Social and Cultural Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

favorable and Cultural Philosophy - Essay ExampleThe political stakes in the modern split mingled with high and petty(a) art were never more clearly articulated than in the debate betwixt Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno on popular culture. When Adorno described his defense f autonomous art and Benjamins apology for lot entertainment as torn halves f angiotensin-converting enzyme freedom, he located their dispute within a speculative tradition that invests aesthetic experience with emancipatory potential. The origins f this discourse can be traced to Romanticism and its reprehension on the role f subjectivity in politics and art. Benjamins dialogue with Adorno marked an important turning point in this narrative by unmasking its twin protagonists--the autonomous individual and its collective other--as phantasms, figments f the Romantic imagination. By analyzing the Romantic phantasms that haunted Benjamins dialogue with Adorno, the present essay suggests how critical subj ectivity superpower be reconsidered in an age in which the virtual reality f cyberspace has become randomness nature for many individuals. The debate on popular culture is primarily documented in two essays--one each by Benjamin on film and Adorno on jazz-- print in successive issues f the Zeitschrift pelt Sozialforschung in 1936. (Wiggershaus 191-218) Both friends were living in exile--Benjamin in Paris and Adorno in Oxford--and the letters they exchanged offer additional clues to the positions they were elaborating. If the personal hardships f emigration influenced the tenor f their dispute, then contemporary events almost certainly contributed to its sense f urgency. Everywhere the new mass media seemed subject to manipulation by totalitarian regimes in Italy, Germany, and the USSR, and monopolizing market forces in the USA. In the 1930s, questions f popular culture became political problems f the world-class order. Adornos radical contribution to the debate, an essay titl ed Uber Jazz, has a relatively uncomplicated textual history. Benjamins contribution, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, is another story. At Benjamins request, the essay was published in the Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung in French translation. This translation was based on a sec, revised version f the essay. After the French translation was published, Benjamin completed a second and more radical revision f the German text, in the express hope that Bertolt Brecht would have it published in Moscow. As it turned out, none f the German versions appeared in print until Adorno and his wife Gretel include the third version f the essay in their two-volume edition f Benjamins selected works, in 1955. This is the version that served as the foundation for Harry Zohns translation, The Work f Art in the Age f Mechanical Reproduction, the lone(prenominal) one available in English at this date. It is also the version that continues to serve as the basis for most academic discussion f the essay, despite the fact that both earlier versions have been make available in recent decades. (Arendt 217-51) The result f all this is that there exists no one haughty text f Benjamins essay, but rather three distinct documents f a work in progress. The differences that distinguish the three texts provide as much insight into Benjamins debate with Adorno as any one variant read in isolation. For this reason, all three versions will be considered in the discussion that follows. Adorno first identified the Romantic phantasms haunting his dialogue with Benjamin in a letter from 18 process 1936, written to critique an unpublished manuscript f Benjamins essay. In an attempt to mediate between their divergent views, Adorno observed that autonomous art and popular film both bear the scars f capitalist exploitation, as well as elements f change. He did not, however, suggest that high art be privileged all over low. Instead, he insisted that neither be sacrifi ced to the other, since this would mean losing the critical potential f both. Only if high and low art are