Lecture 5- Rise of the Nation-State

Defining nationalism you could say that it is the belief that one ethnic group has right of the state rather than any other, or citizenship over another. This belief can be dangerous at times noting how over the top people take this belief to be. Goebbels took this so far as to put up innocent lives who were unfit to fight in the last effort to win the war. The more the mass has been manipulated the more they will complete the commandments of nationalism. Totalitarionism is a key player sometimes in Nationalism, with examples of Nazi Germany where Hitler controlled the masses deciding to take nationalism to the extreme. Germany today could be so into the idea of nationalism because there countries borders have been forever changing.

Some countries for example the US believe in nationalism making the flag sacred, however they forget to realise that they in fact are made up of immigrants themselves. Great Britain have a good balance with nationalism because it is made up of four countries. These four countries have many different nationalities in them which means that nationalism is hard to believe in when there are so much ethnic groups that have rights in these countries. Muslims have no such thing as nationalism as they are divided from city to city with theological ideals. Whereas China is based on political allegiances being a very communist country. As you can see each state has its own ideas of nationalism and how there people have alliances with there state.

In the middle ages it was a different story it didn't fall with the modern belief of being completely loyal to your state. The politics of this time were different states were mostly controlled by religions, in Britain it was the Church. The church would often have to negotiate with land owners in politics which meant little wars were caused. Then we found 'civil society' in which we were protected from wars with education and health care given to us when we paid taxes which meant we were free to make our own choices with no influence from the state. Of course before this we were ruled by the King so the peoples loyalties lay with him, however when this collapses it makes way for a new era of loyalty to what the state is now. Nationalism at its worst can be unquestionably bad fighting for land and state because ethnic groups have the right.

Philosophers through time have wrote about nationalism of the state and most have come up with very different ideas about what nationalism is and what the state is.
Hobbes for instance believes that if people were left to their own devises they would become barbarians so they need the state to keep them in check. The idea of the 'artificial man', he believes that the state should be a 'war machine' where they fight people who rebel against the state and states who try to take over it. He believes that whatever the state decides should be law for the greater good no matter what this may be.
Rousseau however wrote the social contract in this he establishes that people already know what is right and what is wrong. They have the moral codes set in them from birth its whether they choose to listen to it. He believed the state should be where reigional differences aren't there having the state as a single voice. His opinions weren't religiously based but his argyment for this type of state means who would count? and who should be the single voice?
Hegel however believed solely in religion playing a big factor in the state saying that 'the state is God on earth'. He believed that the state was there to do Gods work, although stating that the state or nation weren't natural. He believed in the state having absolute power over the poeple because they were doing the job God wants them to do.
Hume is a varied philosopher who said 'authority is based on nothing but opinion' which is very hard to decipher whether he thought anything at all about the state in general.

John Carey 'Intellectuals and the Masses'- Seminar

When I read Intellctuals and the Masses for the first time I couldn't help but notice that Carey seemed to abuse the masses as being illiterate idiots. He seemed to think that intellectuals should have a class of there own. The masses respond to forced kindness according to Carey, they are unknowable and unforgetable. Also with the demeening words to the masses he also includes woman saying that the intellectuals don't find them worthy. You see that Carey is quit frankly belittling the masses as nothing, well this is the first impression you get anyway.

When you begin to read on you discover that he somehow manages to also abuse the intellectuals, saying they are selfish and stuck in the past. They are seen as damaging to relations, I think Carey is saying that intellectuals and the masses aren't any better than the previous.

I think that Carey tries to show the readers both sides of the argument, he sits on the fence wanting to show both viewpoints. The reader may at first jump to the conclusion that he is on the side of the intellectuals but once read further I don't think this to be the case, I think he wants to give the readers something to think about to come up with their own idea. He says the prejudice between the masses and the intellectuals could resort to mass homicide, I think what he is doing is trying to reach out and put this into a new perspective. To resolve the issues both groups have with one another. He believes very much individualism which connects with my idea that he was sitting on the fence. If he believes in indiviual thinking then he can't take a particular side. I think the book is written well in the way that it isn't to hard for a normal person to read so you wouldn't have to be particularly intellectual to be able to understand it.

Lecture-Hannah Ardent, Totalitarionism

In lecture we were told about WWII, the communist movement that took place at this time and Hannah Ardent.

The communist movement wouldn't work without slave labour so to do this they must fighten the people. They set up death camps around the villages and sent people in as though it was normal, to be killed. They either burnt them in a room or gassed them whichever was more convenient for them. There was a secret speech by Khrusev's who discussed Stalinism, Marxism and western intellectuals. He said that Stalinism wasn't communist enough for the party, he believed that he needed to take control of the people more, to make sure that they don't get their own ideas or thoughts.

Hannah Ardent was a philosopher during the war and after she wrote also whilst the war was on saying it was too horrible to write about. She believed in freedom of speech that everyone should think for themselves. She believed that everyone had their own mind and shouldn't just fall into place and let other people tell them what to do. 'Think don't just obey' were her famous words. She believed that everyone was responsible for the war and what took place because people didn't think about what they were doing. Eichman a train driver who took the prisoners to the camps, she believed he was guilty or murder because he just obeyed his orders and didn't think about where he was taking them. She believed this of everyone even from the cooks who fed the officers. She wanted people to see how wrong it was just to let somebody else run our life.

Phenomonolgy- 'Why is there something and not nothing' this expression means that before people think about a set of ideas they must think the ideas are and what makes them. This phrase could interpret what kind of philosopher Hannah was, she believed in fully thinking through your ideas, seeing what they are what they mean before doing something.

James Joyces Ulysses

I looked at this book and found it oddly written, its written through the mind of Leonard and we see his imagination and thoughts, its modernity was suprising to see. The book took alot of Freuds ideas with the mind structure of Id, Ego and Superego. You can see through the book that Joyce believes the mind to be complex but working with these structures in mind he finds it to help with his character. I also think the way in which he portrays the different relationships in the book is very similar to Freuds theory, the son resenting his father is a key example of this. He talks of different religions a lot in the book not really believing in any, he seems not to like religion very much with the way he attacks it. To Leonard the Catholic Church is old fashioned so he doesn't believe it so he belittles it. You can see that he cares about what people think very much in the book and is careful about how he acts in public, the Ego is being used.

I think the main message of Ulysses is the human mind and how it works. I believe that the human mind is a complex thing and Leonard is just a usual man. The book seems so hard to read because you are reading it as though you were in the mind of someone else, so their thoughts baffle you because each person thinks in a different way. Our imaginations are also something that happen everyday so from reading this, when it goes from abstract to reality is hard, but the sheer modernity of this book is genius. Not everyone will get the book or particularly like it but it is something to be admired, it broke the line into being creative with your writing allowing the reader to take on a new role. I believe the book works really well as a text doing its job to keep the audience guessing.

Lecture 3- Freud

Freud was a pyschologist and had many theories about the mind and how it worked. He believed that people's behavior, emotions and thoughts were due to three things the Id, Ego and the Superego. The Id he thought was all to do with the pleasure principle and how to avoid pain. The Ego controls the reality principle, it is aware of how to act in society and knowing that what we do has consequences, the Ego is the balnce between the superego and Id. The Superego holds our social balnce and our morals often in direct response to the right and wrong we were taught by our parents. These three used together according to Freud build our personality. He believed that the battle between the Id, Ego and Superego could cause repression resulting in using defence mechanisms. They include Denial, Displacment of emotions, Intellectualization- taking an objective viewpoint, Projection of uncomfortable feelings passed to others, Rationalization creating credible justifications, Reaction formation- overacting in the opposite way to fear, Regression- acting like a child, Repression of pushing uncomfortable thoughts into the subconscious and Sublimation-redirecting wrong urges into socially acceptable actions. This part of Freuds pyschology makes sense in a way. However the psychosexual stage of his theories is rather strange. The stages of this theory are the Oral stage at 0-2 years old where the child bites, sucks and swallows which can lead to habits using there mouth such as smoking, biting nails etc. The next stage is the Anal stage at 2-4 years where the child is being toilet trained this stage can lead to the child either being incerdiblly clean as adults or generally messy people. The phallic stage at 4-6 is where the child becomes aware of genitals, Freud believes that boys had a desire for their mothers and feared their fathers would castrate them, whereas girls envied boys for having a penis so were attracted to their fathers and hated their mothers. The latency stage at 6-puberty was when the sexual desires were sublimated into sports and hobbies and children of different sexes became friends. Then there is the last stage which is the genital stage from puberty is when people start to be sexually aware of the opposite sex but social rules may hinder what they act upon. Freuds theories were completely based upon the unconscious mind so they can't actually be scientifically tested. His theories are strange especially the psychosexual stage so I find it hard to actually take his theories seriously.

Modernism

In lecture we were told about Modernism, it came after enlightenment and romanticism which were complete opposites to modernism. We focused mainly on Nietzsche he did not like christianity at all. His famous for the quote 'God is Dead', he blames religion for the de-evolution of humans. He thinks that people could have become some kind of 'super intelligient beings' if it wasn't for christianity. He thought that people shouldn't rely on a book for moral guidance, he believes very much in individualism and that people should think for themselves about their own moral beliefs. Nietzsche liked the arts and teamed up with Wagner to make plays in this period. Wagner made plays about rape, incest, cannibalism etc, these plays were dark. They fell out after Wagner did a play about christianity. Nietzsche resented women for the reason that they gave life, he was a believer in suicide. Nietzsche seemed to be a very bitter and somewhat twisted man. This was also when slavery was abolished which meant the arts were influenced by afro-Americans. It started with jazz music then developing into blues and then pop music. This was also when the Holocaust happened, a mass murder of the entire population of Europe, although stopped. Modernism from what I've learnt was a dark and sinister time to live. It was all about death or crime, i think people were trying to explore new ways of living but in a sinister way.

Seminar 1- Tabloid Nation

In seminar we discussed Alfred Harmsworth (Lord Northcliff) and Tabloid Nation. Harmsworth set up the Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail. He took Hearst's idea of selling the front page of the newspaper to the audience with pictures and bigger headlines etc. He also brought yellow journalism to the UK. He also wanted the Daily Mirror to be for women, so he hired women journalists to write for the newspapers which had never been done before. However this didnt work well so he fired all the women journalists.
We considered the comparisons between Hearst and Harmsworth, a good point that was made was that Harmsworth wasn't afraid to try new things and fail whereas Hearst was. Hearst didn't want to fail at anything and was what seems to be very arrogant when it came to his newspapers. Harmsworth would try new things like with his women columns and new that even if it didn't work out he could try again. Hearst was also considerably more ruthless than Harmsworth, he would do anything to gain a story. Harmsworth was more of a businessman than Hearst, he didnt just concentrate on the newspaper he also used his newspaper to gain political power.
The tabloid nation has an interesting quote that we noticed, that advertisers must be pleased. If advertisers aren't pleased with the content of the newspaper then they won't pay to advertise in that newspaper so it would lose money. This stops the journalists writing with complete freedom. Also could mean there would be some corruption in what is written if the advertisements want an opinion to be made on certain issues.

Lecture 1- William Randolph Hearst

In our first lecture we dicussed how America transformed when a lot of immigrants from Europe fleed to America, there was a big drive West to the California Gold fields, which was the making of the Gold Rush. California was the beating heart of America, they believed that the further West you travelled the more American you were.
George Hearst was one of the people who travelled west in the promise of Gold. California at this time was a blank canvas so anybody could gain power at this time. It is alleged that he won the San Fransisco Examiner in a poker game. Whether this is the case Hearst worked hard at making the newspaper a success. As the newspapers in those days were either political or commercial, Hearst chose to make his newspaper political so it could help him with his campaign to gain power. This was a smart move for him to do to help his campaign.
W R Hearst took over the Examiner in 1887 transforming newspapers. Hearst changed the style of the old Examiner, before the front cover was covered with text but Hearst reduced the stories, made the headlines bigger and added illustrations. He knew what the audience wanted and what they would be more attracted to. Part of his new style he wanted to include a cartoon, so he stole Pulitzer's Yellow Kid cartoon. For a time they were competing over the Yellow Kid cartoon. The cartoon in Hearst's newspaper spoke in the lower class slang and gave the higher class a hard time which related to the lower class making it more appealing to the customers. He knew that crime and sex pays so wrote a lot of stories on this. He also started investigative journalism which paid of very well in gaining stories. He sent his employees to Cuba to help with the war to try and gain support from the Americans, when he sent his men though they were coming back with no stories so he is famously quoted saying he will sort out a war for them. After this a US ship exploded so Hearst blamed the Spanish thus creating a war. He realised that war sells better than sex or crime so he exploited this as much as possible. Hearst was a ruthless and manipulative man but he was very good at what he did. He knew people liked drama so played on this maybe even exagerating stories. He created the models in which tabloid journalism stands now.