文化产业与大众欺骗:批判视角下的当代中国软实力

Culture Industry and Mass Deception:Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Concerns about Soft Power in China

随着媒体和信息技术的发展,当今时代的文化变得比以往任何时候都更加产业化和物化,然而霍克海默与阿多诺所提出的文化产业概念依然可以有力地描述当下艺术、文学和其他文化产品的命运。本文以马克思的商品拜物教理论作为背景,通过追溯本雅明对这一概念的原初发明,进而讨论马尔库塞的研究,以期重访这一概念。本文借助大卫?霍克斯的作品,简要地介绍了16世纪英格兰商品拜物教兴起的历史渊源,接着过渡到奈尔对新近(或新兴)的文化软实力现象的探讨,结合霍克海默和马尔库塞对资本主义物化现象深层逻辑的讨论,以及阿多诺对文化产业难以产生出社会主义意识这一观点的坚持(这与本雅明的乐观主义相反),回顾了马克思关于资本主义与国族主义本质上乃同一道路的警告,最终旨在质询:在中国或其他任何地方,是否曾经有过一种社会主义的文艺?它有可能存在吗?首先应该关注的是文化产品(如软实力、媒体审查、宣传),还是造就它们的生产方式?

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's concept of the culture industry remains a powerful description of the fate of art,literature and other cultural products in an era where media and information technology have made culture more industrial and reifying than ever before.We revisit this concept,tracing it forward from Walter Benjamin's initial contributions and proceeding onward the work of Herbert Marcuse against the backdrop of Marx's theory of commodity fetishism.We provide a brief description of historical origins with David Hawkes'works on the emergence of commodity fetishism in 16lh-century England and carry this forward to Joseph S.Nye's discussions of the more contemporary phenomenon of soft power.Returning to Horkheimer and Marcuse's concerns for the logic underlying capitalist reification,as well as Adorno's longstanding concern that a culture industry could not produce a socialist consciousness(contrary to Benjamin's optimism),and recalling Marx's admonition that capitalism and nationalism are essentially the same road,we question whether there has ever been a socialist art or literature in China or anywhere else,whether one is possible,and whether we should concern ourselves firstly with products(e.g.,soft power,media censorship,propaganda)or the mode of production that produces them.