According to Adorno and Horkheimer it is a totalitarian myth-dispelling myth (which therefore also dispels itself). I can't really see why they have such a hard time with it. For me I see the enlightenment as the direct continuation of the renaissance where europe awakened from the dark ages and reintroduced Greek and Arabic philosophy, science and religious practice. For almost our entire history science has been close to religion. Radical scientists have also been radical philosophers and involved in occult groups. Occult renaissance eventually led up to the scientific revolution which greatly influenced the enlightenment. I believe the enlightenment marks the start of a divide between science and religion. It seems however that these two still not are fully apart. It took until the 19th century for science to dispel the myth of man as the image of the christian god. Darwin showed that humans are not created by some magical process but by evolution. I think that this magical view on ourselves is still apparent. So in my opinion, the enlightenment is still an ongoing process.
What is the meaning and function of “myth” in Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument?
Adorno and Horkheimer states that myth has the function to report, name and tell of origins and also to narrate, record and explain. Mythologies are descriptions of the world and history. With this kind of definition one may argue that science also is a kind of mythology. And as Adorno and Horkheimer also describes religion as the absorption of mythology into civilisation it leads to the question whether science may be absorbed in the same manner. Enlightenment introduced the dualism between science and religion but this doesn't seem to hold. Atheists often describe science as their religion. I see no contradiction in this. Mythology is not inherently good or bad, it is just our description of the world. This mythology might however be progressive or regressive.
What are the “old” and “new” media that are discussed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment?
Although never referred to as "old" or "new" we can see a couple of different media throughout the text. Radio is described as a (new) more sublime version of the printing press. The TV, a relatively new medium at the time Adorno and Horkheimer wrote their text, is described as a symbiosis of radio and film. The new broadcast media of radio and TV is the prerequisite for modern mass media, and thus also the culture industry.
What is meant by “culture industry”?
From the authors' point of view it seems as the culture industry is a massive monopoly that acts to conform the population. The communication is one-way – there's no way of responding to the broadcast. The culture industry reduces the population to consumers and employees of it. It is a pretty dark view that is presented here. I believe that this is due to the fact that this text is published in 1944 when Germany has just demonstrated the power of its propaganda machine with radio and TV as its main media.
What is the relationship between mass media and “mass deception”, according to Adorno and Horkheimer?
As described above, I believe that they see mass media as an instrument to coerce the population. But it becomes deception as the media consumers are led to believe that it is what they want. There is no need to use force to shape the views of the population. The population is led to believe that the culture industry can give them a flight from everyday life, all you need to do is consume mass media/mass culture.
Please identify one or two concepts/terms that you find particularly interesting. Motivate your choice.
I think it is interesting the way Adorno and Horkheimer describe the flight from everyday life, as promised by the culture industry. It seems there is no way to escape mass culture without consuming mass culture. I immediatly thought of the counterculture movements of Europe during the first world war, namely the dadaist movement. They created something completely different than the mainstream fascist culture. By creating what they called anti-art and using nonsense they created a separate culture. I always found the dadaists very inspiring, not only as a cultural but also a political movement. Perhaps something like this is what Adorno and Horkheimer would need in order to lose their bitterness (that and the defeat of Germany in the 2nd world war).
On the occult part: Back then, when the church did not allow people to think outside their box of belief, I suppose joining one of these occult groups you are talking about, was the only way to explore other ways of thinking and observing the world, in secret. You speak about Darwin and the theory of evolution. It is hard for most of us today to imagine that there are still groups out there that instead believe in things like Intelligent Design instead. Even though I think it sounds crazy, and perhaps that's because I don't know enough about any of the theories, there are still people defending ID, perhaps they are right? I found this quote in a critical comment to a blog:
SvaraRadera"Many ID theorists believe that who or what this transcendent cause is should be left to the field of philosophy and/or theology. " - Joel Guess
Blog is found here: http://umso.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/intelligent-design-vs-evolutionary-theory-a-brief-comparison/
The blog is comparing Theory of Evolution against the Theory of Intelligent Design. The commentator claims to be a scientist and defends ID-theorists.
In the ID theory, they fill in the gaps in the with myth, or actually leave it up to other diciplines theology and philosophy to clear out who this creator is. Like you say, enlightenment is still an ongoing process.
Of course, intelligent design doesn't meet the standards of being scientific. But if you are a believer of ID or any other type of creationism, it doesn't matter. All those fossils and whatnot could of course have been put there because The Creator felt like it or to test our faith. I mean, you could say that evolution and big bang are true but that it's some divine entity's grand plan. Scientific critique doesn't work on pseudo-science.
RaderaThe idea presented in Guess' quote is quite interesting. If I understand it correctly it is basically that scientists should mind their own business and not meddle with the "transcendent". I guess this is just because this is a threat to mainly religious people's beliefs. In that sense I guess you were better off in the 16th century, when science and religion were still united.