La estética de lo bello y la exaltación de la cultura popular

Abstract

This paper attempts to apply 1. Adorno's critique of mass culture to contemporary popular culture, mainly on the basis of the interpretation of it given by the German theorist Wolfgang Welsch. It also explores convincing arguments made by philosophers from the Frankfurt School and by Marcuse, Heidegger, Gadamer, and others. Its centerpoint is a series of reflections and arguments about art and a comparison between true culture and mass culture. It explains the importance and relevance of true art and true culture to people, using as its starting point the fact that an individual has to think about the whole in order to find the fullness of life, and that this is only possible when, by reason of effort and reflection, he is literally submerged in authentic art.