Territory: In the autumn of 1978 in a rural area of Guyana, South America, a tragic event occurred, making headlines and remaining in the minds of many for years to come. A religious leader known as Rev. Jim Jones orchestrated a mass ‘suicide’ of over 900 people in a remote area known as Jonestown. Aims: To uncover the truth behind such an unusual event and really focus my attention upon the character of Jim Jones to see what led him to such an unfortunate end. I shall aim to do this by looking at the works of George Bataille. I intend to unmask not only the character of Jim Jones’ character and his followers, but also that of Bataille. I shall focus on Bataille’s own thought to see how it sheds light on the Jonestown massacre. Concepts: Bataille’s notion of homogeneity versus heterogeneity. Bataille’s views on religion in relation to Jim Jones’. Bataille’s on fascism versus Jones’ on socialism Georges Bataille versus Jim Jones. Research: Bataille: Visions of Excess, Gemerchak, The Sunday of the Negative, Tim Reiterman, Raven-The untold story of the People’s Temple.
Author: Glen
Objective: In this essay I intend to look at how alienation and disaffection may be a catalyst for art, in particular with popular music, as a form of social commentary and self-expression, and what effect if any this art may produce within society. I will do so through studying Marx’s theory on alienation by looking at how if one becomes alienated in society they may use music as an alternative form of subjective labour. Then I will assess the role and worth of popular music in relation to the individual creating it and in turn how this may be used by other people in society and what they can gain from it. Concept: Popular music as a form of social commentary and self-expression. Thinkers: 1. Marx’s theory of alienation: ‘Anxiety about one’s social role, its basis, and its value is especially likely for creative artists who have “betaken themselves to their work as an isolated means of ‘self-expression’ without clear social function.’ (Elridge, 2003) I will explore how, whilst deprived a means of objectifying and fulfilling one’s human nature capitalist labour, creation of music may be an alternative form of productive labour. 2. Adorno’s critique of popular music ‘Its planned idiocy virtually tests what mankind will put up with, what threadbare, noncommittal intellectual contents can be imposed upon it.’ (Adorno, 1989.p52) Next, I will critically assess Adorno’s damning critique of popular music, aiming to interact with his theory to illustrate how, rather than being a meaningless practice, an audience may connect and be of benefit from it. Key Sources: Marx— Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Adorno— Introduction to the Sociology of Music, Popular music, Popular culture, Society.
Project Territory, Object and Aims: “We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.” This is the opening statement from economist George Soros found in ‘The New Paradigm for Financial Markets’. Due to the importance of this event I decided to study the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis within the Territory of Economics with the aim of diagnosing its causes. The object contains many smaller fields which have contributed to its emergence such as the growth and collapse of the United States housing bubble and the collapse of Mortgage lenders and related businesses. House prices and the value of the FTSE 100 are depicted below. Quantitative Economic versus Qualitative Hermeneutical Analysis: I discovered the causes of the crisis by collecting quantitative economic data to understand the preceding events. Initial analysis led me to the conclusion that the financial crisis was caused by poor lending policies of mortgages that could not be repaid. To contrast this research and fully engage with my object I then collected Qualitative evidence from economist George Soros and philosophical data from my chosen field of Critical theory. Specifically I used the works of Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas regarding types of reason born in the Enlightenment era. After collecting this research I was led to a deeper, more fundamental finding stating that: the financial crisis was in fact caused by the use of Instrumental and Subject Centred Reason within the financial markets leading to the use of Identity Thinking. With the actual philosophical causes of the crisis identified I then investigated Adorno and Habermas’ solutions to those types of derogatory reason. These solutions are: Communicative Action and Negative Dialectics. I then applied these as a solution to the financial crisis itself.
Aims
In my project I will discuss how the relationship between friends affects our ability to make objective moral decisions. In doing so I hope to clarify some of the philosophical positions on friendship and assess my own views philosophically in order to attain whether moral theories should devote specific attention to this idea.
Object
The object for my project is the documentary film “Touching the Void”. This film tells the story of two friends who set out to climb the previously un-summited west face of “Siula Grande” in the Peruvian mountains. In doing so both friends were plunged into a life and death struggle and one was forced to make an arduous decision to end his friend’s life.
Territory
The philosophers I will use in my project are;
• Aristotle, who writes explicitly on the conditions of complete friendship in his book
“Nicomachean Ethics”
• Hegel, most importantly his concept of recognition and how that is affected by
friendship and how this in turn affects his moral theory
• Hobbes, the idea of rational egoism and how friendship is affected by this
Object/Territory: The James Webb Space Telescope / The impact of the advancement of scientific knowledge. Aim: To investigate the differences between types of knowledge. Comparisons: • William Paley’s Watchmaker Analogy vs. The Existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy • Thomas Aquinas’ First Cause Vs The Big Bang Theory. C.P. Snow: Two cultures know little or nothing about each other. Communication is difficult if not impossible. No common ground to achieve creative chances. Thomas Kuhn: Encompassing Vs Overthrowing. Isaiah Berlin: Growing tension, path to progress, elitist view of science, defence by Vico, new form of science. Jean-François Lyotard: Correspondence theory of truth. Language Games. Truth. Progress. Problem justifying scientific knowledge. God of the Gaps. In conclusion the distinction we have made between science and other forms of knowledge leaves us at a disadvantage. Both forms of knowledge are needed for us to gain true knowledge about our world.
Advertising and consumerism is undeniably significant in modern society and this study takes an alternative philosophical approach towards the issue as well as considering modern thinkers that have discussed the medium previously.
Schopenhauer argued that an individual is controlled by their will and this leads them to live a life of dissatisfaction and suffering. This study shows that advertising does not produce this suffering but intensifies negative feelings because it forces desires on individuals. Schopenhauer argues that to discover metaphysical truth is a temporary release from this cycle and so this study also considers its applicability to contemporary society. The texts used will be ‘The World as Will and Representation volume I and II’.
Bataille considers how a homogenous society seeks to remove unproductive elements from this sphere but I argue that because modern society is dominated by capitalism and homogeneity, it seeks to remove unproductive behaviour from all of society. This study then examines how advertising could be used as a tool to remove unproductive or heterogeneous behaviour by shaping our desires. The negative consequence is that heterogeneous behaviour is inseparable from productive behaviour. This insight is taken from a collection of essays by Bataille.
Japan today is a nation synonymous with contemporary culture and ambitious technology that tries to transform the way in which we live. However, it is hard to imagine that just over a century ago; Japan was in the midst of a massive change which saw it go from a country of feudal military foundations to an industrious world power which would contribute to world history in a substantial way. This project aims to look at the History of Japan over the Meiji Restoration in the late 1800s and see how this event was the catalyst which caused a nation to turn its back on 800 years of uniform history and become a contending power on the world stage. The cultural principles of Japan at this time shall lead me to look at the post war writer Yukio Mishima, whose ideas on the culture of Japan after World War II provoked him to write some of the most defining Japanese literature of the 20th Century. Ultimately, his views in this area led to his highly publicised ritual suicide in 1970 prior to which he tried to start a coup against the new media based, industrial Japan. To link this project philosophically, I shall be referring the ideas of Mishima to those of Georges Bataille, who Mishima himself had a fascination with. Bataille’s theories brought forward notions related to sacrifice within a culture. This includes specifically the concept of Potlatch, wherein Native American tribal chiefs would appease opposing leaders by destroying resources and objects of value. With this in mind, I shall show how the Japanese transformation was a Potlatch on a grand scale, and how Mishima was a microcosm of this in the 20th Century. The conclusion of this project will come to the point where justification of Japan’s change will be shown.
It is estimated that there are 150 million active Facebook users worldwide. • Once a website aimed solely at students at Harvard University as a means of keeping in contact with classmates, Facebook has grown exponentially since its inception in February 2004. • Recently it has excelled in the 35‐54 year age demographic with a reported 279% increase in users in this age bracket. The worry is that, in domino effect of sorts through the generations, it will soon be a reality that everyone who has regular access to a computer will be communicating through a website and human contact and interaction will be a seldom practiced pastime. With the arrival of the mobile telephone came a whirlwind of irreversible change. Advancements in Telecommunications opened the gateway to a so‐called ‘Thumb culture’ in which communication and media interaction are all dictated by some form of digital interface. It seems as though, with each technological step forward, we take an interpersonal step back. For example, first there were phone conversations to close friends and family, then came text messaging, a far less personal way of communicating but, nonetheless it was a progression, or perhaps digression, that was mutually embraced by contacts that once knew each other well enough to interact verbally. From this stemmed the birth of instant messaging as a cheaper but very similar alternative. The concept of social networking through sites such as Myspace and Facebook is a commendable one. They aim to maintain correspondence with people that would have otherwise slipped off one’s communication radar. But the reality is that our strong relationships become diluted by becoming ‘Facebook friends’ with people we would call mere acquaintances. With the addition of Facebook chat in April 2008, Facebook became a ‘one‐stop shop’ for all our communication needs. Engaging in duologues on Facebook meant that their monopolisation have become so conglomerate that face‐to‐face conversations end up actively referring to Facebook. With a limitless online friend capacity, people with thousands of friends either have to spread themselves very thinly across all these people, or spend hours and hours chained to a computer to maintain a valid friendship. In order to explore this territory, I will be looking at the work of J.G. Ballard and Guy Debord as well as looking into Communication Theory. My aim for this project is to investigate where we go from here. Will face to face, or even verbal communication exist in the future? Or will technology sever our personal relationships to such an extent that meeting with people will be simply a distant memory; something the future generations will dismiss as ’something their grandparents did’?
Who can possibly be responsible for the two extreme eating disorders? The state, family, media and culture all have their parts to play. How do we know what is best for us?… If the state, family and individual all disagree? Parentalism – should an individual with an eating disorder be considered not fully rational and is this justification for some of that person’s right to freedom to be taken away, on the grounds that they would be ‘better off’. Hegel asserts that the individual’s highest freedom consists in membership in the state. BUT: Does society protect us?
My territory is addiction; I chose addiction as it is a contemporary issue of concern today! I have examined most areas of addiction, such as; Drug/ alcohol abuse, gambling, sex and eating disorders. Essentially it is not about what addiction one has; rather why one is addicted in the first place. Thus, I have explored contemporary answers. The two concepts of Philosophy I have chosen are that of Mill and Bataille.
Bataille is related to my topic of addiction because he blames Society!!! Due to the Rise of Capitalism All time is spent on useful means leaving no time for useless expenditure…addiction is a way of escaping this monotonous regimented lifestyle!!!
The methodology: The method I have used throughout my project is the hermeneutic interpretive, as I attained all my information from books and the internet.
Mill is associated with my territory because his philosophy is based on Hedonism: Addiction is based on pleasure and addicts do it to release pain. This is also following Mill’s principle of Utilitarianism. Also, I have explored Mill’s work on education; his basic doctrine related to addiction would be that a good education from a young age would prevent behaviours like addiction occurring. He distinguishes higher and lower pleasures, higher pleasures being things such as; theatre and literature. Thus an alternative for addiction, for Mill, could be through art.
Object: I chose to examine the concept of war and terror and if it is really possible to fight in order to restore peace. The main focus of my project lay in the idea that war will only spawn more hatred, and so creating a war with the objective of bringing peace to a society is an impossibility. In conjunction with this I attempted to look at the reasons why people agree to war, and the freedom of British citizens when they agree to join the Army. Territory: When I originally decided upon a territory I chose the ‘War on Terror’, namely the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Upon further investigation it became clear to me that these were two separate wars with different focuses and motivations, and so I shifted the focus of my project solely to the war in Iraq, and the reasons for and against this war. I also looked at the concept of the British Army and the reasons behind why soldiers are deployed to fight in what was not a British fight to begin with. The Philosophy behind my project: Gadamer and Death: One of the concepts that became most clear to me was that of the idea of the repression of death. Gadamer notes that society’s perception of death had changed, and I examined if this affected the decision of those joining the Army. Kant, Freedom and Duty: I also looked at the idea of whether the innate sense of duty that we possess, according to Kant, affects the decisions we make in everyday life, such as joining the Army. I also discussed how much freedom we actually have, when, if you join the Army, you have to sign up for a minimum period of time, and you can be forcibly deployed to fight in wars you might not believe in.
Object – Popular music. • I shall study Schopenhauer in order to establish how ideas concerning music have changed over time. • For Schopenhauer music is a good, an end in itself. • Music is set aside from all the other art forms, it does not simply manifest the ideas of the will but is a direct expression of the will. • Music is the key to suspending will for a moment through an aesthetic break from everyday pain. Adorno. • Popular music is an instrument for another good instead of an end in itself. • The function of the culture industry is ultimately to organise leisure time in the same way as industrialisation has organised work time. • Customers of musical entertainment are themselves objects of the same mechanisms which determine the production of popular music. Their spare time serves only to reproduce their working capacity. • Work leads to mass culture and mass culture leads back to work. Popular music is standardized, and in order to conceal this standardization, the music industry engages in pseudo individualisation. Thus listeners are kept inline by making them forget that what they listen to is already pre digested. Problems with Adorno. Popular music has changed a lot since Adorno who was writing in 1941. Is it still as monolithic as he would have us believe? Does pseudo individualisation really explain things like the advent of rock and roll in 1956, the emergence of The Beatles in 1962 or punk rock in 1976? Popular music from Adorno onwards. Rock and roll as religion – a good in itself. Robert Pielke suggests that rock and roll is most properly understood as a religion that has created a transformation in culture. He compares the 6 characteristics of a religious experience presented by Rudolf Otto with feelings generated from listening to rock and roll or attending a concert. Charles Pressler and Derrida’s outline of ‘The Colossal’ The awe-inspiring concept that rock and roll presents is ‘the colossal’. The presentation of ‘the colossal’ is like an enabling energy that allows a new set of values to be taken onboard by the rock and roll audience.
Territory: Nursing. Object: The role of the nurse. Concepts: Informed Consent, Paternalism, Autonomy Change: The role of the nurse over time. Thinkers: Kant, Mill, O’Neill, Foucault, Gadamer. Questions I am going to Consider: Does the paternalistic role doctors and other medical professionals used to take have any ethical basis? Is the more recent move towards advocacy and partnership more ethical? Should informed consent be compulsory in every situation? Which is more important: autonomy or welfare? Sources: Mill, J.S., On Liberty, 1903, London: Longmans, Green and Co.; Gadamer, H-G., Truth and Method, 1975, London: Continuum; Gillon, R., Philosophical Medical Ethics, 1985, Chichester: Wiley; Fairbairn, G. and S. (ed.), Ethical Issues in Caring, 1988, Aldershot: Gower Publishing Company Ltd.
In my project, I will use Beckett’s work, including novels, short prose, drama and critical essays, to explore and challenge the work of Heidegger. I will explore Heidegger’s philosophy, in terms of his views on the way people exist in the world, their perspectives and the nature of truth and knowledge, with a particular focus on his ideas about art. I will use the style, mediums and characters of Beckett to explore how valid these ideas are for the modern world, particularly after the atrocities of the Second World War. I will focus particularly on Heidegger’s condemnation of art in the modern world, exploring its validity. I hope to show that Heidegger’s ideas, though often persuasive and enlightening, are inapplicable to a modern world in which subjects and communities are simply not the coherent and well-integrated wholes he hoped for. Following Beckett, I will explore the precarious, impotent, tragic and confused nature of existence, resolvable, perhaps, in death.
The project is driven by the intuition that in the modern age there is a conflict between science and religion. This conflict/ value distinction is proved problematic; in which domain does alchemy lie? Context: Alchemy as a historically changing concept. Thinkers: Kant, Hegel, Kuhn. Change/ Contrast: Historical contrast between our views/ intuitions of alchemy, science and religion respectively; from the Ancient world view, to the Enlightenment and the Modern age. – Why is there a value distinction between the two? Alchemy defies this hierarchy. – Can science and religion reconcile their positions?
Overall aim- to prove that humans do have a distinct nature which sets us apart as individuals and that we are more than living organisms that respond to social needs. • To prove this I am using my experience of America – to study how I adapted to a new culture to see whether I totally adapted or whether there is part of me that remained the same. • We cannot deny our want and need to adapt to environments and cultures but humans still have an innate nature that defines us as individuals and remains the same all our life. • Our human nature is responsible for HOW we respond to cultures and our upbringing. We are not born a blank slate. PHILOSOPHY. • I liken my ideas to Descartes and his idea of dualism where the mind and body are distinct from each other. • Mencius believed that there are 4 positions of human nature that we are born with but develop throughout our life, o 1. Mind of commiseration o 2. Mind of shame o 3. Mind of respect o 4. Mind of right/wrong • Lao Tzu believed that we should strive to be an ‘uncarved block.’ So we should go back to the basis of our human nature and we should not be affected by anything external to ourselves. • I am using these two philosophers to suggest unlike them I do not believe we are wholly independent from society and I think that Lao Tzu’s ‘uncarved block’ is unrealistic. We could never deny the influences that our society/upbringing has on us. • But like them I believe we have an innate human nature which is responsible for how we respond to our surroundings and is individual to each person.
In my project, I will examine the process of acting, and the emotional experience of becoming a character. Physically looking the part is very different to mentally becoming the part. Stanislavski’s ‘Emotional Memory’ encourages an actor to recall their own memories in order to create a realistic interpretation of a role. Therefore, one must remove themselves from their ‘true self’ in order to create a ‘new self’. From this, I believe an actor must consciously explore their subconscious. Therefore, this concept can be associated with Freud’s examination of the human psyche. Thus, I will compare Emotional Memory with Psychoanalysis. Like actors, Freud’s patients must explore their unconscious. I will examine Psychoanalysis, whereby the relationship between the patient and analyst is crucial for an effective treatment. From this, I will examine ‘free association’ and ‘unconscious formations’: both central features of this Freudian system, aiding the patient on a laborious journey of recovery. Whether in theatre or film, I believe there is a danger in acting. One must be extremely careful in adapting their mentality when becoming a character, in order to remain secure in their ‘true self’. Occasionally, an actor’s addiction to his role can become detrimental, as seen through Heath Ledger’s tragic death in 2008. It is argued that the extreme depth of his role of The Joker in The Dark Knight, combined with his perfect interpretation, led him towards self-destruction. Through acting, one must Psychoanalyse your ‘own self’, when creating a ‘new self’. However, one must be consciously aware of the complexity of the process, and thus intentionally maintain your own mentality.
When discussing travelling, it is very common for people to say they are going to ‘find themselves’, this idea has inspired me to philosophically explore the extent to which we discover more about ourselves when we go travelling. To supplement my discussion I have drawn upon my own experiences of travelling, especially my recent University Exchange trip to the University of Vermont, America.
One of the books I have studied is “The Art of Travel” by Alain de Botton, he explains several aspects of travelling such as the curiosity and expectations we have of somewhere and the feeling of surprise or disappointment we get when we arrive. He also finds interest in the ways we travel, such as the mystery of aeroplanes flying, or the “poetry” of a service station on the M25. He suggests that the reason we travel and have a desire to wander the earth without reference to a particular destination, is because we want to escape the confinement of the ordinary, rooted world.
To accompany Alain De Botton’s theory, I’ve also had a look at Sartre’s phenomenology, as he argues that our consciousness constructs our ego. He explains that our experiences are transparent and are shaped by the state we are in and our disposition at the time. The ego is the last factor in our consciousness, and we only really acknowledge it when we reflect on things.
This means that essentially our consciousness is really free, and I think this is the key to understanding how and why our experiences change us. New experiences challenge our preconceptions about things, and therefore affect our ego. Sartre explains that a conception of something is given as a whole idea, where as when we perceive something it is given in profiles, it is broken down into individual aspects. If you apply this to travelling, we can have a conception of a place, and a general idea of what it might be like, but when we arrive we are often surprised by the many different things we observe. As our understanding of a place changes, our perception of ourselves changes too.
The questions I will investigate are the following: • Is the way disabled individuals treated morally right? • Should the countries which allow such abusive treatment be allowed to join the European Union? • Why is torment rather than treatment continuing? • Do disabled people have human rights? The aim of this project is to investigate into the treatment of those with mental and physical disabilities, the way in which individuals are often from birth put into institutions and never endure a real life out of the walls of confinement. This project is a discussion into the inhuman and abusive treatment of many children, orphans in many cases and adults throughout the world’s institutions, and why this treatment occurs or if it there are plans to change it. Territory: Disability and Segregation. Object: The treatment of disabled people within institution in contemporary society. Concepts: Segregation and violation of human rights. Change: The treatment of mentally and physically disabled people changed over time from the ‘houses of confinement’ and the ‘birth of the asylum’. Thinkers: Michael Foucault- The history of madness, John Locke – Human rights and equality, Peter Singer – Equality and discrimination
This project investigates social mobility in Britain within the last 20 years, and after finding Britain to be socially immobile looks into the role that education has within making Britain immobile. The education system is then evaluated to explore the possibility of education having a causative role in forming an immobile society. A common underlying factor in education’s role within an immobile society is a poor level of aspiration among the lower classes. I then look at the possible role British media has to play in forming poor levels of aspiration under the theories of the culture industry from Adorno and Horkheimer, and Vattimo’s ethics of provenance , which is transposed onto the issue of false consciousness and Marxist ideologies. This project uses government figures to show that Britain is immobile; that the education system plays a key role within immobility, and that media is responsible for breeding students with low levels of aspiration. This, when explored with Adorno and Horkheimer’s views on the culture industry, shows that mass media deceives its consumers in order to keep the bourgeois’ advantage over the lower classes and reinforce Britain’s immobility throughout the generations by depicting mobility as unlikely within the media. This is backed up by figures which show that class and the media consumed is closely linked so the elite few in charge of the majority of media consumed by the masses can install a false consciousness in which it promises mobility to the lower classes whilst never having an intention of delivering it.