Radical Orthodoxy: Theology, Philosophy, Politics, Vol. 2, Number1 (January 2014): 140-170. ISSN 2050-392X Adorno’s Culture Industry: An Anthropological Critique David Wilmington his paper is an attempt to examine and to assess Adorno’s theory of the “culture industry” as it pertains to his underlying anthropology or account of human life. Ultimately, I believe this is of critical importance to any evaluation of Adorno’s relevance and helpfulness for contemporary Christian theological ethics. The expository concern of this essay, contained in Part I, is to summarize Adorno’s claims about the culture industry and to show its role within his project. Part II contains the twofold critical concern of this essay: 1) to describe the anthropological assumptions necessary for Adorno to assert that the culture industry can accomplish its vicious task, and 2) to survey Adorno’s analysis of jazz as a representative example of how his anthropology distorts his ability to hear one of the “most characteristic forms of mass culture.” 1 The concluding, constructive section will present, as a counter- analysis, a theologically informed “Jazz Anthropology” that both refutes Adorno’s reading of jazz and offers a better model for understanding key aspects of human life. 1 Adorno, “The Schema of Mass Culture,” in The Culture Industry: Selected essays on mass culture, J.M. Bernstein, ed., (London: Routledge, 1991), 60. T