In comparison to the first week, this week has been a lot easier on me. I started with doing the assigned preparations for the week. Read the texts (which where easier both understanding, reading, analyzing and interpret) and wrote the pre-reflection. Unfortunately I had a mandatory seminar in the other course I am taking at the time, so I missed the lecture with Håkan. To make up for that I prepared a bit more for the seminar compared to the previous week. I read my reflection again and also some summaries on the assigned texts.
This weeks seminar I thought was a really good one. Håkan talked about nominalism and I got better understanding of the concept after the seminar. I think it's really interesting the way Adorno and Horkheimer talks about nominalism, that we need something more than just nominalism. We can't change the world by only looking at i, we need to use our perception as a tool. For example, human rights are nothing you can observe in the world and it's not a empirical science. Human rights are something that we human created to change society to the better (a Marxist view).
Another interesting discussion we had was about the way Adorno and Horkheimer compares the enlightenment with the culture industry: that they both promise us freedom and both fail to deliver it. The culture industry makes us think that we are equal and individual, but its only making us passive observers. And the enlightenment promise us freedom from authority and individuality but it only makes us as a group to believe in the same thing, depending on what "area" we are in right not (science, religion etc.).
I never though about it in that way and I agree with Adorno, especially when it comes to the contradictions within the culture industry, mass media doesn't make a secretary rich, it only makes her passive.
Interesting example that you bring up about human rights. Well I guess that we can see it in most western countries now but until some point in history freedom and human rights were exclusive for the high borns. So human rights were in a beginning only a vision like you say.
SvaraRaderaAlso I think about what you said about media promising us freedom. Do you think that since we don't work for survival anymore that we people get depressed and miss a purpose in life? Maybe humans can't be free because the society would collapse, so then the purpose of media is to distract and amuse us and give us a sence of that we're enriching our lives with something.