“A true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.” (UNICEF, 2007) • So why is Britain supposedly the worst place to bring up children? • Have things changed and worsened in the past hundred years, or is it just media hype? • What can be done to improve the upbringing of children? I focussed on children’s relationships, looking at how the family structure has changed, using Hegel as a historical comparison from the Enlightenment. I also looked at children’s subjective well-being, seeing how children in Britain view their health, school life and personal self worth. I then saw how consumerism and contemporary society affects the formation of a child’s identity. I used MacIntyre, Taylor and Giddens’ concept of narrative identity.
Month: January 2008
Territory: My Territory is our Universe, from which I am looking into whether it is possible for life to exist else where in the Universe, other than Planet Earth. Concepts: The two concepts that I have chosen to analyse and examine are Charles Darwin’s theory of Evolution and the Judeo Christian religion. I have to look at Charles Darwin’s Evolutionary theory to be able to understand one belief of how life began to exist on Earth. Using his understanding, combined with statistical research of our planet, I will then look at our neighbouring planets within our solar system to see if Darwin’s theory is compatible with these planets to establish if life could evolve in the same way it did on Earth, on them. I will then be focus specifically on Mars and the recent explorations of the planet to determine whether their research into water on the planet is viable and enough evidence to suggest life has, or could form there. These scientific findings combined with bacterial evidence of beginning of life, founding a meteorite, show strong evidence towards the idea that life could exist elsewhere in the Universe. Because of this belief scientists have progressed their search beyond the edges of our solar system into the vast, open Universe to try and communicate with other potential life forms. Lastly I have studied the scripture of the Christian Religion, to use their belief that God created life only on Earth to contradict with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and maintaining the idea that life is exclusive to Earth. To support this religious account I have supported their argument with philosophers including William Paley, Thomas Aquinas and Brandon Carter. Key Philosophical Source -The Bible -Stebbins, Ledyard. G (1982) Darwin to DNA, Molecules to Humanity -Davies, Paul (1995) Are We Alone?
Territory: Subliminal persuasion as seen in the corporate logo and advertising of the “Coca Cola” company has created a new type of ‘sacred’ icon. Object: “Coca Cola” advert from 1980’s with sexual subliminal message. Aim: The aim of my personal investigation is to show how attitudes towards sacred icons have changed with the rise of the corporate identity in a capitalist society. I have decided to show this through the marketing of “Coca Cola” as “Coca Cola” is one of the world’s most famous corporate logos. I have also investigated theories of false consciousness as well as Freudian ideas on sex, with regards to the question as to why subliminal sexual arousal would help to sell a non-sexual product.
Territory: Richard Dawkins. Concepts: Atheism; the search for epistemological certainty; and the interaction of science and religion. I explore the following questions; Is there truth to the claim of Dawkins’ that atheism is necessitated by the natural sciences and is the only option for the serious, progressive and thinking person of our time? Where did this claim emerge from? How was it that the western mind moved from confidence in objective truth to an outright denial of objective truth? Why is nature conceptually malleable and is open to such different interpretations? Are science and religion locked in a battle to death? Is God relegated to the irrational, to the margins of culture, where he is embraced by deluded fanatics? The question of whether there is a God has not, despite the predictions of neo-Darwinists, gone away since Darwin. There may be minds on both sides of the argument that are closed, however the evidence and the debate are not. Scientists and theologians have much to learn from each other; perhaps a proper and right understanding of religion could give a good epistemological grounding to understand science by.
Territory: I have chosen to consider the individual through the concept of identity within contemporary society in order to ascertain whether it has truly been ‘lost.’ I also want to consider through this that if it has been lost, what has caused this, and is this necessarily a bad thing? What does it mean to be individual today? Areas of Investigation: I will explore the relationship between the individual and society by looking at the evolution of the individual and what it has meant to be individual. Change: I will compare my territory to the Elizabethan period in the 1600s, as the affect religion and the monarchy had on the individual and on shaping identity compared to nowadays will provide an interesting point of difference. I will also explore why this has changed, and the effects of this change. Philosophical Ideas and Concepts: I will use the work of both Adorno and Levinas to explore my territory within the concept of identity. Adorno focused upon critiquing the concept of identity thinking by exploring it through the way individuals and objects can be subsumed under cover concepts. I will use this to explore what enables this to occur and what in fact happens when people are subsumed, such that it will provide information about what constitutes the individual, and how it could be lost. I will specifically look at his work regarding the Holocaust, where people were subsumed under the concepts of vermin or as merely scientific tools I will also consider Levinas’ work in regards to the Other in order to explore my territory in opposition to Adorno’s ideas. Levinas’ Other will demonstrate the importance of defining the individual in relation to society through the Other. Conclusions: I seek to show that identity can be both fixed and fluid such is the nature of society, our modern identity and our relationship to it.
The Territory: Park Güell chosen after my visit to Barcelona. It has been declared a Heritage to Humanity by the Spanish Government and is a beautiful Park to experience first hand. However, it did not enjoy the success it was expected when first built as it was considered too far away from the central city of Barcelona. The Object: The most inspiring part of the Park was the undulating bench situated in the central recreational square, which Gaudi decorated with recycled tiles It is where many locals can meet one another and also holds markets for its citizens as well as tourists. Change: Capitalism has continued to grow for many years. Our almost obsession with buying commodities is further exploiting labourers and making millions for the bourgeoisie. It is no wonder then with capitalism and reification in factories that workers need to escape the alienation and objectification they come to experience through the idea of utopias— whether in nature, physically, or mentally, for some t is there only release from the stresses and strains they become accustomed to. Concept: Looking primarily at Marx; class divisions, exploitation of proletariat class by the bourgeoisie and the effect capitalism has on society as a whole (Communist Manifesto). Secondly, looking at Adorno; Thought a utopian moment could be found through creating true art – reification of workers in a factory, art reflecting the distortions of reality and makes us question our society (Aesthetic Theory). Lastly, looking at Habermas; Believed socialism and liberalism do not bring about solution to crisis of our times, problems in society stem from social and political structures of capitalism (Theory of Modernity).
In his online book, Gamer Theory, McKenzie Wark posits the idea that games reflect a more perfect world. He argues that real life has become a gamespace and that it proclaims itself to be fair, promising an ideology that it can’t deliver. This ideology masks the underlying status quos and oppression present in our society. Games, he argues, because they follow exactly those rules that they promise, are a means by which to uncover this schism. Adorno too thought there was a conflict between ideology and actuality. He proposed a theory of negative dialectics and art in order to expose this. Adorno believed that the consumerism that motivates current capitalism was part and parcel of this trend. I will explore both of these thinker’s theory through my territory of games and gaming. The change I will chart is that of the progression of games themselves from the most basic text-based games, such as Zork, to fully-rendered graphic 3D worlds. The pictures above are examples of this. This will become important in my discussion of gaming and how its progression relates to mass culture and the problems Adorno foresaw within mass culture. Gaming ostensibly seems to feed into Adorno’s notion of the culture industry. New consoles, such as the Wii and DS sell 100,000 units every month in Europe and the international games market is expected to reach a gross of £23bn by 2010. I will examine McKenzie Wark’s theory thoroughly to discover if this has any bearing on his claims. I will also look at open source software, such as the Lassie and AGS engines, as a possible solution to this.
One of my main sources links Fight Club with an article by Omar Lizardo named ‘Fight Club, or the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism’, which I found in the Journal for Cultural Research. I chose this because it places quite an original perspective in that it is a reaction to arguments that tend to emphasize Fight Clubs relevance for the study of contemporary representations of gender and masculinity. Lizardo argues ‘that Fight Club can be seen as an attempt to deal with the evacuation and exhaustion of the original form of value-rationality from the realm of production in service work. Basically it contemplates whether class-consciousness in the modern capitalist state has left man with a sense of lost virility, and whether or not Fight Club is a reaction to this. I have chosen to link this with Thomas Hobbes’ ‘Leviathan’ which talks of the state of nature and how man gave up his freedom and violent, barbaric ways to conform to civil society under social contract. Sigmund Freud served more as a psychoanalyst and sociologist than a philosopher in this project as I used his work ‘Civilization and its Discontents’ to analyse the possible reasons for the narrator’s breakdown. Many of Freud’s ideas already appear quite blatant and self explanatory in the film, however Freud covers much more material that is not evident at all. I chose to use the film ‘Zeitgeist’ by Peter Joseph as I felt this would be both very interesting material and also would place a very original comparative to Fight Club. I was in complete awe, shock and amazement when I first watched this extremely powerful and scary film and am very passionate about spreading the word about it. It will prove highly relevant to some of the material in Fight Club, and is something that I feel everyone should know about.
This project investigates the motivations behind different terrorist attacks. From what drives them to become involved in terrorism to the different positions that are open to them and finally the effectiveness of their role and the influence of society’s perception. I decided to title my project “The War on Terrorism”. By my title I do not mean the campaign that was initiated by America and joined by other countries throughout the world to ‘curb the spread of terrorism’. My project will discuss the reasons why this campaign will not work. This War on Terrorism was authorized by the United States Congress under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists and was passed on the 18th of September 2001 after the attacks on America on 9/11. The object I plan to focus on is a scene from the film ‘The Kingdom’. The reason for this is because it is a film about terrorism, which I think compliments the objective I am trying to prove. The reason why I chose this is film is because at the start of the film when the terrorist bomb goes off in the housing compound, Agent Fleury whispers in one of his associate’s ears in comfort something we as the audience cannot hear. Then in one of the latest scenes when the leader of the terrorist group is shot and is dying he whispers to a young girl in comfort something that again we as the audience can’t hear. Then in the final scene each person reveals what was said to them. It was, “Don’t worry, we’ll kill them all.” This for me is very significant because it showed that even though the American agent was claiming to be bringing justice to the terrorists he was actually just looking to kill them all for killing his comrades. Both sides had the same objective, they both wanted to kill. How will this ever stop terrorism? My parallel territory was the Cold War as I believe no other event in history has affected world politics as the same way the Cold War did in the mid 1940’s till the early 1990’s. Terrorism has taken its place in modern day politics. The concepts I identified throughout my project were power, identity and the loss of identity. I believe America’s waging of war on terror was just an assertion of power and way in which to reinsert them as the main hegemonic power throughout the world. A philosophers whose work I have used is Ted Honderich, especially his work terrorism for Humanity which raises many difficult questions that are unavoidable at this moment in time as the war on terror rages. Questions related to the morality of terrorism and the use of political violence. In this work Honderich’s arguments for and against terrorism are directed towards the goal of the Principle of humanity. The questions which are raised throughout run along the lines of when is terrorism right, if ever? And when is it wrong? And what are the reasons for it being wrong? The main reason I chose this philosopher to focus on is because throughout this work he implores us to open our minds and explore political philosophy but he reminds us that even though we are opening our minds to see the bigger picture it does not mean we have to lose our convictions. Other philosophers I chose to look at are Castell and his work on resistance and identity, Habermas’s philosophy at the time of terror and Baudrillard and his fatalist theory,
This project will look at the Sorrows of Young Werther in Conjunction with an example of emotionally hardcore internet blogging in order to establish the significance of emotional intensity seen today in youth groups. The sorrows of young Werther depicts a fictional 18th century character that holds many similarities to the type of life many modern youths aspire too. Primarily this project is concerned with exploring the emotionally hardcore movement that is taking place, and how this will affect future social change. Werther channelled his emotional intensity through art and literature, using it as a way of expressing his anguish. The emotionally hardcore individual uses art and music as a form of expression, and literature as a way to ‘blog’ this way of life, through means of fictional and factual storytelling, and also poetry. Using concepts of alienation, aesthetics, romanticism and existentialism, this project will analysis the emotionally hardcore individual, society’s objections and the emotionally hardcore movement as a whole. In historical format this project will look at how the sorrows of young Werther symbolises an apparent social theme of alienation from the masses. Secondary to the above, the thoughts of Schiller will be examined with reference to romanticism as a whole. This hopefully will shed light on the importance of emotion, passion and Romance within. Hopefully this project will look at the emotionally hardcore movement in a way that has never been undertaken before, therefore examining a section of social progression that is personal and individual to me.
When we fall in love, we fall first for the physical appearance and then for the beauty that the other embodies. We fall in love with the ‘who’ that radiates through a face and a body. In that gaze we unite the flesh and spirit of the loved one and reveal them as an unrepeatable existence. Lovers perceive their fragility in the world, and so they entrust each other to corporeal language, and by exposing themselves to each other, seek an unrepeatable, whole and necessary existence (Cavarero: 2000). The amorous game creates a scene for the unification of body and mind, a place where the content of being can be released. In this unification you can feel as though you are part of the world soul, fragile in the external yet consumed by the fleeting power to appreciate ulterior forms; to know love and to know what it is to exist