Benjamin held that culture must be mass culture or none at all

Evidence

But even this gloomy bitterness, in which Benjamin seemed to have moved towards Adorno’s position, still reflected his conviction that illumination was either exoteric or did not exist at all, that there must either be mass culture or no culture at all. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 864

Categorization

• XREF: Distinguishes Benjamin’s radical democratism from Adorno’s elitism — a fault line running through the whole Frankfurt School. — connects to: Culture that is merely preserved rather than contested is no culture at all — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 12