PetalswiththeWind Horkheimer and Adorno

In the year 1637, it was Descartes who revealed, “very many are not aware of what it is they believe” (Macherey 15). Approximately 350 years later, Horkheimer and Adorno, clarified further what Descartes meant, still applicable in all cultures around the world today; but ironically and specifically the U.S.A., since thought of as the freest:
“The explicit and the implicit, exoteric and esoteric catalog of what is forbidden and what is tolerated is so extensive that it not only defines the area left free but wholly controls it” (46). The culture of Globalization facilitates dependency. Money and notoriety serves as higher priority over self; for the people’s regurgitation is based on superficialities. The media fabricates what appear to be objective fantasies subtly implying representations of the normative, in which they subject their audiences to. In fact, it is customary of the media to exploit minute elements of human nature and amplify it exclusively; naturally suppressing innate anomalous abilities among individuals. Culture for sale! Instead of products augmenting the lives of humans, people complete the life cycle of products; executing the functions manufacturers create for the existence and sale of their products.

Mass society is always searching for recognition, approval, and validation amongst one another. Therefore, the corresponding positive and/or negative reaction from others often directly affects and reflects individuals’ confidence. People then tend to assimilate images that are prevalent in the public eye. Nothing has meaning until people add value to it. Since people are ever seeking acknowledgement throughout their lifetimes, acceptance is the reward and accordingly rejection is the punishment. Human beings tend to go outside themselves in order to find out who they “really” are. It’s no wonder adolescents are lost searching for themselves and “mature” adults are having mid-life crises. People are so distracted by looking to others for the absolute truth about their own selves, based on insular linear precepts. Their emotional well-being is often at stake, making nothing into everything. With or without acknowledgements, a person tangibly exists in his or her own “unique presence in time and space” (Benjamin 20). The entrapment of the autonomous human entity is due to this fixation of emotional gratification from others, as a domesticated pet would be to its “master”. This dependent state attempts, but fails to fill the void of self-worth, leaving an individual in constant pursuit amid mass pretenses, contradictorily moving a person further away from his or her actual self, in turn hampering intra- and interpersonal relations. Allowing the moments a person lives to be dependent upon the bias observation, interpretation, and output of others, who is that person is living for. Furthermore, in the end, the moments that collectively add up, whose life was lived.