Comrades:

Max Horkheimer

Max co-authored Dialectic of Enlightenment with me, but then, to his everlasting shame, he betrayed all we stood for by starring in a short-lived science fiction (ugh!) sitcom (double ugh!) called Hork & Mindy. Okay, just kidding. Horkheimer was, however, our leader in the Frankfurt School—and he led us well. He directed the Institute of Social Research and built much of the foundation on which the rest of us would ground our own critical theory projects.

Herbert Marcuse

Another member of the Frankfurt school, Marcuse studied the ways in which liberty can be used as a tool of oppression. Wait, what? Well, get a load of this: the masses, convinced by the prevailing wisdom that they just have to have the latest car (or vacuum or iPhone or Blu-Ray player), have been fooled into believing that their freedom is found in the range of choices they have at the mall.

Shopping equals freedom.

What happens then? False needs replace real ones in the collective imagination. Having three hundred channels seems more important than having three meals a day. You get the idea.

Samuel Beckett

Now, here is an artist. A poet. A dramatist. A novelist. And so much more. Beckett shocked and scandalized. His works resisted the social order because they didn't play by its rules. Beckett didn't just criticize the social order; he worked through that order's tensions and conflicts, exposing the internal contradictions (translation: the disorder) of the society in which he wrote. That's my kind of writer.

Rivals: 

Martin Heidegger

So totally overrated. Heidegger distrusted the methods of philosophical argumentation so much that he failed to be an effective philosopher. Worse, all he ever talked about were oppressive, hippy-dippy philosophical ideas like being and authenticity. Did I mention that he was a Nazi?

Aesthetic Traditionalists

I'm sure they mean well, but these advocates for artistic realism understand art about as well as the Shmoop labradoodle. (No offense to my canine friend, whose taste is actually pretty good for a dog.) These people want art to represent reality, but reality ain't reality, folks. Reality is what the dominant social order says it is. When art aims to reflect reality, it's the dominant social order that shows up in the mirror. Sure, a lot of people think that is reality, but it's time to get critical and see through the oppression.

The Culture Industry

Technological advances and the concentration of economic and political forces have enabled the culture industry to rise and dominate. The culture industry's interest: profit, pure and simple. Its means: endless easy consumption for the masses. Its plan: tailor every product for consumption and convince the masses that consuming fulfills the meaning of their lives. Think about where that Hollywood summer blockbuster comes from next time you're sitting in the theater happily, mindlessly consuming. Think critically.