ABSTRACTMy paper aims to situate and contextualize György Márkus’s key writings on cultural modernity on the one hand in relation to their theoretical antecedents in Kant and Hegel’s conception of modern society as a society of culture and in Lukacs’s reception of Kant and Hegel in his early pre-Marxist works, and on the other hand in relation to an examination of the contemporary ramifications of certain tendencies in modern culture highlighted in Márkus’s writings. The paper is accordingly divided into two (...) parts. Part I sets out to reconstruct the presuppositions of Márkus’s theory of the high culture of classical modernity in order to bring out the descriptive strength and the analytic contribution of his approach in relation to the tradition of cultural critique in modernity, in particular in Western Marxism. Part II aims to show how Márkus’s theory of modern culture from the late eighteenth century to the end of World War II contains elements crucial to the theorization of contemporary culture, characterized by new forms of paradoxicality that go beyond his own model. (shrink)

Regulating the Creative Economy Drastic changes have occurred throughout the past century and the world community is struggling to find the exact concepts to describe, understand and, possibly, govern them. One of the concepts used to describe these changes is the so-called "creative economy". Even though the concept is becoming more frequently used, it lacks a precise definition and its meaning remains elusive. Moreover, the proliferation of related concepts, such as the "experience economy", the "cultural economy", the "knowledge-based economy" and (...) the "creative and cultural industries", further obscures its precise scope and meaning. These concepts are, however, no less elusive, particularly because they are of a dual or oxymoronic character, which variably combines aspects of culture, creativity and intellectual creation on the one hand with those of the economy, business, trade and commerce on the other.In sum, the conceptual uncertainties also translate into major difficulties in finding appropriate regulatory responses in the sphere of law. The aim of the present article is therefore to cast light on the meaning of the concept of the creative economy with a view to paving the way for its better and more efficient regulation in the legal sphere. To this end, the first part offers a comprehensive interpretative analysis of the "creative economy" with a view to establishing its value to the present global governance debate. Based on the evidence that designates the creative economy as an evolving concept requiring a multidisciplinary model for the formulation of an adequate approach in law- and policymaking, the second part discusses some of the creative economy's major implications in the sphere of law. In this regard, several regulatory examples appear to advocate the abandonment of the conventional in favour of a more holistic method of regulation. The article concludes with some recommendations that are deemed useful for further debate and research in this area, which ultimately may contribute to the formulation of the kind of creative laws that are needed for the successful regulation of the creative economy in the future. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno’s philistine functions as the other of art, or as the ideal embodiment of everything that the bourgeois aesthetic subject is not. He insists on the truth-content of the derogation, while recognising its unjust social foundation, and seeking to reflect that tension in a self-critical turn. His model of advanced art is negatively delimited by the philistinism of art with a cause and the philistinism of art for enjoyment, which represent the poles of the aesthetic and the social. The (...) philistine is also the counterpart to the connoisseur, with the interplay between them pointing to his preferred approach to aesthetics, in which an affinity for art and alienness to it are combined without compromise. However, Adorno fails to realise fully the critical potential of the philistine as the immanent negation of art and aesthetics. (shrink)

The theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Theodor Adorno both conceive culture as legitimating the inequalities of modern societies. But they postulate different mechanisms of legitimation. For Bourdieu, modern culture is a class culture, characterized by socially ranked symbolic differences among classes that make some seem superior to others. For Adorno, modern culture is a mass culture, characterized by a socially imposed symbolic unity that obscures class differences behind a facade of leveled democracy. In his later writings, however, Bourdieu’s theory converges (...) with that of Adorno. He too begins to privilege the high culture of intellectuals over mass culture by employing the universal standard of autonomy from economic interests. But there remains one vital difference between these theories. Bourdieu grounds the origins of a critical, autonomous culture in specific social structures, while Adorno grounds it in technology. (shrink)

This paper aims to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Adorno’s thought for business ethicists working in the critical tradition by showing how his critique of modern social life anticipated, and ofers continuing illumination of, recent technological transformations of capitalism. It develops and extrapolates Adorno’s thought regarding three central spheres of modern society, which have seen radical changes in light of recent technological developments: work, in which employee monitoring has become ever more sophisticated and intrusive; leisure consumption, in which the algorithmic (...) developments of the culture industry have paved the way for entertainment products to dominate us; and political discourse, in which social media has exacerbated the anti-democratic tendencies Adorno warned of in the mid-twentieth century. We conclude by presenting, as a rejoinder to these developments, the contours of an Adornian ethics of resistance to the reifcation and dehumanisation of such developments. (shrink)