Total War: Romanticism and the Rise of the Nation-State

Most of what is said about the nation-state is untrue, it is a product of romantic myth was designed to justify territorial demands during the time of war. It was put about in works of fiction and supported by popular culture and finally, by the state directed educational systems.

The major 'nations' of Europe are highly artificial and mythological. Britain is an 18th/19th Century political convenience and is a state made of at least four separate nations; each nation is also, to some extent fixitious.

In the Roman Empire and Middle Ages, people regarded themselves as being part of a nation.- The nation-state is modern and we don't know how long it will last .
In the Middle Ages sovereignty was divided, such as the Church is in secular matters. Europe was totally divided.

• Pluralism- the opposite if totalitarianism
• The State- a monopoloy of legitimate violence.

Thomas Hobbes

• His theory of power is the 'artificial man'
• He believed that the State of Nature was living in fear.
• His solution was to alienate our rights to a supreme sovereignty in order to live in peace.
• He says that the emerging state is already vast and artificial.
• Hebbesian State is explicitly a war machine for subjects and rival states who resist.
• In his system the greatest good arises when the whim of the personified state is automatically low- it does not matter if it's cruel or irrational.

The French Revolution

• All forms of traditional feudal links to the state were swept away.
• The French Revolution shows how the 'artificial man' will always remain; it is immortal and keeps reasserting itself.

Rousseau

• He believed in the Social Contract and the rights of man.
• He stated that the Social Contract was only designed for small states, for example, France. However, it was not suitable for bigger states such as, China.

Hegel

• 'The state is God on Earth'
• He believed that the State/ Nation was not natural

Hume

• 'Authority is based on nothing but opinion'

Social division was all about survival of the fittest.

Totalitarianism and Phenomenology

Phenomenology- "Why is there something rather than nothing"
There is a phenomenology of every science and subject.

Hannah Arendt:
Arendt beieved that the holocaust was normal in our civilization and she also very much believed in totalitarianism, which is the idea of having one single dictator who rules all.
She had the strong opinion that people should think for themselves and not obey others.

Totalitarianism:

• The mid 2oth century and the wake of the Nazi Holocaust and 1956, Krusche's secret speech.
• The re-evaluation of Marxism.
• The new left- Ralph Milliband.
• Hannah Arendt had been a secret member of the communist party or at least, a sympathizer.
• 1930s and 1940s- communist heroics.
• Tropsky tried to stop communism and Stalin
• 195os- The Cold War and anti-communism
• 1960s- The new left, anti-communist aspects. (Prague 1968)

Seminar Paper from Week 2: Tabloid Nation

Chapter 1:

• Alfred Harmsworth fires all the women working at ‘The Mirror’ as he claims that women cant write and don’t want to read.
• Paper immediately becomes male dominated despite the fact that Fyfe was unhappy about this was irrelevant as Alfred wanted to see what Fyfe would do with the paper. Fyfe was in need of a job so he just took it.
• Alfred hated working for others and when he was working at ‘Bicycling News’ he stole some printing paper and used it to print his own paper, ‘Answers’. The circulation increased as Alfred used competitions to attract more and more readers. E.g. offered free insurance and £1 a week to guess the correct amount of gold in Bank if England. 700,000 entered.
• His first Daily National Paper was the ‘Daily Mail’ it was described as, ‘a penny paper for a half penny’ and was also known as ‘The busy man’s newspaper’
• Nearly 400,000 copies were sold on the first day, ‘we’ve struck a goldmine’
• Although Alfred was editor-in-chief, it was Kennedy Jones who did all the daily editing. He learnt his trade working with William Randolph Hearst at the ‘Journal’ and was therefore a veteran of the ‘yellow press’ wars.
• The ‘Daily Mirror’ was the first women’s only daily paper. However, the quality of the paper was disappointing. Covering trivial stories such as the king driving to Windsor in his motor car for lunch, Claridges being full at lunchtime, the weather forecast for cities around the world, but not in the UK.
• Circulation dropped and after 8 weeks they were selling less than 25,000 copies thus threatening to ruin the Harmsworth’s family empire.

Chapter 2:

• Swafter was the one to save the ‘Daily Mirror’ and he transformed it into Britain’s first “picture paper” pushing sales to juts under 1 million in a few years.
• Swafter was one of the first journalists hired by Fyfe in 1904 when he re-launched the paper as a “picture paper”, ‘The illustrated Daily Mirror’ and circulation was up to 71,000 overnight.
• Designed to entertain and not inform circulation reached 140,000 in a month.
• Fyfe’s social condition campaign’s stopped and Swafter started out to improve conditions for pit ponies; the reported bought one and it was shown at the ‘Daily Mail’ Home Show, where Lord Mayoress of London offered to buy and keep it.
• Swafter also revolutionised photography and encouraged his photographers to be different and more daring with the situations they got in to get their photos.
• Northcliffe gradually began to hate the paper more and more referring to it as a, ‘ghastly mess’ despite this sales were high due to Swafter’s pictures.
• Swafter could be a very violent man and his disputes with Northcliffe and and Kenealy were getting worse and much more frequent.
• An example of this would be that of the Titanic picture argument where Northcliffe overruled his opinion that there should be more pictures on the back page of the paper.
• Swafter felt he was the one responsible for the many achievements of ‘The Mirror’ not Kenealy and he wanted him sacked so he could get a pay rise and have his title. This fell through as Swafter ‘sacked himself’ and became a critic, yet was banned from many theatres due to unsuitable criticism.
• Swafter later wrote a book centred on his arguments with Northcliffe, where he explains how he was always right in their disputes.

Chapter 3:

• Alfred Harmsworth was later elevated as Baron Northcliffe for his kind donations and support to the liberal party.
• He made ‘The Mail’ a much more serious paper.
• Northcliffe sold his remaining shares of ‘The Mirror’ on the eve of WW1 to his brother.
• It was found that ‘The Mirror’ was the best to come out of the war as it had the highest sales level of any other paper and was in a very good position.
• Unfortunately, Rothermere neglected ‘The Mirror’ and once again it was the worst off newspaper around.

Chapter 4:

• In April 1922 Northcliffe began to go insane and by June of the same year he had fallen into a state of psychotic paranoia and he started to carry a loaded gun with his finger on the trigger.
• Died on 14, August 1922 age 57 of heart disease.
• Rothermere inherited his papers and he too got sucked in by the competition side of the newspaper and he began to offer more and more free gifts.
• All his time, effort and cash was put towards ‘The Mail’ and diverted away from ‘The Mirror’.

Chapter 5:

• Rothermere became very right wing and offered labour party’s leader, Oswald Moseley full support of ‘The Mail’ and ‘The Mirror’.
• He was told at a public meeting that the papers were used only for their own business and political agendas.
• Rothermere made sure that if Moseley made a speech it made either the lead or second lead article in his papers.
• He regretted that Britain was fighting against Hitler instead of joining forces with him.
• His last words were, ‘There is nothing more I can do to help my Country now.”- Clearly he thought he had tried hard enough during his life.

Chapter 6:

• Through the 1920s ‘The Mirror’s’ circulation declined rapidly as it was starved of money and was aimed at, ‘well-to-do middle classes.’
• ‘The Mirror’ became a laughing stock; “The Daily Sedative”- Known as a Tory newspaper.
• Bartholomew kept his head down about the higher position he wanted, unlike Swafter who openly asked to be promoted.
• When the board panicked about sales under Rothermere, Bart made his move and used his picture operation to convince them.
• He told them the changes he wanted to make wouldn’t be dramatic. But this wasn’t true; he wanted to create the modern, ‘Daily Mirror’.
• Additionally, there was a rumour that Bart was one of Northcliffe’s many illegitimate sons; some saw a resemblance. However, we can’t be sure of this as it was a very sensitive subject.
• He was very scheming and even more determined to reach the top in his field of journalism.
• ‘The Mirror’ became practically impossible to sell and no longer attracted any kind of audience.
• In 1934 Bart was appointed editorial director.
• Soon he along with Cecil Harmsworth King were to create, “the biggest-selling newspaper in the universe” and lay foundations of Tabloid Britain.

Rubi, Rubi, Rubi!

It seems that it hasn't really been my week this week when it comes to fashion, that is. Firstly I loose out on the limited edition Lanvin collection and now i am about to miss out on one of my favourite designer's sample Sale! I first discovered Olivia Rubin last year when i spotted one of her dresses in a magazine i was reading and needless to say from that day on i became an avid follower of her collections. Since graduating from London's Central St Martins Collge, Rubin has worked for John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, so as you can imagine she has been taught well.

Her collections focus around colourful, feminine prints in the most luxurious silk material; attracting celebrities such as, Cheryl Cole, Fearne Cotton and Tess Daly. My two personal favourites are the Black Miro dress and the Pink Opie dress from the Spring/Summer 2010 collection, and much to my delight, I managed to get my hands on both of them.

Although I have prepared myself for the fact that I won't be able to attend the sale in London, (due to being stuck in Winchester with a ridiculous amount of work to do) I am still going to be keeping an eye out online for any welcome reductions! So, if Olivia Rubin is a new designer to your ears then I highly recommend that you check out her collections as they are certainly not to be missed. Additionally, if you can make it down to the sample sale in London this weekend, I can assure you it will not be a wasted trip.

I Need Lanvin!

Today was the day that H&M launched it's most anticipated collection with French fashion house, Lanvin. Having had many other successful collaberations with designers such as, Karl Lagerfeld, Matthew Williamson and Jimmy Choo, it is of no surprise that this one too, was highly anticipated. Since the announcement of the line in September, the fashion world has been eagerly awaiting the collection to hit shops around the country.

With colourful ruffled dresses, heels with bows and long, luxurious necklaces being the centre of the line, Lanvin's creations were set to attract a lot of attention from fashionista's around the country and the collection sure did manage to cause quite a stir when it went on sale earlier today.

Admititly, I am not the biggest H&M fan, yet when i heard that Lanvin was set to design a collection for them, my ears pricked up and i too became more and more determined to get my hands on a piece from the collection. When i saw the online preview I at once spotted the dress i was after and there was nothing to stop me from acquiring my dress! Or, at least that's what i thought.

Unsurprisingly the demand for the collection was extremely high and despite my best efforts, (getting-up-at-8.30am-to-get-on-the-online-shop-efforts) my Lanvin dress was clearly not meant to be. I tried to access the online store for TWO AND A HALF hours before i finally succeeded only to find EVERY item sold out; including my gorgeous dress. Gutted.

I later found out that not only had the website crashed due to the high number of shoppers, but there had been huge ques outside H&M in London with people waiting to get in, one in particular who had been waiting since 8.45pm last night. This high volume of people meant that at H&M on Regent Street they were only letting groups of 30 people go in at a time.

So how far would you go for that item you truely desire? My attempt was clearly not nearly good enough to get me the Lanvin dress I needed, but would going any further have been too far?

Looks like Lanvin escaped me this time, but the next designer won't be so lucky...

Lecture 3, Week 5- Freud

Freud, was the focus of the lecture this week and we discussed how today, we are still living in a Freudian world and how his theories are still very much relevant today.

Freud was born in Vienna in the 1850s and died in 1939 in London after battling cancer. during his time he was very well known as a hardworking and very ambitious man who believed through his psychoanalysis could solve many of humanity's problems. He was also seen by many as a sexual renegade who damaged our idea of ourselves as noble creatures and saw sex as a central motivation for our actions. For example, he believed that phallic symbols were all around us, that women had penis envy as they thought they had been castrated; thus resulting in them loving their father and resenting their mother. He also believed that our "self-love" prevented us from progressing in science and making new scientific discoveries as we do not like to see ourselves as being less than perfect.

Freud believed that the mind was divided into 3 parts:

• Id- The unconscious, which operates on the pleasure principle and wants to satisfy its desires. This is where our animal instincts come from.
• Ego- The conscious, which wants to satisfy its desires but in a way which is acceptable in reality and society.
• Superego- Is the internalised rules of our parents or society, telling us what is right and wrong.

Freud also believed that there were 5 stages of development:

• Oral- At this stage the child has a fixation with the mouth and if weaned prematurely problems such as smoking, drinking and eating obsessively could occur later in life.
• Anal- This is the toilet training stage and any problems may lead to them being compulsive.
• Phallic- At this stage the child may become obsessed with the penis (or lack of). The Oedipus complex occurs for boys where they want to be with their mother and kill their father and the Electra complex for girls where they want to be with their father and not their mother.
• Latency- Sex becomes unimportant until they hit puberty.
• Genital- They become obsessed.

Freud thought that because our Id, Ego and Superego were always battling against eachother, this caused repression. His defence mechanisms for this were as follows:

• Sublimation- The turning of sexual energy into something else.
• Displcament- The turning of Shameful thoughts into something/ someone else.
• Projection- The sending of feelings onto someone else.
• Rationalisation- Finding a more socially acceptable explanation.
• Regression- Returning to an earlier stage of development.

The key to psychoanalysis is that yiu are hiding something from yourself. Freud claimed that he had found a way to deal with the unconscious- the Id through a combination of; hypnosis, a pressure method, free association and dreams. These were all methods by which the Id could let off steam. Freud said that aggression could never be eliminated, " the group wants to be dominated" a fear no-one is in charge. He believed that there was a craving for a parent figure now that God is dead.

Attacks on Freud:

• His scientific predictions could be proven wrong, however, Freud was very vague and so it couldn't be tested.
• There is no proof that psychoanalysis works.
• Neuro science has developed more technology which questions Freud's theories and his belief in the Id, Ego and Superego.

Reich:

Reich believed in the complete opposite to Freud. He believed that the unconscious forces inside the mind were good and that it was their suppression by society that distorted them abd made people dangerous. He also believed that underlying sexual energy was good if it was released as humans would flourish.

Despite Freud's influence on Literature and other culture he stated, "The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious. What i discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied."

Year 2: Lecture 1- William Randolph Hearst

Summer has come to an end and year two of University has begun as we start the year with the third part of our History and Context of Journalism module with a lecture on William Randolph Hearst.



America went through a huge transformation during the 1840s and 1850s as hundreds and thousands of people drove West; 55,000 were said to have travelled to the Californian Gold Fields. This period of time is what was known as the Gold Rush to find their fortune in the mining industry. Along with the migration West in America, there was more mass migration as millions fled Europe and the Irish famine during the 1840s. One in ten people died as they fled

West across the continent. It was said that the further West you went the more American you were.


George Hearst, father of William Randolph Hearst, was one of the tens of thousands of men who were lured to California by the promise of gold. His hard won success in the mines brought him the political career that he was so set on having for both himself and his son. Following this George bought the San Francisco Examiner (we are unsure as to whether he bought or won it through poker). He used the paper to enhance his political career. Newspapers such as these were at the time known as, 'penny papers' were either political or commerical and objective journalism was not seen as important. The political papers were financed by political parties, this suited George as he wanted The Examiner to act as a cheerleader for his campaign. It was not until 1846 that the New York papers organised the Associated Press, this is where objective journalism began as they supplied content for a variety of political papers.


William Hearst took over The Examiner in 1887 and transformed it from a paper filled with text and advertisements to a paper with more illustrations, bigger, bolder headlines and less stories. The Examiner turned into a paper which would have been suitable for non-educated people to read and understand as William himself was not very well educated. William belived that illustrations, "attract the eye and stimulate the imagination of the lower classes and materially aid comprehension." Clearly he did not want his paper to be centrally and solely focussed on walls of text, like his father did.


After William took over The Examiner was pro-labour, anti-capitalist and anti-railroad. It supported the unions but was occasionally guilty of virulent racism. It used a simpler form of language and accounted for the 'slang' that was used by the lower classes at the time and without a doubt became more accessible to a wider range of people. New York, at the time had a growing population mainly due to cheap labour, urban concentration and new technology, low commoditiy prices for example, food, capital accumulation from the export trade and lastly vast infrastructure investments.

In 1896 Hearst began The New York journal, which was in competition with Pulitzer's The World. Hearst poached "The Yellow Kid" from Pulitzer as he tried to keep up with the competition. In retaliation Pulitzer employed another cartoonist to copy the 2Yellow Kid's" work and it wasn't before long that these papers were soon known as the "Yellow Papers". Theses papers were very accessible and understandable to the non-educated; these people were clearly immigrants from Ireland, China, and Germany. Today the "Yellow Paers" are now known as the "Red Tops" and include papers such as The Sun, The Mirror and The Star.

The Journal and The World battled to solve crimes and they were both very interested in crime and "underwear journalism", also referred to as sex stories as both these topics sold papers. It was often that the papers would offer rewards to anyone who could solve the crime they published in their papers or they would send their reporters to investigate further. At one time a sum of $1,000 was offered to whoever could identify a dead body of a man. This kind of investigative journalism was also called, 'muckraking', Nellie Bly was the orginal muckraker and managed to tackle corrupt politians and sweat shops as well as her famous, "Ten days in the Madhouse" which was published in The World.

In 1897 Hearst wanted war and so he sent one of his reporters and illustrators to Cuba and wanted them to return with a story for his paper. Unfortunately for Hearst there was nothing very interesting happening and a telegram was sent to him, "Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war." In reply Hearst asked them to stay, "Please remain, You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war." We cannot be sure if he actually did instruct them to do this as he denied allegations. However, from other behaviour it has been suggested that he is capable.

Hearst has also interferred with many other events such as the setting free of Evangelina Cisneros, who was at only eighteen considered the most beautiful woman in Cuba and was imprisoned as she refused to sleep with a Spanish Captain. Hearst created a petition to free her and managed to get the US President's wife to sign it. When this failed he sent his reporter to Cuba with money to bribe the prison guard to free her and when he succeeded he paid for her to stay in New York. Not much later the USS Maine was sent to Havana Harbour where it soon exploded, thus creating war: Hearst's plan all along. He proceeded to write about this in his paper and it was the first time that circulation broke the one million mark. Hence showing how, war sells papers even more so that crime and sex. Referring to it as "A splendid little war" Hearst celebrated by letting fireworks off from the roof of The Journal and offered $1,000 for the best war strategy. The Spanish war proved to be a huge success for The Yellow Papers.

Hearst successfully created models for modern popular, tabloid journalism which was later copied by The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror and The sun.

Lecture 4: Karl Marx

Karl Marx

· A journalist, who achieved a fusion of:

1. Hegelian Philosophy

2. British Empiricism

3. French ~Revolutionary politics, especially socialist politics.

· He was an economist central to the understanding of human life and motive power of history.

· For Marx man is the productive animal. Mankind creates the environment it inhabits- ‘Not a figure in the landscape, but the shaper of the landscape.’

· His method was scientific.

Hegel, Philosophy and History

· ‘The young Hegelians’- Feuerbach- God is created in the image of man- the Garden of Eden is an ideal place- an ideal society.

· Marx’s thesis on Feuerbach- “Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways, but the point is to change it.”- It will not evolve perfectly- men must create such a society.

· He uses a Hegelian system to criticism “mechanistic materialism”- describes not as a science but “bourgeoisie ideology”.

· “Crude materialism” and mechanistic materialism” is criticised on “The Thesis of F”.

· Marx also believed that personality was not the result of social circumstance. - “The materialist doctrine concerning circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are made by men and the educator and the educator must himself, be educated.”

· “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking us not a question of theory, but a practical question.”

· In the German Ideology young Hegelians and liberals are ridiculed. There are no natural rights; there is no Hegelian-type-built-in progression in History.

· Hegel is right about dialectical change. - The dialectic is the way history unfolds, but not as a result of a clash between contending ideas, but the clash between classes.

· ‘The means of production’. Relationship determines class. There were two classes; Owners and Workers.

· The Proletariat says Marx is the “universal class”. As a result of the dynamics of the economy (capitalist) all men will eventually be pauperized and forced down into the proletariat because of the law of capital concentration.

· Thesis: The bourgoise

Antithesis: The proletariat

Synthesis: Socialism

· The system Marx calls, ‘The Materialist Conception of History’

Ideology

· In preface to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx says that eternal universe laws are not universal; they are the ‘ideology’ of the ruling class and in the German Ideology he says, “In every age, the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class.”

· Religion is only ‘ideology’ and ‘mysticism’ and it is rejected by the empiricists and economists because they have the contending ideology of natural laws, natural rights. Malthus explicitly sees religion as a way of controlling the population, restricting population growth and so on.

· Marx says that religion is, “the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless times, the opium of the people”.

The Communist Manifesto

· “Society as a whole is more and more splitting into two great classes directly facing each other - bourgeoisie and proletariat”

· The proletariat is not the peasantry or “the poor” - the ‘lumpen proletariat’ - “a recruiting ground for thieves and criminals of all kinds, living on the crumbs of society, people without a definite trade, vagabonds, people without hearth or home”. These people have no historical significance and are as a whole ‘the reactionary mob’ (e.g. during The Terror in France). The proletariat is those who are concentrated in cities and factories “fortresses of the proletariat” or down a coal mine. Rioting by the lumpen proletariat or by peasants is not the same thing as revolution. Proletariat has to be “class conscious” and organized as a conscious social force through a trade union or a political party.

Economics

· The Critique of Political Economy and Das Capital

· Marx had high regard for Adam Smith and David Ricardo who discovered the reality and dynamic of society and history (profit, wages, competition, investment, value - these are the “motive forces” of history - not morals, religion, geist, etc = “mysticism”).

· Adam Smith’s market mechanism is bourgoise ideology because it axiomatically assumes completely reliant individuals (Marx ridicules this in the critique of political economy, he calls it ‘Robinson Crusoe-ism’.

· Marx also writes about Hobbes - says that Hobbes model of ‘the war of all against all” in the state of nature is the purest form of bourgeoisie ideology; “the atomic theory of human nature”.

· Marx, if he was alive would say that criticism was bourgeoisie ideology of course... Marx brings Smith back in - goods exchange at their market value (law of supply and demand). But the price of goods is higher than the labour power expended on them (e.g. an iPod - a few seconds of “live” labour needed to make one) but sells for £100). The difference between the market price, (utility value) and the cost of production, (labour value) is the profit added by the capitalist (owner of the means of production). When aggregated across the whole economy, this profit becomes “surplus value”.

Contradictions of Capitalism

· “Capitalism produces all things in profusion, but most of all it produces its own grave-diggers”

· The entire workforce makes the widget and they get paid £1 - put the capitalist sells it for £2. The workforce cannot buy the widget and as a result it is unsold. Order to the widget factory for fewer widgets, or for cheaper widgets. Widget workers are unemployed. Unemployed workers buy even fewer widgets, so unemployment gets worse. The economy collapses - it's a Widget Crunch.

· But this crisis is avoided because “surplus value” is spent on:

Investment- (making more widget factories and hiring unemployed widget makers to make widget factories). This solves the problem in the short term and makes the economy much more productive. But in the long term it makes the crisis worse - the trade cycle.

Export the widgets - the widget workers can’t but all their widgets, but production can be increased and they can keep their jobs if the widgets are exported. Constant need for new markets - hence “Imperialism” forcing free trade on India, China, Africa, South America – supplies ever expanding markets for the producers. But like investment this is a short term solution. It will also force the capitalist powers to fight with each other for markets and colonies (Marxian analysis of war, particularly First World War) V.I. Lenin - “Imperialism - the highest stage of capitalism”.

Surplus value can be expended on the state (particularly military, to secure more markets) or on “the ideological superstructure” - education, arts, religion, theatre, social security, National Workshops etc used to underpin ‘ideology’. This too only delays the inevitable crisis.

Alienation and Class Consciousness

The process of investment and increasing mechanization and automation leads to the de-skilling of all professions and the proletarianization of everyone except a tiny number of monopoly capitalists.

However, the proletariat are thrown together in factories and in slum areas and they will tend to form trade unions and their illusions will be overcome and will realize that they are a class and not individual paupers. Work in a capitalist society becomes increasingly pointless and alienated. In Das Capital, Marx writes an especially powerful passage on ‘alienation’: “All development of the means of production transforms themselves into the means of domination over and exploitation of the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of a fleshy appendage to the machine.”

Politics

The nature of the state - instrument for the domination of one class by another or as an independent force which holds two evenly balanced class forces in stalemate, and tries to delay crisis by postponement of reform or change of any sort (Bonapartism)

‘Utopian Socialism’ - Fourier and Robert Owen and ideal communities.

These utopians have made the mistake of thinking the state is neutral or a thing in itself. In the Communist Manifesto: “political power is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another… The executive of the modern [liberal] state is but a committee for managing the affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

Communism

The proletarian revolution will be international and it was abolish capitalism, but this is not communism. After revolution the socialist state will own the means of production in common. It will be a “dictatorship of the proletariat” just as bourgeoisie democracy is just a façade for capitalist dictatorship (as he believed the Paris Commune of 1871 showed).

Once the bourgeoisie has been dissolved as a class, the ideological superstructure (priests, university professors, ideologists of all sorts) is dismantled and his peasantry incorporated into the proletariat - then the state with “wither away” (Das Capital) because there will no longer be contending classes, and the state is only needed because of class conflict.

The proletariat itself will also be dissolved and become the same thing as “the whole human race” - this is a highly Hegelian idea similar to the geist coming to know itself, but it a materialist version of that idea of the end of history.

Described by Marx (Das Capital) thus:

“The antithesis between physical and mental labour will be abolished” - a person would be a fisherman in the morning, a factory worker in the afternoon and musician and philosopher in the evening - and all these activities would have equal worth as equal aspects of human personality.

Communism is a kingdom of ends in strictly Kantian terms, also the same as Hegel’s organic society or rational society where no duty is onerous, and all laws are obeyed because there is no difference of interest.

(In a communist society)… “Work becomes not only a means of life, but life’s prime want; (technology will be tremendously advanced but will no longer enslave people but will have advanced)… “in proportion with the all-round development of the individual (mechanization as a servant, not a master) and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly (because no more trade cycle or destruction of surplus value in war, unemployment)

“Only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois rights be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe upon its banners: From each - according to ability
to each - according to need.

Lecture 3: Dickens and Cobbett

A tale of two revolutions- and two perspectives- Urban (Dickens) and Rural (Cobbett)

· England/ UK did very well out of the French Revolution- although during the period of the Napoleonic War it was very expensive and income tax was created in 1799 to pay for the war effort.

· British Naval power was absolute (especially after 1805) and the blockades of the French ports destroyed French trade and created a boom for British Exports- to such an extent that British manufacturers were actually clothing the French Army.

· With the other European armies occupied, the British started building its Empire- India, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka- trading monopoly with South America.

· The Transatlantic Triangular Trade was extremely profitable for Britain- In the 16^th Century 1 million slaves were transported from Africa; in the 17^th century 3 million were transported and in the 18^th century 7 million. As a result if this, the abolition of Slavery was in 1833.

· Textiles made up 60% of exports. Coal outputs doubled between 1750 and 1800.

· In Manchester it went form 17-180000 people in 1760-1830 and the city was seen as revolutionary. This had never been seen before.

· Cotton was a key product for the industrial revolution and this raw material came from the slave plantations in the American South- but modern Lancashire produced the finished article- mainly for exporting.

· Inventions (gaslight) allowed the process to be done in enormous factories, usually by women and children.

· The end of the war meant the end of the boom. This caused unemployment and a decrease in wages. In response the government brought in Corn Laws- meaning they put a tariff on imported grains; this pushed people beyond the breadline.

· Conditions in many towns and cities were extremely poor. People lived in slums and cholera was common. These towns and cities were not built for large populations and this showed.

· The policy of brutal repression on any sort of dissent and strict penal penalties was effective in the short term.

· Peter Loo massacre- Manchester 1918- the cavalry charged a crowd of 60,000 demanding parliamentary reform- 11 people died.

· Protestors demanded that growing industrial towns in Britain should have rights to elect MPs. Less than 2% had vote and resentment was sharpened by “rotten boroughs” e.g. Village, Old Sarum had 11 voters and 2 MPs whereas Manchester and Leeds didn’t have any. The Reform act came in, in 1832.

· Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1840- bread was cheaper but wages could be lowered as workers could survive on less.

Farming

· Enclosures ended the idea of landholding peasantry- nothing to stop transfer of workforce from non-industrial to industrial.

· Population had been slowly rising- from 5 million at the end of the 17^th Century until the middle of the 18^th century. After 1770, it started to increase dramatically- doubling every 50 years after that. Cobbett disputed that.

	1801	1831	1851
England	8.3	13.1	16.92
Wales	0.39	0.91	1.06
Scotland	1.63	2.37	2.90
Ireland	5.22	7.77	6.51

· Swing riots- rural labourers opposed to use of new advanced technology e.g. threshing machines- run luddites. Riots across South in 1830.

The Poor

· Looked after by the Speenhamland system devised as a means to alleviate distress caused by high grain prices.

· Means tested- top up for wages- depends on number of children and bread prices.

· Immediate impact of paying this poor rate fell on landowners of the Parish concerned.

· New Poor Law Act 1834- No able-bodied person was to receive money/ help from the Poor Law authorities except in workhouses.

· Rentham- argued that people do what’s pleasant and don’t do what’s unpleasant- people didn’t claim relief, it had to be unpleasant. The core argument for “stigmatising” relief, making it, “an object of wholesome horror”.

· The Act effectively criminalized the poor.

Ireland (Act of union 1801)

· Duke of Wellington passed Catholic Emancipation in 1829 due to the threat of an Irish uprising after Daniel O’Connell was elected MP for County Clare in 1828 but as a Catholic was debarred from taking his seat.

· Monster meeting- 1843- Tara (million people?) Clantarf

· Famine: between 1845-1850 more than 1 million died of malnutrition and 2 million emigrated.

· Handling of famine was criticized – “The Almighty indeed, sent the potato blight but the English created the famine”- John Mitchell, deported for 14 years.

· During the years of the famine, Ireland was a net exporter of food. Armed troops escorted the crops to the ports to export to England. The export of livestock actually increased during the famine years.

Cobbett

· Anti-radical who became a radical- what changed him was the plight of farm workers in the early 19^th century. The thought rapid industrialization was going to destroy traditional ways of life.

· Heroic agitator- convinced farmers faced ruin.

· 20 years abroad in army- chocked by state of countryside on return. Farm workers reduced to “walking skeletons”

· “When farmers became gentlemen, labourers became slaves.”

· No time for farmer taxing government or army- free loaders attacked them or for Church and its tithes.

· He was nearly 60 when he started ‘rural rides’

· He wrote the political register- read by working class.

· Tax on newspapers- Cobbett to publish the political register as pamphlet- circulation of 40,000

· Put in Newgate for sedition- fled to USA to void jail, was term-charged with libel 3 times after returning- including when he write in support of swing riots.

Dickens

· London was the largest city at the time – in terms of population in the world, economically, politically, industrially/

· Overcrowded- population doubled in 50 years Poverty, cholera outbreaks, sanitation problems. Interested in particular times of reform.

· Oliver Twist- Concerned with Poor Law and oppressive regime for people.

· Nicholas Nickleby- Criticised Yorkshire schools- people were treated terribly.

· Bleak House- Particular abuse bothered him, was the court of chancery – law cases went on for generations and cost a fortune.

· Becomes a metaphor for all that’s wrong with Victorian society.

· State only got involved when criminalized and imprisoned them.

· Poor should have decent homes and education.

· Kafka was interested in Bleak House- very clear in his journals and novels, he tries to stir up the middle classes into action.

Seminar 2: Seminar Paper on Kant and Hegel

This week it was my turn to give a seminar paper on the Eighteenth Century, German philosophers, Kant and Hegel. Below are the notes i made:

Chapter 20: Kant

· Immanuel Kant (1724- 1804)

· Had a very academic upbringing

· Considered the greatest of all modern philosophers and the founder of German Idealism.

· It’s suggested that by studying Kant first, it’s therefore, easier to grasp the concepts of Fichte and Hegel.

· Educated in the Wolfian version of Leibniz’s philosophy but abandoned it in order to follow philosophers such as Rousseau and Hume.

· He followed Rousseau’s works so closely that it disrupted his regular timetable and habits for several days as he read and re-read Rousseau’s books. The beauty of his style prevented him from noticing the content.

· One of his most important books, ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ outlines the first of his many beliefs, that everything perceived has two natures, noumenal and phenomenal. Which is where objects exist whether they are in our perception or not. Thus addressing the problem of Causality in empiricism, where there is no causality in nature as everything is only in our minds, it doesn’t really exist.

· Kant believed that the noumenal world is perceived by ‘intuition’, especially the aesthetic reaction to art/beauty. E.g. Keats said, “Beauty is truth; Truth is beauty.”

· The idea is that even when things are not perceived they are still there and when they are perceived they pass into the phenomenal world.

· To support this idea Kant says that, intuition is objective and our subjective feelings are our connection to the noumenal world and our aesthetic response proves that objects still exist when not perceived.

· Kant suggested the 12 categories of perception and strongly believed in The Copernican Revolution, which stated that the mind actively shapes the universe, which is the opposite belief to empiricism. Therefore, the universe looks the way it does because of the perceptive apparatus of the mind/brain; it’s not really like that in nature.

· In Terms of morality, Kant argued for The Categorical Imperative, which he believes comes in different forms. The Categorical imperative emphasises the consequences of your actions rather than your intentions.

· It is based on universalisation, the idea that any decision you make will become a universal rule, which everyone will live by. Therefore, your actions must be “right” and this is based on the idea that everyone knows right from wrong, no matter how they act.

· Kant calls this “The Moral Law Within”- everyone has it.

· This, therefore, demonstrates how Kant completely dismisses utilitarianism as he believes everyone is equal and that we all know the difference between right and wrong.

Chapter 22: Hegel

· Georg Hegel (1770-1831)

· One of the creators of German idealism.

· Devout Christian and philosopher of European Supremacy.

· His system could not have arisen if Kant’s hadn’t existed.

· He argued that any possible idea contains its own negation- each idea contains its opposite.

· If there was Thesis of: Existence the Anti-thesis would be: Non-existence and therefore, the Synthesis would be: History or “becoming”.

· This is because Hegel believed that everything was constantly changing.

· He was a teleological thinker and believed these processes have a purpose and that purpose is a steady progress towards paradise- reunited with God and live happily ever after.