Modernism = America

The statement that modernism is Americanismopened the lecture. It is commonly thought that Europe is th eold world.
1849 was a significant year in European historty, Karl Marx had thought this was when the proletiarian revolt would occur finally and the poorer would rise up against the borgouisese. Then in 1849 the Gold rush in California happened. There was amss immigration from Europe to the North Americas. people from Irland, Austria, Hungry and places which were not doing os well economically and suppressed fled in order to start a wealthier life. The Europeans were also activally encouraged ot go as there was a supposed shortage of white people.
New York become something of a mongral city. It was the centre where all the fleeing people headed to. it was considered a city of cosomopolitan and forwards thinking. Due to the sudden influx of forgign people the language become muddled. A New York dialect was created, it is often said that English is a very hard language to use. It is nonsensical and many different forms of grammer.
When William Randolf Hurst was in San Fransico in 1849 there were 150 different languages in use.
The newspapers would fill their pages with stories of how much gold had been found and how easy it was to get to. The first tabloid newspaper was the San Fransico Examiner owned by Hurst. The Examiner was the paper of the gold rush. Tabloids still have much of the same tatctics as before. Sensationalist stories and product placement still happen frequently.
The 1850's Americas was the settlement of the west. Hurst became wealthy by using product placements such as a story about the ease of diggin gup the gold next to an advert for shovels which he also would sell.
Newspapers were used to create the identity of a town. the local press enjoyed creating great hype about even small stories.
Another journalst around at the same time as Hurst was Pulitzer whos paper, when in competition with Hurst's now 2 papers created yellow journalism. Pulitzer was an investigative journalist who examined areas such as the oil industry, the rail network and farming. He advocated paper money and he was not a socialst as Marx was.
Hurst was involved in the so-called newspaper wars. When he moved to New York he entered a newspaper'war' with Pulitzer. Hurst made a copy of Pulitzer's paper and called it the New York Sun. He used simplified headlines, he told his journalists that if they were to make a story longer than 250 words they woul dbe sacked. The civil war that had broken out was the first major event to be photographed and this was when poster style front pages were starting to be used. Cartoons were also starting to become a part of the newspapers regularly. Pulitzer had the most popular cartoon strip but Hurts then brought 'Yellow kid' and over took again as having the most sucsessful paper.
Hurts was an expert on distribution which also helped his circulation numbers greatly. It was not always a ethical way in which he sold papers though. There were rumours of him having thugs to beat up people who did not buy his paper. He was an imperilist, he belived that America should have lots of power. He thought that Cuba, Costa Rico etc. should all become part of the usa.
He drivied the a practical way of approaching tabloid jounalism and reporting: 1- think of a story, 2- stand it up (gain evidence).

The Communist Manifesto

Communism has been given the definition of classless political system the political theory or system in which all property and wealth is owned in a classless society by all its members.
the text opens with the statement that the spectre of communism is haunting all of Europe.it says how communism is already recognised by all European powers to be a power in itself.
The first paragraph exemplifies many historical power struggles. examples of freeman and slave, lord and surf and oppresser and oppressed are given. the thought that the modern bourgeois society has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with the class system. this was true in 1848; i believe that still we have many unfair class systems and stereotypes which shape our society into the divisions it is at the moment.

By bourgeoisie it is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour. Proletariat is the class of modern wage labourers, who having no means of production of their own, are forced to sell their labour in order to live.

it is said in the text that the modern bourgeoisie is itself a product of a long course of development, a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange. the more efficient the modes of production become the greater amount of product is available to be sold to increase their capital. there is a constant reliance on revolution of products and industry. it is submitted that there is need for international links and connections everywhere for a successful business. i believe this still to be true. the most prolific city people and companies are internationally recognised for their constant push forwards in development.

Marx believed that eventually the lower classes will gain enough power to override the higher and seemingly more powerful. he explains that because the rich constantly exploit the poor they will eventually revolt with riots and unions with great strength.

The main points of the communist form are outlined. it specifies that they have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. The communists are distingusihed from the other working class parties by this only: 1, in the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of nationality. 2, in the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie had to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

they consider relationships and compare the social reasoning of of home schooling to social schooling, the relationship between husband and wife is looked at in a negative manner. it is said that men of the bourgeoisie see their wives as mealy an instrument of production. this is a cold view which i do sometimes think may be the case with today's business men. they must be cold hearted in order to carry out a successful deal sometimes yet they will generally do it for the good interest if his family.

i think the 10 point program of Communism proposed in the text shows a decent way of looking at the world but i do not think that a truly communist way of ruling a society will be for the best. if all wealth is shared and no one person can become better than the rest then the hunger to do better and better yourself will deteriorate vastly. In addition if there was no one person with a greater power then it may be thought that all would live in peace but if one was to murder for example it would be easy for another to then murder as they see it as they have the same power to do the same action.

therefore i believe that the current system of power and wealth being your own is the best way to run an ever growing and increasing population.

Cobbett- Ruaral rides

The seminar on Cobbett was one of the more simple topics i felt! Cobbett was a pamphleteer, farmer and journalist. His series, Rural Rides, was a publication of his writing about his travels around the countryside. He would write about his experiences of the country and what he found. I did feel however that these could be biased views and he may not see the real issue.
the issues i feels he may have been neglecting slightly are those of the Corn tax effecting the rural population and the Poor law which was working during the time he was writing. The corn law was a way that the government were trying to impose a higher tax on importation of food into Britain. It forced more production of crop in England which was in turn making the food more expensive. this was forcing more into poverty.
The farmers were at this time also being forced more into the cities and out of the countryside. This was due to the private land owners buying up the land that had previously been common land. it was known as enclosure rights, taking away the rights of the common land. The following trouble was then that of the farmers needing somewhere to work. the only place in the city to work was the factories. the conditions in the inner city factories were dismal. Yet it was preferable to the work houses created to house the poor who were not working. Utilitarianism was believed in greatly around this time. Therefore the work houses were made so terribly dire that the workers would rather go to work in the factories than stay in these work houses. this is a utilitarian idea as it was making the people seek pleasure away from the dreadful pain of workhouses.
Another measure created to deal with the increasing poor population was the Poor law. this was a measure where the criminals who the government did not want to have to pay to keep imprisoned, were sent to Australasia. It was seen as ultimately beneficial to the entire nation; it got rid of expensive convicts and created a population of areas of land that were not desirable to the more wealthy communities.
We also discussed how the average graduate would end up in their first year after graduation would have about £50 spare cash to live. We were considering why people then carry on attending university, why people don't revolt against the many deductions that are made from them and accept that is what is their situation. There were many reasons that we each discovered were slightly different. I believe it is the promise of better things which encourage people still to attend university. A good point which was brought up is that of the stigma attached to the people who claim benefits. People would rather have a job of any sort than have the attached judgment of lazy. This is still similar to the idea of the work houses, the utilitarian idea of seeking pleasure and moving away from pain. The pleasure will be getting the job and earning, the pain would be having to deal with humiliation of claiming the benefits.
I am not sure if i would call Cobbett a serious journalist. I feel his writing was more descriptive and full of bias and unfounded views rather than serious journalistic opinions.

First lecture after looong holiday...not half bad!

Our first HCJ lecture back from the holiday period begins with liberty and the focus on John Wilkes, Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stewart Mills.
We began with John Wilkes, a man who is famed for his unattractive looks, his lisp and his poem 'Essay on Woman' which has been described as the dirtiest poem in the English language. A quotation from him I find quite stimulating to think about is "it only takes 20 mins. to talk away the ugliness". I believe this is a true statement and that more people should try to embrace the idea that we should try to look past the way somebody will look or act and listen to their views irrespective of how they look.
Wilkes had a colourful life filled with drugs, drink and sexual scandals. He was a member of the Hellfire club who were prominent 'bad' figures during his time. He managed to bribe his way into Parliament, which gave him the experiences he later went on to write about in a derogatory way in his paper The North Briton. It was a paper attacking the official paper, The Briton which was published by the Government. His satirical paper was filled with rumour and insults which attacked the Government. Although, nobody knew who was writing the texts so they were powerless to do anything to stop him. But, this did result in many people being arrested all for the same crime.
Wilkes was also responsible for creating some of the laws put in place which journalist benefit from. He was always a critic of the power which gets attached to the richer people of society. This made him very popular with the poorer as he fought for the down-trodden. The USA also liked the way that he showed them how to agitate the system.
After he was arrested Wilkes tried suing the Government, establishing the right of privacy. Wilkes was then expelled from the House of Commons as it was found he could not be tried whilst still a member of Parliament. During the time of his expulsion his poem Essay on Woman was read aloud in the House of Commons by the Earl of Sandwich. It caused great troubles in due to its content.
Wilkes re won his seat whilst he was still in prison, yet once again he was not allowed to join: the house voted that he was unable to be elected because he was still imprisoned. He was eventually re-elected as a councilor of London then went on to become mayor. While in this role he was reporting on Parliament once more and was printed.

Next we looked at Mary Wollstonecraft. She also had a difficult early life, being forced to become a governess in Ireland. She became obsessed with education and leaning and her first book was entitled Thoughts on the education of Daughters. the focus of the book was her argument that girls should be educated in more areas than simply sewing. She enjoyed Locke's idea that the mind is shaped by education. That we are all born with a blank slate and we gain our ideas and morals through learning. She believed that if we are all educated properly then it will make for rational, responsible citizens.
When she returned from Ireland she set up a school in London. She was fascinated with Rousseau and played with ideas of anti-elitism (attack on modern manners.).
She wrote another book , Vindication of rights of men, which was a response to Edmund Burke. Hers was a publication with a main theme of a diagnosis of current state of female manners and trying to explain how a false sense of self has come around.
This book had a good response yet Mary was highly unpopular until he end of the 19Th century.

John Stewart Mill was an important political figure. He also had a troubled past with being jailed at 17, also being threatened with death for the prosecution of Eyre. At 16 he was considered the most educated person in Europe. Yet at 20 he then had a nervous breakdown. It is said that Wordsworth's poetry saved him from complete ruin.
He believed in freedom of speech and the fact that people should not be silenced. He dismissed social contract, yet he did admit that there are certain rules society should follow. These would be called self-regarding actions- don not harm people.
He believed in utilitarianism- maximising happiness, minimising pain. He thought all actions were about consequences. It avoids problems of dealing with religion or morals: ideas of right or wrong are not dealt with. Mills' Godfather had an interesting idea of dealing with ethics as science or maths; you can calculate what is right to do. It takes the view that everybody happiness matters, 'greatest good for the greatest number'.
3 ways of looking at consequences were felt: acts-evaluate right or wrong action by determining the consequences of the action. Moral rule, and Disposition-evaluate the actions in terms of traits they exemplify.

Semiar paper for Swift: A modest propsal

Swifts Modest proposal was intended to be a mock taking of Britian. Swift was an Irish national who was against the idea for Ireland to become part of the English empire even though it was a very poor nation with many problem both socialally and political. Although England had effectivally ruled Ireland for 500 years with the Stuarts establishing a Protastant governing aristocracy whilst the the country's relatively poor population were Catholic.

Swift tries to make a large political stement with the text which is written in pure satire. Although Swift had made realtions with English politics he became sypatheteic with Irelands needs. He wrote many panphets and leaflets about the dibilitating effect Englands riches were having on the country.

This on first reading felt a very dark text, covering some normally quite taboo topics such as cannibalism and selling children. It is not until you delve into the history of Ireland and have some knowledge of Swifts ways of writing that they become less severe.

At the time of writing Ireland was much less better off than England. Swift proposed a way of feeding the poorer people of the country. The text begins with describing the poverty in which many of the lower classes live. In this description he is telling of the distress that the children live in; starvation and homelessness. He firstly proposes selling them into slavery but reconsiders when knowing that a child under 12 years is useless. from this he then develops his idea to breed children for food. He tries to support this by saying that it will prevent years of misery for the children and provide for both sides of the rich /poor divide. A landlord may be able to charge less by the poor tenants offering children in place of payment.

He claims that he can make these statements as he is in an impartial party : his child is 9 years so past eating age and before the age to be sold into slavery and his wife is past child-bearing age. He talks about the poor and children in a way that appears materialistic and unsympathetic. This is all part of the satire. He writes in a way that would be understood only by the educated parties in Ireland at the time. Although it was written by an Irishman and released to the Irish, it was meant to have the effect of humour and displaying to the governing bodies of England and Ireland how bad life is in the country at the time.

I believe the last statement prevents him from having a valid view and does not mean he will have an unbiased feeling about the issue. The way that he speaks of many issues, I believe makes him appear very materialistic. He seems to see above women and children and only see them to have a role in a business sense.

I do not think that this was particularly successful at the time of writing as only the educated had the text available to them. Also, the style of writing would be hard for many to understand.

My biggest issue with the text is the extent to which Swift takes hos argument supporting cannibalism. For such an in depth review i think that some considerable time must have been spent on the topic. In addition the fact that Swift had the social mobility and ability to move to England and a more prosperous life means that he would be less effected by the issues that he is trying to resolve.

Due to the nature of the article I think that some interesting debates could be started surrounding it. To bring it to a modern day context i think the way that the Chinese only allow for one child per couple is a similar situation. The have been examples of a family murdering the child if it is a girl because males are seen as more valuable to a family name. Is what Swift was describing something not too different? By restricting the number of children a family is allowed can be seen as doing good for the nation; less people crowding already very well populated areas and allowing for the existing community to gain more potential wealth. But, if this was proposed, it may still create the same dismay at such a vile topic as eating children, yet with the way the economy is going with the social divide becoming wider and more obvious would it so far something similar which could work to ease it?

Although satire may be a way to write for a more educated audience, it is not accessible for a wide range of potential readers. Satire may allow for some more taboo topics to become available for discussion yet i feel it is a type of journalism which can not be seen as unbiased in many ways. For the humour to work it must have a view point which is most probably one of controversy.

After the lecture!!

During the lecture I picked up on some parts that I had missed or taken a different view maybe.

The most interesting part I feel that I hadn't concentrated on was the idea about self-esteem. It is something that the more I think about, the more it makes sense! Rousseau had said that self- esteem is the cause of inequality in men. The concept in its raw state can not be responsible as it is simply a feeling or state of mind, yet it can differentiate a group of people from another very obviously. If a group has low self-esteem they become subservient to the more confident, therefore giving them more power for no reason other than their own self-doubts. In addition if a group have more self belief they will be more willing to take on responsibilities which give them power in any case.
But, where it was said the progress of civilisation makes for miseries, I think it has also made for many advances which bring happiness to many! The formation of organisation such as charities or even things taken for grantadge sometimes, the NHS for example, are very civilised concepts which help and can bring happiness and relief to many.

I find the idea of General Will intriguing. If there is an idea or thought shared by all, it becomes the law. This should mean that as it is agreed wrong or foul practice by the population it should not happen, and if ti should then nobody should be disagreeing in the punishment of it!

The comparisons to Hobbes and Locke I also found useful to look at. Hobbes' thought that passions will equal a mess of a society. he though that a leader must be elected but he did not discus God in the choosing of the leader. The people must elect their own leader. Locke believed the only reason we would need a leader would be to protect people. Problems will happen and the leader will be responsible for making sure that public will be defended. He had an idea that we are rational, our brain is from God and we will discover natural rights and ways of behaving.

Rousseau's ideas that we are born free then society distorted us. although the society which was responsible for this was a necessary evil, and it was in search of a return to passion.

Russell on Romantism and Rouseau..before the lecture

These are some of what I think the main points to take from the chapters of reading for this week, but before the lecture. I thought this may be interesting to make as ti could show how different things can seem significant to different people.

The main points I felt were that from the later 18th century until now, art, literature, philosophy and politics are all influenced by the Romantic movement. Even those people who did not enjoy the way of thinking found themselves taking note of the ideas and being more affected by it than they first wished to be or though they were. Politics, through Rousseau, was connected to the movement from the beginning. In it's essential form, it is a revolt against ethical and aesetic standards.

The Romantic movement is the cultural background of most philosophical thoughts in this era, yet the beginnings of the movement were not philosophical in the slightest. Romanticism can be characterized mainly by its artistic and intellectual trends. The morals of Romanticism have aesthetic motives. The preference for Gothic architecture is an example of this. Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling. Romantics seemed to lean against a Catholic views, yet seemed Protestant in their individualisation outlook.

Romantics did not aim for peace and quiet, but a passionate life. By the time of Rousseau people were tired of safety and wanted excitement. A revolt of solitary instincts against social bonds is the key to philosophy , politics and sentiments in the Romantic movement. Love became conceived as a battle, with each attempting to destroy the other by breaking through protecting walls of ego. This was seen in the writings of Strindberg and D.H. Lawrence who wrote in this time.

The main figure to look at in the movement is Rousseau. He has been described as the father to the Romantic movement. Although, he is now not called a philosopher, he had great influence over literature, taste, philosophy, manners and politics. Since his time those who see themselves as reformers found either following himself or Locke. Sometimes the ideas would co-operate, other times have no connection at all. When writing about himself he liked the idea of being a great sinner and exaggerated this. Evidence shows he was destitute of all ordinary virtues.

He was born in Geneva and educated as an orthodox Calvinist. he had a poor father who worked as a watch maker and a dancing master. his mother died when he was young so was brought up by his aunt. He then left school at 12 years old to become an apprentice at various trades. When 16 he moved from Geneva to Savoy and visited a catholic priest asking to convert to his religion.

Most of his early years were spent as a vagabond and travelling on foot. But, in 1743 he became secretary to French ambassador to Venice who left all of the work to Rousseau but would not pay him. Rousseau preferred simple people, he married a simple woman who he then taught to read and write. He also sold his watch saying ' I no longer need it, I do not need to know the time.'

Cultured people of the 18th century still looked to him for his ideas though. In France he was greatly admired . La sensiblite, meaning proneness to emotion and emotion of sympathy, bu emotion must be direct and violent and quite uninformed by thought. Rousseau was democratic in his theories and tastes. He appealed to the already existing cult of sensibility and gave depth and scope it may not otherwise have.

Rousseau was known for having the tastes of a tramp. he disliked Parisian society. Romantics learnt contempt for trammels of conversation- first in dress and manners, then in art, love etc. Intellect was valued as the most effective weapon against subversive fanatics- manners are a barrier against barbarism.

So, what i am taking form these chapters is the idea that the value we place on the arts, literature and feelings has come from this era. It tried to go against the emphasis placed on the scientific thoughts placed on nature. The fact that we are all so social now is thanks to this this movement and the ideas of Rousseau. The movement in essence is aimed at liberating human personality from fetters of social convention and morality. Man is not a solitary animal.