Damon is joined once again by Ben (from Close Reed #8, a graduate student in philosophy) to discuss a highly influential chapter from the Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment: "The Culture Industry."  Adorno and Horkheimer were two leading figures of the Frankfurt School, a school of thought whose aim it was to critique the capitalism and the failed communist movements (using concepts from thinkers like Marx, Hegel and Freud) of the past century, as well as to propose alternative political structures for the future. In The Dialectic of Enlightenment, they consider how the concepts of the enlightenment have (paradoxically) led to these oppressive and totalitarian societies. 

In "The Culture Industry," Adorno and Horkheimer target the productions of popular culture in particular. They claim that film, radio, music, and other media produced by capitalist structures are essentially brainwashing the masses. This is because all art under capitalism is subservient to profit, and thus the market forces that create works of art are guided along already established paths, paths which are guaranteed to make money. This creates repetition of the same style, the same product, until we get used to this monotony and become passively accepting of it, content to entertain ourselves and forget about better possibilities. In this episode, Damon and Ben think through the implications of this critique, apply it to the present day media landscape, and consider the broader picture of how Adorno and Horkheimer view all this as a result of the enlightenment run wild.