1. The Frankfurt School Critical Theory

2. Objectives Critical Theorists Major Concepts Criticisms

3. Critical Theorists Max Horkheimer Theodor Adorno Herbert Marcuse

4. FS Concerns 1) “Dark Side” of Modernity 2) Social Pathologies: Fascism and Advanced Capitalism

5. “Instead of entering into a truly human condition, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism” - Horkheimer & Adorno, 1972, p. xi

6. FS Goals 1) Explain Why Marx was Wrong 2) Understand Advanced Industrial Capitalism’s Impact on Individuals

7. How did the Frankfurt School differ from orthodox Marxism?

8. What is the Frankfurt School’s view on Marxist revolution?

9. Major Concepts Dialectic of Enlightenment

10. Major Concepts Mass Society

11. Major Concepts Totally Administered Society

12. “There is no reason to insist of self-determination if the administered life is the comfortable and even the ‘good life’” - Marcuse, 1964, p. 49

13. Major Concepts One-Dimensional Thought

14. One-Dimensional Language Orwell’s 1984 Others?

15. One-Dimensional Language “friendly fire” “peacekeepers” “freedom fighters” “clean bomb” “defense budget”

16. What serves as the ideological apparatus of advanced capitalism?

17. Major Concepts The Culture Industry

18. “Advertising, public relations, indoctrination, planned obsolescence… are elements of basic production costs” - Marcuse, 1964, p. 49

19. What is the Frankfurt School’s view on the culture industry?

20. “The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood” - Marcuse, 1964, p. 12

21. Tools of the Culture Industry Mass Persuasion Manipulation Consumerism Controlled Gratification Culture

22. False Needs?

23. Is there more to life than buying shit?

24. What did Marcuse mean by “repressive tolerance”?

25. Repressive Tolerance

26. What did Marcuse mean by “repressive desublimation”?

27. Let’s Party! Repressive Desublimation

28. Criticisms Advanced Capitalism = Fascism? FS “Bourgeois Idealism”

29. Credits and Further Reading Horkheimer & Adorno (1972) Dialectic of Enlightenment Marcuse (1964) One Dimensional Man Kellner (1984) Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism

30. Thank you! Danielle Dirks, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Sociology Occidental College dirks@oxy.edu danielledirks.com @danielledirks