Excerpt

I.

During the 1960s, it seemed obvious to many on the American and European Left—including the founders of Telos in 1968—that a thoroughgoing cultural critique was badly needed, since the dominant forms of culture in the West appeared either to be promoting false consciousness or to have literally become false consciousness.

More than this, by the twentieth century culture in general seemed to have reached the point where it was “mediating” practically everything. For many observers of the contemporary scene, it became increasingly difficult to grasp what was happening economically, politically, or socially without first understanding what was happening culturally.