Part 1 Using literature by Terry Eagleton, David Harvey and Hal Foster I explore the idea of postmodernism, including its evolution from modernism and its contradictions and definitions. Concluding with an in depth look at works by Jean Baudrillard and Fredric Jameson in preparation for the main body of my argument. Part 2 Looks at house music culture, its origins from Chicago and influences from the rest of Europe. Using knowledge from part one, I explain how through sampling and recycling, house music is a perfect example of a postmodern aesthetic. I also present neo-conservative postmodern arguments written by Steven Redhead, Hillegonda Rietveld and Simon Reynolds that house music is culture of abandonment, disengagement and disappearance. Part 3 Focuses on the growth of raves in the eighties Britain, and legislation introduced by the government to prevent free parties taking place. Researching into the idea of Techno-shamanism and the tribal nature of house culture, I argue against the arguments presented in part two, and with my own argument, contend that house music can be used to escape postmodern society.
Category: 2005
Science behind the teaching: Learning modalities; performance standards; causal relationships; systematic enquiry. Hegellan Schooling. Primary school : “Thesis” (Building blocks of knowledge) Secondary school : “Antithesis” (Reflection and cultivation) College and Uni : “Synthesis” (Facts in and of themselves) Does being “free” mean being dependant on the influence on institutions?
Can subjective experience ever be explained? There is an inner dimension to our lives, which constitutes our entire awareness of ourselves and our world. Whether one is a reductionist, functionalist or qualia freak, subjective experiences are unique experiences, which others can never know; proprioception is our own. How does the brain process the information it receives through the senses? Where are memories stored? How are they even created? Objects must exist in the world in order to be perceived, however, this world in which we perceive objects, is not the real world. We do not experience the world as such, merely; we process the effect it has on us. The objects in the outside world are signaling their qualities inwardly, which means the object must be a thing inside our head. Seeing produces the thing that is seen. The object is before our eyes, yet the image of this object is behind our eyes; a copy. We experience the qualities of an object, its representation is in our minds; the world is forever on the outside. To what conclusions did Thomas Nagel (1937- ) come with ‘What is it Like to be a Bat?’ Do animals and plants experience qualia? How do people with illnesses such as dementia, schizophrenia, nervous disorders, autism or colour blindness perceive the world? How is one affected if their sense of smell, or sight should fail? The brain serves as the organ of the mind; if it is affected in any way, the entire body is affected and can change dramatically. The mind is what the brain does. This is evident when people develop an illness of the brain; their entire self becomes altered because the brain is no longer in a state of normality, the body expressing this change. When certain areas of the brain become, even slightly, damaged, such as the any cortex, the hippocampus or the amygdala, the individual will cease to be able to recognize things, forget certain elements of speech or not be able to link certain features together in order to create a face, for example. Remaining senses are heightened and much more sensitive is one should be taken away, altering perception greatly. Henry Huxley (1825-1895) suggested animals are conscious automa, devoid of mental states. What makes us afraid? What shapes our mind to view things in a certain manner? What goes on in a new born baby’s mind? The way an individual is brought up, affects their perception of the world dramatically; depending on one’s parents’ beliefs, or religion, family customs et cetera one’s perception of the world will be very different to another individual’s with different upbringing. Despite a baby’s lack of communication skills, it is unlikely that one will be able to make a baby co-operate so that its brain activity can be measured. Babies do not have a sense of co-operation, or a sense of anything much, their minds are impressionable and ready to be moulded, this is an individual experience and chance to teach another being the correct morals of life. Why did the ‘Hard Problem’ bother John Locke (1632-1704) so extensively? Does it seem logical that a piece of live, visual cortex in a Petri dish might be producing the same experience as a brain producing a yellow perceptual experience? Are you the only rational person alive, whilst everyone else is a zombie? These hard questions are addressed in the hard problem, whether one is a believer or not, it stands in the laws of biology and the progress of modern medicine to determine the truth.
The Transhuman. For Deleuze we should understand reality as an acentered system of forces. Becoming has no fidelity to distinctions of species or genus, but should be understood as the complex movement of non-linear flows. To think in this way is to pass beyond the human to the transhuman. The Return of Human Nature. DNA boosted Darwinian theory by enabling it to explain the process of heredity.The study of populations using statistics enabled us to posit species-typical behaviour. Biotechnology and the Transhuman. The new human sciences which underpin our understanding of human nature also allow us to change that nature. But are we not already Transhuman? How might we understand our emerging ‘pharmacological society’? Therapy or ‘enhancement’? The genotype determines the phenotype? How far does the phenotype extend? What about our social, cultural and technological relations? ‘The coils of the serpent are even more complex than the burrows of a mole hill’ How did we become neurochemical selves? How did we come to understand our sadness as a chemical imbalance in the brain, able to be corrected by psychopharmacalogical products? What is ‘natural’ for us must also be manufactured We posit what is natural once we are able to manufacture it.
Place: The Suit, as an image, as an androgynous construct Aim: My intention is not to assess the concept of promiscuity from a moral standpoint but more to suggest that it has been illustrative of the move away from what is essentially feminine to a world where women themselves in terms of what is masculine and how this gendering is representative of our move away from nature towards into an age of complexification Masculine and feminine: towards an age of androgyny? What is masculine? What is feminine? Indoctrinated definitions of gender through the ages from Plato to present day, the implication of gender classification on social constructs Promiscuity I will initially focus on the idea of promiscuous behaviour, how and why there has been an increase in women partaking in this behaviour (if this is the case) and the social ramifications of this. The issue is the promise of sex totally free of reproductive consequences, a myth that has served men not women. Our sexual culture which promotes pleasure over responsibility has ignored the reproductive capability of women’s bodies. Pose the question do, and if so why do women replicate men, instances of masculine behaviour, women at work etc why is success viewed in male terms, i.e. mothering undervalued, all the traditional female roles considered irreverent in modern society Masculinization. From Greek thought there has been a separation of culture and nature into male and female categories. Since the mechanical age we have become first mechanized and then manufactured, our bodies are commodities Promiscuity could be predicted as the result of a complex system, a particular way of handling material objects, everything has to be consumable. Promiscuous behaviour ultimately an expression that has been mechanized and commodified until it has become transparent. It is because we have become separated from nature that women have become masculinized, progression away from nature.
Outline: In this project I will be using the Robinson Library as my territory as I feel it is a good example of Modern building which is now essentially a Post Modern centre of knowledge. Aims: o To provide an exposition of Modern and Postmodern architectural styles and why they were introduced. o I will provide additional material about other libraries e.g. some from the baroque period to explore whether Modern architectural styles are detrimental or complementary to a centre of knowledge. o To explore the Postmodern idea of communications leading to a networked society. o To show that the rise of information technologies has led to the dilution of information and knowledge. o To show that computerised communication systems are creating an increasing alienated society. Sources: The key critical thinker I will be examining will be David Harvey and his book ‘The Condition of Postmodernity’. Other sources will include: Lyotard, Jean – Francois: The Postmodern Condition Castells, Manuel: The Rise of the Network Society Jacobs, Jane: The death and life of great American cities McGuigan, Jim: Modernity and Postmodern culture I will be using books from the Robinson Library, internet resources, information from magazines/newspapers and photographs taken in the Robinson Library and around Newcastle city centre to illustrate my project report.
Territory. I began by looking at computer games as my original territory, but this shifted as I progressed with my research to incorporate the wider realm of technology in more general terms. Concepts From my original territory I identified the concepts of Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence as my primary areas of research. I then furthered this to also explore the scientific rational project, with the growth of technology as a branch of this, and I further extended this to include the inhuman aspect of technology and a possible human disenchantment with this. Method. I began by exploring the nature of virtual environments and the interactions between the player controlled character and other intelligent aspects of the environment such as other characters or the surroundings themselves. This however led me to look at the fundamental concepts underlying the creation of virtual environments and artificial intelligence. I began to see the ‘rise in technology’ that was becoming prevalent within contemporary society and looked to find a philosophical background in which to interpret this theory. Philosophical Ideas. I looked at Heidegger who saw that technology was a means to achieve a certain purpose. However I also found the thoughts of Max Weber interesting, who saw technology as an area of disillusionment to people within modern society. He saw that very few people truly understand the world of technology around them and so we become disenchanted with our technological aspects of society. Also Lyotard saw the ‘Inhuman’ aspect of technology and the attitude of humanity towards it. Conclusions. I look to reconcile the modern world of computer generated virtual worlds with the different attitudes towards technology within general society.
OBJECTIVES – To look at what is thought to be the Italian Mafia in Twenty First Century Southern Italy in the light of philosophical theories. – Take specific aspects of the Mafia thought such as the attitudes towards death, silence and their own identity in an attempt to understanding the conditions that must be upheld by a Mafioso. SOURCES -G.W.F Hegel’s Lordship and Bondage that features in The Phenomenology of Spirit. -Karl Marx and Frederick Engel’s Communist Manifesto -Thoughts presented in these texts in reference to the Mafia through the eyes of Bataille, Deleuze and Nietzsche. -Secondary reading in both Marx and Hegel. -Contemporary Italian and British Newspaper articles. -Contemporary BBC Internet Website news articles. -True Life Crime books written on the Mafia. TERRITORY -Exploration into the Sicilian Mafia; Cosa Nostra, through the means of contemporary documentation of the events involving the Cosa Nostra as a whole and more specifically particular Mafiosi . TRANSITION OF CHANGE Section 1- How the birth of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily which was born out to a class struggle to which the theories of Marxism can be applied has, over the years moved towards being an organisation which incorporates notions that can be more aptly applied to Hegelian thought. Section 2 – The transition of change of the self consciousness of a Mafioso who desires to become a Capomafia in reference to Hegel’s Lordship and Bondage.
ADVERTISING. • Mass media intended to raise public political action. • Rise of capitalism lead to the increased importance of advertising revenue. • Mass-media serves market ends not public ends. This means public service programming suffers and entertainment increases. • Adorno and Horkheimer. The loss of public sphere and the rise of intellectualised entertainment. • Ideologies of consumerism define contemporary society. • Consumerism also defines and standardises values and morality. • Baudrillard. Advertising has altered the conditions of reality. • Advertising devalues the natural and exalts the consumption of commodity signs. NEWS AND PROPAGANDA. • Local newspapers eliminated in favour of national press. A national consciousness and fair representation. • Lack of alternative sources means that the news is a powerfully influential medium. • Controlled by government and commercial interests. • Causes biased reporting. Worthy and unworthy victims. • Knowledge is the greatest power in society. A manipulative tool. • BBC important for returning power to the masses. CHILDREN AND MORAL PANICS. • Children’s educational programming suffered due to lack of revenue like public service programming. • Children continually targeted. Programming reduced to merchandising. • Predominantly violent. How does this affect children’s developing morals? • Moral panics and scapegoats. Violence and James Bulger. • Exclusion of youth and Subcultures. • Can subcultures exist in such a powerfully regulated society. TECHNOLOGY. • Technology has altered understanding of human condition and reproduction. • Body is dematerialised. A sign of ideologies. • Life is advertised. Life is a commodity. • Beck. These fears develop in a risk society. • What does the advertising and purchasing of life mean for society and class segregation?
TERRITORY: Lost In Translation. Sofia Coppola’s beautifully written and emotively shot film Lost in Translation contains many themes that are very pertinent to philosophical discussion. The isolation of the leads Charlotte and Bob (Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray) is palpable, enhanced to moments of hystericization in the mise-en-scene. The film follows the tentative growth of the protagonist Charlotte and the unhappily married film star Bob. CONCEPTS: Deleuzian film theory Sartrean theory of the imagination Deleuze’s analysis of film views it as a consciousness. I aim to attempt to analyse my territory in such a way. I will also attempt to analyse Acts of Faith a film for the Short Film Society in this manner. I hope that this will lead to a more profound understanding of the philosophy of film. A new way of broaching the territory without recourse to classical analysis. PRIMARY SOURCES: Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema One, 1986; Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema Two, 1989; Sartre, Jean-Paul, The Psychology of Imagination, 1972
Territory: Derrida’s theory of deconstruction provides us with a position of duplicity that operates within the language of reason. This allows us to escape from the condition of falleness. In relation to this I will explore Heidegger’s: ‘end of philosophy’. Derrida’s deconstructionist theory is a theory that is applied to feminine writing. Cixous argues that when we read deconstructively it invites us to recognise ourselves. For Cixous, the feminine is the embodiment of duality and as a result she is open to the other. Cixous argues that writing is woman’s because woman admits that there is another. As a writer of philosophy and fact as well as fiction she maintains that one must write in the present with an acceptance of inevitable death. Heidegger argued that to live authentically one must contemplate one’s inevitable death. To see death without dying allows us to live and frees us from all censors and judges in life. Themes: Derrida’s deconstructionist theory in relation to feminine writing and how femininity is open to the other due to an admittance of difference. Feminine writing and how it sketches an alternate possibility to self other relations in being/becoming. Heidegger and his notion of the ‘end of philosophy’ and that philosophy was nothing more than the ideology of the western ethos and true philosophical questions are based on ‘being’. Application: I intend to explore my territory and themes in relation to the feminist critique of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, focusing on her translation of Derrida’s work on deconstruction and how this deconstruction is a political safeguard.
• Our bodies are our mind’s access to the outside world. This tool for spatial interaction is increasingly abused in our current times. Why has it become so apparently unimportant to us? Image, as opposed to our tactile relation to the outside world, has realised new status. In exploring this the image we ourselves create will be looked into. • The key subject to be discussed in this project is how our mentality towards clothes has changed through the ages. My territory will be the body but more specifically, the body’s interaction, as an image, with others in an attractive or repellent way. We use the body, now more than ever, in a fleeting and ephemeral way. • Lacan – recognition of our bodies as our own from birth to adulthood. Tangibility and testing of our own bodies in infancy. • Descartes – measure and quantify. Removal of reality and questioning and reasoning of the unknown. • Debord and Baudrillard – false images as expressions of the spectacle of society – a manifestation that resides and guides our society through mediation of images as part of a capitalist society. • Harvey – space-time compression. Reduction of our ability to live in normal realms of space and time. Recalling of the past and other cultures in post-modern design as a stability to the culture we are currently a part of. FASHION – a constant flux showing examples of the state of society. Acceleration and deceleration of trends with changing rate of living. DIVORCE OF THE BODY FROM THE MIND
Tibet is situated alongside the mountain range of the Himalayas and consequently it has an average land height of 10,000 ft above sea level. The large plateaux is largely uninhabitable, however for thousands of years the Tibetan people, who are partially nomadic have made Tibet their home. The climate and landscape make life hard, with a limited diet and primitive technology the Tibetans rely heavily on their Buddhist religion which permeates every part of life. Tibet has had a chequered history with other countries however it is widely agreed that in 1950 when Chinese forces invaded the northern region of Amdo, Tibet was a free, independent country. The Communist Chinese government believed that Tibet in fact was part of “The Motherland” and was in need of “liberation.” Over half a Century later, and 1.6 million Tibetans have been killed by starvation, imprisonment and torture, conflict, execution and forced abortions. The Chinese all but wiped out any evidence of the once integral Buddhist religion during the “Cultural Revolution” and imprisoned any Tibetans who were suspected of “holding on to the past.” The spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was forced to flee his country in 1959 fearing for his life at the hands of the Chinese and has lived in nearby Dharamsala in India ever since. During their occupation the Chinese have made very good use of the new territory they now occupy, the Tibetan people are now outnumbered by Chinese settlers, valuable mineral resources have been exploited to the Chinese benefit and nuclear weapons tests have been carried out on Tibetan soil. One of the most important factors in Buddhism is the belief in reincarnation, all our actions in this life go towards determining the kind of life we will have next and it is this reason that the Chinese were able to take over Tibet so easily. The Tibetan people believe that to obtain a favourable rebirth they must respect every other living creature, from a worm in the ground to a Chinese soldier. They are a peaceful people and even when looking in the face of their oppressors remain composed and dignified. In my project I will be referring to the ideas of religious fundamentalism, and what the implications have been for the Tibetans during the Chinese occupation. At what point do the losses of military conflict outweigh the gains of following a doctrine? Also has the Dalai Lama done enough for his people? I will also be looking at the power of testimony in my project, comparing that of Robert Antelm and a Tibetan monk Palden Gyatso. How did they relate to their tormentors and using Hegel’s master and slave dialectic, can we learn anything from them? Finally I will be looking at the invasion itself with reference to Max Weber’s “Theodicy of Domination.” Is there evidence to confirm his ideas and can Tibet use his findings to try to rectify their situation. I hope to give a detailed insight to the plight of the Tibetan people, how they came to be in this situation and how we might be able to help.
Foucault differentiates the forms of control over society in Discipline and Punish into two categories: sovereign and disciplinary. This study transposes these concepts of power to the dynamics of the capitalist economy. Sovereign power is exerted in the Post-War World by governments and international organisations. It seeks to make the world safe for the free flow of capital by removing any major obstacles which become apparent. Disciplinary power is exerted by the constant pressure to make all decisions according to the maximal advantage of profit; to the supremacy of the desire to be as efficient as possible in the service of thee capital. The basic structures of the economy are the hierarchical organisations of business. At every level of these orders there is constant pressure exerted from (1) above in the form of pressure to extract the maximum surplus value for the holders of the capital and from (2) below in the desire for promotion to a higher rank, so that one attains a closer proximity to the benefits of the capital (a share of the profits). When we see an apparently immoral decision being taken by an individual within this structure, it become hard to say that it has been committed by that person and he is wrong. This is because the structure of our society essential dictates that immoral decisions will be made in a world where the only absolute is the ubiquity of the profit motive.
Objectives • I want to look at how much of yourself you have to sacrifice in order to become what you want to be: how much you have to sacrifice your talents for the record company, the fans and even the other band members. • I want to explore how far commercialism has embedded itself in the music industry. • Is it possible to create and release music with any real amount of integrity? • What does it mean to ‘sell-out’? • How can a band keep ‘it’ about ‘the music’? • What does ‘the music’ entail? How Done • I will look at and compare the record contracts of a major label and an indie label. • I will look at Marx’s views on commercialism and capitalism and how they affect culture. • I will assess how much control bands have over their music and what they could do to keep it about ‘the music’ so that they do not ‘sell-out’. What Achieved • By doing this I will have more of an understanding of what kind of balance there needs to be with the band and the record company in order for the music to be heard by enough people without it loosing its integrity.
An exploration into punk, its roots, its philosophy and where it is now.
The past few decades have witnessed the rise of the application of international human rights law as well as the extension of a wider public discourse on human rights to the extent that they could be regarded as being one of the most globalized political values of our time. Following the death of grand political narratives, it could be said that in the postmodern era, human rights represent the last remaining utopian ideal; the last remain shard of enlightenment emancipatory values. However, if the twentieth century is said to be the epoch of universal human rights then its triumph is paradoxical since this period has witnessed so many violations. Furthermore, civilians have been killed by those purporting to defend human rights as illustrated by the Kosovo ‘humanitarian’ bombings. Thus whilst the discourse of human rights purports the intrinsic rights of all people based on nothing more than an appeal to humanity, there appears to be a great deal of dissonance between self-satisfied rhetoric and social reality. As we step into the globalized era, rights are transported all over the world and transmitted straight into the homes of people, the problematic nature of universalising rights becomes apparent. Is there such a thing as rights? Can they and should they be universalised? Can rights be squared with the deconstruction of subjectivity? If not, can a non-essentialist theory of rights be developed? These are the questions I intend to answer.
TERRITORY: An arcade. An area of great energy, albeit, completely spiritually empty. A place of total objectivity, total simulacra, total inauthenticity. Repeating themes of both Heidegger and early Buddhist teachings, Nishitani claims that the central failure of philosophy in our time is that it has not provided an adequate response to nihilism. The alienation in human consciousness caused by modern science objectifying humans and denaturalizing nature, is the nihil that cuts through human existence. STANDPOINT OF EMPTINESS (Shunyata) & ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS (Zettai-Mu) For Nishitani, the key to overcoming the nihilism that continues to loom over humanity, is the ‘Standpoint of Emptiness’, or ‘Absolute Nothingness’. As epitomized in Western existentialism, nothingness as nihility is still seen as a reference point of subjectivity or as something to which existence relates; it functions as representational correlate of existence. By contrast, nothingness in the sense of sunyata means emptiness of a kind that empties itself even of the standpoint that represents it as some ‘thing’ that is emptiness, or to which existence merely relates. Fundamentally, Buddhist sunyata does not denote nihilism or nihility in the sense of a simple negation of, or antithesis to, being; instead, it intimates the nothingness of being or the emptiness harbored by being itself. “When we become a question to ourselves and when the problem of why we exist arises, this means that nihility has emerged from the ground of existence and that our very existence has turned into a question mark.” (Nishitani) This doubt becomes the Great Doubt, as one is led further into the core of one’s being, there to meet the Great Death. This Great Death is the dissolution of the small self, from which emerges a total openness and freedom, wherein the self is no longer separate from, but realizes its oneness with, all the myriad things of the universe. This is the arrival at the Standpoint of Emptiness, where everything is seen in its ‘suchness’. It is a standpoint that cuts through boundaries of space and time and yet is firmly rooted in the present…a recovery of the fullness of the present moment that is open to eternity.
Fashion has changed dramatically between the Eighteenth and Twentieth centuries, however it is not simply the changes that the inventors of fashion have made to the clothes, but all the social and political aspects that have occurred between these times. The changes have altered how we see ourselves, our self-identity, and how we see others. Modernity “ thinks of society as in a state of constant flux, innovation and development as changes in knowledge and technology alter the identities and experiences of individuals and communities” Lyotard, Kant and Freud are the main philosophers explored, looking closely at the ideas of modernity and postmodernity, with particular interest in the sublime: “With The sublime, the response is more complex. One is simultaneously attracted and repelled by the object, enthralled by it and also horrified.” Sources: Questionnaires, Internet, Book – ‘Jean-Francois Lyotard’ By Simon Malapas
My Territory – 2 students from different backgrounds. Their opinions, beliefs and desires from work and diaries in their youth to their opinions now. My aims to explore the philosophy of childhood. What is it to be a child are they merely developing organisms as Aristotle may say -”underdeveloped human organisms”. The philosophers I am using: Aristotle change and causation, Plato education is relearning, Descartes and Locke on the development of cognitive thought, Sarte on Being