从神话到解放——论哈贝马斯对大众文化批判潜能的重建

From myth to liberation: On Habermas’ reconstruction of the critical potential of mass culture

哈贝马斯早期遵循霍克海默与阿多诺等人对大众文化进行批判这一主题展开对大众文化的讨论,然而两者结论却有重要差别。霍克海默的后现代倾向使得大众文化在其批判下沦为具有宰制意义的神话,哈贝马斯则回归批判的核心,重新赋予大众文化解放意识。对他而言,大众文化的娱乐化、消费化、浅薄化的危机形象只是表面现象,经由理性批判揭示其交往结构的缺失这个深层问题才能发现大众文化的演进逻辑。由此,大众文化可以经过重建程序而获得解放意识并继续发挥其拯救效能。

Initially,Jürgen Habermas in his understanding of mass culture follows the way of Horkheimer and Adorno who have criticized mass culture severely,even though he finally gives a definition of the concept of mass culture different from that of Horkheimer and Adorno.Because of Horkheimer’s inclination to post-modernism,mass culture for him has eventually become the myth with the meaning of domination.However,for Habermas,mass culture is criticized in a manner different from the discussion of Horkheimer.Habermas maintains that the consciousness of emancipation is the key in defining mass culture.He argues that tendencies of entertainment,consumerization and trivialization are just superficies embodied in mass culture,and as a matter of fact,the absence of communicative structure is the essential problem of mass culture.Therefore,the reconstruction of the communicative structure is the only way for mass culture to regain its consciousness of emancipation,and with that it can still perform its function of salvation.