With Rupert’s imminent entry past the shattered Great Gate and on into Minas Tirith, American journalism prepares to endure yet another phase of debasement and looming irrelevancy. The woes of the dead tree business model generally are well known. This blow, however, has the ring of Doom about it as Russell Baker explains:
Rupert Murdoch of course has long spread melancholy in newsrooms around the world, but it was the disclosure in May that the Bancroft family, which controls The Wall Street Journal, might be ready to sell him their paper for five billion dollars that really struck at journalism’s soul. The sale of another newspaper is common enough these days, but The Wall Street Journal is not another newspaper. It is one of the proudest pillars of American journalism. Like The New York Times and The Washington Post, it has for generations been controlled by descendants of a founding patriarch.
Family control has sheltered all three newspapers from Wall Street’s most insistent demands, allowing them to do high-quality—and high cost—journalism. It was said, and widely believed, that the controlling families were animated by a high-minded sense that their papers were quasi-public institutions. Of course profit was essential to their survival, but it was not the primary purpose of their existence. That one of these families might finally take the money and clear out heightens fears that no newspaper is so valuable to the republic that it cannot be knocked down at market for a nice price. Murdoch at the Journal is a dark omen for journalists everywhere. When the sign in the shop window says “Everything For Sale,” it is often followed by “Going Out Of Business.”
Baker also writes this, which sums up much of the Stiftung’s pov — and the cynicism is not unjustified with all the journo-lobbying and pay-for-AgitProp deals animating supposed ‘reporters’ and ‘columnists’. Baker says:
In American Carnival, Neil Henry sketches the modern “journalist” in all his “mishmash of guises,” and suggests why the public has withdrawn its affection. It has been a long time since Americans thought of a journalist as a working-class guy teaching a spoiled rich dame how to dunk a doughnut. To the average person today, Henry writes, “a Journalist is the television talker who is paid a considerable retainer to regularly make noise on cable news programs.” The person hosting the program is a Journalist, too, drawing down big money “not to seek out and report the news but to entertain an audience with a certain glibness and an argumentative personality.”
Today’s Journalist in Henry’s sketch is the TV commentator at a murder trial pronouncing guilt and talking of the maximum penalty before the evidence is in. Or she is a network TV star with a multimillion-dollar salary briefly pretending to understand the problems of working-class people. And there is “the inveterate Washington Beltway insider with shifting loyalties and ethics who works as a Pentagon spokesperson, political campaign adviser, or presidential speechwriter one year” and hires out next year as a network reporter or magazine correspondent worthy of trust. If in television, the Journalist is someone who may need “the eye tuck, the hair transplant, or the Botox injection” to create a false appearance of youth essential to reporting the truth persuasively.
Henry is clearly unhappy about all this. His assemblage of self-servers, frauds, political double-dippers, gasbags, mountebanks, spoiled reporters, and unprincipled swine make up that vague organism called “media.” How the press and journalism became entwined in this squalor is a long and complicated tale, but there seems to be no escape. Indeed, the press seems to have become only a minor player in Henry’s carnival, and there is even some question whether many people care. Nobody phones the paper expecting to find a hero anymore.
The Times simply notes that “in end the end, Murdoch wanted it [the Dow Jones] more” than GE, media tut tutters or even the Bancroft family. We’ve long argued as you know, Dear Reader, that in a Commodity Society, should government and all information be subsumed within a branding exercise, liberal democracy is ultimately impossible. We don’t embrace Adorno and Horkheimer’s overall critique via the Frankfurt School on two major counts — the Marxist dialectic, and their fundamental anti-Enlightenment agenda — but there is no question that commodification of thought poses a most insidious challenge to civic virtue as understood by the Framers. This is the real problem with “shareholder value” determining alone societal information assets.
Parasites abound in our current transitional phase from traditional media ownership/consumption models. Technology itself is neither the end state nor answer deus ex machina. Those embracing technology as a res or thing in and of itself, such as parading talking snowmen on Youtube before presidential candidates, are but leaves in the wind. Blips soon forgotten. For even in a commodification soup, someone must make the recipe. Murdoch may have wanted the Dow more, but he also understands all of this — as made clear re his positioning in satellite television, MySpace and of course, Fox. Murdoch understands commodification and branding still require an apriori determination of values and end states desired – as well as ROI.
Another sign of so-called American “liberalism’s” (small ‘L’) decadence. Liberalism today is a complete ideological failure. Self-professed liberals no longer understand Who They Are and Why They Are. What all of this means for them and their alleged values. But then, American liberalism long ago degenerated into mechanistic triage of coalitions whose members long ago forgot why they are even there. So it is encouraging that the netroots today are celebrating their “progressive” nomenclature as a brush clearing exercise.
The question before them post-Warlord is whether and how they can transition from an insurgent force/last stand against Christian Socialist Authoritarianism to a viable governing philosophy. They’ve already passed one important test — basic operational political competence (organization, recruitment, candidates, GOTV, etc.) in 2004 and 2006. Their next test will be to assemble a majority coalition and govern successfully. So far, there is every reason to be encouraged on that score but it remains an open question. As important, the netroots will face the temptation of embracing commodification and branding for short term expediency. This is particulalry true as they seek to establish and build out new media entities.
Sometimes we wonder if the netroots themselves understand the magnitude of the task they have undertaken. Or how much this country, whether it knows it or not, depends on their success.
Hunter says
Look closely [enough] and you will find the lineaments of $school thinkers (broadly speaking) woven into many arguments found in ‘$ideology’ publications like…
I mean, unless you care to provide specific examples (and even then, probably), what am I to make of this?
Comment says
re “Idiopathic” from wiki:
“In his book The Human Body, Isaac Asimov noted a comment about the term “idiopathic” made in the 20th edition of Stedman’s Medical Dictionary: “A high-flown term to conceal ignorance.”
Comment says
Look closely and you will find the lineaments of Frankfurt school thinkers (broadly speaking) woven into many arguments found in ‘conservative’ publications like NRO or W Standard.
Comment says
Non- Seq note – The press conference yesterday given by John Walters (the drug ‘czar’) re Afganistan drugs – was truly a riot of buncomb. NB – They just discovered that eradication efforts seem to effect the little cultivators the most, to the benefit of large producers.
Comment says
The only three places we have heard or read about Frankfurt ‘school’ authors discussed on a regular basis are on the paleocon blogs, the CUNY grad center, and among some New School grad students.
Dr Leo Strauss says
It’s just odd — or ironic — that he would be so ‘pessimistic’ sitting in sunny, pre-smog LA — or maybe that’s the exact reason!
Head’s up in general — according to this review of Gibson’s latest, the protagonists sit down to discuss the Frankfurt School on Union Square . . . perhaps ‘cultural Marxism’ is the new uber menance after all . . .
http://www.observer.com/2007/has-gibson-lost-ability-terrify-us
Hunter says
His prominence probably stems from his time in England and America. This had at least two major effects:
1) He was able to see very clearly, from up close what we were. His analyses of our culture came from the perspective of an extremely intelligent outsider, who nonetheless spent years living among us. Reminds one of deTocqueville. His critiques thus demand attention in the way someone who never left the Continent can’t.
2) His language was very english/american. His sentnece structure wasn’t Kantian, his vocabulary frequently used latin rooted words, and he thought more like ‘us’ than any other german I’ve read. Using, as he does, his own version of the dialectic method, he’s still difficult, but not as difficult as others.
DrLeoStrauss says
We thrive on the idiosyncratic here, Hunter. Many thanks for your analysis.
Much to think about — especially for a ‘School’ as diaphanous as the Frankfurt. ‘The Dialectics’ obscure as much as illuminate what you have taken the time to explain.
Perhaps this will be the origins of an end of August reading list — one hopes to avoid sloppy or incorrect appellations.
Great thread — let’s keep it going. Hunter, other than ‘The DIalectics’ and superficial readings by pundits, what do you think explains Adorno’s prominence as representative of the Frankfurt School?
Comment says
Maybe he was jerry-rigging Freud with Marxist duct tape because there was very little applicable political argument, but the Marxist critique was used to illuminate the neurotic environment he presumably wanted to correct. The “duct tape” metaphor works – it’s “ready,” to quote Tom Ridge.
We disagree though about the USSR – it seems more than a few people knew what that was really like in the 20s and 30s.
Hunter says
re. the Doc’s last post:
This might get long, but I’ll try to keep it to soundbite form.
Adorno to my certainly untutored mind was about freedom more than truth. I’m not even sure if he believed in a positive form of truth, and he almost certainly didn’t believe in a positive[ist] search procedure for finding truth. In one of my favorite passages of Minima Moralia, For the Post-Socratics, he states (paraphrase…books in Texas):
“If philosophers, who are well known to have difficulty keeping quiet, must engage in conversation, they should always aim to lose the argument, but in such a way as to convict their opponent of untruth.”
Whereas in another of my favorite passages from the same work, Melange, he states:
“A truly emancipated society would be one in which the members could be different without fear.”
This always struck me as more indicative of the core of his program than questions of truth. The culture industry was only interesting to him (on my reading of DofE and The Stars Down to Earth) insofar as it reinforces the internal mechanisms that make us unfree, and make us then less able to deal with the external mechanisms that make us unfree (by causing us to work a job we hate to buy crap we don’t need, to quote Fight Club [the movie]).
As for your specific question about the nature of Adorno’s fusion of Freud and Marx, I’ll just say this: my reading of Adorno’s project was almost completely formed by my engagement with MM. This was finished being written by ’46. The Frankfurt school as such didn’t exist yet, the failure of Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet bloc was clear to almost no one, and thus there was no (perceived) need to update Marxism. But both the two modes of analysis are clearly present in MM. Furthermore, throughout his work, there’s a fairly clear separation between when Freudian analysis is used (for inernal/psychological threats), and when Marxist analysis is used (for external/systemic threats). So, in Adorno’s case, I don’t think the charge of jerry-rigging Marxism with a roll of Freudian duct-tape is fair. As for what other contemporary or (especially) later ‘thinkers’ did, I’ve no opinion.
I should note a caveat here: although I’ve read most of the ‘names’ of 20th century philosophy (except Rand), and most prior philosophy too, I’ve only read deeply or comprehesively Adorno himself, and Wittgenstein (and Aristotle of the pre-20th century crew). And none of this has been in anything like a formal educational environment. So my readings of things are bound to be a bit idiosyncratic.
Comment says
It’s probably meaningless to say “a large segment of the respectable paleocon right” when that probably consists of a dozen or so people. But then again – the insideous cask of relativism that we have been marinating in has destroyed our once wholesome respect for numbers.
Comment says
Who would get the reference? A very large part of the paleocon right would probably get it – But it seems to us that Lind applies it to things that could not conceivably considered “cultural Marxism” along with some things that could, in theory, fit that description – We know a few people who have read the Frankfurt school authors, but they would be very surprised to find out that a large segment of the respectable paleocon right regards them as Marxists. But then again Lind & Co. would probably regard their unawareness as an example of Gramsci’s insideous work.
Hunter says
“There is something strange about Lind’s use of the phrase “cultural Marxism.” – He uses it as if it were similar to a ‘macro’ on a keyboard for a wordprocessing program – That is to say, for Lind, it seems like a broad-brushed phrase, consisting of 80 percent coded meaning/20 percent real meaning, meant to short-circuit arguments.”
Granted, and granted that I’ve no idea who Lind’s audience was, but it seems to me a very strange macro. I mean, who the hell these days would even get the reference? I (personally) know exactly one other person who’s read any Frankfurt school stuff and that includes a few grad students in poli. sci. (who haven’t).
Comment says
There is something strange about Lind’s use of the phrase “cultural Marxism.” – He uses it as if it were similar to a ‘macro’ on a keyboard for a wordprocessing program – That is to say, for Lind, it seems like a broad-brushed phrase, consisting of 80 percent coded meaning/20 percent real meaning, meant to short-circuit arguments.
If you put Pat Buchanan under oath and gave him a polygraph, he would be able to truthfully assert his belief that Adorno and Gramsci has more influence on contemporary American culture than Love Boat re-runs and Cialis commercials combined – Following Lind, he would allow the latter’s influence is due to the former.
Armchair says
Granted Adorno is big in Dallas and Freud and Marx are great when chatting up some women at book parties – But when you really need to get something done, like mowing the lawn, all eyes naturally turn to Stalin.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Interesting. Adorno to my perhaps untutored mind was about ‘Truth’ and finding ways of communicating truth. That’s why both “On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening” and in “The Culture Industry” (my favorite chapter) in ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ stand out.
It’s also important I suggest that we place Adorno’s thinking and writing in context of when. His thinking in ND and the obvious ability of capitalism to thrive in a non-authoritarian context (although he would argue is was merely sublimated) as understood by the Soviet or Fascist regimes required adjustments. This Adorno was not that of ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’. By this time (the 1960s), naturally he would declare Marxism inadequate and the opportunity for revolution missed – hence his focus on the internal philosophical critique.
Hunter, out of curiosity, how would you respond to those who assert the Frankfurt School turned to other explanations such as Freudian psychology to fill in the gaps in Marxism in an effort to bring Marxism (neo-Marxism?) up to date, rather than the converse if I read you right? Adorno and Fromm certainly had their differences.
In any event, thanks for the elaboration. It’s a great thread and hope it continues.
Hunter says
My understanding of Adorno’s project is that he was concerned with finding out how to allow people to be free. He figured (in classic enlightenment mode) that the first step to freeing ourselves, is to understand how we are made unfree. For this he took a two-pronged approach (in no particular order):
1) we are made unfree ‘from the inside’ and Freudian analysis is how we get a handle on this
2) we are made unfree ‘from the outside’ and Marxist analysis is how we get a handle on this
His use of the tools of psychoanalysis is, as I said above, depressingly uncritical, but he is not really to be blamed too much for this as there were basically no alternatives available (besides straight-up behaviorism…). His use of the language of Marxism, however, was just that: use of language. He certainly wasn’t ‘a Marxist’ as any of his contemporaries would have understood the epithet. This can be seen in his early (during WWII) disgust with the Soviet Union, and most clearly on the first page of his Negative Dialectics, where he pretty much says that Marxism has been a giant failure (I’d quote, but my copy’s in Dallas, and I’m in Boston).
So there’s my soundbite. As for the dialectic ‘thing’, that’s going to have to wait till I have my copies of ND and New Science of Logic in front of me.
Before I go, though, in one of the previous posts William Lind was linked to:
http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_7_12_07.htm
wherein he said:
“In larger part, they ignore the reality of 4GW because it contradicts their ideology, commonly known as “multi-culturalism” but actually the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School. That ideology says that all the world’s cultures are wonderful, happy, peaceful cultures except Western culture, which is oppressive and evil and must be destroyed.”
The title of aphorism 32 from Minima Moralia is ‘Savages are not more noble’. Seriously. It’s not like one needs a difficult close reading of the complete works to avoid ridiculous assesments like the above.
Oh, and the adjunction thing: my training is in mathematics. This will influence my metaphors, and probably be important in other ways…
Comment says
re the Stiftung/Hunter adjunction – Hunter, interesting defense of Adorno, but could you boil it down to a three point soundbite response that would work on cable tv?
Dr Leo Strauss says
Well said, Hunter. The Dialectic of Enlightenment is a silly work, but whether Adorno is more on the Freudian side of Freudian-Marxist critique is splitting hairs in the sense that either side relied on a false consciousness/SuperEgo to explain 1920s-45. In fairness to them, how to comprehend the genocidal Western civil war posed a challenge to any sentient being standing amid the rubble.
Agree that the rationalist project is about both synthesis and analysis. And agree if I read you correctly that Adorno’s oversimplification of the supposed break between reality and analysis is a major flaw. But you might also want to touch on Adorno’s reliance on a dialectical element as well.
By all means, if you wish to discuss the Frankfurt or other schools here, I am sure that many of our readers would take a great interest in it. And don’t worry about sensitivities — call ’em as you see ’em.
Hunter says
“We don’t embrace Adorno and Horkheimer’s overall critique via the Frankfurt School on two major counts — the Marxist dialectic, and their fundamental anti-Enlightenment agenda…”
Calling Adorno’s method ‘the Marxist dialectic’ is a pretty intense distortion…in any case, his most serious blindspot was engendered by his uncritical acceptance of Freud’s theories (he is not to be judged too harshly here; he was working before the psychoactive properties of lithium were known). Though he did use the language of what might loosely be called Marxism in his discussions of the ways society (and in particular economic society) makes us unfree, his relationships with Marx and even Hegel, were anything but uncritical. As for the whole ‘enlightenment as a stalking horse for imperialism’ thing (to steal a transcendent turn of phrase from the tubes), well, even if Minima Moralia is my favorite book ever, the Dialectic of Enlightenment always struck as bit silly. The identification of analysis with rationality (endemic in western culture, and even to an extent in our idea of what the enlightenment was all about) is absurd and dangerous, thus a critique of the analytical method (however forceful) utterly fails to deal woth the rationalist project of understanding the world through both analysis and synthesis.
Even this is a distortion of Adorno’s problem: he’s fairly sensitive to the analytical/synthetic adjunction once his discussion is underway, but doesn’t observe it at the outset of his investigations when it is most critical. This leads to his ignoring the real problem with enlightenment understanding of the world, which is a stupidly simplistic view of the subject/object adjunction. The idea that we can cut ourselves off from the world and understand what’s ‘out there’ is fundamentally an application of the analytical procedure. I could go on for another few thousand words in this direction, but suffice it to say, the ill effects that Adrono imputes to enlightenment rationality actually stem from this fundamental break with reality. Jettisoning reason is like fixing capitalism’s ills by instituting a Stalinist regime.
jimmy_dean76 says
this is the best look so far murdoch will make alot of money anyway
Comment says
After a mild interval – Rupe with then proceed, with no less celerity than thought, to totally gut the reportorial meat from the WSJ. Hard hitting articles related to China? Never.
Comment says
re “Those involved with the building have made much of how apt a glass-enclosed building is to the openness at the heart of the journalistic mission…”
It’s very easy to imagine Gail Collins utter a banality like this – perhaps in between some snarky jokes about HRC or Edwards that are, unwittingly to her, well designed GOP talking points/smears.
Dr Leo Strauss says
And then there is this New Yorker item describing the architecture of the NY Times newsroom viz-a-viz Bloomberg, etc. One can’t wait to see the advent of the Murdoch Style era . . . http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/skyline/2007/08/06/070806crsk_skyline_goldberger