HCJ Revision

This post should help give a little more information on each question or will explain it in a simpler way.

Question 1 - "Poland invades Germany" (from The Times) - the headline on the outbreak of WW2. Discuss with reference to Hannah Arendt's concept of totalitarianism AND John Carey's thesis in The Intellectuals and the Masses.

- Totalitarianism is ruling a country through terror. If the people are terrified of the dictator it will be easier to rule them. The people, in a totalitarian society will not fight against the dictator or oppose anything they do. If someone is branded a murderer, even if they were not anywhere near the scene of the crime, no one will believe their innocence or fight for them against the dictator. Google defines Totalitarianism as: "a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator, (not restricted by any laws, constitution or opposition.)" Or Wiktionary defines it as: " a system of government where the people have virtually no authority and the state wields absolute control, a dictatorship." This is what Hannah Arendt also means by totalitarianism. Arendt also says that this was the mission of Hitler and the Nazi party; absence of individualism. Nothing is individual, everyone is jsut part of the masses, part of the crowd, part of their group. The Jews are not individuals they are part of the mass of Jews, defined by their religion as the group of masses they are in.

- Teleological is when people use God as the reason behind anything. They do not give a scientific reason but say and believe that it is the will of God. In the totalitarianist regime, they believe that society is teleological and that the reason they have this dictator, (Stalin, Hitler) is because of God. Society votes the dictator in because of the teleoglogical society.

-Pluralism is when there is a tolerance of different races, groups, religions etc. In a totalitarian regime, there is an absence of pluralism and different minorities or not tolerated, the Jews for example. As well as the gays and disabled people under Hitlers dictatorship.

- John Carey means masses as, 'the mob'. Masses is what happens when the mob become literate. Mass media, mass circulation is what makes the mob a political force. Carey says the the intellectuals fear the masses as they are dangerous, a formless weight and will destroy the intellectuals aristocratic influence. They become more and more dangerous when they become literate and want more than what they have all ready got.

- Carey says that Nietzsche does not like idea of society and diplomacy. Some intellectuals want to exterminate the masses as they see this as the only way to stop them from becoming more dangerous.

The masses gave in to fascism. Hitler was elected, by the masses. The masses could read and understand who they were electing in to office. Hitler was also very good at manipulating the masses. This is easily done with the masses as they are jsut a mob that can read.

Question 2 - How does the modern state differ from the classical or medieval state, according the Hannah Arendt. Discuss with reference to philosophical writing about the modern state with particular reference to Hobbes, Rousseau, J.S.Mill, Hegel and Marx.

- In this answer you should talk about all the different writers mentioned as well as nationalism, totatlitarianism and the teleological myth

-Nationalism is a lot like patriotism. They love and want to defend their state and their government/monarchy. When talking about nationalism in terms of this quesiton you can note how the antionalism has changed from the medieval state to the modern state. The medieval state's naitonalism would be for their religion. Protestants would be nationalist of England and their Queen/King as they believed that God had chosen their monarchy and they had a teleological society. Whereas in the modern society the nationalism is to protect their race against other races. They were nationalist of their Anglo-Saxon looks compared with the Jewish ones.

- Hobbes - He believed in having a strong and powerful state. He believed that if we did not have a strong and powerful state, with a nasty, brutal, sharp government the law of the jungle would prevail. He believed that The State of Nature was putting people in a constant conflict, and that we needed a common power, an absolout power. He was humanist (look at people the way they are) and was an Empiricist, (we know everything from sensory detail.)

- Hegel - teleological element - Prussian state is God on Earth. He believes the same as Hobbes.

- Rousseau - Believed that we should have a social contract and tat the state is all of our problem. We should not have a state who is always in power. He also believed that everyone should be free and enter their ideas in the General Free Will. He is a romanticist. We are born free but society changes us and that society is the main problem witht the world. When we gained society we gained self esteem - we saw ourselves in the eyes of others which is detrimental. He is also the opposite to Hobbes. He thinks that property and state control are the downfall of mans peaceful prehistoric life. We used to be noble savages, with no need for a state.

- J.S.Mill - classic liberal like Rousseau.

- Karl Marx - Believes the same as Hobbes and Hegel but does not believe about the God. He believes that the state is an instrument, the state is the ruling class and oppresses the proletariat. Hegelian - God or the self realisation of people.

- All of these old thinkers believe the theory is a contract. The state is a physical imbodiment on the march toward truth and freedom.

- Liberal - State does nothing and useless but have to have it - Rousseau and Mill - a convenient agreement. Mass literacy is the modern homogenised mass. The attempt to eliminate diversity, national literature, mass culture the State dominates civil society.

Question 3 - Attempt an analysis of the impact on Nietzsche and the modernist literary movement on journalism, popular culture and the mass media.

- Nietzsce's style of writing is non-linear, incoherent, body centered and fractured. There are little outbursts. He is subjective, the meaning of the book is in the mind of the reader. There is not one meaning for everyone, people have different meanings to them. The reader is the individual with the individual meaning to them this is 'cool'. There are a series of abstract symbols that thread together to get your own opinion, This is the same as abstract art, the viewer makes their own meaning and opinion on it, they are not told what to think or what it means. If it is 'hot' they are imposing the meaning on to the reader/viewer. This is an alturistic style.

- A morality is when you're told how you are feeling, what you are doing - "God is dead" - No single forve driving from the outside. There is morality but not jsut one single source. War on metaphysics, no ghosts, spirits, God, we are jsut here, we do not know why, we jsut are. -Modernism.

- Phenomenology means that each event is a pointless phenomena. The content is body centered, they are A moral. Not bad, not good - just normal.

- New journalism is made possible and writing facts, no speculating. Stick to the facts, do not moralise, tlel it like it is. Sensational writing, saying what you can see, a sensationalist story. Slogans like, "God is Dead" which are the headlines.

Question 4 - Explain the enduring fascination for many intellectuals and some journalists of the film Citizen Kane.

-Try not to spend too much time on the actual film of Citizen Kane. It was loosely based on William Randulph Hearst's life. You should focus on Hearst and link Citizen Kane in with some of your points and John Carey.

- Hearst rose from nothing and manipulates people for power. He never has enough power, Freud may say that this because he had no power in his childhood and driven by hidden needs.

- Talk about Freud and how the inner you is inside and that you are always wearing a fake mask. Wearing the mask wears you down and creates conflicts on the inside between the Ego, the Superego and the ID.

- John carey with the intellectuals. Hearst was not an intellectual but he rose through the ranks and became an intellectual. He then had the money and the news paper to help organise and inform the mob. This meant that the mob would back him and that he would receive more power from the mob, thus gaining more and more power, something he feels he must achieve from his inner conflicts.

This question should be a case study on Hearst, using Freud to express why Hearst is how he is. Rosebud is always the object he can never quite reach. The analysis of dreams where reosebud is there but it is static, no matter how fast you run at it you will never get it.

Question 5 - Asses the impact of Sigmund Freud on the media from Page 3 of The Sun, to BBC Public Service Broadcasting and from Cosmopolitan Magazine to the Jerry Springer Show.

- How Freud influenced ideas on to television and magazines. Ideas like: getting in touch with your feminie side, childcare, agony aunts, feminism etc.

- Pg3, everyone wants to always have sex. Men were not breastfed in the 40's and 60's so they would always have a stigma about breasts which is why they like looking at them.

- Cosmopolitan - this is to do with feminism and sex. Empowering women. Their slogan, 'Fun, Fearless, Females'.

-Jerry Springer - The ID is taking control, they alsh out and do what they want to do.

I hope that this blog post has been useful in revision for your exam on Thursday.

Sigmund Freud, Enough Said.

Sigmund Freud was a lovely Austrian fellow that is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind. In this blog I hope to make this a little more clear and explain his theories as best as I can.

He was nominated for a Nobel prize three times, one for literature and twice for medicine; however he never actually won one. He was seen as a sexual renegade which meant that society did not like his ideas and theories. His theories on sex made them out to be animals and not the noble creatures they like to think of themselves of.

Freud saw sex as a central motivational factor to our own actions. For example phallic symbols are all around us: fruit, buildings, stationary and glasses all can represent the male genitalia. Freud believes that these are all made by the subconscious to look like the penis.

Penis Envy. This is what women have towards there fathers. Girls believe that they do not have penis because they have been castrated for being naughty. Thus making them love and adore their fathers for having a penis and not loving their mothers as much because they have been naughty and have been castrated.

Oedipal Complex. This is when boys want to have sex with their mother. They want to kill their father and make love to their mother. However they realise that their fathers are a lot stronger and that if they try to kill them and loose they will be castrated and not have a penis anymore.

Freud thought of 'self love' as a race, was a barrier to science in three ways:
1. It has stopped us accepting that the Earth was not the centre of the universe.
2. Darwin's theory of evolution.
3. The conscious brain was not in charge.
This was the key the Freud, the unconscious, this has been his legacy. We were becoming more clever and understanding more things but Freud said that the mind is divided in to three main parts which are conflict. These three main parts were:
1. The ID - the unconscious. This part is active from birth, it is the animal part, the instincts and operates on the pleasure principle. The animal part, that just wants to have fun and loves symbols as it can not talk. It acts like a child and just wants to do whatever is going to pleasure he body.
2.Ego - the self, the conscious, the person, what we are aware of at present. Reality principle, how to satisfy pleasures of origin of consciousness.
3. Superego - internalised rules of parents or society. It is the policeman in your head, always trying to keep the ID under control. When you sleep the superego sleeps and so the ID is let loose to think and d what it wants, thus your dreams.

Freud believed that there were five stages of development and that if any of these stages were not completed successfully the person would never act correctly with that part of the stage.
1. Oral - mouth, premature weaning could lead to problems of eating too much or too little, smoking, sucking on pens etc
2. Anal - toilet training, if this stage isn't completed properly they may be compulsive, clean or stingy.
3. Phallic Phase - obsesses with penis of there lack of. Women need for domination and the Oedipus complex.
4.Latency - sexuality and sex isn't important.
5. Genitals- puberty, after this you are obsessed.

The battle between your Ego, Superego and ID can result in repression (censorship) and defense mechanisms. Such as:
- Sublimination - turning sexual energy in to something elsse, (art, sport.)
- Displacement - shameful thoughts, turn them in to something else/someone else.
- Projection - send feelings on to someone else.
- Rationalisation - more socially acceptable explanation.
- Regression - returning to earlier stage of development.

The key to psychoanalysis is that you are hiding something from yourself. Freud claimed that he had a way to deal directly with the unconscious, the ID. Freud believed that everyone was hiding something from themselves. His way to uncover the secret within the person was to get them to talk to him about everything and he would then find a direction with what you were talking about and uncover the secret from that. For example, if you were talking about an argument with your father, Freud may say that A. (if you are a girl) you had penis envy and you wanted your father to love you more, or B. (if you are a boy) that you want to have sex with your mother and that you wanted to kill your father but to not fail and let him castrate you. Freud also believed that dreams were the, 'royal road to the unconscious'.

He also said that the group (society) "wants to be dominated", and that there is a fear that no one is in charge now that "God is Dead." - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Freud believed that civilization was there to control people and that groups gave up their sexual feelings to their leader and aggressive feelings are unleashed on the people outside the group.

Against Freud:
-Falsibility, proper scientific predictions could be proven wrong but Freud was so vague that it couldn't be tested. This was also the reason for him not winning the Nobel prize. There is also no proof that psychoanalysis actually works.