Amusement becomes an ideal that displaces the higher things it mimics

Evidence

Pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even where it is shown. Basically it is helplessness. It is flight; not, as is asserted, flight from a wretched reality, but from the last remaining thought of resistance. The liberation which amusement promises is freedom from thought and from negation. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mass amusement functions as the modern catharsis that tragedy once provided; Mass amusement reproduces the mechanized work process in leisure — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 107; Amusement serves as flight from resistance and thought, not from suffering — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Amusement serves as flight from resistance and thought, not from suffering #expands (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113