Max Horkheimer

Biography of Max Horkheimer

"Horkheimer was born in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart, which at the time was the capital of the Kingdom of Württembergwithin the German Empire, the only son of a wealthy orthodox Jewish family on February 14, 1895. Due to pressure from his father who wanted Max to take over the family business, Horkheimer left secondary school at the age of sixteen to work in his father's factory. In 1916, his manufacturing career ended when he was drafted into World War." 

Quote: "Critique, in this Marxian sense, meant taking the ideology of a society – e.g. the belief in individual freedom or free market under capitalism – and critiquing it by comparing it with the social reality of that very society – e.g. social inequality and exploitation. 

Max in this quote means that the social ideal (individual freedom) and free market (capitalism) should be treated the same in the ideal world. However, in the reality capital owners want to keep the lead of our economy and society. We know for the fact that to maximize their profit capitalists have to minimize their expenses which include salary expenses. By doing so social inequality will increase and workers will be exploited. There is no easy solution to this problem because capital owners need workers and vice versa. Now the question is what would be our society if everyone were rich? At this point society would not be an excited place to live because each person would have what she/he needs. In addition, there would be less innovation because creativity is motivated by making profit.

These ideas fit in with my own conception of mass culture today. The mass culture is consider today as one of the biggest industry in the world. The main motivation is the profit but it also treats and reveals stories of our society. For instance, a movie that talks about the killing of Osama is one the great jobs that mass culture can benefit us. Documentaries also talks about certain problems in our society and we can be aware of these issues. For instance, the docmentary on Columbine shooting helped us to understand how guns control is complex. I do think that we cannot live without mass culture because it integrated in our daily life. Besides the role of information and education it also plays an entertainment part. For example, we go out to see a movie or stay indoor to watch movies on TV when we do not want to hang out. We do agree with Max that mass culture should treat all problems of our society with the same priority. For instance, mass culture should be able to bring up a problem either it concerns poor class, middle class or rich. However, this inegality contnues to grow every day because most of the time the mass media pick and choose the subject that they want to talk about it and specially the one that will generate more profit.