【Aeon】大众文化之殇

当今世界，拙劣的快感被伪装成真正的快乐，重复的劳作被假扮成逃避的方式，劳作间隙的短暂休息被包装成了奢侈品。大众文化标榜自己能释放我们被压抑的情绪和欲望，带来更多的自由。这种刻板的千篇一律以反叛和新颖来标榜自我。但事实上，它却剥夺了我们的自由，攫取了我们作为人去思考，去体验不同可能性的能力。

大众文化之殇

作者：Owen Hulatt

译者：王津雨&邵海灵&徐嘉茵

校对：邹世昌

编辑：赵萌萌

For Adorno, popular culture is not just bad art – it enslaves us to repetition and robs us of our aesthetic freedom

对阿多诺来说，大众文化并非仅是低劣的艺术——它还使我们沦为重复劳动的奴隶，剥夺了我们的审美自由。

本文选自Aeon | 取经号原创翻译

关注 取经号，回复关键词“外刊”

获取《经济学人》等原版外刊获得方法

Classical music and high European culture were at the heart of Theodor Adorno's philosophy and outlook on life. He was born in 1903 in Frankfurt in Germany, and grew up with music, both as a listener and a practitioner: his mother, Maria Calvelli-Adorno, was a singer, and the young Adorno was a talented pianist. He attended the Hoch Conservatory, going on to study with the Austrian composer Alban Berg. Adorno chose a career as a professional philosopher taking a position at the University of Frankfurt in 1931, but music and culture remained the focus of his interests. 

在西奥多·阿多诺的哲学思想和人生观中，古典音乐和高雅的欧洲文化占据了核心地位。阿多诺于1903年出生在德国法兰克福，身为音乐的忠实听众和演奏者，他在音乐的陪伴下长大：他的母亲玛利亚·卡尔薇丽·阿多诺是一名歌唱家，且年幼的阿多诺也是一个钢琴天才。后来他进入霍赫音乐学院，师从奥地利作曲家阿尔班·贝尔格，继续研究音乐。1931年，阿多诺在法兰克福大学任职，选择成为一名专业哲学家，但音乐和文化仍然是他的兴趣所在。

Adorno insisted on high standards – culture was not merely a matter of technical progress (in composing more beautiful, more complicated music, for example) but also (if indirectly) a matter of morality. Even in pre-war Vienna, Adorno saw warning signs of a collapse in European culture. The ballet's 'flirtation with barbarism' was not merely musical – it reflected social facts, and indeed showed evidence of a kind of cultural trend towards regression, and of the domination of the individual by the social whole.

阿多诺一直坚守高标准——文化并不仅仅是技术的进步（比如能创作出更优美、更复杂的曲目），而且（可能是间接地）事关道德。即使在战前的维也纳，阿多诺也在欧洲文化中看到崩溃的警告信号。芭蕾舞“开始与野蛮文化互送秋波”的现象并不仅仅是音乐方面的问题——它反映出了社会事实，而且确实显露出了某种文化衰退、社会集体统治个人的迹象。

These trends towards regression and domination were borne out with the rise of Nazism. Adorno's father, Oscar Wiesengrund, was Jewish, and Adorno's licence to teach was revoked by the Nazis in 1933, leading him to spend four years at Oxford studying for a doctorate under the philosopher Gilbert Ryle.

文化的衰退趋势和集体对个人的统治，是随着纳粹主义的兴起而产生的。阿多诺的父亲奥斯卡·维森格朗是个犹太人，1933年，纳粹没收了阿多诺的教学执照，这使得他在牛津大学花了四年时间，师从哲学家吉尔伯特·赖尔攻读博士学位。

Together with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Adorno emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Los Angeles in 1941. The philosopher who had savaged Stravinsky was now brought face to face with Mickey Mouse. Like many émigrés, Adorno was initially disoriented by US mass culture, which had not yet overrun Europe as it would after the war. This disorientation became a principled distrust. He claimed that capitalist popular culture – jazz, cinema, pop songs, and so on – manipulates us into living lives empty of true freedom, and serves only to distort our desires. Popular culture is not the spontaneous expression of the people, but a profit-driven industry – it robs us of our freedom and bends us to conform to its needs for profit.

1941年，阿多诺与法兰克福“社会研究所”一起移民到美国，并最终定居于洛杉矶。这位曾猛烈抨击斯特拉文斯基的哲学家，现在得跟米老鼠面对面了。像许多移民一样，起初阿多诺也对美国的大众文化极不适应（虽然当时美国文化还没像在二战之后那样席卷欧洲），这种不适应后来发展成了一种原则性的不信任。他宣称，在资本主义大众文化——爵士乐、电影院、流行歌曲等等的操纵下，我们过着一种无真正自由可言的生活，这些东西只会扭曲我们的欲望。大众文化并不是人们自发的情感表达，而是被利益驱动的产业——它剥夺了我们的自由，让我们屈服于它对利润的需求。

spontaneous /spɑn'tenɪəs/ adj. happening or arising without apparent external cause 自然的；自发的 (行为)

This distrust of US culture was reciprocal. The FBI distrusted Adorno as a transplant from a Marxist background into a capitalist one. Now, people distrust him as a transplant from a privileged background into a progressive one. The easy response to Adorno's condemnation of popular culture is to dismiss Adorno as a snob. His dislike of mass culture becomes simply a dislike of the masses that he looked down upon. He seems patronising, seeing people as easily fooled and mislead, and popular culture as shallow and manipulative. In this version, Adorno's arguments against popular culture contain no insight, only elitism, while, in fact, popular culture pleases and gives a voice to ordinary people.

这种对美国文化的不信任也引发了反弹。起初，美国联邦调查局也不信任阿多诺，因为他是从马克思主义背景下嫁接到资本主义阵营的。而如今，普通民众也不信任他，因为他是从特权背景中转移到了一个渐进式的文化里。因此，对于阿多诺对大众文化的谴责，人们往往想也不想就嗤之以鼻，把他视为一个势利小人。他对大众文化的厌恶仅仅是因为他看不起大众。他认为大众很容易被愚弄和误导，认为大众文化既肤浅又爱操纵人，这种居高临下的姿态让人觉得他很傲慢。在这种视角下，阿多诺反对大众文化的观点显得毫无洞察力，不过是精英主义的孤芳自赏，而大众文化实则为普通民众带来了愉悦，也给了他们一个发声的机会。

But this easy response is misguided. Adorno did not simply condemn popular culture; nor did he simply yearn for the rule of high culture. He found grave problems with both – and these problems stem from Adorno's profound respect and demand for pleasure, driven by a strong moral concern for our wellbeing. Strange as it might seem, Adorno's broadsides against popular culture are driven by the desire to identify and avoid harms to our flourishing. Popular culture is not only bad art (though it is that, he claims) but harmful art – it stands in the way of true freedom.

但这种不假思索的回应实际上是误入歧途。阿多诺并非只是简单粗暴地谴责大众文化，也不是仅仅渴望高雅文化的统治。他发现，大众文化和高雅文化都存在严重的问题，这些问题都源于阿多诺对幸福快乐的深刻尊重和强烈需求，也出于他在道德层面上对人类福祉的关注。可能看上去很奇怪，但阿多诺之所以猛烈抨击大众文化，其动力正是在于他殷切期望能识别并规避那些会对社会繁荣造成伤害的事物。他说，大众文化不仅仅是低劣的艺术（虽然它的确很低劣），而且是有害的艺术——它阻碍了真正的自由。

To get at this moral position, we might consider a familiar example: 'guilty pleasures'. We are now, on average, working longer, with less security, for less money. The world is riddled with social and political problems that we have no immediately clear way of engaging with or ameliorating. Our limited free time seems better spent instead on relaxing the demands we place on ourselves, and escaping the pressures of the everyday world. While guilty pleasures are imperfect, they afford us a pleasure too often lacking in our busy lives. They supposedly give us more immediate enjoyment than high art, while certainly demanding less time, attention and expense.

为了理解这种道德境界，我们或许可以考虑一个熟悉的例子，即所谓“负罪的快感”。总体来看，现在我们的工作时间越来越长，得到的保障却不断减少，工资也在日渐缩水。世界上充斥着各种社会和政治问题，无法立刻解决或改善。可我们却把有限的空闲时间用来放松对自己的要求、逃避日常生活的压力，似乎这才是更好的做法。虽然“负罪的快感”并不完美，但它能带来的乐趣，往往是我们在繁忙生活中严重缺失的。由此可证，比起高雅艺术，“负罪的快感”理应给我们带来更为直接的享受，而且势必耗费更少的时间、精力和费用。

ameliorate /ə'milɪə'ret/ v. make a situation better or easier in some way 使变好，改善，改进；改良；减轻

Adorno is no opponent of pleasure. But he would be very suspicious of 'guilty pleasures'. What sort of a world binds guilt and pleasure together? What sort of a pleasure comes together with an awareness, no matter how dim, that things should be better? It is a world, Adorno claims, that gives us only a faint copy of pleasure disguised as the real thing; repetition disguised as escape; a brief respite from labour disguised as a luxury. Popular culture presents itself as a release of our repressed emotions and desires, and so as an increase in freedom. But in truth, it robs us of our freedom twice – both aesthetically (in failing to give aesthetic freedom in enjoying art) and morally (in blocking the path to true social freedom).

阿多诺并不反对快乐，但他对“负罪的快感”产生了强烈的质疑。什么样的一个世界才会把负罪和快乐混为一谈啊？什么样的一种快乐才会在“事情本来可以更好”的潜意识中滋生出来啊 —— 无论这种意识是多么的模糊不清。阿多诺指出，在这样一个世界中，拙劣的快感被伪装成真正的快乐，重复的劳作被假扮成逃避的方式，劳作间隙的短暂休息被包装成了奢侈品。大众文化标榜自己能释放我们被压抑的情绪和欲望，带来更多的自由。但事实上，它在两个层面剥夺了我们的自由——一是审美层面（它使我们丧失了享受艺术的审美自由），二是道德层面（它阻碍了通向真正社会自由的道路）。

What does it mean to lack aesthetic freedom? For Adorno, this is about freedom in experiencing, interpreting and understanding artworks. This freedom requires an artwork to give us space and time to inhabit it, and to experience it as a unified whole. However, popular culture has lost its ability, Adorno claims, to create these integrated, unified wholes. Instead, works are now being produced that are a loose collection of moments experienced in a rapid and disconnected series.

那么缺乏审美自由又意味着什么？对阿多诺而言，审美自由是指能够体验、诠释和理解艺术作品的自由。它要求一件艺术作品能给我们提供空间和时间去切身感受，并能将其作为一个统一整体去进行体验。然而，阿多诺宣称，大众文化已经失去了这种塑造统一和谐整体的能力。相反，如今创作出来的作品，都是由一些片段拼凑而成的松散集合，人们对这些片段的感知也是一闪而过、彼此分离的。

It's not uncommon to hear films praised for their 'set-pieces' and 'special effects'. If we look beneath the familiarity of this language, we find strangeness – we praise a two-hour film for the enjoyable (and expensive) moments it contains: the chase sequence, the explosion, the action choreography. We are accustomed to breaking down what is presented as a single thing into a collection of disconnected smaller things.

一部电影因为某些精彩片段或高能特效而被交口称赞，已是屡见不鲜的事情了。如果仔细想一想，这一司空见惯的表述背后其实是一个奇怪的逻辑：我们称赞一部长达两个小时的电影，却只是因为它里面的一些有趣（而且制作昂贵的）片段：追车、爆炸、动作场面的设计。我们习惯了把一个作为整体呈现的东西肢解成独立的小块，彼此之间再也看不出联系。

We perceive the same phenomenon musically. The song can be decomposed without loss of meaning – its moments can be pulled out, and re-used. And the song as a whole is designed to deliver the tension and release that comes with expecting, and hearing, that same chorus yet again. For Adorno, this is a perversion of, and a block to, true aesthetic freedom – the enjoyable and free play of unifying and working together the various parts of an artwork into an integrated whole. Aesthetic experience without compromise or qualification is unpredictable, fluid, and has a complex structure sustained and developed across long stretches of time. In contrast, the culture industry trains us to focus on minute intervals of time and content, dulling our ability and willingness to experience artworks as unified, complex objects.

在音乐领域也能看到同样的现象：歌曲可以被解构，但意义并没有缺失，某些乐章可以被切分出来反复利用，甚至整首歌本身都是为了高潮部分而创作的——为了配合听众对于副歌的期待而在之前做出紧张的铺垫，从而让人在终于听到副歌时有一种如释重负的快感。而在阿多诺看来，这是对真正的审美自由的扭曲和阻碍，它让你无法享受那种将艺术作品的各个部分融汇成一个和谐整体来欣赏的、愉悦而自由的感觉。没有妥协、不受限制的审美，是不走套路、自由而又流畅的，这一过程所包含的复杂构成经得起时间长河的冲刷，并且会在岁月的流淌中不断发展、日益稳固。相比之下，如今的文化产业却训练我们把注意力放在那些碎片化的时间和内容上，把我们变得肤浅、迟钝，不再有能力——也不再愿意——把艺术作品当作完整而复杂的整体去感知。

We know it could be better, but resolve to enjoy it anyway. For Adorno, this is what's wrong with pop culture

我们知道本可以有更好的方式，却仍然决意把眼下这一刻享受掉再说。阿多诺认为，大众文化错就错在这。

It also accustoms us to a kind of aesthetic experience that is very similar to the work it is meant to release us from; a constant checking of the artwork against pre-set standards and tropes. Consider how rare it is when watching a popular film, for example, not to be aware of the function of the scene – one scene is clearly establishing relationships that will frame the events to come, another is an action scene, another gives the villain's motivation. We are usually equipped with a subconscious understanding of the function of every scene, and indeed its expected length. When the opening scene of a film shows someone waking up in a messy bedroom, we are reasonably sure that this is our main character, and that when the alarm rings that character will wake up worried about being late for something. And our expectations are rarely disappointed. We are put to work in organising, checking and filing the moments of the film as it passes by. Instead of being given time for consideration and interpretation, we are engaged in the very sort of classification and sorting that characterises the world of work we thought we were escaping from.

这种文化也让我们越来越习惯于一种本质上与工作十分相似的审美体验，尽管审美的目的原是为了将我们从工作当中释放出来，不被预设的标准和老套的联想所束缚。就拿电影来说吧，你只消想一想，观看一部热门电影的时候，有几次是你不会意识到某个场景是派什么作用的 —— 许多时候一看便知，这一幕显然是用来建构事件发生的前提的，那一幕则是打斗场面，整部电影的动作担当，而另一幕是交代了反派作案的动机。我们通常都在潜意识里配备了这套解读公式，对每个场景的功能和时长了然于心。如果电影开场是一个人在乱哄哄的卧室里刚刚醒过来，我们就能胸有成竹地推断，此人是主人公无疑了。而当闹钟骤然响起，主人公肯定会匆匆起床，担心有什么事情会赶不及。这些推断很少会出错，在电影放映的过程中，我们都被切换到了“工作”模式，不停地组织线索、填补情节、检查自己刚才的推断是否正确。电影没有给我们思考和诠释的时间，相反，我们在观影时给每个场景分门别类，对号入座，这不恰恰就是那个我们以为自己正在逃离的工作环境所具有的特征吗。

We are hardly under the impression that a blockbuster movie such as The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is as good as the arthouse film Andrei Rublev (1966). We don’t expect it to be – we expect it to give us an exciting two or three hours. We don't expect it to stand up under close scrutiny. We enjoy it for what it is – a guilty pleasure.

我们很少认为像《黑暗骑士崛起》那样一部时尚大片能与《安德烈·鲁勃廖夫》这样的艺术电影相媲美，也不会有这样的期待 —— 只要给我们两三个小时的紧张刺激就是众望所归了。我们并不指望这些电影经得起仔细的审视，只图享受当下，享受它的本质 —— 一种负罪的快感。

But the curious thing about a guilty pleasure is that it is guilty; we know that what we are doing could be better, but resolve to enjoy it anyway. Adorno sees this as the very core of what is wrong with popular culture. As far as Adorno is concerned, we are not fooled. We know exactly what we are getting, and how shoddy it is, but desire it all the same: The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them.

但负罪的快感指向一个不可理喻的事实：这种快乐是基于负罪感的。我们知道自己的所作所为本可以不那么低俗，却仍然决意把眼下这一刻享受掉再说。阿多诺把这一怪象视为大众文化的症结所在。至少在阿多诺看来，我们没有被愚弄，因为我们非常清楚自己得到了什么，知道这玩意儿很劣质，但仍然渴望得到它。全世界都在求被骗，这句话比以往任何时候都要更真实。人们不仅是在上当受骗，事实上，如果一个骗局保证会让他们得到哪怕是一丁点儿稍纵即逝的满足，他们就渴望被欺骗，尽管这个把戏轻而易举就能拆穿。

Adorno claims that you are reasonably well-informed about what you are doing and choosing; and yet the culture industry is still a means of 'mass deception' and injury. Why?

阿多诺认为，虽然你相当清楚自己正在做什么、自己选择的是什么，但文化产业仍然是一种“欺骗大众”和制造伤害的手段。这是从何说起呢？

For Adorno, a large part of the harm inflicted by popular culture is harm to our ability to act freely and spontaneously. He claims that popular culture, as well as being a source of pleasure, is also a kind of training; it engages us in, and reinforces, certain patterns of thought and self-understanding that harm our ability to live as truly free people. It accomplishes this partly through its very predictability. And if, as Adorno believes, in the wider world we are under ever-increasing pressure to conform, to produce, and to pour our energies into our work, this loss of a place where we can think freely, imagine, and consider new possibilities is a deep and harmful loss. Even in our freedom from work, we are not free to truly take the kind of free and spontaneous pleasure that might help us recognise and reject the harmful lack of pleasure we find in our working lives.

在阿多诺看来，大众文化所造成的伤害中，很大一部分是损害了我们自由行动与自愿行动的能力。他认为，大众文化既是愉悦的来源，也是对我们的训练：它让我们陷入某种特定的思维模式和自我认知中，并不断强化这种认知，这损害了我们作为真正意义上的自由之人生活作息的能力。之所以会造成这样的损害，部分是因为这种文化套路太多，一切都在意料之中。阿多诺相信，如果我们在更宽广的现实世界里面临着与日俱增的压力，不得不循规蹈矩、生产劳作、把精力投在工作上，那么，如果在本该休息放松的时间里也没有了可以自由思考、想象、设想新的可能性等这样的空间，那就真的是危害深重的损失了。即使在工作之余的自由时间里，我们也不能自由地享受真正自由、自觉、自发而生的快乐，而这种快乐本可以帮助我们发现并拒绝在工作环境中因缺少娱乐而受到的损害。

Our lack of aesthetic freedom, then, also helps to build an obstacle to the realisation of social freedom. If popular culture puts us to work even in our leisure – if we are nowhere given space to think and experience freely and unpredictably – then we will lose sight of the possibility of a world not completely dominated by work. We will have increasingly less space to consider such a thing; and increasingly less experience of anything different to what work demands.

审美自由的缺失，继而也会化作我们实现社会自由道路上的绊脚石。如果大众文化使我们在业余时间也要工作——如果我们没有空间去自由地思考、不按套路地体验——那我们也就无法看到一个不完全被工作主导的世界还有实现的可能。我们能够思考这类问题的空间会越来越小，能在工作要求之外体验到任何不同经历的机会也将越来越少。

Adorno further claims – in a striking prediction of many features of our cultural lives today – that this rigid sameness presents itself under the guise of rebellion and novelty:

阿多诺对当今文化生活的许多特点做出了一语惊人的预测，并进一步声称——这种刻板的千篇一律反而会以反叛和新颖来标榜自我。

The general influence of this stylisation may already be more binding than the official rules and prohibitions. In this release, popular culture really does meet our needs; but it ties them back into the process of profit-making, and disperses the energies we might have needed to make genuine change. The temporary pleasure we take in satisfying our needs, and discharging our frustrations, in popular culture stands in the way of a more powerful change in our way of life that could ameliorate our frustrations, and serve our pleasures, in a deeper and more lasting way. Our very satisfaction deceives us, and stands in the way of a more lasting and free pleasure in the future.

这种程式化的风格所产生的影响，总体来说也许会比官方制度和禁令更加具有约束力。真正潜藏在我们体内的牢骚想法和攻击态度会被贴上所谓“叛逆艺术”的标签。在此情形下，大众文化确实能满足我们的需求；但它又将释放情绪的过程与赚钱行径相挂钩，这就消耗掉了我们大量精力，而我们本可以用这些精力做出些真正改变。我们通过大众文化来满足自身需求，赶走挫败感，但由此形成的短暂快乐会阻碍我们在人生道路上实现更为有力的改变，而这种改变本来可以更加深入持久地减轻挫败、带来愉悦。恰恰是满足感欺骗了我们，妨碍我们在未来得到更长久自由的幸福。

'High art' and popular culture are both damaged and harmful. Adorno argues for the abolition of both of them 

所谓的“高雅艺术”和大众文化都有缺陷，也都有害处。阿多诺强烈要求把这两种艺术形式都废除。

Popular culture, for Adorno, is not bad because it provides us with quick and accessible pleasure in a way that modern, demanding 'high art' does not. On the contrary, it is bad because it promises this pleasure and fails to deliver it in a genuine way. Adorno's attack on the culture industry turns out, in the end, not to be an attack on pleasure, but an attack in the name of pleasure. In a letter to fellow philosopher Walter Benjamin, he referred to high and low culture as two 'torn halves of an integral freedom, to which, however, they do not add up'. Popular culture gives us pleasure, which is our need and our right; but it comes along with harm to our ability to think freely and truly take ourselves out of the world of work and profit. High culture creates, at its best, works of art that give us true aesthetic freedom and escape from labour. But these artworks come with high barriers to entry, that help to close off the perfect conditions for experiencing such art to all but the few. To attend a performance of a symphony takes not only money, but also time, and freedom from immediate needs and anxieties – it requires an insulation against worries about money, food and security that are increasingly unavailable in a world where employment becomes ever more precarious and less well-paid.

对阿多诺而言，大众文化有好的一面，因为它能让我们迅速收获唾手可得的愉悦，这是现代苛刻的“高雅艺术”无法做到的。相反，说它糟糕，是因为它虽承诺会带来愉悦，但未能以一种真诚的方式传递给我们。阿多诺对文化产业的攻击，终究是以愉悦为名的攻击，而不是对愉悦本身的攻击。在写给哲学家同事沃尔特·本杰明的信中，他提到，高雅文化和低俗文化是“完整的自由被撕开的两半，但自由却并非两者相加就能得到的”。大众文化给我们带来愉悦，这是我们的需要和权利，但随之也会妨害我们自由思考的能力，让我们无法真正从利字当头的工作世界中解放出来。高雅文化所创造的艺术作品能让我们得到真正的审美自由，逃离劳动。但这些艺术作品的门槛较高，结果就是仅有极少数人才能获得体验此类艺术的完美条件，而其余大众则被拒之门外。听一场交响乐不仅要花钱，还得花时间，而且不能被迫在眉睫的需要与焦虑所烦扰——它要求人们抛开对金钱、食品和安全的担忧，然而在一个就业越来越不稳定，薪资也日益减少的世界里，无忧无虑的心境已经越来越不可能了。

'High art' and popular culture are both damaged and harmful. Adorno is not arguing for the abolition of one of them, but both of them. We all deserve the freedom to take our pleasure without guilt, without harm, and without worry – but our society is so unequal, and the demands of true artistic freedom and truly free art-appreciation so expensive that this is denied to nearly all of us. If popular culture is stultifying and harmful, but easy to access and enjoy, this is only because it is a mirror image of the harms that high culture has inflicted, and the inequalities that make it possible:

“高雅艺术”和大众文化都有缺陷，也都有害处。阿多诺不是只要废止其中一种，而是强烈要求把这两种都废除。我们理应拥有获得愉悦的自由，没有愧疚，没有伤害，也没有忧虑——但社会是如此的不平等，获得真正审美自由和自由艺术鉴赏的代价又是那么高，以致于几乎无人能享有这种自由。如果说大众文化会使人思维迟钝、害处多多，但触手可及、便于享受，这只是因为它如镜子一般反照出了高雅文化所造成的伤害，以及让这种伤害成为可能的社会不公。

Adorno turns out to be less of a snob than he appears, and perhaps more radical and less conservative than his reputation suggests. Adorno's complaints are not aimed at us, but at the obstacles that are placed in our way. He takes pleasure very seriously, and demands that our lives be filled with it. But what Adorno finds is that the structure of the modern world ensures that our pleasure is always incomplete, and qualified. On the one hand, I can take pleasure immediately and simply in popular culture, and in return must subject myself to its distracting, dis-unified and insincere manipulation of my senses and emotions. On the other, I might be fortunate enough to be able to dedicate large swathes of time and money to the appreciation of high art. But my ability to do so is based on an unequal distribution of wealth; my temporary freedom comes at a cost to others.

阿多诺其实不像他表面看来的那么势利，也许比人们眼中的他还要更激进，而不是保守。阿多诺并未将控诉的矛头指向我们，而是指向那些阻挡我们的障碍。他非常严肃地对待愉悦，并认为我们的生活应该充满愉悦。但阿多诺发现，现代社会的结构使得我们的愉悦总是不完整且受限的。一方面，大众文化能给我迅捷而简单的愉悦，但反之也会让我受到它对我感官和情绪假冒伪善的操控，分散我的注意力，破坏我对和谐整体的感知。另一方面，我也许是个幸运儿，能花大量时间与金钱去欣赏高雅艺术。但我能这么做的前提是财富分配不公；我暂时性的自由是建立在别人的牺牲之上的。

For Adorno, some artworks are just better than others; and popular culture is, by and large, 'trash'. But, for him, a perfect world would not be exclusively populated by concert halls and skips filled with smashed televisions.

对于阿多诺而言，某些艺术作品确实略胜一筹；而大众文化总体来说都是“垃圾”。但是，他认为，如果一个世界完全被音乐厅占领，而电视机都被砸烂扔进了垃圾箱，这样的世界也绝对称不上完美。

#访问取经号官网#

网站域名qujinghao.com,即“取经号”的全拼

#读译交流#

后台回复 读译会，参与取经号Q群交流

#外刊资源#

后台回复 外刊，获取《经济学人》等原版外刊获得方法

#关注取经号#

扫描 二维码，关注跑得快的取经号（id: JTWest）

<原文链接: https://aeon.co/essays/against-guilty-pleasures-adorno-on-the-crimes-of-pop-culture>