Adorno saw mass art as reconciling audiences to the status quo, unlike Benjamin.

Evidence

Where the other members of the Institut, especially Adorno, disagreed with Benjamin was in assessing the repercussions of this change. First of all, they had always considered art to have a politi cal function: the presentation of a foretaste of the “other” society denied by present conditions. What they now feared was that mass art had a new political function diametrically opposed to its traditionally “negative” one; art in the age of mechanical reproduction served to reconcile the mass audience to the status quo. Here Benjamin disagreed. For, while mourning the loss of the aura, he paradoxically held out hope for the progressive potential of politicized, collectivized art. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 630

Categorization

• XREF: This Adorno-vs-Benjamin split is the seed of later debates about the culture industry in Dialectic of Enlightenment. — connects to: Adorno and Benjamin independently converged on the same cultural-critique objects from opposite directions — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 348; Adorno saw quantifying culture as the reification typical of mass culture — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 664; Adorno demanded inverting Benjamin’s imagery so reality, not fantasy, undergoes fetishistic inversion — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 249 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Benjamin valued distraction and habit in perception where Adorno required concentration. #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 632
• Adorno and Benjamin independently converged on the same cultural-critique objects from opposite directions #qualifies (0.82) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 348
• Adorno demanded inverting Benjamin’s imagery so reality, not fantasy, undergoes fetishistic inversion #responds-to (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 249
• Adorno saw quantifying culture as the reification typical of mass culture #expands (0.78) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 664
• Walter Benjamin’s resistance to exile in America led to his suicide #contradicts (0.72) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 595
• Walter Benjamin’s Situationism climaxed Western Marxism by igniting May 1968. #contradicts (0.72) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 177