Page 23 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 23
benjamin‘s notion of mass culture and the question of emancipation
it is not congruent as well with, to say the least, Benjamin’s style and ap-
proach in most of the rest of his writings on the aesthetic phenomena of his
time. It clearly belongs to historical determinations, which instigated Ben-
jamin’s strong criticism of the idea of the so-called autonomous work of
art. Such a posture could well be understood within the logic of the text it-
self, which seeks to define artistic production as a kind of “material force”,
hence as an agency of emancipation – not only as a product of a solitary in-
tellectual effort (which an autonomous work of art is usually socially ex-
pected to be), but as a consciousness and the Freudian unconscious creat-
ing force.
Beyond Mechanical Reproduction
Strictly speaking, the emancipation is at first the emancipation of “the work
of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the
work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibil-
ity” (Benjamin, 1969: p. 224). It is this “reproducibility” that makes masses
able to participate in culture, and so bringing to them a kind of emancipa-
tion, no matter how much of philosophical indignation this “emancipa-
tion” provokes as in the case of Adorno. Later on the rapid development
of technology transcended Benjamin’s imagination at this point. We could
say that instead of the “abolition of capitalism”, new developments rather
brought further expansion of the “reproducibility” still within the frame-
work of capitalism, which ultimately prevailed over the few decades of some
contorted attempts to establish communism in a number of countries. The
“prognostic requirements” only vaguely project a changed and emancipat-
ed society, which has been far from being certain in the wake of fascism.
Taking into account that Benjamin’s essay is only a fragmentary text, we
may not seek definite answers in it. Its huge importance emanates rath-
er from the specific discursive position in which Benjamin stands almost
alone against his philosophical foes and friends as well. Therefore, his essay
remains a paradigmatic text for all of those who repudiate to succumb to an
intellectual pessimism and desperation facing the “disreputable forms” of
mass culture, which are as such recognised by Benjamin as well. His analy-
sis actually does not suppose at all that mechanical reproduction brings an
all-comprising emancipation automatically. In his dialectical mind Benja-
min really only uncovers the ambiguous potential created by mass culture,
and the question of whether or not the outcome will be social emancipa-
tion, points towards politics. The sentence at the end of the essay, that con-
21
it is not congruent as well with, to say the least, Benjamin’s style and ap-
proach in most of the rest of his writings on the aesthetic phenomena of his
time. It clearly belongs to historical determinations, which instigated Ben-
jamin’s strong criticism of the idea of the so-called autonomous work of
art. Such a posture could well be understood within the logic of the text it-
self, which seeks to define artistic production as a kind of “material force”,
hence as an agency of emancipation – not only as a product of a solitary in-
tellectual effort (which an autonomous work of art is usually socially ex-
pected to be), but as a consciousness and the Freudian unconscious creat-
ing force.
Beyond Mechanical Reproduction
Strictly speaking, the emancipation is at first the emancipation of “the work
of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the
work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibil-
ity” (Benjamin, 1969: p. 224). It is this “reproducibility” that makes masses
able to participate in culture, and so bringing to them a kind of emancipa-
tion, no matter how much of philosophical indignation this “emancipa-
tion” provokes as in the case of Adorno. Later on the rapid development
of technology transcended Benjamin’s imagination at this point. We could
say that instead of the “abolition of capitalism”, new developments rather
brought further expansion of the “reproducibility” still within the frame-
work of capitalism, which ultimately prevailed over the few decades of some
contorted attempts to establish communism in a number of countries. The
“prognostic requirements” only vaguely project a changed and emancipat-
ed society, which has been far from being certain in the wake of fascism.
Taking into account that Benjamin’s essay is only a fragmentary text, we
may not seek definite answers in it. Its huge importance emanates rath-
er from the specific discursive position in which Benjamin stands almost
alone against his philosophical foes and friends as well. Therefore, his essay
remains a paradigmatic text for all of those who repudiate to succumb to an
intellectual pessimism and desperation facing the “disreputable forms” of
mass culture, which are as such recognised by Benjamin as well. His analy-
sis actually does not suppose at all that mechanical reproduction brings an
all-comprising emancipation automatically. In his dialectical mind Benja-
min really only uncovers the ambiguous potential created by mass culture,
and the question of whether or not the outcome will be social emancipa-
tion, points towards politics. The sentence at the end of the essay, that con-
21
