Aside from the many philosophical opponents of mass art that Carroll identifies in A Philosophy of Mass Art, he also treats, inter alia, the work of Walter Benjamin, who – according to Carroll – provides a philosophical celebration of mass art. Although Benjamin's essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” is ambiguous in more than one respect, I argue that Carroll cannot effectively maintain that Benjamin's essay is either an account of mass art in Carroll's sense nor that it is a celebration of mechanically reproduced art (in a broader sense).
Benjamin, Carroll argues, employs Hegelian perspectives on mass art that allow him to claim that mass art is a historically specific (new) form of art. Carroll writes that Benjamin defends mass art in two, related, ways: on the one hand, mass art emblematises and exercises a vision that possesses technically emancipatory qualities and because of that contributes to the forces of production and human progress; on the other hand, that the nature of mass art changes with epochal changes in the productive base of society means that mass art, itself a new form of art, cannot be judged by the standards of kinds of art it has historically superseded. Benjamin's first argument is labelled the 'progress' argument by Carroll, the second the 'new art argument.' I challenge one of the premisses of both of these arguments, namely that Benjamin's essay can be interpreted as an account of mass art, and also problematise the 'progressive' or 'celebratory' aspect of Benjamin's theory. Benjamin claims the following: One of the foremost tasks of art has always been the creation of a demand which could be fully satisfied only later. The history of every art form shows critical epochs in which a certain art form aspires to effects which could be fully obtained only with a changed technical standard, that is to say, in a new art form.[1]
One of the prime functions of art, then, is precisely to develop itself to the extent that technology allows it. Because momentous changes in the technological standards of society – one would presume that Benjamin is thinking here of industrialisation, although he is rather vague in this matter – cause and emblematise the distinctions between historical epochs, art, since its development depends on that of technology, is historically specific. A definition of art in general, one might pose, is that it is the art of its categorical, historical epoch. From a strict reading of Benjamin, it is difficult to discern much with certainty regarding mass art specifically rather than art in general – for Benjamin does not clearly differentiate between different kinds of art within one epoch. It is questionable whether the mass art – avant-garde art dichotomy, specifically in the Carrollian terminology, can be upheld in Benjamin's theory, as Carroll does with his equalling of the terms 'art in the age of mechanical reproduction' and 'mass art' and his identification of avant-garde art in Benjamin's essay. The dichotomy makes no sense if one considers the following phrase: “Dadaism attempted to create by pictorial – and literary – means the effects which the public today seeks in the film.”[2] Carroll identifies Dada as avant-garde art, but precisely what distinguishes avant-garde art from mass art for Carroll, namely that its difficulty designedly restricts it from the masses, becomes problematic when the very ends of it are sought by the general public. Of course, it could be claimed in a Hegelian fashion that mankind's historically expanding consciousness or perception demands increasingly complex art, so that today's avant-garde art is tomorrow's mass art, but this statement would have to be taken so literally that it would be rendered ridiculous; Dada only began 19 years before Benjamin wrote his “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” a time frame that Benjamin would surely deem significantly too short to enable a change in “the mode of human sense perception,” which itself only “changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence.”[3] On this ground, it cannot be maintained that Benjamin offers a theory of mass art (mass art per Carroll's definition).
Moreover, Carroll's case for the progress argument neglects elements from Benjamin's essay that obscure it. Most prominent in this regard is Carroll's assertion that mechanically reproduced art has a “tendency toward serving mass political ends – such as galvanizing concerted mass criticism on the part of a united audience – as a function of its mass reproducibility.”[4] More specifically, this interpretation of Benjamin holds that “mass art contributes to historical progress both as an emblem and an exercise in the sort of technical (proletarian), emancipatory vision/consciousness that will release the productive forces (…).”[5] These statements, inexplicably, do not account for the following characterisations of the involvement of the capitalist in the film industry: So long as the movie-makers’ capital sets the fashion, as a rule no other revolutionary merit can be accredited to today’s film than the promotion of a revolutionary criticism of traditional concepts of art. We do not deny that in some cases today’s films can also promote revolutionary criticism of social conditions, even of the distribution of property.[6]
What is more, “[i]n Western Europe the capitalistic exploitation of the film denies consideration to modern man’s legitimate claim to being reproduced.” Thus, on the basis of Benjamin's essay it is too much to claim that art tends to aid in the emancipation of the proletariat – on the contrary, the industry of the mechanically reproduced art serves as an extension of the capitalist's exploitation of the proletariat. Despite this inclination the film does possess the – apparently underdeveloped or rarely used – capabilities of transcending its criticism from the purely artistic to the socio-economic and political realm (i.e. promoting the proletariat's interests), a potential emphasised by Benjamin – who introduces his essay by focusing on its utility “for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art” – but exaggerated by Carroll.[7]
Although Carroll suggests otherwise, Benjamin's account of modern art evidently is not unequivocally celebratory, or completely in line with the progress argument. Although “mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual,” it does not necessarily follow that with the emancipation of art in the current epoch there is also the emancipation of mankind; as has already been noted, mechanically reproduced art serves as the opium of the people.[8] Merely on the basis – shaky though it is, as shown by Carroll – of Benjamin's analogy of Marx's prediction that capitalism would eventually enable its own destruction does Carroll label Benjamin's theory of art a celebration of mass art. This is as inaccurate as the claim that Marx wrote celebratory accounts of capitalism. Although Carroll rightly points out that both the style and argumentation of “The Work of Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction” are opaque, his own interpretation of the essay twists it to an unreasonable extent.
By Caspar Plomp (third year student, LUC The Hague)
[1] Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm (accessed 6 October 2012).
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