Within the Frankfurt School, Adorno joined Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Herbert Marcuse in espousing what has come to be known as “critical theory.” It was, at least at first, a neo-Marxist movement, one that held that culture itself could be, and was being, used as a force of oppression. This might seem like a stretch. Culture—entertainment, consumerism, the arts—doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that can imprison a people. This intuition, however, Adorno argues, is precisely the thought that lowers one’s defenses. Popular culture shapes a people’s preferences, delimiting the scope
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