Adorno and the Present

In rethinking our discussion on Tuesday about Adorno, his cultural elitism, and our status a part of the much-maligned culture industry, I wonder how much certain innovations and trends complicate Adorno's picture of the behemoth.

He describes, for instance "blatant cash investment" as the "universal criterion of merit" (124). What does that mean for the recent moves toward "indie" films (and music, periodicals, etc.)? Money has certainly ceased to be the inarguable mark of quality. Perhaps Adorno would argue that that such cash investment has been rerouted to savvy market research, that so-called independent cultural products are simply the same old stuff in new packaging. Then again, the absence of big commercial funding certainly doesn't guarantee originality or merit. YouTube is chock full of people ripping each other off, even when the original video isn't particularly unique or interesting. Maybe the culture industry has over time already created such a closed system that like we said in class, an original thought or idea is impossible, making repetition unavoidable because it's all we have.

It also seems to me that the idea of quality has largely been replaced by that of personal taste, but that is another issue entirely.