BoredCaitlin, 10/30

When we were discussing Horkheimer and Adorno in class on Thursday, we looked at many quotes from the reading that made me think about how culture is created. The quote at the beginning, “culture today is infecting everything with sameness,” made me think about how much we try to stand out and be individual in an increasingly conformity-based society. A lot of us like to think we’re individual and special. We like to tell ourselves “everyone is special” and “everyone is different.” But isn’t saying “everyone is special” essentially the same thing as saying no one is? None of us are really individuals because we are all the products of our culture.  We all do things we think will make us stand out, but we’re really just following what the culture tells us to. This whole thought process makes me think of the scene in The Incredibles where Syndrome is divulging his plan to be super to a captured Mr. Incredible and his family. 

He tells them, “when I’m old and I’ve had my fun, I’ll sell my inventions so that everyone can be super... And when everyone is super, no one will be.” Syndrome grew up in a culture that made him believe that being super will make him special and individual, and he spends most of his life chasing this unachievable dream. This leads him to want to “infect... everything with sameness” as Horkheimer and Adorno put it. He decides that if he can’t be special, no one should be.