The grey, disenchanted look of the world stems from its commodity character.

Evidence

InWagner, Adorno further develops this interpretation of the concept of fetish: … It sums up the unromantic side of the phantasmagoria: phantasmagoria as the point at which aesthetic appearance becomes a function of the character of the commodity. As a commodity it purveys illusions.The absolute reality of the unreal is nothing but the reality of a phenomenon that not only strives unceasingly to spirit away its own origins in human labor, but also, inseparably from this process and in thrall to exchange value, assiduously emphasizesitsusevalue,stressingthatthisisitsauthenticreality,thatitis ‘noimitation’–andallthisinordertofurtherthecauseof exchangevalue. InWagner’s day the consumer goods on display turned their phenomenal side seductively towards the mass of customers while diverting attention from their merely phenomenal character, from the fact that they were beyond reach. Similarly, in the phantasmagoria, Wagner’s operas tend to become commodities. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 386 (#expands, via linked claim)

The European visitor arrived in this world, let us recall in conclusion, contained by an unshakeable habit of thought, a habit nurtured in the world of the exhibition. He arrived with a metaphysical belief, a theology, or what Max Weber was to call in his essay on ‘Objectivity in social science’ a ‘transcendental presupposition’, namely ‘that we are cultural beings’. Weber meant by this that we are the kind of beings who ‘take up a deliberate posture towards the world and lend it significance’. Thanks to this peculiar posture, such ‘significance’ can appear as something apart from the ‘meaningless infinity’, as Weber could now say, of the world outside. Significance resides in the space opened up, in the grounds of the world exhibition and in the similar ordering of the world beyond, between a human subjectivity and the world’s inert facticity. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 207 (#expands, via linked claim)

‘Life-styles’, the culture industry’s recycling of style in art, represent the transformation of an aesthetic category, which once possessed a moment of negativity, into a quality of commodity consumption. The expansion of the role of competing life-styles, the permeation of these styles into the home, the pervasiveness of music, the way in which products have become a direct extension of their advertising image, all these phenomena token a closing of the gap between the culture industry and everyday life itself, and a consequent aestheticization of social reality. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 61 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Aesthetic style becomes a commodity attribute that aestheticizes everyday life. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 61; The image of uninhibited vitality itself recycles commodity fetishism; Even identical aesthetic features differ in meaning across economic epochs. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 45 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Phantasmagoria is aesthetic appearance turned into commodity function. #expands (0.90) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 386
• Belief in a disenchanted outside world is itself the modern enchantment #expands (0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 207
• Aesthetic style becomes a commodity attribute that aestheticizes everyday life. #expands (0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 61
• When visual appearance is labor, bodily modification raises the commodity’s exchange value. #expands (0.80) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 157
• Capitalist commodification displaces the aesthetic value of art #corroborates (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 69
• Even identical aesthetic features differ in meaning across economic epochs. #expands (0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 45
• Lack of economic and social power makes the world appear to be given #expands (0.78)
• The image of uninhibited vitality itself recycles commodity fetishism #expands (0.75)
• Fine art loses aesthetic value when removed from its creative location into wealth #expands (0.75)