The members of the Frankfurt School were the first to develop a systematic critique of mass communication, consumerism, and commodification, the insidious effects of which they saw as perverting -- while nevertheless exploiting -- ideas and values engendered during the Enlightenment.... [more]

The members of the Frankfurt School were the first to develop a systematic critique of mass communication, consumerism, and commodification, the insidious effects of which they saw as perverting -- while nevertheless exploiting -- ideas and values engendered during the Enlightenment. Among its outstanding members were Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer, who were horrified by the growing predominance of what they called 'culture industries,' commercial aggregates that assimilate a culture's aesthetic objects into its mass economy of advertising and consumption. Their method was essentially interdisciplinary, integrating facets of philosophy, social science, aesthetics, and politics -- though their works in general are comprised more of theoretical speculation and assertion than empirical research. In simplest terms, the Frankfurt School launched a singular furious tirade against the world. They condemned what they saw as the descent of civilization into barbarism, the leveling power of consumer society, and the homogenization of culture at the hands of capitalism. They had very few nice things to say, despite the fundamentally humanist sentiments that motivated them. In their later years, they began to question the redemptive capacity of reason itself. They saw it as one among many tools of domination exploited by the capitalist economy -- another inversion of Enlightenment prospects. [show less]