970 theorist who reads Kant for fun and believes 00:11:20.970 --> 00:11:23.350 truth is hidden in the spirit of history. Yes. 00:11:23.570 --> 00:11:26.309 And Lazarsfeld, who just wants to see the spreadsheets. 00:11:26.409 --> 00:11:28.889 Exactly. It was a complete and total culture 00:11:28.889 --> 00:11:31.870 clash. Lazarsfeld wanted to know how people listen 00:11:31.870 --> 00:11:34.110 to the radio. He wanted hard data. He wanted 00:11:34.110 --> 00:11:36.750 to know if people liked song A more than song 00:11:36.750 --> 00:11:39.720 B. They even had this device. Oh, this is incredible. 00:11:40.179 --> 00:11:42.519 They called it the Lazarsfeld Stanton Program 00:11:42.519 --> 00:11:45.519 Analyzer, or affectionately, Little Annie. Little 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:47.759 Annie. And listeners would be given this device, 00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:49.879 and they could press a green button if they liked 00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:52.100 a part of a song, and a red button if they disliked 00:11:52.100 --> 00:11:54.419 it, all while the song was playing. The proto 00:11:54.419 --> 00:11:56.740 -like button. Adorno must have looked at that 00:11:56.740 --> 00:12:00.840 and just lost his mind. He despised it. He looked 00:12:00.840 --> 00:12:02.899 at this button and essentially said, are you 00:12:02.899 --> 00:12:05.840 kidding me? His insight, I think, was profound. 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:09.039 He wrote, culture was simply the condition that 00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:11.519 precluded a mentality that tried to measure it. 00:12:11.580 --> 00:12:13.659 That's a dense sentence. Let's really unpack 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:15.940 that. What is he actually saying there? He's 00:12:15.940 --> 00:12:17.820 saying that the moment you try to measure the 00:12:17.820 --> 00:12:20.259 impact of a symphony or any piece of art by just 00:12:20.259 --> 00:12:22.940 pressing a binary button, yes or no, like or 00:12:22.940 --> 00:12:25.480 dislike, you have fundamentally destroyed the 00:12:25.480 --> 00:12:27.600 experience of the art. You've killed it. You've 00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:30.580 killed it. Art is a process. It unfolds over 00:12:30.580 --> 00:12:33.899 time. If you are reducing Beethoven to a series 00:12:33.899 --> 00:12:36.500 of thumbs up or thumbs down moments in real time, 00:12:36.679 --> 00:12:39.299 you aren't listening to Beethoven anymore. You're 00:12:39.299 --> 00:12:42.340 just consuming noise. He argued that the meaning 00:12:42.340 --> 00:12:44.440 of a symphony heard while you're walking around 00:12:44.440 --> 00:12:47.000 or lying in bed or sitting in a concert hall 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:49.899 is fundamentally different. Context is everything. 00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:52.360 So he's saying you can't treat music like a data 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:54.620 point. It's not a flavor of ice cream you can 00:12:54.620 --> 00:12:57.480 just say you like or dislike. Precisely. And 00:12:57.480 --> 00:13:00.460 he felt that by treating it as data, the radio 00:13:00.460 --> 00:13:02.679 project was actually part of the problem. They 00:13:02.679 --> 00:13:05.320 were treating listeners as consumers to be analyzed, 00:13:05.539 --> 00:13:07.820 not as human beings experiencing art. Right. 00:13:07.940 --> 00:13:10.340 And there's a wonderful anecdote from this time 00:13:10.340 --> 00:13:12.899 that sums up his complete confusion with American 00:13:12.899 --> 00:13:15.559 culture. A colleague comes up to him and asks, 00:13:15.740 --> 00:13:18.480 Dr. Adorno, are you an introvert or an extrovert? 00:13:18.580 --> 00:13:20.879 A standard personality quiz question. We wouldn't 00:13:20.879 --> 00:13:23.080 even blink at that today. To us, it's completely 00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:27.200 normal. To Adorno, he was just... He later wrote 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:29.080 that he realized Americans think in multiple 00:13:29.080 --> 00:13:32.000 choice questionnaire models as if the human soul, 00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:35.580 this complex, contradictory, messy thing can 00:13:35.580 --> 00:13:38.539 be checked into box A or box B. Wow. He found 00:13:38.539 --> 00:13:40.980 it reductive and honestly terrifying. He saw 00:13:40.980 --> 00:13:42.799 it as a sign that people were losing their ability 00:13:42.799 --> 00:13:45.960 to think in complex, nuanced terms. So he clashes 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:47.820 with the data guys in New York. He's clearly 00:13:47.820 --> 00:13:49.820 not fitting in. Yeah. And eventually he heads 00:13:49.820 --> 00:13:53.480 west. To California. To German California, as 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:56.240 Thomas Mann called it. In the 1940s, Pacific 00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:59.899 Palisades was the surreal enclave of exiled German 00:13:59.899 --> 00:14:02.059 intellectuals. You have to picture this. You 00:14:02.059 --> 00:14:05.200 have Adorno, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Arnold 00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:07.899 Schoenberg. That's a lineup. Some of the greatest 00:14:07.899 --> 00:14:10.480 minds of European history, all living within 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:13.159 a few miles of each other, right next to Hollywood 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:16.220 stars, driving cars for the first time, and sitting 00:14:16.220 --> 00:14:18.620 under palm trees. It's such a bizarre image. 00:14:19.389 --> 00:14:22.629 All these brilliant minds fleeing Hitler, sitting 00:14:22.629 --> 00:14:25.090 in the California sunshine, probably just complaining 00:14:25.090 --> 00:14:27.549 about the lack of good bread. Probably. And collaborating. 00:14:27.769 --> 00:14:30.029 This is a lesser known fact, but Adorno actually 00:14:30.029 --> 00:14:32.029 helped Thomas Mann write the musical sections 00:14:32.029 --> 00:14:34.690 of his famous novel, Dr. Faustus. I didn't know 00:14:34.690 --> 00:14:36.990 that. The novel is about a composer who sells 00:14:36.990 --> 00:14:39.330 his soul to the devil in exchange for musical 00:14:39.330 --> 00:14:42.190 genius. And Mann essentially asked Adorno, how 00:14:42.190 --> 00:14:44.230 would you compose music if you were in league 00:14:44.230 --> 00:14:46.450 with the devil? And Adorno was like, I gotcha. 00:14:47.309 --> 00:14:50.470 I know exactly how that sounds. He did. He advised 00:14:50.470 --> 00:14:52.889 Mann on the descriptions of the fictional composer's 00:14:52.889 --> 00:14:55.450 work, basing it largely on the 12 -tone technique 00:14:55.450 --> 00:14:58.750 of Schoenberg. It just shows how deeply Adorno 00:14:58.750 --> 00:15:02.149 thought about the dark, the demonic side of creativity. 00:15:02.409 --> 00:15:05.330 He believed that real, honest art in the 20th 00:15:05.330 --> 00:15:07.929 century had to be dark. It had to be difficult. 00:15:08.470 --> 00:15:11.049 Which brings us directly to the core of his work, 00:15:11.690 --> 00:15:14.710 the big theory. While he's in the U .S. watching 00:15:14.710 --> 00:15:17.389 the rise of Hollywood and mass marketing in this 00:15:17.389 --> 00:15:20.549 multiple choice culture, he writes along with 00:15:20.549 --> 00:15:23.570 Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment. And 00:15:23.570 --> 00:15:26.070 in that book, they coined the term that defines 00:15:26.070 --> 00:15:29.070 his entire legacy, the culture industry. This 00:15:29.070 --> 00:15:31.450 is the centerpiece, the culture industry. And 00:15:31.450 --> 00:15:33.250 I want to really stress the wording here. He 00:15:33.250 --> 00:15:35.230 doesn't call it popular culture. He doesn't call 00:15:35.230 --> 00:15:37.309 it mass art. He calls it an industry. Why is 00:15:37.309 --> 00:15:39.200 that distinction so important to him? Because 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:41.500 calling it popular culture implies that it comes 00:15:41.500 --> 00:15:43.340 from the people, that it's some kind of grassroots 00:15:43.340 --> 00:15:45.679 expression of what people genuinely like. Right. 00:15:45.740 --> 00:15:47.899 That it bubbles up from below. Adorno argues 00:15:47.899 --> 00:15:50.639 the exact opposite. He says mass media, radio, 00:15:50.860 --> 00:15:54.899 film, magazines and later TV is a top down system. 00:15:55.059 --> 00:15:58.259 It is a factory. And its goal is not to enlighten 00:15:58.259 --> 00:16:01.440 or challenge or express some deep truth. Its 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:04.000 goal is to produce standardized goods to keep 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.139 people passive. Passive how? What does the industry 00:16:07.139 --> 00:16:10.179 gain from us being passive? Well, Adorno argued 00:16:10.179 --> 00:16:12.179 that the culture industry is designed to make 00:16:12.179 --> 00:16:15.100 capitalism aesthetically pleasing. It's the soma 00:16:15.100 --> 00:16:17.139 of our society, to borrow from Ellis Huxley. 00:16:17.299 --> 00:16:20.659 It keeps us distracted, obedient, and ultimately 00:16:20.659 --> 00:16:23.100 content with the status quo. So it's a kind of 00:16:23.100 --> 00:16:25.840 drug? It is. Think about it. If you were exhausted 00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:27.820 from working at a factory or an office all day, 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:29.860 you were drained. You don't want to come home 00:16:29.860 --> 00:16:32.299 and read difficult philosophy or listen to atonal 00:16:32.299 --> 00:16:35.259 music that challenges your very soul. zone out. 00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:37.600 You want to watch a sitcom. You want to hear 00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:40.320 a catchy pop song that doesn't ask anything of 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:43.120 you. Exactly. And Adorno acknowledges this need, 00:16:43.279 --> 00:16:45.960 but he argues that the industry exploits it. 00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:48.259 It offers you entertainment that requires zero 00:16:48.259 --> 00:16:51.659 mental effort. He called it baby food. Predigested. 00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:54.720 Yes. It's already been chewed for you. You just 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.870 have to swallow. And to achieve this, the industry 00:16:57.870 --> 00:17:01.909 relies on two key concepts, standardization and 00:17:01.909 --> 00:17:04.190 pseudo -individualization. OK, these are big 00:17:04.190 --> 00:17:06.650 terms. Let's unpack standardization first. What 00:17:06.650 --> 00:17:08.730 does he mean by that? Standardization is the 00:17:08.730 --> 00:17:10.509 idea that everything in the culture industry 00:17:10.509 --> 00:17:14.180 follows a rigid, predictable formula. A pop song 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:17.640 has a verse, a chorus, a bridge, another chorus. 00:17:17.859 --> 00:17:21.160 A superhero movie has an origin story, a setback, 00:17:21.380 --> 00:17:24.579 a training montage, and a big CGI battle at the 00:17:24.579 --> 00:17:27.619 end. The beats are always the same. Always. The 00:17:27.619 --> 00:17:29.819 details change. Maybe the superhero wears red, 00:17:29.859 --> 00:17:32.339 maybe he wears blue, but the underlying structural 00:17:32.339 --> 00:17:35.940 is ironclad. Adorno says, we aren't responding 00:17:35.940 --> 00:17:38.079 to the content, we are responding to the formula. 00:17:38.299 --> 00:17:40.500 We find comfort in knowing exactly what is going 00:17:40.500 --> 00:17:42.839 to happen next. But wait, if everything was exactly 00:17:42.839 --> 00:17:44.960 the same, wouldn't we notice? I mean, wouldn't 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:47.480 we get bored and just stop buying it? That is 00:17:47.480 --> 00:17:49.740 where pseudo -individualization comes in. This 00:17:49.740 --> 00:17:51.839 is the trick, the magic trick of the whole system. 00:17:52.140 --> 00:17:55.440 The industry adds small flaws or quirks a hook 00:17:55.440 --> 00:17:58.480 in a song, a specific actor's charisma in a movie, 00:17:58.579 --> 00:18:00.759 a slightly different setting for a sitcom. These 00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:03.480 are designed to give the illusion of choice and 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:07.160 novelty. So it's like different flavors of the 00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:09.839 same soda. It's all just sugar, water, and carbonation, 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:12.769 but one is cherry and one is lime. That is the 00:18:12.769 --> 00:18:15.309 perfect analogy. Adorno argues that we fall into 00:18:15.309 --> 00:18:17.490 this consumer trap. We think, oh, this song really 00:18:17.490 --> 00:18:26.470 speaks to me. It's so unique. The industry has 00:18:26.470 --> 00:18:28.609 just tweaked the packaging to make you feel like 00:18:28.609 --> 00:18:31.670 an individual. He calls it the halo of the free 00:18:31.670 --> 00:18:34.609 choice. You feel free because you can choose 00:18:34.609 --> 00:18:37.549 between brand A and brand B, but you aren't free 00:18:37.549 --> 00:18:39.410 to choose something outside the system. That 00:18:39.410 --> 00:18:43.160 is devastatingly cynical. But also, I have to 00:18:43.160 --> 00:18:45.420 admit, when I look at the top 10 chart or the 00:18:45.420 --> 00:18:48.140 selection of movies at the Cineplex, I kind of 00:18:48.140 --> 00:18:50.440 see what he means. He even broke it down psychologically. 00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:54.039 He outlined how we process a hit song. He listed 00:18:54.039 --> 00:18:56.059 what he called the five components of recognition. 00:18:56.279 --> 00:18:58.900 It's almost a step -by -step guide to how we 00:18:58.900 --> 00:19:01.660 get brainwashed by a catchy tune. Okay, walk 00:19:01.660 --> 00:19:03.359 us through these. I want to know how I'm being 00:19:03.359 --> 00:19:06.079 manipulated. Okay, so imagine a new song comes 00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:09.579 on the radio. Step one is... Vague remembrance. 00:19:10.039 --> 00:19:12.180 Vague remembrance. You hear it and you think, 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:14.720 wait, have I heard this before? It feels familiar 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:17.140 because it's using the same standardized blocks, 00:19:17.420 --> 00:19:19.839 the same four chords, the same beat as every 00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:21.980 other song you like. So it triggers that warm, 00:19:22.019 --> 00:19:25.200 fuzzy feeling of familiarity. Okay, step two. 00:19:26.039 --> 00:19:29.819 Actual identification. You recognize the song. 00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:32.660 You place it, oh, this is that new track by Taylor 00:19:32.660 --> 00:19:35.500 Swift or whoever it is. You have successfully 00:19:35.500 --> 00:19:38.019 identified the product. Right, like checking 00:19:38.019 --> 00:19:40.579 a box. What's step three? Subsumption by label. 00:19:40.660 --> 00:19:43.279 You categorize it. This is a banger. This is 00:19:43.279 --> 00:19:46.319 a sad ballad. This is a workout song. You file 00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:48.640 it away in your mental genre box. You aren't 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:50.380 really listening to the notes anymore. You're 00:19:50.380 --> 00:19:53.279 filing the data. Yeah, that's accurate. Okay, 00:19:53.319 --> 00:19:55.900 step four. Self -reflection and the act of recognition. 00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:58.099 This is where the ego gets involved. You feel 00:19:58.099 --> 00:20:00.160 good about yourself for recognizing it. You think, 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:02.660 I know this song. I'm in the loop. I am culturally 00:20:02.660 --> 00:20:05.119 relevant. The pleasure comes not from the music 00:20:05.119 --> 00:20:07.779 itself, but from the act of identifying it. You're 00:20:07.779 --> 00:20:09.900 patting yourself on the back. And the final step, 00:20:10.140 --> 00:20:13.539 the nail in the coffin. Psychological transfer 00:20:13.539 --> 00:20:16.200 of authority to the object. This is the kicker. 00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:18.740 You transfer your own power, your own critical 00:20:18.740 --> 00:20:21.500 judgment to the song. You submit to it. You say, 00:20:21.559 --> 00:20:24.119 this is a great song, when in reality you have 00:20:24.119 --> 00:20:26.460 just been conditioned to accept it. So you don't 00:20:26.460 --> 00:20:29.039 actually love the song. You submit to the social 00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:31.200 power of the song. You like it because everyone 00:20:31.200 --> 00:20:33.319 else likes it, and the machine told you to like 00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:37.740 it. Wow. That is, that's intense. It makes listening 00:20:37.740 --> 00:20:40.730 to the top 40 sound like a cult initiation. For 00:20:40.730 --> 00:20:44.390 Adorno, it wasn't far off. He saw this passivity, 00:20:44.410 --> 00:20:46.990 this willingness to just accept what is fed to 00:20:46.990 --> 00:20:49.829 you as incredibly dangerous. And not just because 00:20:49.829 --> 00:20:52.369 it makes for boring art. He believed this mindset 00:20:52.369 --> 00:20:55.190 directly paved the way for fascism. Which connects 00:20:55.190 --> 00:20:56.930 to his other major work, right? The authoritarian 00:20:56.930 --> 00:20:59.710 personality. Because while he's analyzing pop 00:20:59.710 --> 00:21:01.690 songs, he's always trying to figure out the biggest 00:21:01.690 --> 00:21:04.549 question of the 20th century. How did a civilized 00:21:04.549 --> 00:21:07.039 country like Germany fall for Hitler? Exactly. 00:21:07.359 --> 00:21:10.200 Adorno didn't see fascism just as a political 00:21:10.200 --> 00:21:12.920 party that seized power. He saw it as a psychology, 00:21:13.140 --> 00:21:16.079 a personality type. After the war, he worked 00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:18.839 on this massive sociological study that developed 00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:21.259 the F scale, the fascism scale. And what were 00:21:21.259 --> 00:21:23.119 they measuring with that? They were looking for 00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:25.380 specific personality traits that made someone 00:21:25.380 --> 00:21:28.500 susceptible to authoritarian propaganda. And 00:21:28.500 --> 00:21:30.819 they found a cluster of them. Things like blind 00:21:30.819 --> 00:21:33.400 obedience to authority, extreme aggression toward 00:21:33.400 --> 00:21:37.099 outsiders or minority groups, rigid conventionalism, 00:21:37.180 --> 00:21:39.880 you know, always sticking to the rules, and a 00:21:39.880 --> 00:21:42.200 real lack of spontaneity. And how does this connect 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:44.059 back to the culture industry? What's the link? 00:21:44.279 --> 00:21:47.579 This is the bridge. Adorno argued that propaganda 00:21:47.579 --> 00:21:50.220 doesn't just hypnotize normal people out of nowhere. 00:21:50.420 --> 00:21:53.140 It exploits a psychological area that has already 00:21:53.140 --> 00:21:55.500 been softened up, preconditioned by mass culture. 00:21:55.740 --> 00:21:58.339 He wrote that fascist propaganda treats people 00:21:58.339 --> 00:22:01.200 as genuine children of today's standardized mass 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:04.240 culture. So if you're trained to accept standardized 00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:06.240 music and standardized movies without questioning 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:10.420 them. You're primed to accept standardized political 00:22:10.420 --> 00:22:14.259 slogans. If you lose the ability to think critically 00:22:14.259 --> 00:22:16.640 about your entertainment if you just swallow 00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:18.960 the baby food without thinking you might lose 00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:21.400 the ability to think critically about your political 00:22:21.400 --> 00:22:23.960 leaders. You become one of the obedient listeners. 00:22:24.279 --> 00:22:26.769 That is a terrifying thought. The idea that bad 00:22:26.769 --> 00:22:29.730 TV prepares you for a dictator. It is. And it's 00:22:29.730 --> 00:22:32.130 why Adorno took pop culture so seriously. He 00:22:32.130 --> 00:22:33.930 didn't hate it just because he was a snob, though. 00:22:34.029 --> 00:22:35.950 OK, he was a bit of a snob. A little bit. He 00:22:35.950 --> 00:22:37.950 hated it because he thought it was eroding the 00:22:37.950 --> 00:22:42.009 democratic mind. So in 1949, Adorno finally goes 00:22:42.009 --> 00:22:45.250 back to Germany. The war is over. The Nazis are 00:22:45.250 --> 00:22:47.869 gone. But he doesn't think the danger is over, 00:22:47.950 --> 00:22:50.759 does he? Not at all. He returns to Frankfurt 00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:53.079 to help rebuild the Institute for Social Research, 00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:55.380 and he becomes a lightning rod for criticism. 00:22:55.700 --> 00:22:57.960 He argues that National Socialism didn't just 00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:00.759 vanish in 1945 when Hitler died. He believed 00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:02.859 it survived in the mindsets of the people and 00:23:02.859 --> 00:23:05.099 within the institutions themselves. He wrote 00:23:05.099 --> 00:23:07.900 extensively about education after Auschwitz, 00:23:08.019 --> 00:23:11.160 arguing that the primary number one goal of all 00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:13.579 education should be ensuring that something like 00:23:13.579 --> 00:23:15.859 Auschwitz never happens again. And this is where 00:23:15.859 --> 00:23:19.259 he drops. One of his most famous and most controversial 00:23:19.259 --> 00:23:22.680 lines. A line that poets and artists have been 00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:25.599 arguing about for decades. To write poetry after 00:23:25.599 --> 00:23:28.480 Auschwitz is barbaric. It's a line that is so 00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:30.859 often misunderstood. People hear that and they 00:23:30.859 --> 00:23:33.079 think he meant no more art allowed. That's how 00:23:33.079 --> 00:23:35.680 it sounds. Stop writing poems. It's over. Pack 00:23:35.680 --> 00:23:37.829 it up, everybody. But what he really meant was 00:23:37.829 --> 00:23:40.049 that traditional culture, the culture of beauty 00:23:40.049 --> 00:23:42.910 and romance and uplift, had failed. It hadn't 00:23:42.910 --> 00:23:45.349 prevented the Holocaust. The Nazis listened to 00:23:45.349 --> 00:23:47.369 Beethoven and read Guthau while they ran the 00:23:47.369 --> 00:23:50.130 death camps. That's a chilling point. So to continue 00:23:50.130 --> 00:23:52.670 writing beautiful, comforting poetry as if nothing 00:23:52.670 --> 00:23:55.009 had happened was a lie. It was barbaric because 00:23:55.009 --> 00:23:57.930 it ignored the reality of the horror. He believed 00:23:57.930 --> 00:24:00.809 that art, after Auschwitz, had a duty to be difficult. 00:24:01.069 --> 00:24:03.369 It had to reflect the suffering, not to paper 00:24:03.369 --> 00:24:06.730 over it. Which brings us back to music. Because 00:24:06.730 --> 00:24:09.369 if there's one thing Adorno is famous for on 00:24:09.369 --> 00:24:11.789 the internet today, besides the culture industry, 00:24:12.109 --> 00:24:14.869 it's being the guy who absolutely hated jazz. 00:24:15.289 --> 00:24:18.269 The jazz problem, yes. It is undoubtedly the 00:24:18.269 --> 00:24:21.029 most polarizing part of his entire legacy. Why, 00:24:21.029 --> 00:24:23.210 though? I mean, jazz is usually seen as the ultimate 00:24:23.210 --> 00:24:26.650 expression of freedom, improvisation, soul, breaking 00:24:26.650 --> 00:24:29.529 the rules. How does Adorno look at a Miles Davis 00:24:29.529 --> 00:24:34.019 solo and see... It's a huge leap, isn't it? But 00:24:34.019 --> 00:24:36.099 Adorno looked at jazz and he saw the complete 00:24:36.099 --> 00:24:38.660 opposite of what we see. He viewed it as just 00:24:38.660 --> 00:24:41.059 another product of the culture industry. He argued 00:24:41.059 --> 00:24:43.880 that the improvisation in jazz was fake. Fake? 00:24:43.880 --> 00:24:45.859 How can improvisation be fake? That's the whole 00:24:45.859 --> 00:24:48.079 point. He said that while a jazz musician might 00:24:48.079 --> 00:24:50.279 take a solo, they are doing it within a rigid, 00:24:50.359 --> 00:24:53.259 standardized structure, usually a 44 -time signature 00:24:53.259 --> 00:24:56.039 and a set of harmonic progressions. He called 00:24:56.039 --> 00:24:58.259 this pseudo -individualization all over again. 00:24:58.440 --> 00:25:00.819 The illusion of freedom. The illusion of freedom. 00:25:01.390 --> 00:25:04.289 He thought the wildness of jazz was a marketing 00:25:04.289 --> 00:25:07.150 gimmick. He thought the syncopation, the offbeat 00:25:07.150 --> 00:25:09.930 rhythm, was just a decoration on top of what 00:25:09.930 --> 00:25:12.829 was essentially a rigid military march beat. 00:25:13.009 --> 00:25:15.450 He thought it made people feel free while they 00:25:15.450 --> 00:25:17.430 were actually just dancing to a rigid, controlled 00:25:17.430 --> 00:25:20.849 beat. I feel like there are a lot of jazz musicians 00:25:20.849 --> 00:25:24.500 and historians and fans who would want to have 00:25:24.500 --> 00:25:26.720 a word with him about that. And many critics 00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:29.299 have. I mean, historians like Eric Hobsbawm have 00:25:29.299 --> 00:25:31.559 called Adorno's writings on jazz some of the 00:25:31.559 --> 00:25:34.599 stupidest pages ever written. They argue he was 00:25:34.599 --> 00:25:36.599 elitist, that he didn't understand the African 00:25:36.599 --> 00:25:38.480 -American context of the music, how it was a 00:25:38.480 --> 00:25:41.019 language of resistance and community, and that 00:25:41.019 --> 00:25:43.440 he was just blinded by his European classical 00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:45.980 training. He was listening to American jazz with 00:25:45.980 --> 00:25:48.240 German ears, and he just didn't get it. It does 00:25:48.240 --> 00:25:50.819 seem like a massive blind spot. He can analyze 00:25:50.819 --> 00:25:53.000 a Beethoven sonata to death, but he hears a... 00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:56.059 saxophone and just thinks factory product. It's 00:25:56.059 --> 00:25:58.420 definitely his biggest and most criticized blind 00:25:58.420 --> 00:26:01.200 spot. But to be fair to his own internal logic, 00:26:01.339 --> 00:26:04.160 remember, he championed the new music Schoenberg 00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:07.200 and the atonals precisely because it wasn't pleasurable. 00:26:07.319 --> 00:26:09.799 It forced the listener to think, to confront 00:26:09.799 --> 00:26:12.799 dissonance. He thought jazz, because it was danceable 00:26:12.799 --> 00:26:14.759 and enjoyable, was just another drug for the 00:26:14.759 --> 00:26:17.460 masses. So for him, art shouldn't be fun. He 00:26:17.460 --> 00:26:19.599 believed it should be true. And the truth for 00:26:19.599 --> 00:26:22.240 him wasn't fun. Before we get too heavy on his 00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:25.279 famous grumpiness, we have to mention the traffic 00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:28.059 light. The Adorno traffic light. I love this 00:26:28.059 --> 00:26:30.180 story because it's so petty and so human. Yes. 00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:34.059 Amidst all this high -minded theory about fascism 00:26:34.059 --> 00:26:36.900 and atonal music, there is a very practical Adorno 00:26:36.900 --> 00:26:40.640 legacy in the city of Frankfurt. In 1962, a pedestrian 00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:42.859 was killed near the university crossing a busy 00:26:42.859 --> 00:26:45.700 road. And Adorno wrote this furious letter to 00:26:45.700 --> 00:26:47.579 the city demanding a traffic light be installed 00:26:47.579 --> 00:26:49.940 to protect the students. Did he get it? It took 00:26:49.940 --> 00:26:52.539 them 25 years. It was finally installed long 00:26:52.539 --> 00:26:55.000 after he died. But it's just this nice reminder 00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.900 that despite his reputation as this aloof theorist 00:26:57.900 --> 00:27:00.859 in an ivory tower, he was engaged with the physical 00:27:00.859 --> 00:27:03.759 safety of his city. He did care about the students. 00:27:03.819 --> 00:27:06.380 Which makes the end of his life even more tragic. 00:27:06.579 --> 00:27:09.839 Yeah. Let's move to the 1960s. The student protest 00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:12.940 movement explodes in West Germany. And these 00:27:12.940 --> 00:27:16.829 students, they love Adorno. At first. They absolutely 00:27:16.829 --> 00:27:18.950 did. They read Dialectic of Enlightenment. They 00:27:18.950 --> 00:27:20.769 saw him as a hero of the left. They thought, 00:27:20.809 --> 00:27:23.250 here's the guy who explained how the system controls 00:27:23.250 --> 00:27:25.549 us, how capitalism dupes us. He gave them the 00:27:25.549 --> 00:27:28.309 intellectual ammunition. He did. But 1968 was 00:27:28.309 --> 00:27:30.849 a time of action. Molotov cocktails, barricades 00:27:30.849 --> 00:27:32.710 in the streets, massive protests against the 00:27:32.710 --> 00:27:35.130 Vietnam War. The students wanted Adorno to lead 00:27:35.130 --> 00:27:36.849 them. They wanted him to grab a megaphone and 00:27:36.849 --> 00:27:38.769 join them on the barricades. And Adorno says. 00:27:39.580 --> 00:27:43.180 No. He says absolutely not. He completely rejected 00:27:43.180 --> 00:27:46.660 what he called actionism. He believed that mindless 00:27:46.660 --> 00:27:49.220 action was just as bad as mindless consumption. 00:27:49.519 --> 00:27:52.319 He famously wrote to Herbert Marcuse, another 00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:54.299 Frankfurt school thinker who did support the 00:27:54.299 --> 00:27:57.380 students, that building barricades was ridiculous 00:27:57.380 --> 00:28:00.259 against those who administer the bomb. So what 00:28:00.259 --> 00:28:02.779 was his solution? Just think harder. Essentially, 00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:05.279 yes. He refused to be a mouthpiece for the movement. 00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:08.480 He believed the philosopher's job was to think, 00:28:08.559 --> 00:28:11.220 to critique, not to throw stones. And the students 00:28:11.220 --> 00:28:13.779 did not take that well. They turned on him viciously. 00:28:13.779 --> 00:28:15.859 They started calling him Teddy the Classicist. 00:28:15.880 --> 00:28:18.619 They disrupted his lectures. At one point, there 00:28:18.619 --> 00:28:22.220 was a banner that read, Berlin's left -wing fascists 00:28:22.220 --> 00:28:24.960 greet Teddy the Classicist. Ouch. Left -wing 00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:26.940 fascists. That's throwing his own theory right 00:28:26.940 --> 00:28:29.880 back in his face. It is. And it all culminated 00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:31.880 in one of the most bizarre and, frankly, sad 00:28:31.880 --> 00:28:34.099 incidents in the history of philosophy, the so 00:28:34.099 --> 00:28:37.339 -called Breast Incident. April 1969. Set the 00:28:37.339 --> 00:28:39.539 scene for us. Adorno is attempting to give a 00:28:39.539 --> 00:28:42.000 lecture called An Introduction to Dialectical 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:45.000 Thinking. The hall is packed. A student gets 00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:47.400 up and writes on the blackboard, If Adorno is 00:28:47.400 --> 00:28:50.519 left in peace, capitalism will never cease. Okay, 00:28:50.619 --> 00:28:53.839 a clear provocation. And then three female students 00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:56.700 approach the podium. They bare their breasts 00:28:56.700 --> 00:28:59.299 and scatter flower petals over Adorno's head. 00:28:59.539 --> 00:29:01.500 It sounds like a prank or a piece of performance 00:29:01.500 --> 00:29:04.799 art, but for a man of his dignity and his generation. 00:29:05.240 --> 00:29:08.000 It was profoundly humiliating. It was a complete 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:10.819 breakdown of the intellectual space he held so 00:29:10.819 --> 00:29:13.680 sacred. He tried to hide behind his briefcase. 00:29:13.799 --> 00:29:16.500 He grabbed his hat and coat and he just fled 00:29:16.500 --> 00:29:19.259 the lecture hall. He canceled the rest of his 00:29:19.259 --> 00:29:22.099 lecture series. He was reportedly deeply, deeply 00:29:22.099 --> 00:29:25.180 depressed by it. He felt his life's work, educating 00:29:25.180 --> 00:29:27.019 the next generation to think critically, was 00:29:27.019 --> 00:29:29.259 being mocked by the very people he tried to teach. 00:29:29.420 --> 00:29:31.839 They were using this kind of pseudo -activity 00:29:31.839 --> 00:29:34.119 to silence him. And he didn't live long after 00:29:34.119 --> 00:29:37.500 that, did he? No. That summer in 1969, he went 00:29:37.500 --> 00:29:39.920 to Switzerland to Zermatt and Wisp to try and 00:29:39.920 --> 00:29:42.200 recover from the stress of it all. He died of 00:29:42.200 --> 00:29:45.200 a heart attack on August 6th, 1969. It's a sad 00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:48.259 end. The man who warned against the mob eventually 00:29:48.259 --> 00:29:51.380 gets chased out by one. But here we are over 00:29:51.380 --> 00:29:53.660 50 years later and we are still talking about 00:29:53.660 --> 00:29:57.680 him. Why? Why does Adorno still matter in the 00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:00.130 21st century? He matters because the world he 00:30:00.130 --> 00:30:02.849 described in the 1940s looks exactly like the 00:30:02.849 --> 00:30:05.490 world we live in today. In fact, you could argue 00:30:05.490 --> 00:30:07.990 it's even more extreme now. We mentioned the 00:30:07.990 --> 00:30:10.190 pop song paradox at the very start. Well, the 00:30:10.190 --> 00:30:12.549 music critic Alex Ross pointed this out brilliantly. 00:30:12.650 --> 00:30:15.529 He noted that today a few huge corporations, 00:30:15.950 --> 00:30:20.410 Google, Apple, Amazon, preside over these unprecedented 00:30:20.410 --> 00:30:24.009 monopolies of culture. It is exactly what Adorno 00:30:24.009 --> 00:30:27.119 feared, but on a global scale. The algorithm 00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:30.079 is the ultimate machine of pseudo -individualization. 00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:32.200 We think we're choosing what to watch on Netflix 00:30:32.200 --> 00:30:34.559 or what to listen to on Spotify, but the menu 00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:36.819 is curated by a machine that's designed to keep 00:30:36.819 --> 00:30:39.200 us watching, to keep us listening. Exactly. It's 00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:41.420 always the same, as he called it. The algorithm 00:30:41.420 --> 00:30:43.799 feeds you what you already like. It removes the 00:30:43.799 --> 00:30:46.079 negativity, the challenge, the difficulty from 00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:48.559 your cultural life. So what's the takeaway? Did 00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:50.440 he leave us with a tool to fight it? He did. 00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:53.640 His concept of negative dialectics. Okay, what 00:30:53.640 --> 00:30:56.619 is that in a nutshell? How do we use it? It's 00:30:56.619 --> 00:30:59.220 the idea that we must always question the system. 00:30:59.500 --> 00:31:02.119 We must never get comfortable with simple answers. 00:31:02.220 --> 00:31:05.279 We have to resist what he called identity thinking. 00:31:05.700 --> 00:31:08.140 That's the urge to fit everything into neat little 00:31:08.140 --> 00:31:10.460 boxes. The introvert -extrovert thing. Exactly. 00:31:10.740 --> 00:31:13.480 We have to embrace the non -identical, the things 00:31:13.480 --> 00:31:15.339 that don't fit, the things that are difficult. 00:31:15.460 --> 00:31:18.460 We have to actively seek out and value the things 00:31:18.460 --> 00:31:21.500 that don't compute. So his message to us today 00:31:21.500 --> 00:31:24.190 would be... Stop pressing the like button. Stop 00:31:24.190 --> 00:31:26.230 pressing the like button. Turn off the autoplay 00:31:26.230 --> 00:31:28.250 and listen to something that challenges you. 00:31:28.369 --> 00:31:30.549 Go see a movie that makes you uncomfortable. 00:31:31.150 --> 00:31:33.890 Because comfort for Adorno is just another form 00:31:33.890 --> 00:31:36.730 of control. If you are comfortable, you probably 00:31:36.730 --> 00:31:38.630 aren't thinking. That's a provocative thought 00:31:38.630 --> 00:31:41.650 to leave our listeners with. In an era of infinite 00:31:41.650 --> 00:31:44.990 streaming content and these targeted feeds, have 00:31:44.990 --> 00:31:47.470 we all become the obedient listeners that Adorno 00:31:47.470 --> 00:31:50.279 warned us about? Or is there still a way to find 00:31:50.279 --> 00:31:53.539 that serious art that disrupts the machine? That's 00:31:53.539 --> 00:31:56.559 the question, isn't it? It is. That's it for 00:31:56.559 --> 00:31:59.779 this deep dive into the Grand Hotel Abyss. We 00:31:59.779 --> 00:32:02.220 hope you feel a little more enlightened, or at 00:32:02.220 --> 00:32:04.420 least a little more critically aware of your 00:32:04.420 --> 00:32:06.980 own entertainment. Keep questioning. See you 00:32:06.980 --> 00:32:07.279 next time.