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.

Hannah Arendt: Anti-semitism

Hannah Arendt's book, The Origins of Totalitarianism is split in to three parts. Anti-semitism, Imperialism and Totalitarianism. I hope to do three blogs in which I explain each one in simple detail. Meaning that you, as my reader understand fully what the book is about and the key elements of the book and Arendt's ideologies.

Rich Jews lead to a bad reaction from society:
- Neither oppression nor exploitation as such is ever the main cause for resentment; wealth without visible function is much more intolerable because nobody can understand why it should be tolerated. - This is what happened when noble people lost their privileges and we just rich people, people that the masses did not want to tolerate anymore; they got their money for doing nothing.
- This is then what happened to the Jews when they lost their public functions and their influence; they were left with nothing but their money. The masses then did not tolerate them because they were rich but did not do anything for the public.
- Same as the top point in the oppressor cannot oppress if the masses are not scared or do not respect them. “Organized hatred of the Jews cannot but be a reaction to their importance and power.”

- Arendt says that the Nazis sped up what was going to happen to the Jews anyway. The Jews were losing their key positions so rapidly that statisticians predicted its disappearance in a few decades.

Why the Jews were chosen as Hitlers scapegoat:
- Arendt says that as part of the scapegoat the Jews were chosen because they were innocent. Anyone could have been chosen but it was the Jews. They were “chosen regardless of what they may or may not have done.”
- The terror theory is that the Jews are innocent and that no matter what they do or say their fate is sealed even though they are innocent and the dictator/oppressor knows this.
- Plato said, “for from opinions comes persuasion and not from the truth” – means that it does not have to be the truth that persuasion comes from, it is an idea that is sprouted and then comes the persuasion.

How Jews did not fit in to the caste system:
- After the feudal order had been broken down people thought that everyone would start to be equal. This meant that the ‘nation-within-a-nation’ could no longer be tolerated. “Jewish restrictions and privileges had to be abolished together with all other special rights and liberties.”
- Germany was beginning to have a class system but the Jews did not fit in to the classes, they were their own group and did not have classes in the group. “They became a well-defined, self-preserving group within one of the classes, the aristocracy of the bourgeoisie.” These classes were the highest class. The Jews were not middle or lower class, they were at the top. They were not the proletariat being exposed and oppressed but the exploiter and the oppressor. This may have contributed to their hatred and anti-semitism.
- “Being born a Jew would either mean that one was over privileged – under special protection of government-or underprivileged, lacking certain rights and opportunities which were withheld from the Jews in order to prevent their assimilation.” Assimilation means: The process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs.

Jews in power:
- In the C17th and C18th Jews started to rise from nothing in to high positions of power. Then after the French Revolution, Princes had more at their disposal and wanted things only the Jews could offer. Then at the end of the C19th Jews lost their exclusive position in state business to imperialistically minded business men; they declined in importance as a group. “Although individual Jews kept their influence as financial advisers and as inter-European middlemen.”
- “Jewish wealth had become insignificant; to a inter-European solidarity, the non-national, inter-European Jewish element became an object of universal hatred because of its useless wealth, and of contempt because of its lack of power.”
- “Before the emancipation edicts, every princely household and every monarch in Europe already had a court Jew to handle financial business.” Jews were reliable and trusted to deal with people money and vast quantities of it. These Jews were individuals that had inter-European connections and inter-European credit at their disposal.

Allying with the Monarchs:
- Jews were the only ones left to help the nation state and willing to finance it after the nobility and the caste system had failed. Nobody would ally itself with the monarchy but the Jews. This then meant that they tied themselves to the future of the nation state and any further developments. This in turn gave the Jews equality. Even though the Jews doing the work were reluctant to the other Jews getting it when they were the ones taking the risks.

- The leftist movement of the lower middle class and the entire propaganda against banking capital turned more or less anti-semetic”. For the first time it looked like the Jews had come in to direct conflict between the classes without interference from the state. Also, because the Jews mainly dealt with large state loans they were seen to be getting close to political power. Another reason for the rest of society to not like the Jews.
- Jews began to lose their exclusive position to the governments in the C19th when , with the Imperialist expansion the state looked like more of an interesting business proposition and more and more people bought in to making it no longer exclusive and no longer just a Jewish job.
- Even when their exclusive financial elements were finished with others buying in to the business of government the Jews were still useful due to their inter-European element, their national status, due to their religion not being based in one country.

The Jews ignorance toward politics, society and the State:
- “Loyalty meant honesty; it did not mean taking sides in a conflict or remaining true for political reasons. To buy up provisions, to clothe and feed an army, to lend currency for the hiring of mercenaries, meant simply an interest in the well being of a business partner.” This means that the Jews did not have to support the government, their master had to and then the Jew would provide for its master who in turn was providing for the state. The Jews were purveyors in wars and servants of kings.
- “Just as the Jews ignored completely the growing tension between state and society, they were also the last to be aware that circumstances had forced them into the centre of the conflict.”
- The Jews were strong in number but weak in every other aspect. Jews had become a middle class but did not fill any of the jobs the middle class was meant to. As a result they stood in the way of industrialization and capitalization

Anti-semetic Parties:
- The anti-semetic parties claimed they were a party above all other parties. They wanted to, “represent the whole nation, to get exclusive power, to take possession of the state machinery, to substitute themselves for state”.
- The anti-semetic parties believed that if they attacked the Jews, who were believed to be the secret power behind governments, they could openly attack the state itself. The parties then wanted to rule over the nation and wanted the inter-European government, above all nations, (above all parties).

I hope that these notes of the first part of the book are useful and give a simpler insight in to Hannah Arendt's ideologies of anti-semitism.