Plagiarism is wrong. Says who? Why should we obey this? Does Plagiarism stifle creativity? Is plagiarism a force of coercion and obedience?
Category: Stage 3
“To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world”
–
Anthony Burgess
We live in a society today in which privacy concerns seem to be cropping up more and more frequently. This essay basis its’ notion of a right to privacy on Warren and Brandeis’s article for the Harvard Law Review titled The Right to Privacy, and investigates the ways in which the culture today strikes down this right.
My essay focuses on the primary ways in which the notion of privacy has been struck down in the post 9/11 society that we live in. In doing this, I was able to use the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and John Rawls, among many other philosophers, to formulate a response to this abolition of privacy in the society we live in. Their philosophies provide us with a thoughtful response to the factors affecting our right to privacy, and henceforth allows for a thorough investigation into the notion of privacy from a perspective not entirely common.
‘Perhaps the most striking thing about the right to privacy is that nobody seems to have any very clear idea what it is.’
– Judith Jarvis Thomson
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.
PLAYBOY
The use of nude photography does not exclude a work from the sphere of art
Featured Articles
Rose: The Paradigm case of Pornography-Playboy does not possess the same explicit sexual characteristics of other ‘adult’ entertainment.
-In the production of Playboy, there is no violation of liberty or victim.
Noë: ‘strange tools’ -art is purely the subversion of function and purpose, that calls into question the surrounding presuppositions -Playboy does not have his same subversion intention.
Hegel- the closest instance to absolute truth within art is the human form “we must search out that in Nature which on its own merits
belongs to the essence and actuality of the mind…The human form is employed…exclusively as the existence and physical form correspond to themind” (Hegel, 2004)
“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)
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.
Does power equate to dominance? Is there a strength in submission?
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
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
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
Concept: Hegemony, dialogue, critical thinking
Object: The work of Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire
The aim of this investigation is to argue that there exists a hegemony within education, specifically English literature. This hegemony prevents the reading of texts such as An Inspector Calls in a critical, working class dialogue.
To argue this, this investigation will examine; what is hegemony? How does it function? Where is it in education? And how can we stop it?
This investigation will argue that for a critical education system, we must adopt the work of Paulo Freire and begin the process of genuine dialogue with students when undertaking a reading.
My project aims:
Outlining neoliberal hegemony, why it has become so universally pervasive.
To uncover the manner in which neoliberalism increases levels of distress for young people through statistical evidence.
To look at the systemic shortcomings in treating mental illness and how this leads young people into self-medication and escapism.
To look at potential solutions to countering neoliberalism, highlighting precisely why the left has failed in doing so.
Concluding by revealing neoliberalism as pseudo-universal.
My object is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and my territory is the relationship between art and science. In my project I argue that the arts (and humanities) come into conflict with science (and technology). Richard Dawkins laments that in his view science does not get the same respect as poetry. Meanwhile Midgley claims that science attempts to colonise humanities with inappropriate methods. Habermas claims that science has ‘infected’ politics, ethics and philosophy. Warbuton argues that the concepts used to evaluate scientific research are applied to the arts as well, but are not fit for this purpose.
Lyotard looks at one of the causes of this conflict. Narrative has been the main way of transmitting knowledge, and is still used in the arts. However, science condemns narrative as no knowledge at all, since narratives are only legitimated by their general acceptance. Science, on the other hand, requires legitimation by empirical evidence, and must be able to justify and defend its claims against challenges. However, science can only justify and defend its claims by using narrative, so could itself be accused of begging the question by using a form it has condemned as not susceptible to legitimation.
Heidegger argues that technology, by treating human beings as a reserve, poses a danger to our very essence. Pirsig proposes care as part of the solution. Heidegger sees care as constitutive of humans, inextricably linked with human life and temporality. Pirsig’s version of care is what provides the creativity and imagination which he demonstrates is needed by science to come up with new theories and hypotheses just as much as it is needed by the arts. If this is accepted then care, creativity and imagination could provide the basis for a bridge between the sciences and the arts.
The values of disco are often seen to tie neatly into consumerist culture and represent a false, materialistic and escapist attitude to life. In this project, I seek to provide a defence for a genre that had significant power and value for marginalised communities.
I will be referencing texts that discuss popular music and popular culture, focusing on Theodor Adorno, Richard Middleton and Simon Reynolds predominantly, in order to assess how a musical movement can be valued, what disco music can tell us about ourselves, and whether disco music should be taken seriously as a musical genre.
Michael Foucault
– The repressive hypothesis
– Changes in sexual practices over time
– Mode of power within society
Theodore Adorno
– Enlightenment
– Culture Industry
-Standardisation of sexual categories
Do sexual categories define individuals?
Has sexuality always existed?
How does sexuality function within society?
Between Emancipation and Control: A Critical Discussion of Social Media in Postmodern Society
Is social media the key to emancipation, or the handcuffs prohibiting liberation? This project started from the object of social media and the claim that, as society has become highly mechanised, it is a further perpetuation of control and the very medium, which keeps individual behaviour in accordance with what is deemed socially acceptable. This project aimed to investigate this claim, using the case of Cambridge Analytica, to reach a conclusion to the overriding question: CAN SOCIAL MEDIA EMANCIPATE?
An investigation into the ways that technology is used as a method of creating insecurities with the self, leading to cosmetic surgery and the sustainability of capitalism.
My aim of this investigation is to explore the effects of technological apps such as Snapchat and Instagram on self-esteem and confidence. Also to investigate how far there is a link between beautifying apps and the cosmetic surgery industry, in a 21st century society where the conception of beauty is given great importance.
In this investigation, I conduct a survey to understand the effects of technology. I ask questions regarding frequency of usage, confidence levels after usage and pressure in society surrounding beauty.
Philosophical Concept 1: Adorno and the Culture Industry
Philosophical Concept 2: Freud and ‘Civilisation and its Discontents’
CONCEPTS FREEDOM, IDENTITY, AUTHENTICITY
A controversial attempt at defending an institution often deemed as exploitative, by considering the potentiality for change in marketing strategy due to the proliferation and availability of interpretative consumer choices within social media culture.
Aims of the project:
Explore whether human nature makes us fixate upon personal and political ideals. • Discuss the issue of political agency and how anonymity can aid it in postmodern culture.
• Use existentialism to assess if anxiety encourages the rise of conflict.
• Examine Islamic State and how they use anxiety and uncertainty as aids to their recruitment process.
• Finally try to assess whether conflict is inevitable in postmodern culture.
“To resent is already to go beyond, to move toward the possibility of an objective transformation.” – Jean-Paul Sartre
“The most that force can achieve is acquiescence and outer conformity.” – Bernard Williams
“Throughout the ages people have wanted to ‘improve’ humanity.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Within this project I plan to show how gastronomy has been negatively represented in the philosophical world and how this way of thinking no longer is true and reflective of the trends found within modern society. I shall be using a range of philosopher to show how modes of thought which claim gastronomic experience to be unworthy of aesthetic response are no longer valid to implement.
Key words
Gastronomy: the practice or art of choosing, cooking, and eating good food
Michelin Star: a hallmark of fine dining quality in restaurants across the world. A restaurant may receive one, two, or three stars, representing very good, exceptional, or exquisite cuisine, respectively.
A Brief Introduction to the Philosophers Used
Plato and Gastronomy
Plato held that anything to do with the stomach must be shunned. He claimed that the stomach could only be governed by passion and appetite and hence it was not virtuous to take pleasure from food. Essentially for Plato, ‘food and drink merely reeked of the transient, inadequate, inferior material world of the senses, bodily pleasures and humdrum non philosophical activities.’ (Allhoff and Monroe: 2007, 24)
Kant and Gastronomy
Kant provided the main attack against the value of gastronomy and it is this view which remains prevalent in the philosophical world. Kant maintains that food cannot provide an aesthetic experience in the same way as a piece of art would since he claims food can only provide an immediate response which can only ever be agreeable or disagreeable. Furthermore he claims our relationship with food can never be disinterested (a characteristic he states to be necessary of aesthetic experience) since the consumption of food is an innate animalistic desire.
Brillat-Savarin and Gastronomy
Brillat-Savain claims that food is able to provide aesthetic experience and he lays out his argument in his work, The Physiology of Taste. He claims that tasting and appreciating food is a complex endeavour which takes both time and reflective judgement. He formulated the sequence of ingestion which shows how this occurs. The three stages of sensation he identifies are namely; direct, complete and reflective. Brillat-Savarin also infers that the pleasure deduced from enjoyment of gastronomy is the most divine of them all.