when starting my masters, a friend told me not to bother reading theodor adorno or the frankfurt school. but recently i did and it was impressive. i wonder what about their writing disappointed my friend? had a song in my head this morning, a song i heard a few months ago for the first time and disliked. by a popular guy who represents much of what is horrible. i don’t know if he thinks he’s very talented, as the world tells him he is or if he realizes what’s happening is more about his position than his writing. now that the song is stuck in my head, one could say it is proof that the song is a great song but who is to say it might just be proof that capitalism mechanically positions things to perpetuate capitalism. the corporation buys stations and buys products to sell and other corporations have the job of targeting those who buy the songs to run through their factory. this song was one of those songs purchased to sell, someone was paid to play it and to play it frequently and because we are inundated with those few selections, we can replay it in our mind. you might not necessarily find the slogan make america great again powerful, but if it is repeated a bunch, it will start floating through your mind to reconsider (or re-dismiss). i find this song limp, it stinks, it’s as musically powerful as a door knob but it’s stuck in my head. the stations or corporations, have achieved their goal of bombarding a listener with a song so often that the listener replays it in their mind. some take that as proof of the song’s the worth. in what i read about adorno, he says what’s now called culture, is manufactured for people as if the choice between this thing or that thing, is our measure of who we are. i wonder what he posits as the alternative? how else culture is created or how it used to be created before we were conscripted to play the role of consumers in the machine of things. i wonder if it has ever not been this way?