Chapter 23 who will light the wildfire

——From Adorno's Reflection to Long Yingtai's Wildfire Zhang Wangtai I am a person who wants to be a civilian intellectual. However, in this article, I used some theoretical content of elite intellectuals. Such use violates some of my personal principles, and it also makes readers think stiff. However, everyone (especially readers who have read Long Yingtai) please be patient, because it seems that Adorno's thought and Long Yingtai's wildfire can be connected together. Adorno Adorno (Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno, 1903-1969), German philosopher, sociologist, music theorist.One of the founders of the famous "Frankfurt School".Contemporary intellectuals have recognized or affirmed that he was the main enlightener of Western intellectuals after World War II.

Adorno received double education in music and philosophy at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University.At the age of 28, he entered the University of Frankfurt to teach.At the age of 31, he left Germany because the Jews were oppressed by the Nazis. Then he taught philosophy at Oxford University (1935-1938), taught music at Princeton (1938-1941), and taught social philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley (1938-1941). 941-1948).Finally, he returned to teach at the University of Frankfurt until his death. Adorno’s research in the first half of his life was more focused on aesthetics, which was mostly related to his profound literacy in music. Outstanding thinkers of his time such as Brecht, Lukacs, and Benjamin all excelled in their own fields. , in the famous "controversy between modernism and realism" in the 1930s, they refused to give in to each other and each showed their special abilities.In terms of art philosophy, Adorno once wrote "The Philosophy of New Music" (Die Philosophie der never Musik, 1949), which is still an important classic in the study of modern music theory.

In 1956, Adorno returned to Frankfurt.At this time, he was already a famous Confucianist, and he was able to concentrate on the research work of Liyan in the excellent academy.His contemporary Benjamin died young.Brecht formed the "Berlin Theater Troupe", specialized in theater work in East Germany, and died that year.Lukacs participated in the anti-Soviet (anti-Stalinist) movement in Hungary. His speech was severely attacked by the official cultural thugs of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and he was expelled from the party and went into exile.Therefore, in the 1950s and early 1960s of the Cold War, among the representative European intellectuals in the early 20th century, only Adorno was left with the conditions to continue the literary and artistic thought of the German system quietly. Reflect on work.

In the 1950s, in post-war Europe and America, an unprecedented "popular culture" emerged with unprecedented rapid development.Mass culture became the main object of Adorno's later thinking. Basically, popular culture is not a product of early unfettered liberal age capitalism.It is the product of today's era of extreme monopoly capitalism, a fusion of totalitarianism and fascism.The essence of this product is collectivism and fascism.However, its appearance is just the opposite. It is individualism and liberalism, or the fact that collective control is achieved through the appearance of personal satisfaction and freedom.All this was clearly seen by Adorno thirty years ago.

Adorno's views on mass culture The emergence of "mass culture" (Mass Culture) began in the early 20th century. In Germany, Japan, Italy and other countries, it was accompanied by the manipulation of media (movies, newspapers, radio, and government publications) that were deliberately evidenced by fascism.In Britain, the United States, France and other countries, the speech trust group that emerged after free competition is manipulating the media according to its own corporate interests (have you seen the movie "Big Citizen"? Newspaper groups, radio companies, news agencies).This phenomenon became more developed after World War II, forming an unprecedentedly large popular culture—starting from all possible details of civilized human life.The emergence of popular culture is based on two practical material foundations:

1.Mass production (commodities for material life, commodities for spiritual life). 2.Standardized content (TV dramas are stereotyped to kill love, Suhe noodles are indistinguishable from the color and fragrance). In "Culture lndustry Reconsidered" (Culture lndustry Reconsidered), Adorno believes that: Classical upper-class culture, yearning for a better world beyond daily life, can be realized by personal cultivation.But the "inner freedom" of capitalism in the era of laissez-faire has been eroded by the manipulative popular culture in the era of monopoly capitalism.In the eyes of Adorno and the sub-thinker Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School, the two major groups in the Cold War era, East and West, were also totalitarian. If they were not swallowed by the system, they could only rely on themselves.In a totalitarian society, the function of popular culture and modern media, whether it be popular music, novels or movies, is to manipulate the masses.Adorno called it "the culture industry", because the term popular culture still assumes that culture comes from the masses, but in fact, in an advanced technological society, the culture industry manipulates the consciousness of the masses from top to bottom.Advanced technological society is like a totalitarian entity capable of controlling every domain, from culture to economy.

In another work by him and Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception", Adorno believes that what the culture industry produces is false individualism.The capitalist cultural market and commodities seem to be free to choose, but in fact every cultural commodity has a pre-estimated market response, so it is based on the principle of "uniformity": individuals only accept it passively.For example, pop music, for every number of songs, there must be a few songs that top the pop charts. Music consumers think that this is the democratic result of individual free choice, but it is actually a uniform tactic of the music industry to sell products.

In the era of "mass culture", individuals are overwhelmed by irresistible commodity collectivism (in Taiwan, there is no need to be courteous, both inside and outside the party, just hug and jump in together).Therefore, Adorno's view of culture is forced to the last front, which is the "individual".Unless one uses one's power to make a moral voice in introspection, one can create a "heterogeneous culture" or "minority culture" in "mass culture". However, "heterogeneous culture" and "minority culture" are In Adorno's eyes, it is the culture that truly expresses human creativity. Of course, this kind of view coincides with the orientation of elites.

Adorno does not consider social reform from a comprehensive class perspective, but seeks personal introspection, which seems pessimistic and has been rated as a defeatist route by many people.However, from the perspective of actual modern society, especially the reality of advanced capitalist countries, comprehensive class struggle seems impossible for the time being.Therefore, developing the most avant-garde creativity of the individual is at least a way to compete with mass culture.And according to historical experience, it is often sufficient and necessary for individuals to initiate resistance to the system.

However, in his later years, Adorno modified his concept of "popular culture/individual" mentioned above.He no longer looks at "popular culture" in a single way like before (in fact, all people who are proficient in dialectical historical views should have this ability).He saw that "popular culture" has a dual nature, that is to say, "popular culture" will also undergo transformation and integration of its contradictions in the course of history (if there is no contradiction, there will be no dialectics, and there will be no development. potential for evolution).Adorno pointed out that based on the duality of consciousness, perhaps the culture industry has not been completely successful in manipulating human consciousness.When the masses participate in popularizing cultural activities, although they seek entertainment, we should not condemn this kind of behavior from the perspective of moral asceticism. The psychology of the masses can be to compromise with the cultural industry at the same time and resist at the same time.The popular culture of escapism produced by the culture industry may not have produced its opposite at the same time: the utopian dreams and demands of the masses for a better world.

In addition, human beings' requirements for happiness are not fixed by history. When the cultural industry continues to create products based on the principle of human happiness, whether human beings will always be happy is beyond the capabilities of the cultural industry.Furthermore, all cultural commodities produced by the cultural industry are also dual in nature, with a constructive side and a subversive side. The contradiction between these two sides will become the most important prerequisite for the production and reproduction of the cultural industry in the future. Wildfire at Longyingtai This book is so powerful, it is really like wildfire burning in the spiritual grass of Taiwanese folks.It is not a resource outside the party, nor is it a resource of the Kuomintang.It is an overall new resource in Taiwan's social structure, so it can be said to be outside the party, or it can be said to belong to the Kuomintang, and it can be said to be "beyond the party". In fact, if we really stand in this land and want to continue to live, we should now pay attention to the so-called "strength beyond the party".This "power beyond the party" is of course related to the anti-democracy movement inside and outside the party that "put the party in command" and "redistributed political territory" ten years ago.However, due to the pace of historical progress, the current situation of Taiwan society is analyzed with "inside/outside the party", the future of Taiwan society is debated with "independence/unification"; I am afraid that the heated scenes of "modern/rural" confrontations have gradually passed. stand there.The voice of protest has changed. , in our opinion, the social effects it produces can clear up some of the undetermined doubts about objective things accumulated in the hearts of non-Party activists. However, they live in an era of "mass culture" as Adorno called it.It came out like wildfire, but we can really abstractly see another larger and safer fire cover framing this fire. This fire cover is not mainly from security units, intelligence and governance units, and cultural and industrial units.It comes from an irresistible force to commodify.There are many examples of this kind. For example, the "Beatles", who were anti-mainstream music back then, stood in front of the public with a rebellious image and caused a sensation in the Western world. The fate of the first four "starts with personal rebellion and ends with commodity rebellion.The article, and its appearance in the Times Supplement one after another, and its final compilation into a volume, until it became the number one bestseller in the country, is a very reasonable, gratifying and helpless process. However, is it not good to be commercialized?This is a matter of opinion.However, the reason why this article proposes Adorno is to point out that in the process of Taiwan's overall rising mass culture, intellectuals who create mass culture highlight avant-garde cultural goods, although it cannot solve the general situation of "exploitation of intellectual rights", However, it is necessary to maintain the dignity and rights of "subculture".The significance of this is not whether it has changed the commodified society.Rather, how much it can dismantle an outdated ideology in this commodified society.Long Yingtai is a Ph.D. in emotional writing, not bad.Long Yingtai is a protesting petty bourgeois intellectual, not bad.Long Yingtai is a demagogue, yes.However, to use a foreigner's words: So What (so what?) If we ask calmly: "Today's scholars in Taiwan, how many of them know what their historical mission is? People who know their historical mission , and how many are willing to shoulder this historical task?" My personal opinion of Ms. Long is that she herself was not very interested in exploring this issue at first, but after one article after another, the society responded in waves. One after another, she was forced by the environment and fell into a stalemate with herself, so she was tormented internally and externally, and began to think and explore issues that she had never thought about before.After all, receiving higher education in society is much better than studying in the study. After reading the preface, the Long Yingtai we see is no longer the Long Yingtai who just lit the wildfire earlier.Long Yingtai, am I right? Looking at it positively, placed in today's "popular culture", it brings "stimuli" to the public that individuals cannot get in the "previous popular culture"-happy or unhappy.These "stimuli" somewhat have an ambiguous effect on the "previous mass culture"; even a subversive effect. (Don't the new generation of the Kuomintang and the new generation outside the party all want to do this?) The fact at hand is that capitalism is still alive, and there is still a "huge commodity accumulation" era, so.In this historical stage, it is an example, pointing out that there is a new possibility that can be dialectized between "individualism" and "mass culture". Looking negatively, it does not make the current commodity fascism any more utopian.As long as we watch the TV series, or go to the department store, don't we see a so-called "commodity utopia" and "commodity fascism" complex? Overall, it is the loudest protest within the tolerance of the ruling class.Therefore, as far as the rulers are concerned, it has certain subversive significance.But there are more construction ideas. What does it imply? Society always needs to be "satisfied". (There are many kinds of gratification, from the religious to the profane, from the noble to the superficial. They count.) However, not everyone can "satisfy" society. Because, if the society is already "satisfied", it is not easy to accept another new "satisfaction", which is common sense. So, timing is often very important. Back then, Li Ao gave a lot of wild fires of satisfaction—outside the system. Back then, Chiang Ching-kuo gave a lot of satisfaction—within the system. As a result, both of them rose up and became figures of a generation. Now, Long Yingtai lit a wildfire.There are so many people who have a "satisfied" response.This is an interesting phenomenon, does it mean that another opportunity is about to start again?Is it that the "satisfaction" that the society got from the old authority has become boring, and it is waiting for the "satisfaction" brought by the new authority in a new way? In short, there is no need for any great reason, everyone can feel that today's society needs new voices to be "satisfied".Because, boring! It seems that the old authority is no longer enough.The old culture industry can't cope with it either.From Long Yingtai, from the dance of Baihu Society, from Lai Shengchuan's drama. "Woo... woo..." We heard the whistle of the train. The special ignition train "New Satisfaction" has arrived. Passengers who are going to start the ignition, please get on the train!