Research Into The Nature Of The Culture Industries

This paper adopts a logical analytical method of the philosophy of science to compare the critical theory of culture industry of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno and the research of the massive culture of Walt Benjamin. The former two made the critics on the prediction of Max about the inevitable extinction of capitalism while Benjamin focused on"the tendency of the development of art under current productive level". As to the culture industries, which is a concept covering two areas, culture criticism and commercial economy, the author uses a comparison method to describe massive cultures of different periods. From the perspective of the relations, the mutual merge of culture and science is the core attribute of the culture industries. The repelling and confronting of culture and science have lead to the profitability, introspection, demonstrativity and recreativity, etc.This paper also makes comparative observations between cultural production and its materials so as to identify the characters of knowledge product and local materials. The nature of the culture industries is based on the knowledge, which is the raw material. Its process is to text knowledge. The need of the appreciation of beauty and entertainment of the mass is the motivation of culture industries. From the comparison of culture and knowledge, any culture, productive or unproductive, could be the direct product material of the culture industries. The raw material of the industry is actually knowledge which is locally rational, recreational about mind and tradition. Different culture industries could be compared, but any of them should not be a unique standard to judge the rest.This paper is intended to make profound understanding of the mutual merging nature of culture and science through the outlining method and philosophical model. The same method should be put into practice to develop the culture industries. We have to revaluate issues like culture and science, productive and unproductive culture, and local knowledge. With all these, we can upgrade the research on this field from a simple one on the cultural industrialization to an integrated one on the mutual merge of culture and science. Hence , the author come up with five practical suggestions: to reveal the meaning of the culture industries; treat the culture industries rationally; to support new form of the culture industries; to coordinate the culture industries with institutions; to protect the culture industries.