Frankfurt School

Culture industry has depoliticized the working class and made them comfortable and blinded in their life so they don’t look for change, or they are too lazy to want change. It discourages the ‘masses’ from thinking beyond the confines of the present. (ex, Americans living on borrowed money and not worrying about the future. – Instant gratification)

Hope comes from those on the margins of society, ‘the outcasts and outsiders’, who are out of reach of the culture industry, to defeat capitalism and bring about a new world. (similar to those calling for critical pedagogy)

Devils advocate question : Whether it is capitalism or Marxism, both systems pacify their citizens through different forms of propaganda, so what is the difference? It’s a continuous cycle. Capitalism leads to Marxism back to capitalism and so on. Ex. Russia was a kingdom with business that changed to communism and now back to capitalism. American will eventually call for revolution once the masses are bled more and more and the class divide becomes too great, possibly a change to socialism.