STEVE-O 9/19

HOLD THE MAYO!!!!!!!!!!!

Dude I couldn’t read anything on the page with you sound-bite blaring…Oh, and I digress.

As we went over these texts in class, I think we need to really grasp the context that these people wrote in. With Nazi Germany trying to take over the world and Jews throughout Europe being grouped together like cows going to slaughter. As an American Jew I find it amazing that they could take this horrible reality and take a step back to make objective comments on the state of affairs in Worldwide culture. The fact that they were spot on then and even scarily prophetic of the things to come is ASTONISHING!

I really enjoyed Horkheimer & Adorno’s views on radio. Hitler was a master at spreading his propaganda through television and radio and the way these writers define the use of radio by Nazi Germany can still fell relevant with today’s usage. They write, “Films and radio no longer need to present themselves as art. The truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce” (42). Whatever your business may be, it’s all the same: advertising the mass extermination of an entire race or trying to get rid off our stock of 05 trucks… “All mass culture under monopoly is identical” (42)!

Hitler’s affect on his European listeners was something that in the 40’s, people in American had no real conception of. The fact was the people hearing the speeches didn’t realize the implications of using radio to exploit the masses. Horkheimer & Adorno write, “The Fuhrer’s metaphysical charisma, invented by the sociology of religion turned out finally to be merely the omnipresence of his radio addresses, which demonically parodies that of the divine spirit” (66), LIKE WHOA!!! That’s some deep ‘ISH. Would he have been successful without the use of radio?

Let me take this a little lighter now, When I was thinking about our class discussion, I couldn’t help but visualizing that picture of the McDonald’s sign and all the rest of the signs…And I remembered this boy, around ten years old, at the roller skating rink, the wind blowing his hair, conscious of all the cute girls around him, trying to act cool and then I heard the music playing…Oh yes, I know that song…..It was TESLA “SIGNS”

Signs, Signs, Everywhere there's signs
Blocking up the scenery, Breaking up my mind
Do this, Don't do that, Can't you read the sign

I can’t think of a better POSTMODERN chorus…can you?


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