Some good reasons to go back to school the Frankfurt School of George Giovannetti "What once philosophers called life, is reduced to the private sphere, then the mere consumption is no longer if not an appendage the material process of production, without autonomy, without its substance. "
[1] Reread today these lines, taken from the collection of aphorisms, Minima Moralia, published by Theodor Adorno Wiesengrund nearly sixty years ago, can create, at least in those who know something of the Frankfurt School, a displacement reaction: one of the most important members of the Frankfurter thought that the vox populi deemed to have been overtaken dominant intellectual, speaks of something that is plain for anyone who has not lost a minimum of critical thinking, that our life is basically a function of consumption of goods imposed by the economic system and that outside the Act of us eat very little remains.
The thesis that I support in my speech is just that many aspects of the company's analysis of the Frankfurt theorists are not only outdated, but rather are more relevant today than it did when they were processed. In particular I will focus on some of the contributions of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno and not those of others such as Herbert Marcuse, Frankfurt, despite it has been in Italy and around the world by far the best known exponent of the Frankfurt School in the years around 1968, to the point that some of his books became real bestsellers
[2] . The fact is that Horkheimer and Adorno were the two central figures of the Frankfurt School to cover the institutional roles within the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, the level of their theoretical formulations and multidisciplinary interests. Certainly they, unlike Marcuse, chose to avoid a direct political engagement, which cost them harsh criticism from the student movement of the Sixty and credited the reputation of aristocracy and pessimism
[3] . However, I believe that much of the clarity and character analysis of the precursor of Frankfurt was also a consequence of their decision not to ask immediate political objectives.
Needless to say, do not argue that any analysis of society theorists of the Frankfurt School are still relevant today. In particular, their interpretation of the capitalist system is deeply marked by the world economic situation between 1929 and the seventies, nor appear today shared some opinions on aspects of mass culture, which were often more the result of personal idiosyncrasies of effective application of the methodological implications of critical social theory. Moreover, their "pessimism", defined as failing to identify possible escape routes from the existing state of affairs, was also the result of an insufficient analysis of the political dynamics of late capitalist society.
[4] also are not addressed here in the theoretical aspects more specifically - as the "negative dialectic" Adorno ----- or methodology - such as the method of "immanent critique" and approach multi-disciplinary analysis of the company - which also, in my opinion, have yet to offer many contributions to philosophical reflection and sociology. I will focus instead on the contributions that they can provide illuminating insights for understanding our present, especially in relation to two areas: cultural consumption and industry, with their social and political implications, the issue of technology and dialectic man and nature.
Life as consumption of goods and imagination as an industrial product: consumerism and culture industry
Take the suburbs and the hinterland of the great Italian cities, as well as most of those in Europe, is an experience as instructive as depressing, and the panorama that presents itself to the observer is in fact dominated by what can be considered the true symbol of capitalism beginning of the XXI century: the mall. The growing importance in contemporary capitalist societies of these "non-places" has been subject in recent years, much research
[5] . However, Frankfurt, without being able to look directly at the malls as they stand, the development of which started last decades of the twentieth century, have in many ways foreshadowed the existence, focusing on some of the essential elements of late consumer capitalism .
The first aspect is strongly emphasized by the central Frankfurt's economic sphere of consumption in industrial societies Contemporary: capitalism has managed to get out of the shallows where he fell with the crisis of Twentynine also because it emphasized heavily on growth in consumption fueled by mass production of new goods. In this process, as we shall see shortly, the large industrial equipment have begun to systematically colonizing the imagination of consumers, who have been "put into production," even outside of work, because every moment of life has become functional the process of valorisation of capital. Why all this could happen, it was necessary to proceed with the systematic creation of new needs and continues:
Today as in the past, produces a view of profit. Beyond all expectations at the time of Marx possible, the needs are now fully functions of production (which were potentially long), and not vice versa. Are totally controlled and directed. It is true that in this transformation we drag behind, fixed interest adapted apparatus, human needs, then the apparatus to which it can appeal successfully. But in the meantime, the use value of goods has also lost his last obviousness "natural." [...] In the sphere of naked self-preservation does not need to tend enjoyed the exchange value as such, isolated phenomenon which in the empirical sociology is indicated by expressions such as "status symbol" and "prestige", without, however, be objectively understood.
[6] In this sense, the suburbs of many Italian and European cities, where shopping malls have replaced factories, are the clear manifestation of the increasing centrality of the sphere of consumption as the current driving force of capitalism, of they talked to Frankfurt. Moreover, in all likelihood they would have considered the expression "deindustralizzazione", which is often used to describe this trend, the Marxian "ideology", that is the result of false consciousness. The disappearance of the factories shows a society in which production does not seem to be more central, when in reality, of course, it does exist, though hidden from the media and relocated to distant countries. In this sense, the new views of the hinterland citizens also play a role in the concealment of the true nature of today's society.
This leads us to consider a second aspect of the analysis of the Frankfurt consumer society: its ideological function and social integration. As he wrote recently Stefano Petrucciani, for Horkheimer and Adorno, "the growing availability of goods guaranteed by the mass production becomes central to the legitimacy of social structures dates, and also, if you look things on a plane - so to speak - the deepest, the restructuring of privacy around the model of consumption becomes an extraordinary resource for meaning, which provides individuals values \u200b\u200band models of satisfaction and "successful life" that can fill in a totally effective the void left by the decay of religious beliefs, metaphysical and ideological. "
[7] This second interpretation of the consumer society proposed by Frankfurt, it also explains the radical difference from the general reactionary and complaints about "consumerism, which betrays the 'values' true man', which are repeated periodically - Usually around Christmas - perhaps even within the same media that routinely pound the audience with advertising of all kinds. In this respect the position of Frankfurt was clear: not only denounced the false consciousness of these appeals, but also emphasized his distance from the criticism of consumerism plant conservation. "It's not that chewing gum threatens metaphysics," Horkheimer emphasized, "but is itself something metaphysical - that is what should make it clear."
[8] The problem of "consumerism" is therefore not linked to nihilistic character of his alleged against a set of values irremediably in crisis, but the fact that it creates a new world of values \u200b\u200bin which the individual loses its autonomy.
Moreover - as Adorno pointed out above, very attentive to the dynamics of everyday life and personal relationships - this identity built on the consumer is so fragile, undermined by the conflict "microphysical". On the one hand, the "forced consumers" are at risk to jump into the arms of a charismatic leader, driven by the illusion that he is able to provide them with a compass in the chaotic manner of goods: "The profusion of what is unlimited consumed no criterion can not help but affect effects. It makes it impossible to navigate, and exterminated as nell'emporio you look around for a guide [Hitler], so the besieged population and caught between conflicting bids, can not help but to wait for her. "
[9 ] Second, the fragility of the individual, whose only point of support is the consumption, produces micro-conflicts that lead people to see each other in a completely reified:
front of a traffic light turned green on the first ma-na, led by a lady, do not start. After a muffled horn concert, at the next red light the driver of the car following forward and says in a voice clear and objective, even in a threatening tone: "Stupa-da bitch," and the lady responds, just as real and objec-tive: "Excuse me." The conflict has disappeared, in contrast dominates the logic of the thing, which justifies both the brazen-ness of man that humility with which she acknowledges that car are not entirely suitable for use of the product and guilty in respect of traffic laws. The fact that consumers are, strictly speaking, the Appendices to the production, forcing them to shrink themselves to the level of mon-do of goods and also objectify their relationships with other individuals according to his model.
[10] Again, one must not think that the fragility of individual identity by opposing the Frankfurt alleged solidity "one piece" of individuals of the past. They were well aware that the "same category of individuality is already a product of society,"
[11] namely that the individual, understood as an autonomous subject, has not always existed and is not an invariant of the story. Nevertheless, they thought that the identity, questioned due to colonization of everyday life made by the consumer society, should be defended: "That the individual, the teaching of the historical process and the psychological genesis, is derived instance, that the individual can not claim for itself the invariability of which had passed the appearance in the ages of individual companies-tics, this fact can be the basis of the verdict that the sto-ria issued on the individual. But this opinion is not Absolute. As Nietzsche knew, what was the source may be higher than its source. Critics of the individual does not mean its elimination. "
[12] The third aspect of the analysis Frankfurt sphere of consumption that seems of particular relevance is related to the theme of the cultural industry. This is perhaps one of the concepts used by the Frankfurt School who has achieved more notoriety over time, even if the use is purely descriptive and it did today would hardly be appreciated by Horkheimer and Adorno. By introducing this category, they will aim to highlight a new aspect of contemporary society certainly: the transformation of cultural production by individual activity, type "craft", literally in industrial process, which involves various stages of a very large number of "insiders" and is planned in all its aspects in accordance with a logic Taylorist.
The link between the centrality of consumption and the development of cultural industries is given firstly by the fact that it places on the market a new type of goods extremely advantageous in terms of profits, such as films, discs and various products (books, magazines, comic books) publishing. In addition, the cultural industry contributes heavily to the integration of individuals into society by: Al
work process in the factory and the office you can escape only adapting to it idleness. From this, I'm incurably original defects is affected every amusement. Pleasure hardens into boredom of fun, then-for, to remain pleasure, it should not cost more efforts, and must move strictly in binary associations usual. The spectator has to work his head, the product prescribes every reaction, not in vir-tu its context object (which melts away as soon as he re-turns to the right thinking), but through a sequence of signals. Each logical connection, which requires to be grasped, some breathing intellectual, is scrupulously avoided. The developments shall produce, wherever possible, from the situation immediately prior to, and not the idea at all. There is no plot that could withstand the relentless of the ze- derived from individual employees in the SCE-na all that can be drawn. It gets to the point that for sce-seem dangerous to even the general pattern, to the extent that it had established a context-vo meanings, however poor and basic, where you can not accept anything but the utter lack of meaning.
[13] But there is also another characteristic of the culture industry that delivers it to the consumerist dimension of everyday life: the close relationship of mass cultural products with advertising. Not only good part of the media used for the dissemination of culture produced industrially conveys massive amounts advertising, but also the same content and pattern of consumption goods have a dimension of the cultural advertising: In the weekly
ni-america's most influential and popular, like 'Life' and 'Fortune', not a superficial glance is already able to distinguish the images and text advertisements from those of the party heir-tion. To the latter belongs to the report illustrated, written in enthusiastic tone, and unpaid, on lifestyle and personal hygiene of celebrity, which meant new fans, while the pages dedicated to advertising is healthy ba-up photos and texts and objective and so realistic even to represent the ideal information to which the editorial side does nothing but try to get close. Each film is a presentation of the next, which promises to come again-with the same pair of players under the same tropical sun: who came late did not know if it helps out the program or if it is already being projection of the film. The character of the cul-tural assembly, manufacture and concise set of its prod-ucts, which mimics the processes of manufacturing and mass production, not only in the study fig-cine, but also because, in practice , in the way are com-pilate biographies cheap, investigations or romanticized the hit songs, lends itself in advance to advertising as the single moment can be separated from its context, it becomes fungible and interchangeable, and aliens, from the point Technically, any meaning to-gether, may lend for purposes that have nothing to do with the work.
[14] The way in which these products are enjoyed advertising refers to a dimension: it has more value in the work itself but its exchange value. To consume the show, to ourselves and to others, our wealth, so that we buy are our own money and the product is nothing more than advertisements for themselves and our spending power. "What one might call the use value in the reception of cultural goods is replaced by exchange value, instead of enjoying the fact succeeded to participate and be aware of, instead of increasing the prestige competence dell'intenditore '.
[15] affects the relevance of these considerations, dating back sixty years ago: they seem to describe our world dominated by "signature", in which the trade of goods may increase by many times the price, because what most people buy it own "signature", which is proof of the exchange value of the product and its owner. Also sighted was their analysis of the increasingly close link between advertising and politics, or the tendency of the latter to become one of the many products on the market, of which matter less and less value in actual use - that is, the concrete policy proposals - than the ability to attract the public through effective communication and image, created through a systematic marketing efforts. A factory
English beer made public while a certain period with a lineup that looked like one of those brick walls so often in the slums of London and the industrial cities of the north. Willing to art-it was almost impossible to distinguish from the wall itself. The sign will read an inscription in chalk out a spelling intentionally uncertain, he said: "What we vant is Watney's." The brand took the beer out of a political slogan. This bill betrays the quality of the latest propaganda, which has its slogan man in the street as if they were a commodity, while the goods are in turn form in this case as a political slogan vat.
[16] The relationship between man and nature and the problem of technique: the dialectic of Enlightenment
The question of the relationship between man and nature is one of the recurring themes in the writings of Frankfurt, for Horkheimer and Adorno in particular. The work certainly stands at the center of discussion this topic is Dialectic of Enlightenment, one of the most famous books of the two authors, and probably the most discussed and criticized. The theme of the dialectic between man and nature has always been one of the strong opponents of the Frankfurt School, as has often been interpreted as a glorification of mold romanticheggiante of nature and as a critique of scientific rationality from the plant fundamentally irrational.
[17] In reality - despite the linguistic choices of Horkheimer and Adorno, the result of the option to avoid using overindulgent ways of expression to the forms of everyday communication colonized by the media, but also precursors of many difficulties of interpretation - the Dialectic of Enlightenment is not intended to submit scientific rationality to a destructive criticism.
To sum it up in its essentials, the basic thesis of the Dialectic of Enlightenment is in fact the following. Western rationality - indicated by Horkheimer and Adorno, the term "Enlightenment", which is clearly used here in a meaning that goes far beyond its routine use as an indicator of the current culture of the eighteenth century - had, since its inception in the greek world, the goal of the "disenchantment of the world," the liberation of man from the myth. "Myth", for Horkheimer and Adorno, it is every worldview, which requires a supernatural eternal and unchanging order and excluding the autonomy of human beings in knowledge and practical choices. The problem is that Western rationality, in its centuries of evolution, developed mainly as "instrumental rationality", or "subjective rationality", ie as the 'ability to calculate probabilities and coordinate the appropriate means with a given end, "
[18] and lost sight of the problem of the rationality of ends. In this way, the reason has set as its fundamental goal the domination of external nature and within man, without considering the effect of this domain, and the fact that man himself is part of nature. It was then reduced to pure technical knowledge, forgetting its original purpose, which was the knowledge of the truth, "Power and knowledge are synonymous. [...] What is important is not the satisfaction which men call truth, but the operation, the procedure effectively [...] There should be no mystery, nor the desire of his revelation. "
[19] All this, for Frankfurt, has extremely serious consequences. The reason, which developed only as instrumental rationality, lent itself to cope not only with the mastery over nature, but also with the man: "In the dominion over nature is also included in the human domain. Each subject must not only cooperate with others to conquer external nature, human and not human, but to do that must subjugate nature in himself. What is usually referred to as the ultimate goal - the happiness of the individual, health, wealth - has its meaning only from its potential function, that is, its suitability to create conditions conducive to intellectual and material production. "
[20] The technical progress, leading to the improvement of many aspects of life - with the development of production of goods, the treatment of many diseases and the improvement of means of Communication - did not prevent, however, an equally remarkable improvement of means of destruction. "There's a universal story that will lead mankind from the wild, but certainly one that leads from the sling to the atom bomb."
[21] Auschwitz, where the removal of Jews and other so-called "inferior races" was made with the aid of technology advanced and Taylorist organization, is the emblem of this dialectic of progress, in which the prospect of human liberation from oppression and pain is accompanied by the possibility of its self-destruction.
unilateral development of the size of the instrumental rationality has in fact, so to speak, revealing the inter-side, namely on the purpose of human action and human relationships with themselves and with their own kind. Moreover, technical progress has been accompanied by the internal domination of nature of man, as the size of instinctual repression. This phenomenon, as it brought real process of social emancipation, can produce a kind of Freudian "return of the repressed, in the form of the emergence of the irrational and destructive impulses repressed. Anti-Semitism, for Frankfurt, is one of these events:
Anti-Semitism is based on the false projection. [...] The impulses that the subject refuses to admit her, and yet belong to him, are attributed-uted to the object: the potential victim. In common para-noice choice it is not free, but obeys the laws of his illness. In this attitude is fascism investment loan from politics, the subject of disease is determined by practical criteria, the system becomes delusional nor-but rational in the world, and the deviation of neurosis. The mechanism assumes that the totalitarian order in its service is as old as civilization. The same sexual impulses that were repressed by the human race, could, in individuals or entire peoples, maintain and succeed in the transformation of the fictional world environment in a sys-tem evil. Also saw the blind killing the victim, but the persecutor, which was forced to desperately-cracking, and the most powerful kingdoms have heard before assa-LIRL as an intolerable threat even the weakest of their neighbors. The rationalization was pretext and a coat-ing at the same time. hi was chosen enemy is already perceived as such. The dysfunction is the inability to distinguish, by the subject, including the party's self and others in the ma-terial projected.
[22] addition to the Jews, every social group that has historically been somewhat on the margins of power has been the preservation of a natural dimension is not entirely dominated and, therefore, was subject to various forms of repression. This is the case of women:
The declaration of hatred towards the woman, as being spiritually and physically weaker, which bears the brand in front of the domain, is the same anti-Semitism. In women as you can see that the Jews have not ruled for thousands of years. They live, while it would be possible to eliminate them, and their anguish and weakness, their greater affinity to nature for the constant pressure they undergo, it is their vital ele-ment. This irritates the fort, which pays its strength with the tension of separation from nature and can never for-get the agony, putting him in blind fury. He is identifiable with nature by multiplying a thousand victims in the cry that it be given to issue.
[23] must however stress that the critique of Enlightenment is, for thinkers of the Frankfurt School, a dialectical criticism, whose aim is not enlightenment or liquidation of the technique, but the excess of their one-sided and lacking in self-development.
The difficulty that we were facing in our work turned out as the first object that we had to study: self-destruction of the Enlightenment. We have no doubt - and it is our statement of principle - that the li-liberty in society is inseparable from enlightened thought. But we believe we have understood so clearly, that the very concept of this philosophy, no less than the concrete historical forms, social institutions to which it is closely-tion bound, imply already the seeds of that regression occurs everywhere today. If enlightenment does not accept self-consciousness of this moment regressive, signing their condemnation. If the reflection destructive appearance of progress is left to his enemies, thought-ciecamen pragmatizzato you lose its character and going over with preservatives, and thus its relationship to the truth.
[24] In summary, we are in good and evil the heirs of the Enlightenment and technical progress. Deny him re-entry to the most primitive stages does not alleviate the permanent crisis that they have brought in their wake, on the contrary, e-expedients would require only reasonably cheap to replace forms of social domination with other completely barbaric. The only way to help nature is to remove all pa-Stoia what is wrong in his opponent, independent thinking.
[25] Moreover, the critique of domination over domestic and external man does not in any case, the nostalgia for a primordial nature and "intact". Philosophers Frankfurt, Adorno in particular, have always stressed that there is no conceivable a "nature in itself, beyond the mediation of thought and action of man. "The pure nature," he wrote, for example, Adorno in a test of the early sixties, "as the work has no power over her, she determines that his Not so, report to work."
[26] What is the relevance of the theory Frankfurt dialectic of man and nature? First, it anticipated, more than sixty years ago, today's debate on environmental issues. It would be a mistake to reduce it to just a "prophecy", as far-sighted. It could provide additional contributions of undoubted originality, compared to the level of the present discussion.
First, the controversy of Horkheimer and Adorno did not refer to the "technical", meaning abstract mode of relationship with the world, according to the origin of Heidegger's approach prevalent among the many who today are concerned with this theme,
[27] but one aspect of the development of Western society. No coincidence that Frankfurt has always stressed the link between the development of instrumental rationality and one-sided domination of man by man. The various forms of social hierarchy - mediated by political, religious or economic - not just the technical and accompanied the deployment, but they were the condition. According to Horkheimer and Adorno's relationship with nature characterized by the ability to recognize the otherness You can only cancel it without starting by the construction of a just society: "There's just an expression to the truth: the thought that denies injustice."
[28] If we add that to the Frankfurt , as we noted earlier, critics of dominion over nature was understood as a form of self-criticism of the Enlightenment, the outcome was neither wanted to be a breach of the rational dimension, and that was rejected every image of nature as naïve reality uncontaminated , must admit to being in the presence of arguments by no means obsolete. Horkheimer and Adorno who then did not uniquely defined nor the character of a future society free from the domination of man by man and is characterized by a different relationship with nature, or the steps required to get there, is certainly a very serious limitation of their development. Nevertheless, I think it is from this basis of argument that we should move to make a critical reflection on the relationship between man and environment that avoids the defense of nature so much as willing to coarse of many environmental movements, but especially that ostentatious by some powers of the world or corporations, which end up forgetting their responsibility to direct or indirect bearing on processes of domination over nature and men.
[1] TW Adorno, Minima Moralia. Meditations on Damaged Life, ed. orig. 1951, trans. com. R. Solmi, Einaudi, Torino 1979, p. 3.
[2] See, as regards the success of the books in Italy Frankfurt, R. D'Alessandro, critical theory in Italy. Italian readings of the Frankfurt School, manifestolibri, Rome 2003, pp. 377-380.
[3] The relationship between the Frankfurt School and the student movement of 1968 cf. R. Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, Basic Books Bollati, Torino 1992, pp. 624-651.
[4] In this regard, see S. Petrucciani, Adorno, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2007, pp. 78-80.
[5] See, among others: M. Augé, non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, Eleuthera, Milano 2005, and G. Ritzer, The religion of consumption. Cathedrals, pilgrimages and rituals dell'iperconsumismo, Il Mulino, Bologna 2005.
[6] TW Adorno, Late capitalism or industrial society?, Ed. orig. 1968, trans. com. AM Solmi in sociological writings, Einaudi, Torino 1976, p. 321.
[7] S. Petrucciani, Adorno, cit., P. 92.
[8] Quoted in M. Jay, The dialectical imagination. History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research 1923-1950, Einaudi, Torino 1979, p. 273.
[9] TW Adorno, Minima Moralia, cit., p. 137.
[10] TW Adorno, Notes on Social Conflict today, ed. orig. 1968, Sociological Writings, cit., Pp. 184-185.
[11] TW Adorno, revisionist psychoanalysis, ed. orig. 1952, Sociological Writings, cit., P. 21.
[12] TW Adorno, Postscript to The relationship of psychology and sociology, ed. orig. 1966, Sociological Writings, cit., P. 83.
[13] M. Horkheimer and TW Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, ed. orig. 1947, trans. com. R. Solmi, Einaudi, Torino 1980, pp. 145-146.
[14] Ibid, pp. 176-177.
[15] ibid., p. 170.
[16] TW Adorno, The fetish character in music and the regression of listening, ed. orig. 1938, trans. com. G. Manzoni in Dissonance, Feltrinelli, Milano 1979, p. 34.
[17] In Italy, it was mainly Della Volpe and Colletti and the scholars that they were referring to the greatest supporters of this view (see R. D'Alessandro, critical theory in Italy, cit.). Moreover also the same Jürgen Habermas, considered one of the prosecutors of the Frankfurt School, in fact submitted the issue of man-nature dialectic, as foreshadowed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, for a more detailed and thorough critical to Della Volpe and Colletti, but the outcomes not totally dissimilar (See J. Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, Il Mulino, Bologna 1986, I, pp. 503-515).
[18] M. Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, ed. orig. 1947, trans. com. E. Vaccari Spagnol, Einaudi, Torino 1969, p. 13.
[19] M. Horkheimer and TW Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, cit., Pp. 12-13.
[20] M. Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, cited above., P. 84.
[21] TW Adorno, Negative Dialectics, ed. orig. 1966, trans. com. AC Donolo, Einaudi, Torino 1975, p. 287.
[22] M. Horkheimer and TW Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, cit., Pp. 201-202.
[23] Ibid, pp. 117-118.
[24] ibid., p. 5.
[25] M. Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, cited above., P. 112.
[26] TW Adorno, Three Studies on Hegel, ed. orig. 1963, trans. com. F. Serra, Il Mulino, Bologna 1971, p. 57.
[27] I think, for example, the use made of the category of "technical" by Umberto Galimberti (see U. Galimberti, psyche and techne. The man in the age of technology, Feltrinelli, Milan 2002).
[28] M. Horkheimer and TW Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, cit., P. 237.
"Alberelli & Women Albero1" in the Cube .. 
