Theme 2 (Pre)

1. Dialectic of Enlightenment

a. What is "Enlightenment"?

In this text enlightenment is when people are destroying myths and beliefs and replace them with knowledge. They are becoming masters of their minds. As Adorno and Horkhemier describes Enlightenment as: “liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters”. You fear what you don’t know and what you can’t prove, which myths and beliefs are. Instead they are gathering knowledge, which makes the myths and beliefs known to you, and not unknown as it previously were.

b. What is "dialectic"?

Dialectic is a method, which is used to find the actual facts by considering ideas with opposite ideas. By regarding the arguments from the two different opinions you then will be able to come to a conclusion.

c. What is "nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

According to Wikipedia ”nominalism” is: ”a position that denies the existence of universal entities or objects, but accepts that particular objects”.

As I understand it you can’t believe in everything that people are telling you. If someone is pointing at a car, I can’t take that as a truth that the thing he’s pointing at really is a car, I mean I can’t set the universal entity ”car” on the thing which he is pointing at without exploring it’s properties first, and by doing that determine whether or not that actually is a ”car”. It was the same with myths at that age, you couldn’t just accept the myths, you had to reveal the truth of the myths, with the knowledge that you have, in order to replace with myths with actual facts. 

d. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?

Myths are, in one way, a explanation or solutions for unknown things such as enigmas. It reduces the fear in peoples minds by replacing the unknown with something that seems like an explanation but which might not have a logical foundation. In that way it calms the people by eliminating the fears.

2. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductivity"

a. In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

I interpret superstructure as the culture in itself, and substructure as the different medieforms that exist to deliver the culture such as films, paintings, music, books and such.

To be able to have a well working cultural production you need a both a well working superstructure and a well working substructure. That’s why it’s important to analyse cultural production in a Marxist perspective.

b. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

Yes, culture has a revolutionary potential. Long ago, when every medium wasn’t as developed as they are today, the culture didn’t reach as many people as it does today. But now with films, photography’s and such, the culture reach a bigger audience. People who couldn’t access culture before are able to access it today. This perspective is quite similar to Adorno and Heckenheimer’s view, that the whole world is open for everyone’s disposal.

c. Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

I interpret it as when there are historical changes in the world, for example culture, humans adapt to these changes in the way of understanding the world and by doing so we perceive the world in a different way than we did before.

An example, which the author describes, is in the fifth centaury with its great shifts of population, which gave birth to the Roman art industry.

Another example can be the swastika, which had another meaning before the Nazis used it.

d. What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

Aura is something that belongs to a work of art and which is being eliminated by mechanical reproduction. It’s a feeling of its presence in time and space, its unique existence. Every original work of art has its own authenticity, which the reproduction doesn’t have.

The aura of natural objects is another thing. It’s about the unique phenomena of distance. An aura in a natural object is that you feel “close” to it, both spatially and humanly.