Money + Love
Can artists make a statement about consumer culture without falling into it themselves?
Territory: Arcade Fire’s album Everything Now
Object: Consumer Culture
Philosophy: Adorno’s The Culture Industry
Author: Glen
The aim of my project is to provide a historical exploration in the change of films rating system from its first code, The Hays Code, to the current classification of film ratings. In order to do this I will need to understand the ethics implemented in its change and then comment as to whether I believe it to be viable in modern society. Specifically looking at the notion of the Spectacle as a critique.
Key thinkers involved within my project will include John Stuart Mill, Jeremey Bentham. I will specifically take from their works the key idea of the Harm Principle and Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus. An interpretive analysis of Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle will help answer whether the ethics within film ratings is sustainable in modern society.
With the internet and social media reforming the realm of reporting news, those that have routinely ignored developing nations are demanded to atone for biased newscasts, thus the project intends to bridge this gap and to further interrogate to what extent there exists a journalistic void, seeking out the cause and how to resolve it.
Methodology: The project concerns two cities, both of which had experienced an act of terror in connection to the Islamic State (IS). This project deploys qualitative research in the discourse of an interpretive methodological approach.
Objects:
Manchester – The first object of terror befell on the 22nd of May 2017, in Manchester’s Arena. The incident occurred at an Ariana Grande concert.
Istanbul – The second object denoting an act of terror was the automatic weapons fired and suicide bombings that occurred in Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, on the 28th of June 2016.
Object/Territory: Football hooliganism is organised violence between football supporters and this will be used as a case study to assess whether violence can ever be seen as justifiable.
Philosophy: Sigmund Freud provides a basis for why humans are so interested in violence through his Narcissism of Minor Differences and the Human Inclination for Aggression. This will be used to assess whether this violence is truly inevitable and thus immoral for Kant, or whether the life of a hooligan could possibly provide the affirmative life that Nietzsche preaches is needed.
Outline: If violence is inevitable then it is surely justifiable. However why must this manifest as football hooliganism? And even if violence is taken as inevitable, does this make its morally permissible. Using the contemporary studies in football hooliganism to assess the physical cost, and combining this with the idealisation that hooliganism has, will create an answer to whether this activity is morally acceptable. If the modern conception fails, can a future one succeed?
Given the rapid rise of drag performance in pop culture, it is now one of the most popular and varied forms of entertainment. But isn’t seeing drag performance and culture as nothing more than a source of amusement, to obfuscate swathes of its political, emotional and metaphysical potential? How might we do drag justice? How might we unlock this potential? The answer lies in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, an engagement with whom, will help us see the potential drag offers.Early Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy helps us understand drag’s potential in revealing a harsh reality, and in making it possible to bear by transfiguring suffering into beauty. Middle-period Nietzsche: Nietzsche sews the seeds for the ideas which develop in his mature work. Mature Nietzsche: Nietzsche’s critique of the Kantian subject helps us understand how drag pulls us towards a less anxious, less restricted and more emancipated subjectivity. Thus Nietzsche helps us appreciate drag as more than a piece of entertainment, as offering us a more tolerable and healthier way of being in the world.
Philip Zimbardo and the Stanford Prison Experiment
Participants were assigned either the role of guard or prisoner in a prion simulation designed to investigate the behavioural and psychological effects of prison life. From that moment they were treated according to their role and the study commenced. Rebellion, excessive punishment and a mass escape plot.
The findings showed that the guards and prisoners conformed wholly to their assigned role to the point where role and reality were blurred. The participants had lost all sense of reality . Why did this happen? Does it say something about an inherent human nature to conform?
Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Evil: Arendt claims that evil can occur when someone simply follows orders to the point that they no longer have their own thought process. They become a cog in a well oiled machine. She basis this theory on the trial of the Nazi, Adolf Eichmann, who she claims was not an inherently evil man but someone who “simply followed orders”. What does this mean for moral culpability? Does this change our understanding of human nature?
In this project I investigate why the present institutions and discourse of cosmopolitics frustrate rather than facilitate peace and resolution.
Through improperly structuring reasoning and creating subjectivity, the current cosmopolitic fails to provide the required conditions for the prevention of and intervention in genocide.
Through an examination of Kant’s cosmopolitanism and current cosmopolitical theories, demonstrated with the use of 3 case studies of Rwanda, Kosovo, and Myanmar I intend to highlight the fundamental contradiction at the heart of cosmopolitanism. Systems are either too universal and empty, ignoring important cultural fabric, or too particular and local, resulting in inaction.
As a result of these failures, intervention becomes an expression of ideology, not humanitarian interest.
Aim:
This project seeks to investigate the global, social and cross-cultural phenomenon of suicide (territory). More specifically, suicide in Japan (object). The purpose of this project is to highlight and examine the possible factors as to why the average global suicide rate within the Japanese nation is so high – it is nearly twice the global average. Through exploring the History of Japan I ask the questions: ‘What is it about the Japanese culture/ society that has caused Japan to become synonymous with the act of suicide?’ And ‘Is Japan really a suicide nation?’
Areas to be explored:
Premodern Japan: The way of the Samurai and The Kamikaze Pilots.
Geographical ‘hot spots’
Suicide prevention in Japan
Japanese Psychiatry
Application:
Philosophically and ethically suicide poses difficult questions. Albert Camus states: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide”.
Through exploring the interesting philosophical arguments put forward by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer the following questions in regards to suicide arise:
Does suicide violate our natural duty of self-preservation?
Does suicide achieve what it ultimately aims for (i.e. to end all suffering), or does it simply terminate superficial elements of ourselves thus achieving the opposite: affirmation of the will?
Does power equate to dominance? Is there a strength in submission?
“O Father Consel, you are sorry for us. You can help us. We have nothing – no aircraft, no ships, no jeeps, nothing at all. The Europeans steal it from us. You will be sorry for us and send us something” – cargo cult prayer.
Jarvie, I.C. (1964). The Revolution in Anthropology. New York, Routledge. (p64)
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist?” Schopenhauer
“Being brought into existence is not a benefit but always a harm” Benatar
“Our self-removal from this planet would still be a magnificent move… What do we have to lose?” Ligotti
This project will investigate the claim that human existence is a value.
There tends to be a given assumption that human existence is a good thing. I intend to question the validity of this and investigate whether it has valid justification.
The effects of human existence will be considered from three perspectives to determine whether human existence is worth its costs.
An ethical perspective will be used to evaluate the suffering and harm evoked by and for human beings.
An environmental perspective will contemplate the impact human beings have had on the planet and the detrimental effects caused.
A positive perspective will be adopted to investigate whether human beings deserve respect. It will be questioned if something would be lost without us.
Project Outline
-This project was undertaken to determine whether the Brexit vote was a result of unethical journalism and whether we can remain democratic in today’s society.
-In order to be democratic citizens, the population needs to be correctly informed from factual evidence and I believe that throughout the Brexit referendum this was not the case.
-This project looks at journalism within the context of the free market to highlight the issues journalists face when companies prioritise money over the truth.
-This project will also use the ideas of Baudrillard to determine the nature of truth in the 21st century and how the phenomena of fake news found its way into Brexit.
This project is centered around the idea of toxic masculinity, and attempting to understand the prevalence of it in young males with reference to the philosophical and psychoanalytical ideas of Hobbes and Lacan.
-Toxic masculinity is the exhibition of certain antisocial behavioural tendencies predominantly performed by young males, including, homophobia, misogyny and violent physical or verbal behavior to one another. This behavior is rampant throughout society, with the behaviour of young males being especially indicative of this toxic way of acting. Lad culture has become simply sexism with and alibi. To show the existence of toxic masculinity within young males I researched different journal and website articles detailing examples, as well as conducting an interview with a female Newcstle university student. I will also be looking through the primary texts and identifying at what points their ideas contribute to the discussion. These texts are Hobbes Leviathan and Lacan’s Ecrits.
Rape Culture: “a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalising or trivialising sexual assault and abuse.”
Consent: “someone agrees, gives permission, or says “yes” to sexual activity with other persons. Consent is always freely given and all people in a sexual situation must feel that they are able to say “yes” or “no” or stop the sexual activity at any point.”
Preliminary Questionnaire
25 male students and 25 female students were asked to take part in a questionnaire about rape culture and what constitutes consent
example: students were asked whether they thought women were sexually objectified – of the 25 females asked, they all said yes, and, in contrast, all 25 males said no
questions also asked about the influence of drugs and/or alcohol in conjunction with sexual acts – whether an individual can consent to sex or not when under the influence
Case Studies
3 cases used: Brock Turner, Judy Garland & Melanie Martinez
all case studies had things in common but applied to the 3 thematic links of power, gender, freedom and agency
The obscure, polysemic, multi-lingual, syntactically nonstandard style of writing in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake has polarised critics even since before the time of the book’s full release. The ongoing debates surrounding the work raise philosophical questions about the limits of language and the nature of art and literature. This essay explores possible philosophical justifications for using such a style, and enquires whether it might offer unique artistic possibilities, unavailable to clearer, more conventional styles.
Beginning from Heidegger’s theory of art, the essay explores the distinction between the Heideggerian concepts of “world” and “earth”, arguing that the book inverts the standard function of language as embodying a socio-historical “world”, instead turning it into a force which represents the “ungraspable”, impenetrable, nature of “earth”.
The essay then examines the Wake with reference to Blanchot’s work on literature, finding that the techniques of emphasising the physicality of language, as well as fragmenting a work into pieces whose only relation is difference – which Blanchot claims constitute are essential for a literary work to represent things in their “free, silent existence” – are utilised in extreme ways and to unique ends in the Wake.
The Alternative light in this context, is specifically that of, ‘Anti-Social Justice’ YouTube channels.
In my project I set out to understand three main things:
How these anonymous, internet based, political movements come about. About other real-world movements such as Occupy wall street
Is there any Philosophical foundation, or key figures, in founding this movement? (I define it as a movement due to its large growth both in viewership, and online political presence). And how does this compare to the foundations of other more extreme movements.
In the case where there is no foundation of these kinds, how does the world view remain so homogenous, and are there any issues in the foundation of everyone’s belief system?
Along the way I employed primarily the Philosophy of Nick Land, as he is most heavily associated with the movement, and helped in highlighting the significance of analyzing the alt-light specifically. I mapped the progression of these channels from their atheistic, anti-creationist origins, and using the philosophy’s, including that of Land and Nietzsche, showed the significance of this genesis, in the progression of the movement.
Object: The art criticism of works in Louise Bourgeois’ Cells series
Territory: Contemporary art criticism
Concepts: Subjectivity, intention, Freudian psychoanalysis, the artist and their relation to works of art, authority of criticism
Philosophy: Nietzsche, Foucault, Wimsatt and Beardsley, Bal.
In my project, the work of Louise Bourgeois in her Cells series is utilised as a case study to explore wider issues in art criticism and how works of art are interpreted in relation to the artist. An examination of the reception of Louise Bourgeois’ work shows largely the same approach in psychoanalysing Louise Bourgeois and relating this back to her work and perceived intended meaning. Conversely, the position in the project argues that such a reading of her work, as well as that of other artists and authors, carries problems related to the importance of artistic intention, the public sphere of a work of art compared to the private sphere of the artist, as well as to what extent such readings are not only valid, but in the case of Louise Bourgeois count as genuine criticism rather than uncritically accepting her own statements.
Philosophy from the course included use of material from modules PHI2002 and PHI2006.
Territory: Russian Late-Romantic Music
Object: Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-Sharp Minor
Method: Interpretative and Axiological
Aim: I will be using Frolova-Walker’s musicology and Adorno’s musical philsophy to dissect Rachmaninoff’s Prelude and discuss whether it can be understood as a piece of Russian nationalist music.
‘If we knew nothing about where we’d end up what sort of society would it feel safe to enter?’
Aims:
How does secularisation affect the religion?
Why Britain become more secular?
How does the rise of terror by Islamic extremists affect the Islamic community?
What is the purpose of the EDL and why is it so against the Muslim community?
How has the role of the woman changed throughout modernity?
Why do measures still exist that prevent women from achieving equality?
Methods:
I intend to explore Rawls’ view of tolerance by using various approaches; these include: a Historical Approach and an Axiological Approach. The Historical Approach has been chosen as a means of depicting to the reader the changes and transformations in both the role of the woman in society, as well as the role religion plays in a seemingly secular society. As a result, I will trace the historical, social and political changes affecting both issues at hand. Furthermore, an Axiological Approach will be used to assess whether there are challenges that both religion and women have faced is just throughout contemporary society.
Should student happiness be made a part of university rankings? If so, which type of happiness should be used and how should it be measured?
What indicators are normally used in university rankings?
Entry Standards Industry Income
Graduate Prospects Number of Students
Student Satisfaction Teaching Quality
As we can see happiness does not feature as an indicator however it is becoming a bigger part of society and because of this I, and many other students, believe that it should become an indicator for university rankings.
The best way to measure happiness would be through questionnaires given to students at the end of the year.
So what type of happiness should be used?
Eudaimonia
Hedonic
Jouissance