Existentialism and its Impact

Notes on HCJ4 topics ahead of a discussion show (similar to Emma Hofberg's & my one for HCJ3) with Amy Moore

Existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical theory that individuals are free and responsible for their development in their existence. As according Nietzsche “God is dead,” there is no inherent meaning to our existence and so we are free to choose our own destiny. Unlike existentialists, nihilists think there is no meaning to life rather than use their freedom to create their own freedom. For more information on existentialism in reference to Albert Camus's "L'Étranger", click here.

Kant - "Critique of Pure Reason" - Existence is not the result of consciousness or being but a pre-condition of consciousness; consciousness is not proof of existence, it just is. This idea opposes Descartes' "I think therefore I am" argument.

Husserl - "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint" - Phenomenology: the science of phenomena; study of perception & consciousness. Concluded that whether an experience was real or imagined the resulting feeling in no different and therefore there is no point distinguishing between mental and physical phenomena. Perception is important, not whether it is internal or external.
Phenomenology vs     Empiricism
 Internal world   vs  External world

Heidegger – “Being & Time” – first example of modern existentialism; though phenomenology was half-hearted – personal experience is important.
Dasein – “being” – absorption & satisfaction in life/a task – authentic life
Dasman – opposite of Dasein – boredom and complacency; overthinking - inauthentic
Facticity – ‘labels’ given/you are born into (gender, class, nationality, etc.) - inauthentic
Rejection of Descartes’ Self (& Freud’s Ego) – inverted “I think therefore I am” to “I am therefore I think” as consciousness is a predicate of existence.
Focus on present/next choice – past: guilt, future: unknown, present: dread – morality reduces guilt and creates indifference to future.

Satre – similar to Heidegger (anti-Cartesian ego) and agrees with Husserl that there’s no difference between fictional & factual phenomena if you believe it. Being ‘just it’ – it needs no definitions as it defines itself; opposite of the ontological argument to prove God. However, he can be considered more liberal than Heidegger.
Being creates desire to be God & control own life however, destiny/life is not fixed; humanity’s freedom is absolute and therefore we must not be defined by facticity.

None of this is possible without the liberation of Nietzsche’s claim “God is dead.”

However, before this, Kierkegaard came up with his own form of existentialism to fit around his religious beliefs; similar to Schopenhauer – rejects rationism & scientific objectivity and believes life is suffering; rejects religion despite being a Christian – “To be a Christian you must reject Christianity” – his reasoning was that if everyone was Christian, no-one would be; human condition (loneliness & suffering) creates knowledge through despair of unknowing; despair is ontological & therefore can’t be ‘cured’ – must transcend it; can transcend by passionate commitment from moment to moment; despair is due to not knowing your purpose in existing and alienation is separation from God – must submit to God to overcome; by irrationally & unexplainably submit to God, Kierkegaard dismisses systems of goodness & morality.

As no definite morality or guilt for actions, room is left for violence & aggression.

Debatable as people having violence enacted upon them do not have a choice which is key to living authentically according existentialism; by removing their choice you are forcing them to lead an inauthentic life & therefore your actions go against existentialism.

Franz Fanon – encouraged the idea that you could use violence as a way of speeding up political change that existentialism was already nurturing (if there is good cause to do so) which is therefore lead to, for example, Baader Meinhoff complex, Black Panther Movement, Algerian War, etc.

Arguably, to counter these sorts of ideas, modern totalitarian ideas formed:

·        Previous totalitarian leaders still had limits applied to them – new model formal C20

·        Arendt saw imperialism as precursor to modern totalitarianism as it encouraged racism by grouping people into superior/inferior

·        Individuality makes people hard to control – must be destroyed by

Either State Terror (degrade individuals – make them less than human)
Or Ideology (compliments terror – eliminates need for individual thoughts – absolves people  .    from guilt if they blindly follow orders without question – banality of evil; don’t have to .   .    be evil to do evil things, just follow orders; Milgram experiment)

·        Ideas of control seen in 1984 by George Orwell (through language) & A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (through social structure)

Counterculture (A way of life & set of attitudes opposed to the social norm)

Good example – 60s & 70s America – political & cultural turbulence:

·        JFK assassination (1963)

·        Vietnam War controversy

·        Racial discrimination -> Black Panther Movement

·        High teen population (from baby boom) -> power gained from large demographic skew helping lead to:

o   Sexual revolution – creation of the pill giving women choice; feminism

o   Prohibition of drugs – LSD introduced by CIA then banned leading to Hippie . .                                        communes, etc.

o   Musical revolution (jazz)

·        Influenced by existentialism & powered by new choices, freedom & anti-establishment beliefs esp. Franz Fanon, Malcolm X

 

For journalists:

·        Scepticism in press releases & importance in 1^st hand experience (arguably being lost in the technological/modern age) |_ research, checking quotes, interviews & asking the difficult questions

·        Use of more subjective & emotional language – sensationalised – to build a picture rather than just tell a story (e.g. Tom Wolfe)

·        Political objectivity – Associated Press – greater profit; wider audience

·        Abolition of 5 Ws and pyramid structure to make way for ‘story to bleed into the copy’ -> Make reader feel story & not just read it – Hearst, Pulitzer

·        Creation & popularization of ‘gonzo’ journalism

·        In features:

o   Use of scene by scene/cinematic story telling

o   Inclusion of dialogue

o   Adding opinion to help reader inside writer’s/‘character’s’ mind

o   Recording of even minor details (gestures, habbits, behaviour towards certain social groups, etc.) to show status & attitudes of those involved. 

Economics

Marx – Failure of capitalism as wages are less than product price due to profit margin; move to communism – everything provided everyone – obsolete due to Keynes

Smith, Hume, Ricardo, Mill, etc. – classical economists; large market, small state – also, arguably, obsolete due to Keynes

Keynes – to stop cycle of economic depression, print money and create jobs to circulate it – large state; small market

Weber – rise of bureaucracy as a means of increasing employment; gain power through charisma, maintain power from legality

Galbraith – wrote New Industrial State

·        Based on managed society of Keynes & Galbraith – critiques: Hayek predicts it would become highly corrupted

·        Effects of technology on this system

o   Speeds up process of production

o   Still creates jobs as machines have to be fixed

o   Likely to end up being run by the elite

·        Nature of employment – less blue-collar as replaces by machines; replaced by educated people who can repair machines

·        Motivation theory:

.            Carrot vs Stick

Compensation vs Compulsion

·        Power shift from entrepreneur to technology undermines unions

·        Regulation reduces workers’ need unions

Modern Logic
3 attitudes to numbers:

1)      Natural & can be empirically observed – Mill

2)      Intuitions of harmonic, perfect world – Pythagorians; Descartes

3)      Abstract logical objects; constructs of syntax – Frege, early Russell

(1) Through evolution, can naturally distinguish between:
0: Absence of objects/bananas
1: 1 object/enough bananas
2: More than one object/plenty or infinite bananas
Whilst you can immediately tell the difference between 3 & 4 at a glance, it’s hard to tell between 33 & 34 without counting; arguably, numbers above about 8-ish are purely syntax

(2) Pythagorianism
Prime numbers are pre-existing, eternal forms & necessary for consciousness.
Anti-Kant’s “existence is not a predicate” and therefore existenialism
Importance of 3 (first plural prime) in culture e.g. Trinity in Christianity, rule of thirds, 3 chord triads, etc.
“+1” has no defined meaning -> 0+1 <- infinitely bigger
                                                     1+1 <- doubles in size
                                                    N+1 <- infinitely smaller increase with each addition

(3) Numbers as logical objects
Rejects numerological empiricism
Frege’s axiom – all things which are identical are equal to themselves i.e. 2
Larger numbers are built upon these – e.g. a pair of pairs would be the equivalent of 4
1 is a class of things not associated with other things
0 is a class of objects not equal to themselves therefore 0 doesn’t actually exist

A long time in the making...

HCJ Year 2 Semester 1

Modernism:



Freud:





Economics:

Logical Positivism:

Conclusion:

Presenters: Hannah Hayesmore and Emma Hofberg

Editor: Hannah Hayesmore

Music: Ben Seretan - I Could Use Time to Just Chill With You



Existentialism & Ethics – Notes on Chapter 9 of "Philosophy in the Modern World"

According to Neitzsche, God is dead. As a result, there is no inherent moral system and therefore humanity is free to choose its own ethics.

Heidegger, a phenomenologist, says the true state of being is “Dasein” which is to be absorbed in life and the world in a positive way and to not be defined by you “facticity” (the definitions placed on you by society).

In existentialism, you are free to choose how you live and what you do but to be happy and dasein you should live an “authentic” life. As there is no inherent meaning in life, it just is, you should do what makes you happy. Also, if life is pointless and there is no morality, existentialists would say that you are free to try change society ‘for the better’ and by any means, including violence if you are in the same school of thinking as Franz Fanon.

Of course, existentialism is not the only potential form of ethics for the world.

Utilitarianism’s major idea is that we should aim to have “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” which Bentham linked to pleasure. For this reason, quantifying pain and pleasure is important.

In terms of ethics, here are two real types of utilitarian – absolutists and consequentialists. Absolutists consider some actions to be intrinsically wrong & should never be done, irrespective of their consequences whilst consequentialists believe the morality of actions should be judged solely on their consequences and that no act has special circumstances. As an example, if you could go back in time and kill baby Hitler, absolutists would tell you not to as murder is wrong, despite the fact it would save countless lives whilst consequentialists would be more than happy to do it as the action has such a positive impact.

Both Bentham and Mill were consequentialists. Whilst there are many criticisms of utilitarianism as a moral guide, such as the fact it can allow people to act in a way that would normally be outrageous by deciding there are special circumstances, Mill thought the real issue was that it can be so blinded by morality that it can overlook justice. Of course, another issue is that one person’s happiness can be sacrificed to increase the overall total happiness in a community. He also thought that certain types of activities that create utility have a higher value than others, i.e. going to the opera has a greater value than eating a doughnut or even watching a musical.

To Schopenhauer, the world is an illusion & true reality is the universal will. Because of this, his idea of morality is that is it the training of character. As everything in nature is determined by necessity, so too are a person’s nature and actions. According to this idea, given the right data we could predict and map a person’s future actions. Our will cannot be changed, nor can it be satisfied; Schopenhauer says we should renounce our self. Once we do this, we become ‘in touch’ with the rest of humanity and can therefore act morally and for the good of everyone.

Keirkegaard’s idea of moral ascent is similar to Schopenhauer in that both are pessimistic in their view of human nature and that both lead to renunciation. However, Keirkegaard sees renunciation as the first step on a spiritual journey that aims to give each person their own personality as a creature of God.

Nietzsche takes the opposite view to Keirkegaard. He believes we must undo the transvaluation from master-morality and restore the concept of higher classes being better and the order of “good=noble=beautiful=happy=loved by the gods” that was reversed with the uprising of slaves and the birth of Christianity. This overturning of the structure of society will help lead to a race that transcends the traditional master-slave relationships seen in life, the Übermensch.

Albert Camus - "The Stranger"

(Been meaning and forgetting to post this for months now - apologies for the delay)

Albert Camus’s “The Stranger” was first published in 1942 and translated into English in 1946. It is set in French occupied Algeria and is written from the perspective of Meursault whose perspective of the world can be likened to that similar to an existentialist. The translation I read was by American Matthew Ward in 1988, whose style was different to previous translations in that it was Americanised to fit in with Camus’s more American Literary style. It also differs in tone; whilst other translations can be considered cold, Ward’s is thought to be more curious and less insincere. Whilst the book is considered a great example of existentialism, it is said that Camus did not consider himself an existentialist. Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957 "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times".^[1]

The initial concept of the book is a little jarring. Whilst it is written from the protagonist’s (Meursault) point of view, the way it reads is quite matter of fact. This quite alien concept threw me to begin with, but highlights beautifully the novel’s link to existentialism. Meursault lives his life in the moment, much like existentialists & phenomenologists such as Husserl taught; by not thinking about the past or future, he does not feel either angst or despair. But it is this lack of forethought that eventually creates trouble for him. In terms of existentialism, Meursault is right to consider himself an individual and not to allow himself to be defined by things such as his job or that he is his mother’s son, but ends up in prison for two reasons. The first is that he anticipates that everyone else thinks and lives in the same way. Whilst for him, it is not essential for him to be grief-stricken at his mother’s funeral, society expects him to be in mourning as he is her son. By not conforming to his role or “essence,” he is considered an outsider of society. The second is that whilst he makes choices, he does not consider the impact of these. In terms of some types of existentialism, this would be the correct move to make. Many existentialists think you should live your own life and try to get to where you want to be. The problem is that you may never get there as other people could get in the way of this. For this reason, Meursault is right not to worry about consequences as, essentially, you should focus on yourself and not worry about others as they are not worried about you. However, others would argue that it is wrong not to consider the impact your actions have on others as if you limit someone’s freedom they cannot make a choice and lead a life according to existentialist values. You could also argue that it would be easier to live life if we all tried to help one another out by thinking about the consequences of our actions, which is reflected by society and further by the jury.

As well as an existentialist, Meursault can be considered an empiricist in the sense that he does not seem to deal with emotion but facts and measurements. When talking about going to his mother’s funeral, he describes it as being “about eighty kilometres away.” For most people, this could seem cold and callous but as you read further into the book, this neutral tone starts to become more and more natural. As you begin to realise how normal the unfeeling attitude begins, you realise how unsettling it is that distancing emotion and being absorbed into something, similar to Heidegger’s ideas about being dasein. This is not the only way, though, that the book links back to existentialism; some of the other characters in the book that contrast with Meursault serve to show how being dasein and dasman affect your life from an existentialist’s point of view. Salamano and his dog show that you should live for yourself to be dasein. Because he has made his dog his world, Salamano is not happy; he constantly swears at and beats the dog but, when he loses his dog, he is still dasman as he has lost his life’s purpose which he assigned to the dog. Contrary to this, the relationship between Salamano and his dog can also highlight the existentialist idea that we assign our own values to things as there are no inherent values or meaning in life. Another person that lives in the same apartment block to Meursault and Salamano is Raymond Sintès; it could be argued that Raymond’s outlook on life is similar to Meursault and that both could be considered existentialists to some degree. However, unlike Meursault, Raymond seems keen to live up to others expectations. For example, at the beach, the existentialist side of Raymond would have shot the Arab as that is what he wanted to do but as he was so keen to please Meursault, he did not. These characters’ social normalcy directly contrasts Meursault’s arguably more modern outlook.

At the end of the book Meursault’s thoughts become more obviously similar to an existentialist’s viewpoint. As he waits in prison, he stops hoping to be freed and begins to be almost content that he is to be executed as he realises that, in his mind, there is no real point to life. As he opens himself “to the gentle indifference of the world,” he concludes that nearing the end of life gives you a kind of freedom and with this knowledge he finds happiness. This links back to his mother and the way she acted in the time leading up to her death; originally, Meursault finds it difficult to understand why his mother “took a fiancé” whilst at the care home but as he realises the brevity of his existence, he understands the freedom that comes with this finality. It is debatable that his view point at this stage is almost nihilistic, depending on your interpretation of the text, in that aside from not finding any inherent meaning in the world he seems content to resign himself death, almost as though this lack of definite value makes living pointless. However, the fact that he imparts his own meaning onto the things he can see from his cell directly contradicts this idea.

It is easy to apply absurdism to Meursault’s perspective. Meursault applies his own values and meaning to things that generally differ greatly from that of others; for him it is reasonable to shoot someone accidently due to the heat of the sun and almost expects others to understand. Similarly, he does not try to apply meaning to his relationship with Marie. Whilst she attempts to find meaning with him by asking if he loves her and if he would marry her, Meursault appears indifferent. This indifference, it could be said, is not due to a lack of feelings for his girlfriend, but instead is him showing that he does not need to apply a meaning or label to the two of them as these differ from person to person and therefore are, to him at least, unnecessary.

Whether or not an existentialist would consider Meursault’s life authentic or not is difficult to decide. On one hand, you can argue that he does not allow his facticity (his past) to affect his life. This is seen at the beginning of the book when he says, “it occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed.” However, existentialists could also say that to entirely disregard your facticity is also to live an inauthentic life as you deny yourself. Plus, for existentialists, the future is the most important dimension as we are creatures of the possible; the very next decision we make is the most important in existentialism. As Meursault does not seem to consider the future at all, you could argue he does not live as an existentialist would. However, if he dwelled too long on the future, his life would also be inauthentic so it is difficult to work out if he has got the balance correct or not, particularly as this would differ with each fraction of existentialism and, indeed, each individual person has their own nature, as stated by Nietzsche; as “God is dead” there is not universal human nature so we are free to find and follow our own thoughts and ideals.

In terms of ethics, Meursault does not seem interested in the utility of others so is unlikely to subscribe to utilitarian thoughts on the subject, seen both in his lack of compassion when he discovers Salamono’s dog is lost but particularly when writing the horrible letter to Raymond’s girlfriend on his behalf. Neither does he seem to think transcending will is good, seen in the way that he indulges pleasures such as smoking and sleeping with Marie. Arguably, if he had transcended self and led a Christian life, as depicted in Kierkegaard’s concept of moral ascent, he could have avoided his fate and been happy. By marrying Marie or showing grief and following Christian observations at his mother’s funeral, the jury and therefore society, would have been less inclined to see him as a threat and believe that the shooting was in fact an accident. However, Meursault’s existential view point extends to his morality and he at least appears to try to live and authentic life.

When reading “The Stranger,” the factual tone and emotional distance of the protagonist to his account of the day, the immediate comparison I drew was to “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon. Both novels are written from the main character’s perspective and both are very factual in their accounts of the story. However, the major difference between them is that Meursault has the ability to understand emotion, he seems to deliberately distance himself from them whereas Christopher Boone from Haddon’s book is autistic and therefore finds it very difficult to understand and process emotion. Another similarity they share is that others do not understand them and in many ways, they do not understand other people. When Christopher is questioned by the police about the dog, his answers do not make sense to what the police officer expected; similarly, Meursault’s lawyer does not understand why he wants to tell the truth. Also, neither understands the thought process of those asking the questions. However, whilst Meursault cannot understand the necessity for certain questions to be asked, Christopher struggles to understand the questions or how he is supposed to respond which is seen in the way these characters describe these difficult conversations. Comparing these two characters is quite interesting; you could argue that, potentially, these similarities give an insight into the way both characters think and, in turn, how the mind of an autistic person works.

You could argue that, as both characters see life in quite a linear fashion, an autistic person’s brain is hard wired to think like an existentialist might. For example, a common part of autism is having fixations or obsessions with things such as a television show or computer game. This could be equated to their dasein as it is the person’s involvement with this that makes them happy. Of course, this concept could never be proved as there is not real way of telling how anyone’s brain works, per say, besides which, there are as many differences as there are similarities. For example, the nihilism of Meursault’s thoughts differ greatly to that of Christopher’s; whilst there is no meaning to life or a necessary natural progression of history for Meursault, you could easily argue that Christopher sees the world in a more teleological light. As he investigates the death of his neighbour’s dog, he indirectly uses the idea of ends and beginnings to history, which seems to be an intrinsic part of his thinking, to work back through time to find out who the killer was.

Teleology:

Teleological thought. (c) Hannah Hayesmore

Teleology is the idea that everyhing has a purpose or end to it; in terms of philosophy this generally refers to the concept that history is moving toawrds an end purpose, whether it be a place of peace and happiness or one of misery.

Karl Marx believed that the world was moving towards an ideal world, a state similar to Nirvana, in which the world is equal due to communism. Through history (and what we learn at each stage), Marx suggests that we will eventually change the current state of political and social form (for more on Marxism, see: http://hazny182.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/hcj-karl-marx-and-communist-manifesto.html). Freud believes that Marx is too optimistic in his belief in teleology but agrees with his idea that alienation causes misery in society.

It could also be suggested that Darwin believes in a form of teleology as evolution is the alteration of design in animals towards a sort of ideal animal. Plato's teachings could also be considered teleological as he suggests that the world is aiming for (and moving towards) the ideal forms.

Freud and the mind:

The mind, according to Freud. (c) Hannah Hayesmore

According to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the reality of human nature is pain due to the devision between the three different parts of ourselves. These three parts are:

1) The Id is part of us from birth and is derrived from the animal side of us. It is our instinct to gain pleasure and avoid pain, responsible for aggressive and sexual nature. The Id is our dominant personality.

2) The Self (or Ego) is the voice of reason that we develope personally. We think this is dominant but is actually tthe weakest part of us. It keeps us grounded in reality and voices moderation and common sense.

3) The Super-ego is our internalised rules given to us by our parents and society. It develops after birth through socialisation. It punishes us with guilt when we do not meet its often unrealistic demands.

Each of these parts of our conciousness contradict one another, which leads to misery.

HCJ3 Economics Seminar Paper

HCJ3 Week 6 - Seminar Paper - Economics

Economics

Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) published “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776; it asked and discussed why some countries are richer than others. His ideas can be summarised by saying that richer countries have 3 characteristics:

1.       Liberty – people are free to go and do as they please (within the law) and can calculate the risks and benefits of transactions they make.

2.       Free trade – people are not forced to produce certain things by the government but are free to produce what they wish.

3.       The ‘hidden hand of the market’ – people pursue their own self-interest to maximise utility (see Utilitarianism). This is beneficial through the law of unintended consequences (where our actions have impacts that we had not intended or considered).

However, Smith’s theory was widely criticised as it lead to the alienation of people through labour division. He also suggested that unemployment was only ever temporary; this became very unpopular during the depression in the 1920s and 30s.

David Ricardo (1772 – 1823) accepts most of Adam Smiths’ works. However, he differs to Smith in his idea of value. Smith suggests that there are two types of value: use and exchange. Whilst something may be useful, it is not necessarily got a high exchange value as it may be quite plentiful. Ricardo suggests that this is wrong; things like water (high use, low exchange) have a low price as very little labour is needed to produce it. He says that natural objects have no real value until humans interact with it and force value upon it; this is called labour power. He also says that, whilst supply and demand will have a factor on the price in the short term, the overall price for something tracks the amount of labour that goes into it.

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) believe that population needed limiting as eventually it outstretched the supply of food, housing and jobs.

In his theory:

Population increase > ‘bad times’ > economic expansion > ‘good times’ > population increase > ‘bad times’ > etc.

This cycle drives the economy and other developments (such as in technology) forward. For this reason, Malthus was against the poor laws and for the Corn Laws as these interferences would prevent the cycle continuing properly.

However, history did not continue in the way he had predicted. His ideas failed to take into consideration that each extra person was an extra labourer to produce food, housing, and so on. Neither had he thought that the productivity could increase so dramatically with the use of new technology.

Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) theorised that Capitalism is unsustainable due to the ‘iron law of wages’; due to the need to create profits, the wages of labourers are insufficient to purchase the items they create. He says that capitalism exploits the working class through the surplus theory. The theory suggests that if a labourer earns the wages he needs to sustain himself each week by working 20 hours but is contracted to work 60, the other 40 are surplus labour and he money for working them is surplus value, which is how profit is created. The money the worker would earn in this time, essentially, goes to the employer. Instead of earning £15/hour for 20 hours work, labourers earn £5/hour for 60 hours work and the extra money becomes profit. The flaw in this, of course, is that Marx assumes that, no matter how much profit a company is making, it will only pay its workers enough to live off of. However, this is not the case of employers in developed countries which should have been the most affected and led the revolution. He also hadn’t considered the ‘credit’ system, where you can borrow money and repay it over time from banks.

In classical economics (like Adam Smith’s), money is said to have no effect on people’s actions and works merely as a scoring system. However, modern economic views suggest there is a “money effect” where the use of currency changes people’s behaviour.

John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946) says that saving money reduces the money in the economy, so your income also goes down. In a simplified version of this:

There are two people in the world, person A makes £100 a week by selling widgets to person B at £1 a widget and person B makes £100 a week by selling thingies to person A at £1 a thingy. The total income in this economy is £200, which corresponds to 100 widgets and 100 thingies.

If person B decides to save £50 out of his £100 and keep it in cash. As a result, person A’s income falls to £50 and the total income in the economy is now £150 - with the economy producing 50 thingies fewer than before. In the following week, person A only has £50 to spend which means that person B's income also falls to £50 and they end up buying fewer widgets.

Critics of this point out that this system would allow legislators to interfere with the ‘private sector’ & potentially affect the free market. He also doesn’t consider the complexities of modern banking, where savings are invested to try to create more money and help the economy.

Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) was influenced by Hobbes’s negative outlook on human nature; his utilitarian outlook in “An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation” (1789) says the mankind is governed by pain and pleasure. He suggests that legislation needs to be able the gauge the value of pleasure and pain; it is the business of the government to promote the happiness of society by rewarding & punishing accordingly. As punishment is such an evil, in his opinion, it should only be used it if promises to exclude a greater evil. It should also work as a deterrent and should not be harsher than is necessary to deter the offender, the public or both from acting in such a manor in future.

He was less concerned with the morality of each individual and more interested in offering guidance to leaders and legislators on managing communities. He suggests that:

A: 

Is better than

B:

As, overall, you score more ‘happiness points’. Of course, this is dependent on if you focus on “most people” or “most happy”, therefore legislation needs to be supplemented by some sort of limit on the amount of inequality & degree of misery for the worst off.

John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) was a student of Bentham as a child. As such, many of his ideas are very similar to Bentham’s. However, he tries to improve them by ranking happiness rather than assuming all pleasures are of an equal value. He also emphasises the importance of setting limits to the constraints systems could put on individuals and their independence, though does not offer many ideas as to how to fix restrictive legislation.

In his book “Principles of Political Economy” (1848) he states that everyone should be taxed equally as progressive taxation penalises the hard working and those who save more of their money. He also says that we should have an almost entirely free market with the price being dependent on supply and demand rather than any government regulation. He made exceptions, however, on things like alcohol on utilitarian grounds. Later, his views began to bend more towards socialism: he suggested abolishing the wage system for a co-operative one.

Mill promoted economic democracy; in a capitalist economy, workers should be able to elect their managers. He also thought that population control was essential in the working class to improve their conditions and ease the competition for jobs as more competition means lower wages.

Currency and Inflation

Currency is a “unit of purchasing power” or a medium for exchange. It is, essentially, an I.O.U. for more stuff. Originally, it was backed by a “gold standard” where each sum of money was worth a certain amount of gold and could be exchanged in a bank; this is no longer the case.

Inflation is when currency becomes less valuable over time due to 2 factors:

·         People’s perception of money

·         Supply and demand (which has the bigger impact)

Printing more money increases inflation: doubling the number of notes in circulation halves their worth. This is bad for people on a fixed income, such as pensioners. For people who earn a wage, however, this has less of an impact as their wages increase at the same rate.

HCJ catch up

Well, I had intended over the past 4 weeks to do one HCJ post a week to catch up on the ones that I have so far failed to blog about, but that clearly didn’t work, so I’m smushing (technical term) it all into this one. Enjoy.

German Idealism

German idealism derives from an antithesis and dislike of British Empiricism and was influenced by the Romantic Movement.  It is based on the idea that metaphysics as a possible/worthwhile activity.

Kant, “the anti-Hume” according to my notes, tried to prove that all knowledge comes from experience but not through generalising observations through pure logic. He says that our knowledge is also based on ideas that are, in a way, instinctive and not logical.

	A Priori	A Posteriori
Analytic	Triangles have three sides Bicycles have 2 wheels	???
Synthetic	7+5=12	Dogs bark Fire burns

Hegel believed that the only thing that does not change is that things change. He came up with the idea that all things have a “geist” or ghost form so that though things change/decay, it is still that thing. For example, though you grow older and change, your still you therefore you must have a geist.

Schopenhauer suggested that suffering is essential to life and is caused by will which makes people pursue things that leave them feeling unfulfilled and unhappy. He thinks that a good man goes against will and nature.

Scepticism

The 4 Great sceptics:

1.       Marx – class ideology, economics
2.       Nietzsche – morality, culture
3.       Weber – power, legitimacy
4.       Freud – sexuality, irrationality

                            all believe there is no absolute or definite truth and that all experience is seen from a certain perspective. They all also think that the clouding of the enlightenment lead to cultural pessimism.

Weber & Bureaucracy

As there was no revolution as Marx had desired/predicted, there was a rise in the German state and social democracy (i.e. very bureaucratic, efficient and rigid in structure) which was then copied in England, France, America, etc. This type of state lead to the creation of the middle class and more jobs. However, it also leads to greater separation between employer and employee.

Bureaucratic plans are rationalised to the public who obey due to their authority (domination and legitimacy)

1.       Traditional (family, ritual, etc. – honour & dignity)
2.       Charisma (‘magical’ powers, religion, personality, costume & ceremony)
3.       Legal-rational/bureaucratic (qualification, routine, professionalism)

4 fundamental types of social action:
1.       Instrumental-rational action – rational/useful
2.       Value-rational action – good practice
3.       Effectual-emotional  affirmation/disaffirmation – emotional
4.       Traditional orientation – society

Nietzsche

Nietzsche separates reality from what is perceived using Greek Gods Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo, a god of light, dreams, knowledge and reason, represents idealism whilst Dionysus, god of wine, madness and ecstasy, is the chaos in reality however, neither can exist without the other. Greek tragedy relied on the conflict between Apollonian and Dionysian perception to create the struggle and misfortune needed for the genre.

From the reading it is clear that, at the time of writing his book ‘Birth of Tragedy’ at least, “Nietzsche believed all people suffer, but that the Greeks (and therefore the Germans, who he considered to be the most superior race since the Greeks themselves) suffered the most.” It is interesting to consider that these two ages are amongst the most fruitful and influential in terms of philosophy however, would his opinion of this be different if he were from a different country.

Additional thoughts on Anti-Semitism

In seminar, we discussed in what way others might have thought the Jews would alter their society. To me, I couldn’t see why they were threatened – after research and discussions with a friend of mine, I came to realise that, whilst Judaism differs in some aspects such as diet, there were few differences that could dramatically change their culture as the religion suggests that only those born into the religion need to practice it. Unless you are born to a Jewish mother, you are not truly Jewish therefore there is no sense in others of the time, or even now, being worried about being converted or having their culture altered. After a long chat over facebook with my friend, we concluded that the only real and justified (in a warped sense of the word) reason for this prejudice is ignorance, which is true even in today’s society and of many other religions or cultures.

We also discussed an aspect I left out of my paper which is the way in which different people reacted to conquerors at the time. From my understanding of the reading, most civilians were happy to accept their new ruler as long as they were not made inferior (e.g. enslaved) whilst Jewish people were more concerned about protecting their practices rather than their freedom – as long as they were able to follow the rules they were given by God, they did not mind (to an extent) being made to work.  This could have lead to people resenting them as they did not stand together to protect their freedom.

Anti-Semitism and the Dreyfus Affair

Whilst some consider anti-Semitism to be a more recent problem, this form of prejudice actually has a long history which is described by Bernard Lazare in his book “Antisemitism: Its History and Causes”.

Lazare was born “Lazare Marcus Manassé Bernard” in June 1865 but later swapped his first and last names. He was the eldest of four children and part of the bourgeoisie; his family founded one of the first successful French textile mills. His family was Jewish but were not very religious. He was a literary critic and political journalist as well as on of the first to defend Dreyfus during the Dreyfus affair. He died in September 1903, aged 38, leaving authorisation to republish “Anti-semitism: Its History and Causes” with a preface stating "my opinions have changed on many points".

According to the first chapter of “Antisemitism: Its History and Causes”, Jews met hostility where ever they settled and deliberates the possibility that, in fact, they were “the cause of their own ills” considering that they inhabited a diverse range of places and were met with the same prejudices despite each country having its own distinct ideas, laws and values.

Lazare continues to say that, though many consider this to be solely due to religious wars, this was not the case and that it was in fact because Jews were unsociable due to their political and religious exclusivity. This essentially means that people disliked Jewish people because they were not part of their culture and, perhaps were jealous of this. It certainly could also suggest that they were not well understood by others and therefore people disliked them out of ignorance. This perception could be implemented to a variety of other, more modern, religions or groups such as the current trends of Islamophobia, homophobia and even gang culture.

He then discusses how Christianity came to be popular as it used Jewish networks and resources, such as synagogues, whilst trying to separate itself from Judaism, resulting in many Jews being converted. He continues to say “Without the existence of Jewish colonies Christianity would have encountered much greater obstacles; it would have had greater difficulties in establishing itself.” However, tensions began to form between the two religions which resulted in both separating themselves from one another. This is particularly noticeable in Christianity as before, Christianity drew upon many of Judaism’s ancient laws however, under the influence of St. Paul, the Church decided to “rid itself of Jewish particularism, to break the narrow chains of the ancient law, so as to be able to spread the new one.” However, this resulted in resentment and Holy wars which only served to enforce anti-Semitic ideas within Christian society.

In chapter 11, Lazare begins by stating that, at the time, “There are about eight million Jews scattered over the face of the earth, nearly seven-eighths of which inhabit Europe”. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics there were 13,421,000 Jews worldwide in 2009, most of which lived in Israel or America.

He continues by dividing Jewish people into different ethnicities and suggests “that the race is not an ethnologic unity, i.e., that no people is a descendant of common parents, and that no nation has been formed from the aggregation of cells of this kind” which is to say that as they do not seem to have a common ancestor and therefore are only a race in the sense that they share the same values. However, he suggests that they still as a nation as they are still united by their religion and that nations exist as long as there are common beliefs and interests.

Having said that during the Middle Ages, Jews were led, by “internal and external causes, proceeding from economic and psychological laws …to become almost exclusively traders,” Lazare says that nations at the time found it easy (and desirable) to shut off the Jews from the rest of the country, isolating them further. Countries all over Europe came up with the same or very similar legislation that allowed them to keep Jews imprisoned in “Jewries” which stopped both sides understanding each other’s cultures. This was also seen in the time between the Reformation and the French Revolution, where it is described that Jews were “cooped up in the ghettoes … they were retired from human society, and, for the most part, lived in a state of lamentable and heartrending abjection.” He suggests that this separation strengthened their beliefs and practices, though it did create deterioration in the Hebrew language. He also implies that this dedication to their religion kept them trapped in their secular ‘prisons’ as the reason that nations excluded them was fear that the Jews would alter their culture.

With this historical background in mind, The Dreyfus Affair almost seems inevitable; following France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, the Jewish community became a scape goat for the country’s loss.

When a secret French document was found in a bin in the German Embassy, after growing tension between France and Germany, the French government needed someone to blame. Hastily, they accused Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew from one of the French provinces that had been taken over by Germany. This split the country into Dreyfusards, who maintained his innocence (largely Socialists, Jews and Republicans), and Anti-Dreyfusards who believed him to be guilty (the Army, the Catholic Church and monarchists).

Despite a lack of evidence, Dreyfus was court martialled and found guilty of treason. He was exiled to Devil’s Island in 1894. Another officer looked into the story and found the army’s conclusion to be wrong. When he reported this to his superior, his theory was dismissed. The real culprit was the put on trial and acquitted to preserve the military’s integrity.

Emile Zola, a famous French writer and journalist, wrote an article titled “J’Accuse” (which roughly translates to “I accuse”) which named those he thought were involved in the conspiracy. For this, he was convicted of Libel and sentenced to prison but instead fled to London. Following this there were riots and Jews in France lost their citizenship.

The military then see the flaws in the case. One soldier tried to forge evidence to support their original case and is caught but committed suicide before it is brought to trial. They then tried Dreyfus again but still found him guilty.

Eventually, Dreyfus was pardoned and released under “extenuating circumstances.”

HCJ – Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”

– Karl Marx

Born in 1818 in Germany to Jewish parents, Karl Marx studied law but went on to study philosophy then revolution instead. In 1844 he met Fredrich Engles in Paris and together they wrote the communist manifesto in 1848. Marx was also a journalist and editor of a radical newspaper in Europe. He later fled to London until his death in 1883.

Marx believed that you could learn anything about a society by analysing the way its economic forces shaped social, religious, legal and political processes. He was a technological determinist and took a teleological approach to history (i.e. that everything is moving towards and end point).

Marxism fuses Hegelian philosophy, British empiricism and French revolutionary politics and tried to use scientific method to prove points, showing Darwin’s influence at the time. It centers on the idea of dialectic materialism – where two opposing ideas or things clash:

Thesis + Antithesis => Synthesis

In the case of the lead up to communism, the thesis would be the Bourgeoisie, the antithesis – the proletariats and the synthesis (or resolution) would be socialism.

Karl Marx thought that capitalism was not sustainable (as commodities cost more than wages due to profit margins) and that society was moving towards communism. In his eyes, social and political history was structured as such:

1.       Communal living (such as prehistory when everyone worked together)

2.       Slave society (where one group or individual took over)

3.       Monarchy (where one person was in charge and this power was hereditary)

4.       Capitalism (where everything is driven by profit; where we are today)

5.       Socialism (where everyone works for equal wage and all wealth is divided equally)

6.       Communism (where everything is shared equally via the state – “to each according to his need, from each according to his ability”)

 (I.e. social conflict drives history)

To ‘achieve’ communism though, proletariats would have to ‘over through’ capitalism. However, proletariats do not do this due to alienation, meaning that people are seen as commodities. Whilst those lower in the social/economic order have less to lose by rising up against capitalism, they do not. Many will argue that this is because they aspire to be like or become one of the bourgeoisie. Marxism argues that this is not possible as, although the media depicts some proletariats ‘swapping class’ this is not the case; the media provides part of the ‘infrastructure’ capitalism is built upon and can portray people in ways which support this. For example, whilst Alan Sugar can be seen as part of the bourgeoisie, he is still a proletariat as his wealth and power can be taken from him and he will, therefore, lose this status whereas this is not possible for the bourgeoisie.

Of course, if society developed into socialism, there would not be these divides. However, socialism or communism does not look like concepts that can be achieved (take Russia or China as examples). Perhaps this because we are too used to capitalist concepts or maybe we are all in essence lazy, but the idea that a heart surgeon would be paid or given equal amounts of things as a cleaner becomes just an incentive not to try and achieve highly as there is no reward and therefore, we would all just become cleaners.