He was disdainful of high art as well, which could be created only through patronage made possible by wealth accumulation. His issue was not exactly the quality of the music, though he sometimes undermined himself with blanket statements about that too, but the cold, systematized manner in which it was produced and sold. To him, the culture industry— a term he coined so that he would not have to use the term “mass culture,” which implied too much agency on the part of said masses—was the exact opposite of possibility. It secured the status quo. It offered only a brief respite from work,
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