By ALBERTO M. PIEDRA
(Editor’s Note: Dr. Piedra is the Donald E. Bently Professor of Political Economy at The Institute of World Politics.)
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There is no doubt in my mind that any student who went through a liberal arts education during the fifties, sixties, and seventies was probably aware of the theorists who one way or another were associated with the Institute for Social Studies, better known by the name of the Frankfurt School, founded in the 1920s. Most of their contributions were promptly displayed on college dorm shelves and all over the campus. The message they conveyed was loud and clear: “There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of Barbarism” (Walter Bendix Benjamin), or “The whole is the false” (Theodor Adorno).
Asthetische Theorie, written by Theodor Adorno in the 1960s and published posthumously in 1970, is an interdisciplinary work in which he discusses the philosophical study of art and incorporates elements of philosophy, sociology, metaphysics, and other philosophical pursuits in keeping with his main thesis in which he maintains the paradoxical state of the semi-autonomy of art within capitalist society.
Some critics have described the book as Adorno’s magnum opus and rank his work as one of the most influential pieces on aesthetics written in the 20th century.
It is important to point out that Adorno’s aesthetic theory is not only concerned with the function of beauty and sublimity in art but primarily with the relations between art and society. According to him modern art must be freed from the restrictions imposed by a capitalistic society which plagued previous forms of art. He maintains that art’s expanded autonomy from the shackles of capitalism led to art’s increased responsibility for societal criticism.
The Frankfurt School, however, did not present a united front. Many of the members clashed over what they considered mass culture. Adorno, following Horkheimer, viewed pop culture as an instrument of economic and political control enforcing conformity, as he would claim, behind permissive screens and biased literature propagating revolutionary goals.
Their criticism was directed toward traditional forms of culture such as classical music, painting, and popular literature. In spite of their differences they all supported each other under the broad label of Critical Theory. Critical Theory should integrate all the major social sciences, including geography, economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology.
Perhaps one of the best examples of the influence Adorno had with popular culture was his alleged close relationship with the Beatles. It is claimed that most of the lyrics and popular music played by the famous group can be traced back to the musical skills of the above-mentioned brilliant philosopher and musical composer, Adorno, a prominent member of the Frankfurt School. If so, it can be argued also that the phenomenon of the Beatles was not a spontaneous rebellion by youth but a well-planned goal to undermine through radical music the younger generation of America.
It has been suggested by some critics of Adorno that the Beatles were put together by the Tavistock Institute and later, following its example, imitated by other rock groups. It was also reported that Adorno wrote their cult lyrics and composed all their music.
The major criticism that one member or sympathizer of the Frankfurt School could say of another was that his work was insufficiently dialectical. In 1936 Benjamin wrote an essay entitled, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility,” a masterpiece of contingent optimism that praises mass culture only insofar as mass culture advances radical culture. Both Adorno and Benjamin were pioneers in thinking critically about pop culture. For them, totalitarianism and the genocidal state was not exclusively a German phenomenon. It was a Western problem, rooted in the Enlightenment.
The defeat of the Axis powers in 1945 did not put an end to fascism because the totalitarian mind continued to prevail, even in America, a country that in spite of its democratic ideals was not free from its influence.
Let me conclude this article with a positive example from history which illustrates that just as a culture can be negatively influenced by its music, art, and literature, so can it be positively influenced.
This possibility or choice is open and has been used through the centuries by all men of goodwill who are looking for beauty and sublimity in the arts in general and have not used it as a means to undermine the Judeo-Christian culture of the West, as in the case of Adorno and other members of the Frankfurt School.
It is far from my intention to criticize and much less condemn all sorts of art and music which can and do have an important and useful role to play in our contemporary society.
Contrast Adorno with St. Ephrem of Syria, a fourth-century deacon, poet, musician, and theologian. In a Catholic News Agency blog on June 9, 2017 it was stated that in 2007 Pope Benedict XVI said St. Ephrem had been known as “The Harp of the Holy Spirit.”
Later in the blog the following is stated: “Ephrem used Syriac-language verse as a means to explain and popularize theological truths, a technique he appropriated from others who had used poetry to promote religious error.”
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