One of the most commonly raised and accepted critiques to Theodor Adorno’s conceptualization of manipulation that is foundation of The Culture Industry is that most people are not really as passively susceptible as it would seem they need to be in order his theories to hold up. Adorno not only recognizes this criticism, but actually counters it by utilizing it as a fundamental piece of evidence supporting his argument when he asserts that “The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them.” In other words, the real power of the culture industry lies not in convincing members of society that they are not being manipulated, but in getting them to reach a point where they don’t care.
Situated smack dab in the middle of The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture is a chapter titled “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda.” The placement of this particular essay may be chronological according to creation date or purely random, but it is thematically perfect since this chapter conveys what is the essence of the nature of manipulation upon which all other chapters touch. The strength of the culture industry is all about manipulation and in this chapter Adorno makes clear that manipulation is dependent upon narcissistic identification. Adorno’s greatest insight is that narcissistic identification as a means of manipulation trough cultural idealization is by definition inherently fascistic. This context of this chapter is focused exclusively on the rise of fascist ideologies embraced by the masses despite that ideology being fundamentally opposed to their best interests as individuals. The subtext is that this fascistic narcissism can be applied to all mass manipulation.
Adorno quotes Freud’s definition of a group as “a number of individuals who have substituted one and the same object for their ego ideal and have consequently identified themselves with one another in their ego.” This definition is applied specifically to how a group of individuals can fall under the sway of a fascist leader, it is easy to see how perfectly it applies to an actor, a singer, a broadcaster or any figure of power within the culture industry. A popular TV show that is enjoyed by someone in Iowa, San Diego and Baltimore can thus be said to wield the same sort of unifying effect of individuals into a collective mass as a despotic tyrant like Hitler. When people of different backgrounds and socio-economic levels identify with a cultural figure, it is an example of identification not only with the figure, but with each other.
The power of the culture industry to manipulate people to buy things they cannot afford or pursue objects of status they don’t even want is constructed upon a fascistic mechanism of narcissistic identification that is no different from those people who support politicians who espouse policies detrimental to their own best interests.
