Berlin’s palatial entertainment palaces rationalized mass amusement in parallel with factory rationalization.

Evidence

At the very same moment at which the factories are being rationalized, these establishments [i.e. the Haus Vaterland', the Resi’ or Residenz-Kino, and the Moka-Efti' in Berlin] are rationalizing the amusements provided for the armies of non-manual workers. When I asked why they provide for the masses in a mass way, I was told by one of the staff bitterly, Because people’s lives are far too run down for them to be able to do anything sensible with themselves.’ Whether that is true or not, the masses are at home in these establishments, and in their own company. And it is not out of concern for the business interests of the owner, but because of their own, unconscious, powerlessness. They keep each other warm, they console each other for the fact that they cannot escape sheer quantity of numbers. Belonging to a mere quantity is made more bearable by their lordly and palatial surroundings. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 468

Categorization

• XREF: Directly anticipates Adorno and Horkheimer’s ‘culture industry’ thesis in Dialectic of Enlightenment, and connects to the general arc of the Frankfurt School reading. — connects to: Berlin entertainment palaces rationalized leisure to console white-collar workers’ powerlessness; Mass amusement reproduces the mechanized work process in leisure — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 107; Mass culture occupies workers’ leisure with content stamped by the labor process they endure (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Illustrates Kracauer’s materialist method — reading the built environment of entertainment as evidence of workers’ unconscious powerlessness.

Broader Connections

• Mass amusement reproduces the mechanized work process in leisure #expands (0.95) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 107
• Mass culture occupies workers’ leisure with content stamped by the labor process they endure #corroborates (0.90)