ABSTRACT
In the decades since his death, Adorno’s thinking has lost none of its capacity to unsettle the settled, to discomfort those who believe, implicitly or explicitly, that the world can be mastered, or even that they have a secure home in it. Adorno struck out against modern popular culture in all its forms. He spared nothing in his relentless critique. To most people, the comforts at the heart of modern living, the entertainment provided by television, radio, film, newspapers, astrology charts and CD players seem harmless enough. The ‘media’ give pleasure, put people in touch with the wider world, provide amusement, excitement and entertainment, improve the access of all social classes to what were hitherto the cultural goods of the rich, relieve the boredom and loneliness of living alone and so forth. The best of their contents are genuinely ‘popular’. For Adorno, however, this popularity becomes part of the object of criticism. He challenges the notion that the elements of popular culture are harmless. He insists on treating popular culture as a deadly serious business, as something that is ultimately toxic in its effects on the social process. If the defenders of popular culture have not been persuaded by Adorno, they have often been discomforted by him, and his thesis, like a bone in the throat, still commands their attention.
