隨著媒體和信息技術的發展,當今時代的文化變得比以往任何時候都更加產業化和物化,然而霍克海默與阿多諾所提出的文化產業概念依然可以有力地描述當下藝術、文學和其他文化產品的命運。本文以馬克思的商品拜物教理論作為背景,通過追溯本雅明對這一概念的原初發明,進而討論馬爾庫塞的研究,以期重訪這一概念。本文借助大衛·霍克斯的作品,簡要地介紹了16世紀英格蘭商品拜物教興起的歷史淵源,接著過渡到奈爾對新近(或新興)的文化軟實力現象的探討,結合霍克海默和馬爾庫塞對資本主義物化現象深層邏輯的討論,以及阿多諾對文化產業難以產生出社會主義意識這一觀點的堅持(這與本雅明的樂觀主義相反),回顧了馬克思關于資本主義與國族主義本質上乃同一道路的警告,最終旨在質詢:在中國或其他任何地方,是否曾經有過一種社會主義的文藝?它有可能存在嗎?首先應該關注的是文化產品(如軟實力、媒體審查、宣傳),還是造就它們的生產方式?

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s concept of the culture industry remains a powerful description of the fate of art, literature and other cultural products in an era where media and information technology have made culture more industrial and reifying than ever before. We revisit this concept, tracing it forward from Walter Benjamin’s initial contributions and proceeding onward the work of Herbert Marcuse against the backdrop of Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism. We provide a brief description of historical origins with David Hawkes’ works on the emergence of commodity fetishism in 16th-century England and carry this forward to Joseph S. Nye’s discussions of the more contemporary phenomenon of soft power. Returning to Horkheimer and Marcuse’s concerns for the logic underlying capitalist reification, as well as Adorno’s longstanding concern that a culture industry could not produce a socialist consciousness（contrary to Benjamin’s optimism）, and recalling Marx’s admonition that capitalism and nationalism are essentially the same road, we question whether there has ever been a socialist art or literature in China or anywhere else, whether one is possible, and whether we should concern ourselves firstly with products（e.g., soft power, media censorship, propaganda） or the mode of production that produces them.