Horkheimer and Adorno

I found Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's account "The Culture Industry" to be one of the more interesting and graspable reads we have dissected this far.  One of the quotes that stuck most with me as I can easily relate it to another class I am currently taking can be found on page 50.

"the defrauded masses today cling to the myth of success still more ardently than the successful"

I believe this statement is clear in basically asserting that those who are successful, do not care nearly about success and achieving it as those who are not successful.  I agree with this statement in a sense.  Although I believe that those who have attained success do on occasion think of their success and how they achieved it, those who have not yet achieved the success they are looking for still have that drive, that passion, that need and concern to be successful.  Since they are the seekers, they are more concerned to see if they can achieve the myth of success.

This relates to another course that I am currently taking, American Dream and Popular Culture.  We speak in depth of the great myth of the american dream and whether or not it is feasible to many.  We have discusses how the upper/super class is least concerned with the dream and if the myth exists to anybody in the United States, because it does not pertain to them, they are successful.  In return, those coming to America or struggling in America are often obsessed with this ideological myth of success and the American Dream because they want to believe that they too can achieve it.

People are always obsessed with what they do not have.  Whether a material possession or an ideological achievement, if you do not have it, then you will want it, or some version of it.  This lead us to question whether even those who, according to lower classes class, have already achieved success and their version of the dream truly believe they have achieved the dream.  They may not think about success as much as those who have not achieved any form of it, but it would not be feasible to believe they do not consider success in any sense.