THE SUNDERED TOTALITY - ADORNOS FREUDO-MARXISM

The Sundered Totality explores the theoretical background for Adorno's study of the culture industry. Adorno discovered in Marx the basis fo r a description of the socio-economic factors that contributed to the emergence of nazism and the culture industry. These factors include bo th reification, which compromises intersubjective relations, and the e rosion of the bourgeois patriarchal family which allows other agencies of socialization to play an increasingly pivotal role in individual d evelopment. In Freud, Adorno located the psychological conditions whic h led to the widespread proliferation and consumption of cultural comm odities in the West. Individuals have become narcissistic and the cult ure industry exploits this condition with its libidinally-charged tech niques and emotional appeals. Adorno's Freudo-Marxism sen es as the th eoretical foundation for his study of the culture industry's technique s and effects as well as explaining its predominance in the Western wo rld.