Book Review: Mother Teresa: Her Life, Her Work, Her Message: A Memoir by Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado

Mother Teresa's father was of Croatian Origin and her mother was of Venetian origin. Her home country was Albania. Albania gained its independence after five centuries of occupation by the Turks. Mother Teresa was against abortion. She believed that charitable assistance must be provided without the desire for publicity (p. 139). She found her support in Jesus and taught the world what it means to be rich in the love of God.

Mother Teresa had a diplomatic passport. When she went to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize she proposed that in place of the customary banquet, its equivalent cost be destined for poor. Mother Teresa can be easily termed as one of the most famous women in recorded human history. Some called her saint, others called her miracle but she was a person who truly engaged herself in helping the most needy members of human society. 

Many of the important events of her Mother Teresa's life are covered in the book. These include her call to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto, her assignment to teach in Calcutta and her life dedicated to the betterment of the underprivileged. Mother Teresa founded the order called Missionaries of Charity. She received numerous awards including the Nobel Prize.

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Book Review: The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture by Theodor W. Adorno (Edited and with an introduction by J. M. Bernstein)

Theodor Adorno emerged as a critic from the renowned Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. I mention some of the interesting points covered in the book. He believes that all culture shares the guilt of society (p. 17). Curiosity is the enemy of the new which is not permitted to exist anyway (p. 84).

Adorno says that the power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness (p. 104). He further stresses that 'the total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment, in which, as Horkheimer and I have noted, enlightenment, that is the progressive technical domination of nature, becomes mass deception and is turned into a means for fettering consciousness. It impedes the development of autonomous, independent individuals who judge and decide consciously for themselves' (p. 106).

Regarding fascist propaganda Adorno says that it is 'only to reproduce the existent mentality for its own purposes'... (p. 150). Adorno also writes about mass media and says that 'the more inarticulate and diffuse the audience of modern mass media seems to be the more mass media tend to achieve their 'integration' (p. 163). On page 173, Adorno states that: ….."what matters is mass media is not what happens in real life, but rather the positive and negative 'messages', prescriptions, and taboos that the spectator absorbs by means of identification with the material he is looking at." 

Writing about artistic production, the writer states that 'certainly, no artistic production can deal with ideas or political creeds in abstracto but has to present them in terms of their concrete impact upon human beings'... (p. 173). The writer is of the view that 'the consumers are made to remain what they are: consumers. That is why the culture industry is not the art of the consumer but rather the projection of the will of those in control onto their victims'... (p. 185).

Adorno discusses advertisements and political slogans, sports and mass culture, music, concepts of order, the total effect of culture industry, festivals, dance, the idea of a leader, fascist agitation, culture industry and administration, television, film and free time. Adorno's finest essays are compiled in this book which offers his thoughts on Culture. He argues that the culture industry commodified and standardized all art.  This in turn suffocated individuality and destroyed critical thinking.

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