Michelle Obama’s attempts to be relatable and to portray herself as apolitical throughout her memoir is a purposeful way to obscure her privilege and promote a conservative, capitalist ideology: that women can be successful through strength of character rather than uprooting the systemic realities that actually affect them. If any lesson is to be had from Becoming, it is that women should not be distracted by celebrity power politics, but instead, they should return to a program of radical liberation and not conciliate to capitalism and imperialism.
Read moreAdorno and the Culture Industry
Adorno wanted to understand how capitalism, especially through the culture industry, exploits us and pervades our everyday lives so that we could figure out how to liberate ourselves from it. Essentially, his underlying message is that liberation cannot happen if we remain blind and complacent to the system that oppresses us: it can only happen when the people rise up and revolt against it.
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