Mass culture inverted tragedy’s defiance into the punishment of nonconformists

Evidence

François entered into the spirit of the game and accepted the role; but, to the comedy of the crime that he did not commit, he added that of the priest that he was not; to the account of ‘his’ crime, he added the prayers and broad gestures of blessing directed at the jeering crowd. A few steps away, the real Delacollonge, ‘who seemed like a martyr’, was undergoing the double affront of the insults that he was not receiving, but which were addressed to him, and the ridicule that brought back, under the appearances of another criminal, the priest that he was and would have liked to have concealed. His passion was laid out before his eyes, by a buffoon murderer to whom he was chained. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 395 (#expands, via linked claim)

Every opinion earns the approbation of friends, every argument is known by them beforehand. That all cultural products, even non-conformist ones, have been incorporated into the distribution-mechanisms of large-scale capital, that in the most developed country a product that does not bear the imprimatur of mass-production can scarcely reach a reader, viewer, listener at all, denies deviationary longings their subject matter in advance. … Even Kafka is becoming a fixture in the sub-let studio. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 228 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mass amusement functions as the modern catharsis that tragedy once provided; The spectacle of punishment produced substitutions and misrecognitions of identity — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 395; Nonconformist culture gets co-opted by mass-distribution before it can reach anyone — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 228

Broader Connections

• The spectacle of punishment produced substitutions and misrecognitions of identity #expands (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 395
• Nonconformist culture gets co-opted by mass-distribution before it can reach anyone #corroborates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 228