“文化工业”的概念化与问题化——重读《启蒙的辩证》

Conceptualization and Problematization of the Cultural Industry:Re-reading Dialectic of Enlightenment

20世纪末以来,文化产业在全球兴起,但相关的理论研究一直相对贫乏。在此背景下,20世纪中期法兰克福学派的文化工业批判理论,成为文化产业研究的重要理论基础。鉴于批判理论对文化工业的严厉批判,论者或指出批判理论的精英取向而认定其在文化产业时代的不合时宜,或强调它所指控的标准化生产模式依然是当代文化产业发展的顽疾,由此导致对批判理论与文化产业的不同理解。尽管国内学界对文化工业批判理论多有介绍评论,但总体上局限于阿多诺等人对'文化工业'的直接论述,而未能在批判理论'启蒙的辩证'的历史哲学系统中把握其丰富含义。本文以西方启蒙的主题,特别是康德一韦伯的理性批判为线索,概括文化工业作为'启蒙的辩证'的具体内容,认为文化工业批判理论主要是文化/哲学论说而非文化产业理论,但它揭示并分析了文化工业在生产上的标准化、政治上的欺骗性和意识形态效果。因此对当代文化产业来说,批判理论不但是一个需要认真对待的'另类',而且是一个真实的理论动力:任何有关文化产品趋同化的评论,任何有关文化与资本、权力的关系的讨论,都不能回避批判理论。

Since the end of the twentieth Century, the cultural industry has been rising all over the world. Against this background, the critical theory of cultural industry of the Frankfurt School in the middle of twentieth century has become an important theoretical basis for the study of cultural industry. In view of the fact that critical theory criticizes the culture industry so severely, researchers either point out its elite orientation and find it inappropriate nowadays, or emphasize the standardized production pattern it alleged is still the symptom of in the contemporary culture industry. This leads to a different understanding of critical theory and cultural industry.Scholars in China on the critical theory of culture industry are generally limited to Adorno and Horkheimer’s direct discussion of " cultural industry ",and fail to grasp the rich connotation in critical theory of " the dialectic of enlightenment " in historiosophy of system. This paper treats the Western enlightenment theme, especially the critique of Kant and Weber as a clue, then it summarizes the culture industry as" the specific content of the dialectic of enlightenment ",that the critical theory of culture industry is mainly cultural and philosophical theory rather than the theory of cultural industry. But it reveals and analyzes the cultural industry in the production of standardized, political ideology and deceptive effect. So for contemporary cultural industry, critical theory is not only a serious offbeat, but a true theory of power. That is, any discussion of the assimilation of cultural products, any discussion of the relationship between culture and capital, power, cannot avoid critical theory.