Mass culture’s ideal achievement is subordination, not autonomous triumph

Evidence

Ultimate achievement now consists not in triumphing over difficulty but in a process of subordination. It produces an aesthetic attitude which cannot be disturbed by external contingency or any other obtrusive factors. Whenever possible the disturbing factors are expressly produced without even allowing any longer the image of an autonomy which might master the alien elements as something not already preformed and thus establish its rule from out of freedom itself. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 128

Categorization

• DEFINE: This reverses the virtuoso ideal — from triumphing over difficulty to compliant subordination within the team — a core definitional move for analyzing performance culture today.
• XREF: connects to: Mass production really means producing the masses, not producing massively — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 227