Existentialism: An Overview.

Existentialism: the renewed interest in the dilemmas of personal choice. Clearly influenced by Nietzsche’s ‘Death of God’, which released the bonds of servitude created by organised religion, Existentialism is a reaction to the second world war and realisation that, if god is dead, as Nietzsche proclaimed, then where do we look for direction?

Following Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of god, intellectual society was left with the knowledge that, if the moral restrictions that have been placed on us through religion are false creations of others in society, then what, in this seemingly pointless world, should we use to decide how we should conduct ourselves, if indeed we should allow anything to influence how we act.

Free from the restrictions of religion, we are liberated and given the choice of how we conduct ourselves and how we should use this short period of life that we have. This vision of humanity, with no preconditioned features, serving no purpose, gave inspiration to the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson and the like, who sought to portray events with no bias or preconditioned opinion. Such was the impact of existentialism.

With Existentialism, the development of one’s character came from the complete, passionate immersion in something. This could be considered an influence of Heidegger, the dirty Nazi bastard, who invented the term ‘Dasein’ by which he meant ‘being in the world’; the idea that, in order to be participating in the most constructive way in life, one must immerse oneself in a task, becoming the very action they are performing, such as one does when reading a book or a carpenter during his work. This could explain the desire of people to feel like an individual, to feel like what they are doing serves a purpose fulfilling our desire to be seen as part of life through our participation. The irony for those who wish to be seen taking part in life as an individual is that they place the importance in the act of being observed as opposed to the act of achieving Dasein.

The main aspect of Existentialism is that of choice, as before the realisation that god does not exist, humans were bound to follow the absolutes enforced by organised religion. This choice means that the responsibility of how a person conducts themselves is entirely down to them. All stereotypical preconceptions as to how certain groups should act are discarded, allowing for the freedom of groups such as homosexuals, females and the lower echelons of the social class system are now free to act as they will, no longer bound by the bleak expectations placed upon them by backward, metaphysical gibberish.

This liberation of ideas meant that, as a species we were free to roam our potential as individuals and push the boundaries of what is humanly possible. This bright future has, however, never been fully realised and I’m sure the likes of Jean Paul Satre would be bitterly disappointed in the religio-capitalism, that washes through the brains of the majority in the Western world, for allowing religion to remain, and not allowing for the fall of the bourgeoisie even in the face of mass starvation in a world where, with the proper application of scientific knowledge and resources, everyone could be fed and treated with humanity. In a time where morality is individual property, it is the wealthiest within our ‘economy’ with the least morality.

 

For more information on two of the key figures in terms of the existentialist movement I recommend these documentaries:

Jean Paul Satre (part 1(part two can be found on youtube)):

Martin Heidegger:

 

A short description of 'market based economies' from a Marxist perspective.

Against market/competition/PROFIT driven society (capitalism):

My evaluation of Capitalist, market driven economy:

·         The competitive nature of capitalist society hinders technological progress, as the technology is not made to the best possible degree due to the competition between market leaders for profit, rather than collaboration for the improvement of society. E.g: no product is sold for it’s worth, rather for the maximum profit it can demand without protest. Due to this, Pharmaceutical corporations, rather than sharing their research with other companies, to faster achieve progress in development, will keep their knowledge in order to be the only supplier of a drug or treatment in the future so that they can maximise profits for themselves. Which surely is amoral, yet, in a market/competition based economy, it is the logical decision to restrict resources in order to increase their value, rather than try to attain abundance; which holds no promise of profit (e.g. If a gold mine produces more gold, they do not have more money, just the value of gold is decreased, so by restricting your supply of gold to others gold retains its value and maximum profit can be achieved) .

·         In this sense, corruption and amorality is an inherent part of the economy, as a moral and humanitarian company would be destroyed by those companies that make more profit.

·         This inherent corruption is in turn then applied to society; as due to the suppliers restricting supply to increase their products value, the consumer must compete with one another in order to attain resources for themselves. This is apparent in the ‘Alienation’ that arises between the Bourgeoisie (wealthy) and the proletariat (poor) and the unbalanced distribution of wealth in the population, as we are born into a society whereby hoarding as much one’s self as you can is seen as the only way to progress within society (e.g. the Bourgeoisie).

·         This leads to international scale amorality, with powers such as America etc. feeling the need to invade and dominate other nations for their resources, as competition for profit from resources dictates that nations, corporations and the populace must only share resources for unfair ‘maximum profit’ orientated costs.

·         This even spreads to humanitarian aid, as the investment in poorer countries (who are poor due to the inability of more PROFITABLE countries to fairly share resources) is only done in order to create a perpetual and ever growing debt to the more powerful country.

From this it is apparent that money IS debt and profit IS corruption (corruption being the exploitation of others for personal gain).

Thus, profit kills fair trade.

On Bureaucrasy - Weber.

Bureaucrasy is definable as social rule conducted from a desk through paperwork (or an electronic equivalent). However, it is not the same as democratic or aristocratic powers, as it is but a tool used by such aforementioned powers to rule the populace.

Bureaucrasy is sold as giving power to the prolatariat as it requires a large quantity of civil servants to fuel it's progress. Weber opposes this view, attacking these pretentions found in the Prussian bureaucrasy, stating that it was corrupted by aristocratic influence. This holds many parralels with the disollusion held by many today, with regards to the upper and upper-middle class dominance of high office within todays governments. This is easily identified when considering the attention given when a lower class individual attains a position of high office.

In the past, many attempts to retain this aristocratic power are apparent, with the Church in the middle ages being a prime example, enforcing celibacy upon its 'labourers' so as not to be challenged by patrimony of families.

From this, Weber acknowledges that reliable, and often blind submission to the official rules is an integral part of a bureaucrasy.

Modern bureaucrasy supplies the equipment required by its servants, maintaining control. Due to this, the bureaucrat does not own their job or their equipment, helping to maintain the singular power which the bureaucrasy serves.

Weber states that there are three types of legitimate authority:

Charismatic: A 'gifted' leader who is followed by those who are personally devoted to them.

Traditional: A leader who is followed, as everyone has always obeyed the person in the leader's position and no one thinks  to oppose their authority.

Rational: otherwise known as the 'rule of law'; it exists within communities in which there is a moral attititude of respect for the law. Or where the law appears to have been institued in a way that is considered legitimate.

Weber believed that bureaucrasy is within the framework of Rational authority, stating that it is the most efficient method of maintaining the rule of law.

Weber maintains that bureaucrasy is very efficient and that due to this, there is no system that can compte against it. However, due to the profit/goal orientated nature of bureaucratic rule the populace become wage slaves, who are forced to work boring and unfulfilling jobs. This is enforced by the legitimate fear that, if one was to take time to indulge in what would make them happy, then a more efficient and work-orientated person would claim their job, as their equipment and job are owned by the state.

Hegelitis.

The unreality of seperateness: basically, every singular entity that we can see holds a 'spirit' of the whole (spirit being the object in and of itself) and so, is not ever wholly real, with different degrees of reality given to objects that particiate more or less in 'reality'.

So, if you were able to view an object in every perceivable way all at once, then you would see the object in and of itself as the 'real' part of the 'whole'.

The analysis of 'logic' by Hegel is somewhat unclear. Either, Mr A, as an uncle, shows that we can never see him as his real entity which is part of the whole; or that due to the many different views and perceptions of Mr A he is not a part of the whole as he is just a combination of perceptions that is an illusion.

The 'whole' is called the absolute, which encompasses everything that exists. This absolute, in knowing itself, knows reality in it's pure form.

Whether this renders metaphysics as unreal, due to the fact that it is purely generated by thought without perception of other things, e.g. a god. If so, is this not a loophole, as the idea that what we see is not reality and that there is a reality that we cannot see is metaphysical?

Thought provoking stuff...

David Hume, but it's not certain...

David Hume

David Hume (1711-1776)’s theories on certainty can be summarised by the phrase; ‘can’t derive an ought from an is’. This phrase outlines Hume’s belief that nothing is certain and that, although experience is usually our only source of information, due to our ‘synthetic’ way of thinking, humans often allow our past experience to lead us into error by assumption. In this way Hume is very sceptical and would even disagree that the Sun will definitely rise tomorrow and that every event has a differing degree of certainty based on human testimony and sensory experience.

The synthetic method is how Hume believes we, as humans, think most of the time: combining our past experiences and simpler ideas to form more complex ones. A good example of this would be the concept of angels, where we have taken our experience of human beings and combined them with that of birds, thus creating the idea of such a creature without any sensory experience of one. The fact that humans think like this fuels Hume’s argument for the ridiculousness of belief in miracles and religion. It is important to note however, that Hume is not suggesting that miracle a certain to not have occurred, instead that through a natural ability to assess the likelihood of an occurrence. From this Hume suggests that the likelihood that the person who would spread word of a miracle is far more likely to be a deceiver or be deceived than the extremely unlikely occurrence of a miracle or the physical apparition of a god etc. Hume suggests that the synthetic method of thought is far better for scientific progress due to the potential for creativity through it’s usage, he warns however that one must be wary as it can lead to error due to assumption, hence his emphasis on the uncertainty of anything. He also believes that this uncertainty means that with scientific thought, one cannot assume causation, with the best example being that of billiard balls. Hume would suggest that no matter how many time a person has experimented with billiard balls; seeing a white ball hit a red ball and seemingly forcing it to move, it is not so that the white ball has caused the red ball to move, merely that the balls have happened to move at those angles every time it is repeated, as one can’t be certain that will happen again in the same way. This is a habit of association, where a mind associates the two events the two events together regularly; to the point where one might believe that the movement of the white ball must cause the movement of the red ball, however, Hume argues against this.

He compares the synthetic process with the deductive process, which he claims can have no use in scientific thought, an example of this process is the conclusion that all bicycles must have two wheels, this is because anything with more or less wheels than this goes by another name e.g: tricycle, unicycle etc.

Hume, due to his comprehension of the synthetic thought process, did not place any faith in metaphysics, as he saw the theories to have no grounding in likelihood, but a fabricated theory built to fit what we don’t know, Hume argues that this is preventing scientific progress, with those who accept unfounded testimonies require no proof as to what actually occurs when an event happens, and thus no developments can be made regarding improvement or prevention of events. Hume validates this theory by assessing the false prophet Alexander and the Paphlagonians, a civilization that was ‘ignorant and stupid’ in comparison to the rest of the world, and the belief that they placed in the testimony of humans even though they were known to be untrue by the more informed world outside. He then berates religion by saying that belief in such a thing is belief in conformity, following the human testimony of the masses rather than evidence or sensory data and that those; who are weak enough to think that such testimonies are even worth a second thought, have no opportunity for receiving any ‘better information’. A point that is even raised by Western Christians in modern times (when discussing terrorist beliefs and motives): Even though they themselves place belief in equally unlikely and unfounded human testimonies

journalism now.. but before 'now' because it would be better for it to be proof read...

The Daily Telegraph.

The Daily Telegraph’s demographic is hardly a secret; old, wealthy, Conservatives and usually middle upper class at that. Floating around in the ABC1’s has no doubt shaped the way in which The Daily Telegraph is written, with today’s (17^th Nov) front pages demonstrating the difference between the paper and it’s competitors. Whilst other papers covered the ‘bank crisis’ as ‘Jobless generation’ (The Times) and ‘Migrants grab 12,000 jobs a month’ (Daily Express), The Daily Telegraph looks upon the story from a purely observational standpoint, speaking of ‘growth forecasts’ and other such things, not once mentioning the effects on today’s youth, or the effect of immigration. This is presumably due to the fact that the readership of The Daily Telegraph will not be feeling the pinch of ‘the cuts’, merely observing them from the lofty heights of grandeur and wealth.

Another big story, that has been hit hard by the tabloids today, is the ignorance of Sepp Blatter (the figurehead of FIFA), which brings me to my second point that defines The Daily Telegraph for me: the lack of a sport’s back page. Not only this, the well-hidden 20-page pull out even manages to place football on the 8^th page, after straight Rugby Union (and no mention of Rugby League), another stereotype of the privately educated upper middle classes. Once you have found the football pages, you will not find a league table or a record of results, but a brief summary of the financial and legal troubles found outside of the game. It would be unfair to suggest however that any of the sports covered were done from the perspective of a fan of the game, with not one result (apart from the odd gaze back into the ‘good old days’), or, in fact, any record of anyone actually playing the sports (the exeption being the praise of Federer’s victories at the age of 30 which is a cause of constant reference. But even then, the story is a biography rather than coverage of the sport.). To me it seems obvious that these stories have been chosen for their retrospective viewpoint or for their relevance to business.

The Telegraph tells the news in facts and figures that fit the thinking of hard-nosed businessmen and other such stereotypes of the demographic. This is done by expressing, mostly, the financial and business sides of a story for those who may not understand contemporary references to mass culture or want to read about the way in which people are effected by stories, instead looking at what the facts and figures can tell us, with a business-like efficiency that makes for good journalism but doesn’t offer anything for the less-educated to grasp onto. To summarise, The Daily Telegraph reports stories that are opposite to how their readership likes their rooms: hard and cold.

Philosophy masterclass

Yesterday (Tuesday), I embarked upon an academic journey through time and, theoretically, space. The expedition into these realms was very capably lead by none other than Jack Webb, a fellow student of journalism. We began in the pre-Socratic era, with Thales, a philosopher who was the very first recorded mathematician and Philosopher, famous for his prediction of the eclipse. However there are no written records of his work. Anaximander was the next topic of discussion, with his theory of the world being made of all elements rather just water, this was later discredited by Aristotle, but a good effort nonetheless. Pythagoras was next, the namesake of the infuriating mathematical theory, not only this, Pythagoras worked out the mathematical links between the universe, music and maths as well as being the head of his own religion, such was the contemporary importance of his works at the time. Parmenides and Hericlitus, the former of which argued that everything was made of one substance as opposed to the latter who argued that everything was kept in balance by two equally matched opposites, were next. Needless to say, the two were not best friends.

We then moved on to all things post Socrates, including Socrates himself, who, although we have no written evidence of his work, was extremely influential, tutoring Plato who in turn tutored Aristotle. Socrates died as a result of accused impiety and was thus forced to drink large quantities of poisonous substance (lovely). Plato, being next in the line of great philosophers was the number one student of Socrates, whose great work consisted of a plan for a seemingly utopian future society, exploring the nature of justice, politics and statesmanship. This as well as proposing the big questions of how and why anything exists, suggesting that there is a perfect other world that this world merely shadows, and that philosophers were the only few who could access the knowledge in that other realm, possessing the 'ultimate innate knowledge' (sounds like a big ego to me, but he was a smart guy). The student of Plato was Aristotle, perhaps the most well-known Greek philosopher, who argued with Plato on the origin of knowledge and that it was acquired through experience as opposed to Plato's idea of innate knowledge. Aristotle was also, the origin of logic and a master of metaphysics, physics, ethics, biology and politics to name a few.

After the death of Aristotle, stoicism became more prevalent in Greek culture, with the idea of a wonderful immortal life awaiting those who would live in a good way. However, after a while these theories were overtaken by a re-ignition of Plato and Aristotle's theories. In other news, shorthand is going alright.