Standardized propaganda appeals survive mockery because their phoniness signals raw power

Evidence

Their effectiveness is itself a function of the psychology of the consumers. Through a process of ‘freezing’, which can be observed throughout the techniques employed in modern mass culture, the surviving appeals have been standardized, similarly to the advertising slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business. This standardization, in turn, falls in line with the stereotypical thinking, that is to say, with the ‘stereopathy’ of those susceptible to this propaganda and their infantile wish for endless, unaltered repetition. It is hard to predict whether the latter psychological disposition will prevent the agitators’ standard devices from becoming blunt through excessive application. In National Socialist Germany, everybody used to make fun of certain propagandistic phrases such as ‘blood and soil’ ( Blut und Boden ), jokingly called Blubo, or the concept of the nordic race from which the verb aufnorden (to ‘northernize’) was derived. Nevertheless, these appeals do not seem to have lost their attractiveness. Rather, their very ‘phoniness’ may have been relished cynically and sadistically as an index for the fact that power alone decided one’s fate in the Third Reich, that is, power unhampered by rational objectivity. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 202

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• ADDENDUM: Directly serves the reader’s stated goal: the ‘freezing’/standardization mechanism here is the same one he must run on post-Adorno culture — difference drained until even the joke about the product is absorbed.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that a slogan’s very phoniness is relished sadistically as proof that power alone decides one’s fate is a counterintuitive twist on standardization that rewards sustained unpacking.