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HANS MAGNUS ENZENSBERGER
sorts of techniques, from the crudest to the most sophisticated, have
been developed to this end: physical threat, blacklisting, moral and
economic pressure on the one hand, overexposure, star-cult, cooptation
into the power elite on the other, are the extremes of a whole gamut
of manipulation. It would be worthwhile to write a manual analysing
these techniques. They have one thing in common, and that is that they
offer short-term, tactical answers to a problem which, in principle,
cannot be resolved. This is an industry which has to rely, as its primary
source, on the very minorities with whose elimination it is entrusted:
those whose aim it is to invent and produce
alternatives.
Unless it
succeeds in exploiting and manipulating its producers, the mind industry
cannot hope to exploit and manipulate its consumers. On the level of
production even more than on the level of consumption, it has to deal
with partners who are potential enemies. Engaged in the proliferation
of human consciousness, the media proliferate their own contradictions.
Criticism of the mind industry which fails to recognize its central
ambiguities is either idle or dangerous. It is a measure of their limita·
tions that many media critics never seem to reflect on their own posi–
tion, just as if their work were not itself a part of what it criticizes.
The truth is that no one can nowadays express any opinion at all with–
out making use of the industry, or rather, without being used by it.
a
Anyone incapable of dialectical thinking is doomed as soon as he
starts grappling with this subject. He will be trapped to a point where
even retreat is no longer possible. There are many who feel revolted at
the thought of entering a studio or negotiating with the slick executives
who run the networks. They detest, or profess to detest, the very
machinery of the industry, and would like
to
withdraw into some
abode of refinement. Of course, no such refuge really exists. The seem–
ingly exclusive is just another, slightly more expensive line of styling
within the same giant industrial combine.
Let us rather try to draw the line between intellectual integrity
and defeatism. To opt out of the mind industry, to refuse any dealings
with it may well turn out to be a reactionary course. There is no her–
mitage left for those whose job is to speak out and to seek innovation.
Retreat from the media will not even save the intellectual's precious
soul from corruption. It might
be
a better idea
to
enter the dangerous
game, to take and calculate our risks. Instead of innocence, we need
6. Among those who blithely disregard this fact I would mention some
European philosophers, for example Romano Guardini, Max Picard and
Ortega y Gasset. In America, this essentially conservative stand has been
emulated by Henry Miller and a number of Beat Generation writers.
