Oldal 80 [80]
FURTHER EXAMINATION OF THE BONDIAN ÁPPROACH
suspension of disbelief in order for the consumer to buy"."" He identifies
the main tool of branding as decontextualizing and re-contextualising
products, making the reference points of judgement, of ‘reality’ obscure.?7?
The bigger question is related to Bond’s description of ideology as
a story, as a monolith construct.””* Can there be one ideology that defines
the thinking of individuals in different cultures, social classes and political
positions? This question can be raised in relation to other widely referred to
theories of ideology as well, that show similarities to Bond’s position. There
are prominent thinkers, discussed below, who describe ideology as a fictional
reality and who also define the structures that put them in place. I return to
Bond’s concept of ideology after a short detour.
In their seminal work titled the Dialectic of Enlightenment [1944]
the German philosophers Adorno and Horkheimer documented
the totalitarian nature of commodity culture that they met in America
as they escaped Nazi Germany. The book contains a chapter, written by
Adorno, of in-depth analysis of the culture industry that blurred the borders
between reality and fiction and offered a pretence world that consumers
can aspire to. Adorno points to the similarities between totalitarian state
propaganda and advertising mechanisms that come to dominate people’s life
and thinking. The culture industries’ impact on the individual is “to turn
oneself into an apparatus which, even in its unconscious impulses, conforms
to the model presented by the culture industry”.*” The models are presented
as schematised narratives that can easily be adhered to, they do not demand
an effort on behalf of the recipient. Appelrouth and Desfor Edles explain
that according to Adorno societies are administered similarly and are
rooted in an all-encompassing culture industry so it does not matter which
political ideology they are based on; they conclude that “culture industry
combines with technological rationality to produce a totalitarian social
order that transcends any particular economic or political arrangement”.”®
The totalitarian nature of the culture industry described by Adorno is
questioned by many,”*' the impact of the social reality leaves little space for
divergence for the individual.
276 Tbid., 161.
277 Thid., 147.
Bond describes ideology as ’culture’s story’ (Bond: Our story, 3.), ’authority’s story’ (Bond:
Letters 3, 2.) or ‘society’s story’ (Bond: The reason for theatre, 117.), it is never in the plural.
279 Theodor W. Adorno — Max Horkheimer: Dialectic of Enlightenment, Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 2002, 136.
Scot Appelrouth - Laura Desfor Edles: Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory:
Text and Readings, London, Sage, 2008, 410.
281 Jay M. Bernstein: Introduction, in Jay M. Bernstein (ed.): The Culture Industry, Selected
essays on mass culture, London, Routledge, 1991, 22.
280
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