tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78773974284166846352024-03-06T15:02:12.503-05:00Nihilism in GermanyProf. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-83142600050278232142015-05-16T17:48:00.000-04:002015-05-16T09:48:55.593-04:005/16 Conclusion<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">After the war, Germany was divided up between the allied powers before being finally separated into East and West Germany in 1949. The period between 1945 and 1949 is a strange period of time because it is a lull in between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union which continued on and off until the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. During these four years the U.S. and Soviets were unlikely allies who slowly became bitter enemies. The Soviet Union exploded their first atomic bomb in 1949, also ending a brief four year dominance of when the U.S. was the sole nuclear power in the world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Germany became one of the front lines of the Cold War. The critical difference is that in Germany the war was symbolic and best symbolized by the Berlin Wall built in 1961.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7gZE1v5tHYJlLJbUZ0LIhOZXqBqi08_70OMFMhSc70TqOITEmeILQOFi0BArSGBWrbAzPRxdYAFa7nKFyUCdbnGB2yTk1xIm5liO_qq5AzJijLyQtBPBjIV-HiTx-jnVcLfO_wzbUlA8/s1600/Timeline_Kids_B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7gZE1v5tHYJlLJbUZ0LIhOZXqBqi08_70OMFMhSc70TqOITEmeILQOFi0BArSGBWrbAzPRxdYAFa7nKFyUCdbnGB2yTk1xIm5liO_qq5AzJijLyQtBPBjIV-HiTx-jnVcLfO_wzbUlA8/s400/Timeline_Kids_B.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"> The graffiti reads: "Unity and Freedom for Berlin," circa 1972</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> West German politics in the 50s and early 60s is usually referred to as the "Amnesia Era," under the first post-war Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Many former officials of the Nazi regime (like in Japan) were restored to their positions by the Allied powers occupying the country due to a shortage of manpower of capable officials to administer the country–despite the official policy of "denazification." Both Germany and Japan have had also mostly conservative governments since the post-war era. In Germany the leading conservative party is the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) a union of Protestant and Catholic voters. The SPD is still active as well and is the largest opposition party. Since reunification in 1990, a major issue dividing German politics is how much the state should spend on the more underdeveloped areas of Eastern Germany. Many conservatives, particularly those in the West are strongly opposed to this. To this day there are also controversies regarding how the Nazi period should be taught in German schools (this is a similar issue in Japan). There are also much higher levels of drug addiction and suicide among German youth than among other European countries, even though obviously none of the young people could have been responsible for what happened in the 1930s and 1940s they apparently lack the skill for denial like their parents and grandparents.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As mentioned in <i>Night and Fog</i> the Nuremberg war crimes trials were held (the first of many) in 1945-46, where many former Nazis claimed they were not responsible for their crimes. The phrase "I was only following orders," has become an infamous appeal by those seeking to absolve themselves of responsibility for their crimes, or Arendt's comment on the "banality of evil." Although in the end, most people do not accept this as a legitimate defense it does raise certain ethical questions to what extent is a person required to follow orders?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Many of the scientists who had helped in the "Manhattan Project", the top-secret government project to create the atomic bomb, had come to the U.S. from Europe, fleeing Nazi persecution, as did many of the artists, writers, and other intellectuals we have already discussed. The U.S. and the Soviet Union also competed in bringing back the best Nazi scientists to their own countries, like Wernher von Braun, who developed rockets for the United States after creating them for the Germans. The U.S. also became the worldwide leader in education since it took in so many of the world's intellectuals, and although its primary school system is compromised, at the university level the U.S. is still considered the best in the world overall (granted this link is from a U.S. news site): <a href="http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world">http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Culture in effect became a weapon in the Cold War. In 1959, Vice-President Nixon engaged in Soviet Premier Khruschev in what became known as the "kitchen" debate, basically they argued who can better supply the consumer needs of their people, who can deliver the better "lifestyle." In 1950 the Congress for Cultural Freedom was founded by artists and intellectuals who advocated the superiority of the West for promoting culture and openness (later on it was revealed this organization was secretly funded by the CIA) and published journals throughout the world advocating these views. Abstract artists like Jackson Pollack were promoted heavily to show the cultural superiority of capitalism over communism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the 1960s what became known as the "counter-culture" in the U.S. was heavily influenced by the nihilist tinged German expressionism and Dadaism. Jim Morrison, the poet and the lead singer of 60s rock group the Doors claimed inspiration from Nietzsche and with other members studies with Josef von Sternberg, director of <i>The Blue Angel</i>, at UCLA in the early 1960s. One of their early songs was a cover by the playwright Bertolt Brecht who was also a major influence on Benjamin. The name of Jimi Hendrix's band was "The Jimi Hendrix Experience," and as we know, experience is one of the major concerns of the people we have read in this class. The whole concept of "psychedelics" and the "drug culture" comes out of the idea of altered experiences theorized by people like Benjamin (who also wrote an essay about his experience on hashish in Marseilles). The guitarist Eric Clapton claims to have been influenced by Dadaism as well. The fascination with Indian philosophy and meditation was also shared by the Beatles in the 1960s, and arguably this spiritual impulse is still strong today with things like the Kabbala practiced by Madonna (Jewish mysticism which also had an influence on Benjamin).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Modern day forms of "street art" also borrows heavily from the Dadaists, especially the ironic, subversive nature of the art, combined with the need to be publicly displayed instead of in a traditional setting, thus changing the experience of the object. That is precisely what distinguishes street art from traditional art.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUX6RKJyHqELEvUIJLAXhpTzJUcEnqhFWprii366GnJ8qtLxzTNvejf7wFvPJ1kcoUrzLwmKvdbRNi1UiuulhQAw4h9a5kjLGC74ChDlmAwbX6Ib7FlowUUzBvN4Ivtg5T8IauR0a7w8/s1600/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-05929,_Berlin,_KPD-Plakat_zu_den_Reichstagswahlen.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUX6RKJyHqELEvUIJLAXhpTzJUcEnqhFWprii366GnJ8qtLxzTNvejf7wFvPJ1kcoUrzLwmKvdbRNi1UiuulhQAw4h9a5kjLGC74ChDlmAwbX6Ib7FlowUUzBvN4Ivtg5T8IauR0a7w8/s400/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-05929,_Berlin,_KPD-Plakat_zu_den_Reichstagswahlen.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">John Heartfield, <i>The Hand Has Five Fingers</i>, 1928</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFcvHXPZI0GO93x7MGuuD-sPWin8sI2OVkDk-z51xYrPT5KGOaUznb4v0lE1E85TC8-BtlezhV_sMNZO13c_0AMe1qygps6zM6_9uOFRNj_s4cDTpalS3N60GcxbbrNK5H0zpxJ72cSX8/s1600/obey_wallpaper_02-349933491.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFcvHXPZI0GO93x7MGuuD-sPWin8sI2OVkDk-z51xYrPT5KGOaUznb4v0lE1E85TC8-BtlezhV_sMNZO13c_0AMe1qygps6zM6_9uOFRNj_s4cDTpalS3N60GcxbbrNK5H0zpxJ72cSX8/s400/obey_wallpaper_02-349933491.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Shepard Fairey, <i>OBEY, </i>circa<i> </i>1990</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJZ60oH_AuHxfq5ntA0sS-OgSiM3K_xhXxrzLZxdrchlnWy494A5n52EM5L73HHh43aTKofHXRLO0CrLj_zhNDBlT5HNyevyZteIrYkGF8QY0FZ3A9wHMNeD075fMg9zNiLJY50fgQlt8/s800/158408667_a51c54522c_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJZ60oH_AuHxfq5ntA0sS-OgSiM3K_xhXxrzLZxdrchlnWy494A5n52EM5L73HHh43aTKofHXRLO0CrLj_zhNDBlT5HNyevyZteIrYkGF8QY0FZ3A9wHMNeD075fMg9zNiLJY50fgQlt8/s400/158408667_a51c54522c_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Banksy, <i>RPG Mona Lisa,</i> 2001</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The United States became the dominant economic power in the world after World War II. The material basis of the so-called "Baby Boom" generation in the United States, which reaped the full benefits of the U.S. post-war prosperity in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. Often unacknowledged is that the super prosperity of the U.S. during this time was primarily because the other major industrial powers of the world were rebuilding from World War II. Not surprisingly the two most dominant industrial powers after the U.S. were Germany and Japan. By the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s, exports from these countries was seriously eroding U.S. economic power. Arguably the U.S. has never recovered from this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although conservative, the governments in Germany and Japan both pursued policies that would be considered "socialist" in the context of U.S. politics. In Germany this is called the "Social Market Economy" (<i>Soziale Marktwirtschaf</i>t) and is categorized by a "cooperative" approach between business, labor, and the state. Germans have an extensive system of unemployment insurance and health insurance that are envied for their efficiency and lack of corruption; the state regulates business to ensure quality and competition between industries; Germans also maintain an extensive job training and vocational training program financed by taxes which has been helpful for re-training German workers to meet the needs of a changing economy; union representatives are also legally required to serve on the board of directors of corporations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">No parallels such as these exists in the U.S. but this is not to argue necessarily that the U.S. should adopt them. The German system works because they are culturally homogeneous to an extent more than the U.S. which is far more diverse, and also much larger. Germany at around 80 million has a larger population than France or Great Britain but is dwarfed by the U.S. population at almost 320 million. It does perhaps suggest that sacrifices made by people like Luxemburg almost 100 years ago does have some impact on the present, and have maintained a strong social democratic impulse in German politics, to such an extent that even conservatives agree on social welfare policy for the state. Obviously the culture of the U.S. has been heavily infused by many of these ideas, but always filtered through a unique American perspective which also draws on many other cultures as well. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As we deal with all of the same issues today that people were dealing with then it may be possible to predict the future by looking at the past. But, it takes time, dedication, understanding, and skill to pick out the fragments of the past and choose correctly the fragments that reveal the longing for freedom that motivates all of humanity. In the end, it seems the only way to overcome nihilism and all of its destructive consequences, many of which we have seen in this class, is to somehow grab hold of the stored meaning of history while at the same time breaking free of the constraints of obsolete institutions and the identities and values that develop to support these institutions; any theory or movement which is incapable of doing both, or only capable of doing one or the other, is doomed to repeat the failures of past generations.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Hope you all enjoyed the class. It was very nice meeting all of you! Thank you for your participation and your blog posts which are very interesting to read. The papers should be done by next Saturday 5/23 and e-mailed to me.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-32219495365904254422015-05-09T12:30:00.000-04:002015-05-10T09:18:58.284-04:005/9 Walter Benjamin "Theses on the Philosophy of History"<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The final reading for the course, "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940) also by Walter Benjamin like the previous reading is also a challenging read, and like the other essay is less of a traditional essay format, than a series of fragmented writings loosely connected to the central theme: a philosophy of history or an attempt to make sense of history and question whether or not there is some meaning to history. </span><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Written four years after the previous essay, this essay was written perhaps during the darkest days of World War II. By 1940 Hitler had already occupied most of Europe even "Great Powers" like France surrendered to the Nazis. A "puppet" government was set up in Southern France, the Vichy </span>government<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. Benjamin was detained briefly in a detention camp by this government in 1940.</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWo1PulyJKjGn1IkeDeNvWO5yRgQ1cj0zODXX4MVYy6oT9AmF0wKkMFdj-6DxHrdr3bq1P9zU9eEd-h-MiLzLqmdmxRh1BBii3HpjRzC4FLx-4LXRpg5O8EbLCdImwrjukg7rQyDC8Kjo/s1600/2013.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWo1PulyJKjGn1IkeDeNvWO5yRgQ1cj0zODXX4MVYy6oT9AmF0wKkMFdj-6DxHrdr3bq1P9zU9eEd-h-MiLzLqmdmxRh1BBii3HpjRzC4FLx-4LXRpg5O8EbLCdImwrjukg7rQyDC8Kjo/s400/2013.png" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">The US had not entered the war, not until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941, almost three years into the war. Germany and the Soviet Union were allies at this point (Germany later betrayed the Soviets and invaded June 1941), and Germany was about to attack Great Britain, the last remaining European power in 1940.</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZHkHP6CsDAtuCj4IepA_TaTTieZSs0CLMX3fbkbiFeyrj5_dCDCDpc6SDpv5OXYP3PMqeezSsr1Xe5gvWX_8zw8GRd7zNkiXYYpdAYr-KaIb_KUpXVaVmcPINAH4Und6TFlpPu_25_Q0/s1600/Europe_under_Nazi_domination.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZHkHP6CsDAtuCj4IepA_TaTTieZSs0CLMX3fbkbiFeyrj5_dCDCDpc6SDpv5OXYP3PMqeezSsr1Xe5gvWX_8zw8GRd7zNkiXYYpdAYr-KaIb_KUpXVaVmcPINAH4Und6TFlpPu_25_Q0/s400/Europe_under_Nazi_domination.png" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Nazi Germany and Occupied Territories, 1940-1942</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> His last work was found incomplete, among his possessions after he died. It was never intended for publication.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Many of the passages begin with quotations and these serve a specific and important function in Benjamin's thinking. As it relates to history, Benjamin argues that wisdom as it is passed through history as tradition is properly preserved in the form of quotations, so quoting is an act of preserving tradition. In this regard, Benjamin's intent is quite conservative, however, as Arendt has argued, Benjamin's sense of preservation becomes destructive once the meaning of these traditions become recognizable as a judgement against the present because the traditions speak to a form of life that has been lost forever. As it relates to nihilism then, Benjamin's position is quite unique from the other thinkers we have discussed. Rather than beginning from the point of a radical break from the past in the present as nihilist thinking has done up to Nietzsche, and animated all the work of all the people we have looked at from Dada to Jünger, Benjamin's intent is to break from the present by using the past. In other words to quote is a way of reflecting upon tradition in order to judge its value in the present, at the same time, to also judge the present by relating it to the past–specifically and above all else by looking at the claims for freedom justice and equality that have gone unrecognized throughout history.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">James Joyce writes in <i>Ulysses</i>, "history is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake." The American playwright Eugene O'Neill writes in a similar vein, "there is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now." These quotes suggest the enormous burden of the past on the present and the enormous force which past events still have in the present. Joyce speaks through the character Stephen Daedalus. Daedalus is the name of the architect in Greek mythology who builds the labyrinth, a vast underground maze at the center of which is the minotaur. Some argue that Joyce is suggesting that history is a labyrinth, a vast maze in which we are all trapped in. In mythology the hero Theseus, enters the labyrinth and slays the minotaur, but is able to retrace his steps and find his way out of the maze. Perhaps then through learning history one is able to retrace the steps the past generations have made to be able to escape the labyrinth, or to wake up from the nightmare of history. Benjamin's writings would suggest this interpretation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Obviously Benjamin's literary background helps explain the development of an approach such as this, but this also relates to his "philosophy of language" which I outlined in the last lecture especially the idea that there is a "natural language" underlying human language to which human language is a flawed derivative. Quotes will reveal certain patterns and common concerns in human history because the language itself derives from a common structure. Traces of this underlying structure which perhaps could be the Proto-Indo European language mentioned at the beginning of class can be revealed through quotes, or more accurately through the proper presentation of quotations. However, Benjamin tended to rely on a more theological theory in which natural language itself derives from the divine language of God (something which Benjamin believes is revealed symbolically in the Book of Genesis where God gives Adam the power to name the objects in nature; Benjamin was also early associated with the Kabbala the recently fashionable school of Jewish mysticism practiced by many celebrities). The idea of naming something, similar to quoting places the highest emphasis on language as a creative force in human life. In many regards Benjamin's position can be summed up by the idea of calling things by their proper names (implying that most things are falsely named). Although Arendt claims that Benjamin later abandoned this early theological framework, his frequent references to the messiah or messianism in his final writings cast some doubt on this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This leads to the second major aspect of Benjamin's method. Once the emphasis on quotation has been established as a way of accessing traditions buried in the past, the next aspect is how precisely to use quotes to accomplish this, or the presentation of language. Here Benjamin seems influenced by the Dadaists who pioneered the use of photo montage in their work, and montage was the technique used by Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein as well. In both cases, montage refers to the seeming random placement of images, which paradoxically reveal a deeper meaning through the placement of unrelated, or meaningless objects. To this extent, and also through the surrealists in Paris, Benjamin is influenced in this regard to create a kind of montage effect through the use of quotes. The most radical expression of this work was Benjamin's planned project to construct a whole book out of quotations with only minimal text written by himself, never completed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Two other influences derive from Benjamin's own life but which also became important ideas in his thinking are the professional collector and the <i>flâneur</i>. Benjamin was a book collector and appreciated the unsystematic approach that collectors bring to their passion as opposed to say a more systematic way of categorizing things. The </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">flâneur</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> is a French word borrowed from Baudelaire, referring to someone who wanders aimlessly through the cities, again as opposed to say to the hurried businessman going to a meeting, the </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">flâneur</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> is unsystematic and undirected, free to take in the varied experiences of the city. Before criticizing it is worth noting that these categories correspond to the categories of time and space also discussed last lecture. The collector who appropriates the past makes his way through time, the </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">flâneur</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> through space–both emphasizing however again the free and unsystematic nature of both. However their are problems with this as well. For one the idea of the </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">flâneur</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> refers to Paris which has a wholly different urban structure than cities like New York especially in the present. The idea of wandering aimlessly through the city free and unobstructed seems to be itself related to a bygone era, perhaps even worse the construction of suitable public spaces for walking has been confined to special designated areas created by public authorities, a far cry from Benjamins idea of unrestricted movement through a changing and shifting urban landscape and who did write several travel journals of his experiences in cities like Berlin, Moscow, Naples, Paris, and Marseilles. Similarly the idea of the collector which besides suggesting a somewhat solitary existence has also been transformed into a highly profitable business. However in understanding Benjamin's curious approach to history it is important to draw out these influences in order to explain this approach especially the emphasis on being unsystematic or defying conventional categories of classifying. It should be said, that although I consider these aspects of Benjamin's thought to be the most obsolete today, the idea of collecting seems to be more popular than ever judging by the endless supply of reality television shows about various types of collectors. Even the idea of the fl</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">â</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">neur, perhaps somewhat artificially,</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> is re-emerging in New York with the tendency to create more pedestrian and bike paths, and even creating boat-ways</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> out of once polluted industrial canals, like the Gowanus canal in Brooklyn, although the costs and benefits of this are still uncertain to say the least.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><a href="http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2007/10/03/gowanus_canal_has_gonorrhea.php">http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2007/10/03/gowanus_canal_has_gonorrhea.php</a></u></span><br />
<span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Benjamin himself spoke of his method as "drilling" as in the ancient method of drilling through the earth to get to water. The process of compiling quotes, of sifting through history as tradition in the form of endless documents, relates to the process of drilling when finding some quote reveals something in the present is like the act of drilling through rock to the water–by reaching some vital connection between past and present revealed through a quote. Benjamin says quoting is like drilling for water, not a kind of archaeological excavation which again presumes a more systematic character, but drilling instead proceeds through the act of recognition, of some connection to the present, rather than the archaeologist who often does not know the object until classifying it. This method is sometimes refereed to as hermeneutics and roughly it can be translated as the act of translation. Arendt compares Benjamin to a deep sea diver who goes down into the depths of the ocean to retrieve corals and pearl laying in the depths. The pearls and coral in this case refer to the quotes, but again they only attain value by their connection to the present, by the way in which they relate present struggles to past ones. Arendt takes the analogy even further by introducing the idea of "sea change" from Shakespeare's <i>Tempest: </i>valueless objects submerged in the ocean over time go through sea change or transform into valuable objects through a process of "encrustation" that happens to objects over time. In other words, once valueless quotes, or random expressions by obscure people acquire value over time as they relate themselves to the present, this relates also to the idea that critic, completes the piece in a sense. The montage effect is preserved through the seeming randomness of quotes that acquire destructive force only in their relationship to their each other. Before moving on it is important to note also the prevalence of the water symbolism. In both analogies water is used to symbolize the totality of existence, similar to the way in which the river symbolizes existence in <i>Siddhartha</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Benjamin's radical approach to the past and present is obviously antagonistic to the prevalent liberal idea of progress (one that is currently in a state of crisis which it cannot free itself from as seen in the work of Jünger). The idea of progress is central to this work. The myth of European history for at least 200 years prior was the idea that "things were getting better". Although many problems still existed, humanity was making steady progress in solving the problems of human life. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Until the 18th century, the Enlightenment, humanity (meaning people in a collective sense) had not developed a historical consciousness of itself. The notion of linear time, as opposed to time-cycles, or even no concept of time at all, is an invention more or less of this period of time. In other words a radically different experience of time. Once this awareness has developed people begin to see themselves as part of a larger continuity that stretches back for thousands of years. Out of this humanity begins to realize it has greater control over its own destiny than previously believed. This opens up new areas of emancipation, and new areas of activity, but it also increases the awareness of the importance of controlling things, including the larger social environment that people share. Paradoxically as people become more self-aware they seem to change less and become more rigid in their character, believing that their values are either natural and eternal or the end result of a long process of development. As new activities are undertaken, people begin to become more aware of the differences in technological development between different peoples at different points in time. The state of technological development then becomes one of the primary, if not the primary, means by which progress and development are measured. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Benjamin (and this idea is shared somewhat by Nietzsche as well) strongly questioned this idea: maybe life is not getting better, maybe its getting worse, maybe its always been bad. This fear drives almost every major intellectual and artistic work of the 20th century. In these series of fragments he argues for a different consciousness of history and even radically different experiences of time and space. Similar to the essay on mass culture, Benjamin's concern is with the changing conditions of how people experience reality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Benjamin is concerned with time and how we perceive it, as discussed in the previous lecture on the Kantian "transcendental" that organizes sense-experience into the dimensions of time and space. When he refers to the "eternal now" or "messianic time" he has in mind a conception of time that does not operate in terms of past, present, or future, but more like one present moment that stretches on into forever–until the "messiah" or saviour comes.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The first thesis is an allegorical piece that lays out Benjamin's approach to studying history by combining historical materialism with theology. Historical materialism is the name that Karl Marx gave to his own approach to studying history: an unceasing struggle between competing economic classes that go through various stages of productive development and decline culminating in capitalism in the present, with the belief that the true end of historical development will be completed with the creation of a socialist society in the future. Marxism to this extent is also a part of Enlightenment thinking because it is also driven by, at the time, a new sense of historical awareness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The "materialism" part of historical materialism suggests that historical analysis should be directed towards the material aspects of society (the economy), not its ideal or cultural aspects. One of Marx's most famous statements on the relation of material life with historical change is the following from "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" (1852): </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; the do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living (Marx p. 595).</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In other words "history" is the result of previous struggles by previous classes which impacts people in the present. The driving force of these struggles are competition over the economic means of life. As these circumstances change, continuous tension is produced by values and ways of life that are increasingly in greater conflict with a changing environment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The scientific method is the proper means of studying the material (or physical) aspects of society, and so Marxism always identified itself as a scientific theory. However, science by itself can only understand material life, what remains is the ideal or cultural part of life which historical materialism dismisses as unimportant. What Benjamin is saying in short, that the scientific theory of historical materialism must be united with theology or religion in order to have a true grasp of human life and retain the human concern with emancipation. In other words, Benjamin is trying to see if there is a way to reconcile science with religion which seems to be a distinctly modern problem that people are still dealing with today. However, this view is at odds with Marx's thought who rejected religion and theism as "opiates for the masses."</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The second, third and fourth theses outline what should be the focus of history. Benjamin argues in the second that redemption is fundamentally tied to our idea of happiness and that the concern with the past shows a concern with redemption. Redemption meaning the ability to fix or correct past injustices. History should then bring out and make people aware of the long history of injustices inflicted upon people. Becoming aware of this will help motivate people to want to put an end to injustice or as he says, "like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply". It cannot be settled cheaply because it is a claim made not only by the present generation, but by all the previous generations that have come before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">As this relates to Benjamin's concept of the "eternal now" all conflicts are placed on an equal level. Ancient struggles against oppression are in a sense no different than conflicts today, because the forces at work and the motives in play are more or less the same–even if technology itself has changed the forms in which these conflicts play out.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The third thesis reflects this concern arguing that historians should not distinguish between major and minor events. Injustice is revealed by looking at the minor events of people who you have never heard of. This also suggests that awareness of these things are obscured or concealed by something else, the major events: the official histories of kingdoms and nations.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The fourth thesis suggests some of the the things which may be lost: courage, humor, cunning, and fortitude i.e. the qualities displayed by the oppressed classes in their struggle against oppression. These qualities develop under conditions of adversity and is important not to lose sight of how they important they are or forget the people who have shown them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">All of these theses suggest that prior histories have tended to overlook or suppress the histories of the oppressed classes. The next several deal with the failures of the bourgeois classes to create accurate and reliable historical works, and how this serves a political function.</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The fifth, sixth and seventh theses make up Benjamin's attack on official historians or what he refers to as "historicism". The fifth argues that since it is impossible to ever truly grasp the past in its completeness or as he says "it flits by", the </span>historicists<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> attempt to create objective histories are doomed to failure. In the sixth he echoes this sentiment but also introduces the idea that this is not merely a flaw in scholarship but a part of the process of how the ruling classes justify and legitimate their rule by creating distorted accounts of history that conceal the history of oppression but still present themselves as objective, scientific history. When he says even the dead are not safe he is referring to how great figures of the past are twisted in order to suit the purposes of the powerful in the present–just think of all the bad things that have been done in the name of religious figures. This is kind of a spin on the saying "history is written by the winners". Instead history should be used a way of drawing inspiration from the past to confront the dangers of the present.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The seventh thesis also reflects and expands upon this thinking and really tries to force a confrontation between the present and the history of injustice and oppression in the past or as he says:</span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those lying prostrate. According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession. They are called cultural treasures, and a historical materialist views them with cautious detachment. For without exception the cultural treasures he surveys have an origin which he cannot contemplate without horror. They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. <i>There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism</i>.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A good example to use here would be the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Although it is a great cultural achievement and world monument, it was built by slave labor. So on the one hand you have the pyramids as representing the cultural values and ingenuity of the Egyptians, a historical materialist would focus on the actual material forces which built the pyramids (slave labor), or as he says a document of civilization and barbarism. This relates to what Benjamin spoke of in the previous essay about the ritualistic function of art; although many beautiful artistic pieces have been created in the past, </span>primarily<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, they were used for the purposes of ritual ceremonies that played a role in </span>legitimating<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> forms of domination.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The eighth, ninth, and tenth theses are not so much about Fascism as they are Benjamin's critique of liberals who failed to deal with Fascism. This builds on what Benjamin argues in the previous theses. The failings of historicism (the bourgeois </span>discipline<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">) is not just an academic critique but has political importance as well. Liberals were unable to understand Fascism at first because they rested on these sanitized, cleaned up versions of history to form their world view, or because they were unwilling to confront the barbarism in their own culture they were unable to see it in Fascism.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The ninth thesis is the most well-known and is another allegory summing Benjamin's idea of progress (or lack thereof), as he says "wreckage piling upon wreckage." </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-style: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2cWVuJocEZF3BWcusb4JR2pKARDAK0EupYxxxcgVjSH-JdP3lgzvOlfj7ofHuwPtBg76SUTRbBI96-MVokhvPWZUvaClywyo4bqk82mZVLOmfAa-vO2zVL94Crrtwn-7FYm00Xtg7Agg/s1600/Klee2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2cWVuJocEZF3BWcusb4JR2pKARDAK0EupYxxxcgVjSH-JdP3lgzvOlfj7ofHuwPtBg76SUTRbBI96-MVokhvPWZUvaClywyo4bqk82mZVLOmfAa-vO2zVL94Crrtwn-7FYm00Xtg7Agg/s400/Klee2.jpeg" width="303" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Klee, <i>Angelus Novus</i>, 1920, Israel Museum</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The angel of history is the myth of progress that is facing backwards. In other words history is blind and does not know where it is going. To assume that we are moving in the direction of progress is just a way of dulling your mind to the obvious disaster and catastrophe that is the modern world.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Benjamin's fragments on history would eventually be synthesized by the Frankfurt School's Adorno and Horkheimer in <i>Dialectic of Enlightenment</i> (1944). As the title suggests, the central argument of the book attempts to unearth how the originally emancipatory ideas of the enlightenment, reverse themselves, and becomes a force of domination. By integrating psychoanalysis into their own studies they develop a theory that explains the reaction to the dehumanizing tendencies of modern scientific rationality as one of the prime stimulants of fascism which is rooted in a rejection of the "sensitivities" and scientific rationality of liberalism as explained by Jünger, even while fascists incorporate the technological forms of organization into their own structure. A controversial aspect of this argument, is that they go on to argue that modern mass culture which produces commodities that exploit mythical ideas and tends towards conformity is rooted in the same kind of rejection of enlightenment scientific rationality as fascism. The dialectical aspect of this also implies that this development is not a result of external forces, but the internal process in which the principles of the Enlightenment are taken to their logical conclusion. This undermines the entire basis of Enlightenment including the concepts of liberty and equality which developed in the context of the Enlightenment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The core out of which these later arguments developed came from Benjamin's original theses.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The tenth thesis again echoes the critique of liberals who rely on their faith in progress, their "mass basis" or liberal democracy, and the "uncontrollable apparatus" or the capitalist world market.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The next few theses deal with the similar failures of the social-democrats and communists to understand history.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth theses are Benjamin's critique of socialism or the social democratic parties in Germany and elsewhere. Marxism or socialism also falls back upon both a flawed notion of progress supported by a flawed notion of science which loses the human aspect that has to be maintained to bring about true freedom. As he says, "this vulgar-Marxist conception of the nature of labor bypasses the question of how its products might benefit the workers while still not being at their disposal. It recognizes only the progress in the mastery of nature, not the retrogression of society; it already displays the technocratic features later encountered in Fascism". </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The twelfth thesis, Benjamin argues that social democrats have lost touch with past, and also gives some significance to the Spartacist group. They fought not only for the oppressed of their times but also for the "generations of the downtrodden" who like Spartacus tried but failed in the past.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The thirteenth thesis also argues that the social democrats rely too much on a flawed idea of progress.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In the fourteenth and fifteenth theses Benjamin draws on some lessons from the French Revolution. In the fourteenth Benjamin talks how Robespierre (one of the leaders of the revolution) evoked the ancient Romans but used them in a way as if the Romans really had come back to life again in the French Revolution. He contrasts this with the superficial way in which people appropriate fashions without really getting to the real significance and meaning of what they appropriate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In the fifteenth, Benjamin examines one curious aspect of the French Revolution and perhaps maybe its most revolutionary aspect besides "Dechristianization"–the revolutionary calendar. Basically, after the French deposed their king in 1792, they created a new calendar and started from the year one! 1792 became 1 in their calendar in other words. What is the significance of this? An example of </span><i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Jetztzeit,</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> a radical perception of time. Again relating to the idea of the "eternal" quality of conflict. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He recounts an event from the second French revolution in 1848 where people shot at the </span>clock-towers<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to stop them from moving: to freeze time in the revolutionary moment. Revolutionary moments he argues necessarily break with the ordinary flow and progression of time, they pierce the everyday rhythms of life and disrupt the order of things. This relates to Benjamin's concern with "cultic" behavior (from the last essay) which is defined by repetitive behavior in the form of rituals </span>legitimated<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> by myths: the opposite of the explosive, disruptive behavior that is he speaking of. </span>Ritualistic<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> behavior also tends to assume the person is not fully aware and is acting out the rituals mostly out of habit; a revolutionary consciousness would require a full awareness of the historical moment. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth theses deal with the experience of time and are the most metaphysical of theses. In the sixteenth Benjamin argues that our experience is flawed, the past isn't really past because time itself never really changes, we only experience it as such. That's why he talks about the whore called "once upon a time", what he means is that phrase gives the impression of past events which are so remote and detached from our present lives that they no longer have any impact upon us–he is arguing for the opposite. Instead he is arguing that we take the promise of happiness in stories literally.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The seventeenth is probably the most complicated of all the theses. Since past and present do not follow a linear path (move in a straight line) the proper approach to history is to take historical fragments of people and events that are connected in some way in order to draw some connection to the present or provide some inspiration to present people in moments of danger (like fleeing from Nazis). This sounds very crude almost, but since the possibility of creating true objective history is an illusion anyway, the only thing left to do is to pick out the pieces of history that serve the goal of freeing the oppressed: the constellation, a series of points connected together which combined reveal a new object.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In the eighteenth thesis Benjamin argues that our concept of time is relative, that from another perspective the whole history of humankind can look very brief. Seen in this compressed way makes it easier to think of history as one long present moment and makes it easier to select out pieces of history for this.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Finally, in the epilogue parts A and B Benjamin argues about causality and the future. In A he argues again that historicists create a false awareness of history by proposing simplified cause and effect relationships in their historical work. Since the reality of history is so complex he doubts that one can create an accurate linear model of history, or history seen as moving in a straight line. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Instead, he gives his metaphor for connecting different fragments of the past–the constellation. Instead of a straight line, a constellation is composed of many points that do not seem to follow any kind of linear order but are instead of a sequence of points and connections that intersect each other in a way that it is hard to tell which point is first and which is last. However despite the lack of order, the wholeness of the constellation creates a definite shape and image. This is his idea for historical studies, you unearth different fragments and assemble them in a way so that different fragments become something complete and give some kind of definite direction or idea (or a monad as he calls it in the 17th thesis).</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In B, Benajmin who has talked mainly about the past and the present says a little about the future. Although he is distrustful of an idea of progress that always points to the future when things might get better instead of fixing the present now, he does not want to dismiss the future. The future is as important as the past. The future is the realm of anticipation and waiting, it is not empty time as he says, but where one waits for the moment to come when a new order is created (the Messiah returns).</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So in many ways, Benjamin's text is the most nihilistic of all the texts that we have looked at. History is one big disaster, full of suffering and misery, dominated by the strong who have imposed one conception, their conception, of "justice" and the "good life" one after another till another more powerful group comes around. Yet, the only way to overcome this is to immerse oneself in history completely, rather than to run away from it. Remember if we have talked about nihilism as a rejection of traditional morals and values, then Benjamin's philosophy of history reflects this idea perfectly. As he says "wreckage upon wreckage" is his view of the past, so why would anyone want to preserve wreckage (traditions and conventions)? This goes back to what I said earlier about quoting. The only way in which anything from the past can be </span>persevered<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> anymore, Benjamin says, is through a quote which is by </span>definition<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> fragmented and torn out of its context.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">At the same time, his knowledge of the past and his embrace of religion (albeit in his own unconventional way) suggests a more complicated relationship with traditions. At the very least, one must know the past before they can reject it as a history of oppression. But his own peculiar way of approaching history, through the metaphor of the constellation, suggests that it is not the past in and of itself that is wrong, but how we have interpreted and made sense of the past that is flawed:"history is written by the winners."</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Contrary, to critics who dismiss nihilism as "the belief in nothing," nihilism forces one to confront and investigate traditional meanings and values in order to create new values. Nihilism is critical of how morals and truth have been passed down to us, acknowledging the power and influence of tradition. But nihilism itself is not something positive, it </span>represents<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> emptiness, meaninglessness, and intense longing. </span>Nihilism<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> is the breeding ground of Nazism and all other forms of </span>totalitarianism<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Just as bad is the pathetic attempt to deny nihilism, to try to recreate a way of life that no longer has any </span>connection<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> with the actual conditions of life. The challenge of nihilism then, is to create new values to replace those traditional systems that have been destroyed. It is a two step process: 1) recognition of nihilism; 2) the will to overcome it. Benjamin critiques liberals for denying nihilism and he critiques fascists who celebrate "</span>nothingness"<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> as a way to justify their brutality. The relation between the two may be even closer than Benjamin realizes, as Adorno argues in <i>Dialectic of </i></span><i>Enlightenment</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> it is the failings of liberalism, because of its inner tendency to control, which in its way pushes people towards authoritarianism. This can be explained in part by the denial of nihilism and the censorship of all who speak of it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As it relates to experience, these shallow one-dimensional interpretation of history and of people in history impoverishes people's ability to experience, what he called <i>Erharfung</i> or integrated experiences. A higher level of experience is opened by understanding things in their historical context, at the same time, true objective views of history are more or less impossible. Integrated experience is </span>persevered<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> through this idea of the constellation (a structure of quotations similar to the structure of astrological constellations), that literally allows one to "cherry-pick" aspects of history in order to form a meaningful experience of the history of a thing. All prior history are really just different constellations of ideas and patterns that historians found meaningful.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This idea is inseparable from Benjamin's overall view that modern life is experienced in a fragmentary, discontinuous way. More modern commentators have picked up on this idea, suggesting that the best way for emancipation is not to impose order and uniformity upon an increasingly complicated modern world but to "adapt" to it in a sense:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">To be modern, I said, is to experience personal and social life as a maelstrom, to find one's world and oneself in perpetual disintegration and renewal, trouble and anguish, ambiguity and contradiction: to be part of a universe in which all that is solid melts into air. To be a modernist is to make oneself somehow at home in the maelstrom, to make its rhythms one's own, to move within its currents in search of the forms of reality, of beauty, of freedom, of justice, that its fervid and perilous flow allows (Berman 1982 pp. 345-346).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">We must also remember the social climate that produces this kind of thinking. The period of time in German history we are looking at was a period of time when almost all of the traditional ways of life were destroyed in the carnage of World War I. Those who still held on to their beliefs had to live in a world where revolution was a constant threat, people were prey to an erratic capitalist world market, and new radical forms of extremism were seizing power. On the other hand, new modes of perception and experience were being created leading to new forms of sexuality, traditional gender roles were beginning to be challenged and although the loss of traditions can lead to uncertainty and anxiety it also creates the possibility for liberation once oppressive traditions which hold people back have been thrown away.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Technology both destroys old values but also creates new forms of communication that can help articulate new values. It expands the power of the state, but it also gives people power to resist the state. Technology can be both </span>liberating<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> and oppressive, although this view is controversial. However in the context of modern American life, often only the </span>positive<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> aspects of technology are mentioned, the negative side is often concealed. These tools have opened up new areas of human understanding and allowed us to see things and think about things that people were not able to do prior to this. And of course the development of technology contributed to the nihilistic mood. Psychoanalysis challenges traditional notions of sexuality, communication (and community), and identity. Photography and film change our perception of our bodies and allow us to study the human body in ways we never could before. This also makes it easier to control people but also gives us greater insight into ourselves and others.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Next class we will wrap things up and brings thing up to the present.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-75766874882416824812015-05-02T00:00:00.000-04:002015-05-02T15:17:37.448-04:005/2 Walter Benjamin: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was part of the same generation of radical intellectuals like Sigefried Kracauer, Max Horkheimer, and Theodor Adorno–collectively known as the Frankfurt School–who we discussed in the lectures on mass culture. While maintaing an opposed stance to capitalism and emphasizing a cultural </span>critique<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of capitalism, based on the concepts of "ideology" and "consciousness," and "subjectivity," at the same time they </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">were distancing themselves from traditional Marxist thought, precisely because these ideas</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> had been neglected by previous Marxist thinkers. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Intellectuals from this generation basically created the field of media and cultural studies today, especially after many of them emigrated to the United States after 1933, where the first major studies on the effects of radio and movies on a mass audience were created. The influx of so many German and Austrian intellectuals (and soon after from all the other nations in Europe) from so different fields greatly contributed to the development of the American academic establishment, and is a large reason why the American university system is still considered to be the best in the world today.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Benjamin was among the first to leave Germany after Hitler took power in 1933 and settled in Paris. Yet for some reason he seemed to overestimate his security in France. Perhaps he loved the city–which he referred to as "the capital of the 19th century"–too much. Or perhaps, it was his large uncompleted work on urban life in Paris–known as "The Arcades Project," after the indoor/outdoor shopping malls constructed in 19th century Paris, the "arcades"–that he was still working on that kept him from leaving. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He was also a great admirer of French art and wrote extensively about poets like Baudelaire (1821-1867) and new art movements at that time like Surrealism (something which we have not really discussed that much and different from Dada or Expressionism). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Most of the Frankfurt School had emigrated to the U.S. between 1934-1936 (along with many other German refugees or </span><i>émigrés</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">). Adorno, who stayed in England for some time, joined his colleagues in New York in 1938. Once settled in the U.S. the Frankfurt School taught at Columbia University for several years through the 1930s and 1940s, where it was officially renamed the International Institute for Social Research. After the war, many of them stayed in the U.S. although Horkheimer and Adorno went back to Germany and </span>reestablished<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> the Institute at Goethe University Frankfurt (named after the German writer Goethe). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">On several </span>occasions<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, Adorno and others tried to persuade Benjamin to leave Paris. After the war began in September 1939, French authorities briefly detained Benjamin and other German refugees in "detention" camps. After Germany invaded France in the Spring of 1940, Benjamin, with others, tried to illegally cross the border into Spain. The ultimate goal was Lisbon in Portugal which was a neutral port and a haven for refugees seeking asylum in the United States. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Unfortunately, after crossing into Spain they were detained by Spanish authorities who had just decided to close the border at this time. Fearing he would be turned over to the Germans, Benjamin </span>(a Jew with known communist associations) committed suicide by an overdose of morphine tablets–the guards were apparently so shocked that they allowed the rest of the group to go through. <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As a result of this, most of his work was unknown in America until the 1970s. He tends to fit into the mold of other people like Nietzsche (or Van Gogh) who became more famous after they died. The German-American theorist Hannah Arendt </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">quotes Cicero</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> when writing about Benjamin's life: <i>Si vivi vicissent qui morte vicerunt</i>–"if they had been victorious in life who have won victory in death." Even his colleagues in the Frankfurt School, during his lifetime, disagreed with many aspects of his work especially regarding mass culture and sometimes refused to publish his work or published it with revisions. They did however publish this essay in 1936 in their journal </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> (renamed </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Studies in Philosophy and Social Science</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> in 1939).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There is some strange irony in life that people like Benjamin and Rosa Luxemburg, had violent deaths, while Ernst Jünger (1895-1998)–who in his earlier work wrote about war as some kind of elevated religious experience </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">and supported the Nazis early on–lived to be 102 and became one of the most respected German writers in the 1950s and 60s, and died in 1998, having lived through almost the entire 20th century. Or Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) who directed Nazi propaganda films, </span>continuing<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> in the art world after the war and lived to be 101. If Benjamin had lived he would have come to the U.S. and would have provided a balance from his more elitist comrades who were almost unanimously skeptical and disdainful of all form of "popular culture." Instead the fields of study revolving around the media and culture have an unmistakable elitist bias that continues into the present, in large part due to the large role people like Adorno had in establishing the very concepts and language we use to analyze and study the media.</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The essay that we are reading this week, as its title implies, deals with the </span>transformations<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> in how art is produced, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">and how people receive it, brought about through technologies of mass production. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Benjamin unlike many other media critics is positive in his overall view on the media–although with some qualifications–he believes it has great potential for freedom and the ability to undermine traditionally repressive systems of values. At the same time however, Benjamin is concerned with the loss of tradition in life. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Mass media then gives us a more realistic view of the world and increases our ability to communicate with others even though we lose out in the sense of the supernatural and the mysterious that used to make art so powerful, what he later refers to as the "cult value" of art. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">But he is aware that the potential exists for fascism to capitalize on this technology for its own purposes as well. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Take for example the almost constant rituals and rallies complete with torches, flags, banners, and other ritualistic objects in the film </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Triumph of the Will</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. The director Leni Riefenstahl had near unlimited resources granted to her by the German government and at that time (and for some still in the present) the film was praised for its sophistication and technique. In other words, Benjamin believed that mass culture or rather any commodity produced under a capitalist system contains both "utopian" or "regressive" elements </span>(as in utopian, a striving for something better, and regress, the opposite of progress)<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The task of the critic (himself) is to bring out these elements in their own criticism–the critic "completes the piece" in a sense which is incomplete until it has been critiqued for only then does the deeper meaning of the work appear.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> The rest of the Frankfurt School were highly opposed to this position and saw the attempt to read utopian ideas into mass culture as giving them a fake magical quality and overly subjective, in other words they saw all mass culture as the deceptive and manipulative aspects of mass culture created by the Nazis. In one of their most controversial arguments made later in the 1940s they argue explicitly that mass culture in America or what they call the "culture industry" essentially produces the same totalitarian system of control in a fascist state, they are "two sides of the same coin" they say. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A major influence on Benjamin was the German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), who championed the idea of art having a social consciousness, or being <i>didactic, </i></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">and who among other things stressed the idea of what he called "crude" thinking to Benjamin. It is meant as a revolutionary tactic, based on the belief that to have any impact upon a mass society that social and political ideas are best expressed in simple forms. </span>Benjamin for example once said that Charlie Chaplin films have the same effect as Dadaism, except he does it more "naturally." Brecht and Chaplin both parodied and mocked Hitler: Brecht in his play<i> The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui </i>(1941) and Chaplin in the film <i>The Great Dictator</i> (1940). After hearing of Benjamin's death, Brecht reportedly said it was the first real loss Hitler had caused German literature.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Brecht declared that "crude thinking is the thinking of great men." </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">n another
essay that was not assigned, Benjamin speaks of the Brechtian influence of crude or coarse thinking
in its relation to <i>praxis</i> (action): “Coarse thoughts have a special place in dialectical
thinking because their sole function is to direct theory toward practice. They
are directives <i>toward</i></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;"> practice, not <i>for</i></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;"> it: action can, of course, be as subtle as thought. But a thought must
be coarse to find its way into action” (Benjamin p. 199).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Positions like this horrified the Frankfurt School who had a very developed aesthetic </span>taste and saw crude thinking as a justification for communist doctrine (Brecht was much more in line with the Soviet Union and some would accuse him of being a "Stalinist"). Benjamin also quotes Brecht saying "do not build on the good old days, but the bad new ones," which suggests a turning away from cultural tradition and an embrace of new forms of art which create new experiences.</span></div>
<div>
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Art is after all communicated through a kind of language even if it is a pictorial or symbolic language just as music is considered a language. Evaluating or judging<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> the status of mass culture in contemporary society is still one of the most controversial aspects of modern life. Many, like the Frankfurt School believe that mass culture only has a harmful and regressive effect on the population–even if they are willing to admit that consumer impulses still contain a distorted demand for respect and dignity. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Adorno's </span>critique<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of Benjamin's approach is that it "lacks mediation" meaning that it is caught up in the "immediacy" or the immediate experience of the object, and not able to distance itself from the object and put it in its proper context. In essence they say: Benjamin judges things too much at face value. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">However, they all place special emphasis on the "experience" of art by people, how it affects consciousness by giving us categories by which to interpret the world, whether this develops in a group setting or individually. One of Benjamin's goals then is to explain how the experience of art changes when it is reproduced. Benjamin theorizes about two kinds of experience </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Erfahrung </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">(integrated experience) and </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Erlebnisse</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> (isolated experience). Integrated experience was a fuller and more developed form of experience as its name implies than isolated experience. Integrated experience occurs by understanding the historical </span>origins<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of objects that you come into contact with–as tradition–while isolated experience suggests the opposite: objects are encountered in isolation and usually seen as hostile. </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Analysis, </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">as a </span>cognitive<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> skill that can be developed, refers to the process of breaking down an object, to separate that object into parts, and observe each piece in isolation. In other words, the process of analysis itself, upon which reason and science rest and which is developed through rigorous disciplining, itself creates isolated experience. Integrated experience establishes a </span>continuity<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> or connection between experiences transmitted through tradition, while isolated experience sees no connection between one experience and another. Although Benjamin praises the potential liberating power of mass culture, the detachment of objects from their historical context–which mechanical </span>reproduction<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> makes possible–risks cutting the vital connection to history that makes integrated experience possible.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The emphasis on experience is rooted in the neo-Kantian philosophy that was standard in German universities in the early 20th century and was an influence on Benjamin and the Frankfurt School and others. Central to Kant's philosophy is the idea that there are forms of knowledge that do not depend upon experience in order to know this knowledge or to verify it, that there is knowledge prior to experience–this is known as "rationalism" or "apriorism" or </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">a priori</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> (Latin for "prior to" experience, literally translated as "from the earlier")</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, and is in </span>contrast<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to "empiricism" which is knowledge learned through experience. Kant then divides our mental apparatus (our mind) into the "understanding" which is prior to experience, or </span>transcendental,<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> and the "sensibility" which perceives sensory stimuli from the outside world. The understanding processes or "interprets" what the sensibility perceives and converts these fragmentary sense impressions into knowledge. The understanding is different from the senses however. Kant argues this structure within the mind is universal, and seems to suggest that is at least close to the idea of what people refer to as a soul (another meaning of transcendent), although Kant would resist this kind of unscientific </span>classification.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The most important ideas or concepts of the understanding, again, prior to experience are "space" and "time." In other words before we learn anything through experience our minds already perceive (and thus "know") time and space which Kant regards as a form of prior knowledge that is also universal and is the foundation of all experiences in general– the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">transcendental</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. Time and space are what makes experience possible by "organizing" sensory perceptions from the outside world into knowledge. Kant's position is meant to address the arguments by empiricists or materialists who </span>believed<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> that our minds passively "reflect" or record the objects of the external world, and on the other side, that the outside world is only real to the extent we are aware of it. Kant argues that there is an external objective world that exists outside of people, but that our minds are much more active in processing the information that comes from the outside. His ultimate objective is to clarify the limits of </span>knowledge<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, and famously Kant claimed we could never know the "thing in-itself" (<i>Das ding ah sich</i>) meaning the outside world as it really is, our conceptual apparatus in our minds will always function as a kind of screen or lens to the outside world that interprets the world.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Benjamin would later argue that Kant's concept of the transcendental misses the role of language in experience, and that Kant only defines experience in terms of mathematical or scientific knowledge, Benjamin wants to include religious and artistic modes of experience into his philosophy, even though he risks losing the scientific basis that Kant had been developing. Instead of a </span>unitary<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> form of experience that experiences the world in a uniform way, Benjamin proposes multiple forms of experience that reconstitute our perceptions of the world in radically different ways–all mediated through language. Although not really a direct connection, Benjamin was likely influenced by the "theory of relativity" developed by Albert Einstein (1879-1955) also in the early 20th century, which states among other things that space and time are relative to the perspective of the viewer (later scientists even dispute the notion of time at all). Thus the Kantian idea of time being a universal feature of experience is now thrown into doubt. At the same time, jazz music is continuing to evolve in the United States and has already become popular in Europe from World War I on after being introduced to it by </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">James Reese Europe (1881-1919) and the</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> "Harlem Hellfighters." </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Musicians like Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">revolutionized</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> music by changing the rhythm of music in a way which so many critics have noted was more reflective of the pace of the modern world, and of course the 1920s is sometimes referred to as the "Jazz Age" in U.S. history. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EfGZB78R7uw/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EfGZB78R7uw?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"Swing kids" in Germany were a subculture in the 1930s that listened to banned American jazz and "swing" records.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> It is not clear that Benjamin was influenced by Einstein or Armstrong directly, in fact Benjamin's most direct influences seem to be primarily European and literary and aesthetic not scientific, but in fact the seeming randomness reveals the ways in which conventional notions of even things taken for granted like time and space were being challenged in a variety of ways, all a response to the radical changes in all societies at this time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As it relates to integrated experience, Benjamin believed that the experience of time would change as well, what he called </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Jetztzeit</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, time "charged with the presence of now," a theological concept where the experience of times passing slows and a sense of the "everlasting present" takes hold. Again not to overemphasize the connection but Einstein once summarized his theory of </span>relativity<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> by pointing out the different experiences of time when you are doing pleasurable or painful activities, like "talking to a beautiful woman" or "sitting on a hot stove," time spent doing something pleasurable like talking to someone you are attracted to will seem to pass by fast even if a lot of time has gone by while sitting on a stove for ten minutes will feel like an hour, as he says. The important point is that the Kantian idea of how time is experienced in a standard, uniform kind of way is challenged by both science and philosophy. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A more direct influence would be the Hungarian theorist Georg Lukacs (1885-1971), another unorthodox or "renegade" Marxist thinker who had a literary background like Benjamin. Lukacs, unlike Benjamin, had participated in a similar failed uprising in Hungary in 1919 as Spartacus in Germany and was likewise concerned with the importance of ideology and consciousness in shaping the attitudes and the actions of the proletariat. Benjamin borrows the concept of "mediation" which is central to Lukacs' early approach, and which he himself borrows from Hegel to explain the construction of different forms of experience. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To "mediate" literally means to go between, and suggests already, implicitly, the later importance of "the media." In the original Hegelian sense it meant to explain the development of history and culture through the different "in-between stages," or mediations between the so-called Absolute Spirit and the particular: the finite material world. Mediation then referred to the relationship between concepts like universal & particular or transcendent & immanent, and is concerned with language to the extent to which language reveals the different stages of development of the Spirit. Hegel's philosophy of history is central to the notion of progress in history and the liberal worldview. Lukacs had tried to adapt this to the Marxist idea of class struggle and of the "class consciousness" of the proletariat as it goes through different stages of development. Benjamin, inherits all these past meanings, but is more concerned with the effects of technology on art and on how we experience it as a political phenomenon.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">During World War I, Benjamin (who did not serve) wrote a series of essays on language where he separates language into: human, divine and natural language. Human language could be English or German or any other language; divine language is revealed through prophecy and revelation; natural language is the language between things. Experience is basically the act of translating into human language the divine and natural languages–misinterpretations are very common. Again, integrated experience would be able to experience the true natural language of things while isolated experience is limited only to human language. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Benjamin through his analysis of the reproduction of art–which depicts divine and natural images and does not use language in the traditional sense–is actually trying to show that perceptions of space and time do in fact change, and thus experience changes too and is not the same at all times for all people.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Benjamin relies on the ideas of Johann Hamann (1731-1788), a contemporary of Kant's who critiqued Kant on the grounds that his "transcendental" concepts of experience, were in fact conditioned by experience after all, namely through the medium of language which conditions all experience, as he says:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Indeed, if a chief
question does remain: how is the power to think possible?–The power to think
right and left, before and without, with and above experience? Then it does not
take a deduction to prove the genealogical priority of language….Not only the
entire ability to think rests on language…but language is also the crux of the
misunderstanding of reason with itself (Dickson 2007, N III, 286: 1-10). </span> </span></blockquote>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Or as he says elsewhere, “Hence it happens that one
takes <i>words</i> for <i>concepts, </i>and <i>concepts </i>for the <i>things in themselves</i>”
(Dickson 2007, ZH 5, 264:34-265:1).</span></div>
<div>
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;">Instead, Hamann argues
that language, and thus thinking are inseparably connected with tradition and
experience, as Dickson explains: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;">Language is the
embodiment of experience and tradition; as long as the ability to think rests
on language, neither ‘reason’ nor ‘philosophy’ can be pure of the empirical, of
experience, and of the experience of the others to whom we relate. It itself is
a ‘union of opposites,’ of the aesthetic and the logical, the bodily and the
intellectual; it unites the division Kant’s Critique creates (Dickson ibid).</span></span></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">As this relates to mechanical reproduction, in short, it creates a new language for art and new forms of experience. What reproduction does is to strip away what Benjamin refers to as the 'aura' of a work, the aura being the unique presence that each work has, or as he says:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence (p.220). </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Elsewhere he defines aura as: the unique </span>phenomenon<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of distance no matter how close the object may be. In other words, a sense of distance that is immeasurable, that comes from the sense of mystery and </span>otherworldliness<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> the object produces–and which the person experiences upon beholding the work of art. This aura is dependent upon one crucial condition: uniqueness. As soon as art is </span>reproducible<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> its aura, or auratic quality is diminished–and under the conditions of mass society he would say it is completely destroyed, or as he says:</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind. Both processes are intimately connected with the contemporary mass movements. Their most powerful agent is the film. Its social significance, particularly in its most positive form, is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic aspect, that is, the liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage (p. 221).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Again, to relate this to experience: the decisive difference is that since you do not have to go to the original location of the object (space), and since the historical uniqueness of the object (time) no longer matters, it fundamentally changes the experience of the object, and literally alters the configurations of time and space by which previous generations perceived art: "in his own particular situation...reactivates the object the reproduced," even if you did then see the original afterwards it would not be the same as the original experience of it. For example, a famous example of art in a specific location could be the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, painted by Michelangelo. The very fact that I can reproduce images of it here, Benjamin says, diminishes the aura of the work–even if it creates a new experience of the object:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSlnwrHtTLHm0HhFD_8wSgtkMLBc0j_dWZ-vrk0KEKI3RtJ-UYHnMXl1orZU0OiMUvDDsNOlibvUhZBGbFrGp8zS9auGstT9e1FwNyQZoXoylRxxDuhK3cIChkixwaueMKMhLJtdtoXSM/s1600/Michelangelo,_Giudizio_Universale_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSlnwrHtTLHm0HhFD_8wSgtkMLBc0j_dWZ-vrk0KEKI3RtJ-UYHnMXl1orZU0OiMUvDDsNOlibvUhZBGbFrGp8zS9auGstT9e1FwNyQZoXoylRxxDuhK3cIChkixwaueMKMhLJtdtoXSM/s400/Michelangelo,_Giudizio_Universale_02.jpg" height="400" width="333" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Michelangelo, <i>The Last Judgement</i>, 1537-1541</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The function or purpose of aura is </span>closely<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> connected with what Benjamin refers to as the cultic or religious function of art. Basically, in ancient times up until the Renaissance: </span>artistic<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> production was used in religious ceremonies and rituals</span>, and thus art has always served a social purpose and served to maintain a specific social order. By the time of the Renaissance (circa 1400-1650), secular, non-religious themes began to replace the religious purposes of art, although religious themes remained very dominant during this time as well–and the dependence of art on social forces never diminished either like the Catholic Church or rich nobles and kings who commissioned artists for works and became their "patrons." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This development culminated in 19th century Romanticism which stressed the doctrine: "art for art's sake," (<i>l'art pour l'art </i>in French) meaning that art was an independent realm of human activity separate from politics and society which operated according to its own rules and standards of excellence–in Benjamin's view this is only the last attempt to preserve the decaying aura that art once had. In reality, "independent" artists were still dependent upon rich patrons or upon commercial publishing houses and newspapers which were developing rapidly in the 19th century. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Fascism draws upon Romanticism for its own imagery and because romantics emphasized "feelings" over "reason." These are basically still the two dominant approaches to art: art for art's sake (Kant had similarly defined art as "purposiveness without purpose"), or the didactic: art as a tool of social and political consciousness. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Reproduction takes away the aura since works are no longer unique they exist along with perhaps thousands of copies of the original. This destroys the mystical aspect of art and Benjamin regards this as a positive development since it allows us to approach art in a more realistic way–although the destruction of the aura does diminish the experience of the object since it is taken out of its historical context which is one of the bases of integrated experience. He regards the auratic quality as a kind of supernatural domination that in effect serves the mundane purpose of protecting dominant classes in society. Later he says that the destruction of the aura allows people to see "the universal equality of things." Reproduction is then seen as a positive development even though it does create the </span>possibility<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> for art to become a mass produced commodity for the first time and also allows new political forces like fascism to use it as well. But in what ways are art mechanically reproduced?</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">He gives special emphasis to photography and to film. With photography one is able to examine images in ways previously unavailable to the naked eye. Photography is actually an invention of the French. The first known photograph is credited to French inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1826:</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXRhgNK6mlHSJRPxdG2_Wl4RpC4ipkoTb9RY-39pYfbx1nmy7_5JhVryN9DcajwjMAVuI38c4lej2LdQLPqJMHtiCwsG5tcFZFchU5YCPIu-Ibyott-HGQnpDHwgV5ivvZY343BVySu0/s1600/800px-View_from_the_Window_at_Le_Gras,_Joseph_Nice%CC%81phore_Nie%CC%81pce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXRhgNK6mlHSJRPxdG2_Wl4RpC4ipkoTb9RY-39pYfbx1nmy7_5JhVryN9DcajwjMAVuI38c4lej2LdQLPqJMHtiCwsG5tcFZFchU5YCPIu-Ibyott-HGQnpDHwgV5ivvZY343BVySu0/s400/800px-View_from_the_Window_at_Le_Gras,_Joseph_Nice%CC%81phore_Nie%CC%81pce.jpg" height="277" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">First Known Photograph, 1826, <i>La cour du domaine du Gras</i></span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Niépce died in 1833 and gave his notes to his partner Louis Daguerre, who developed the first </span>commercially<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> successful photographic process, the </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">daguerrotype:</i></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjbtX95GeLLeR5IgQ_wVan4XvK62ENx5SS9gmxfrQjTW16j8QNkRwa6zdE0k-IDcH6IzNxCPYJS_wB-EYVI8jXsUdrsEXidWTspI6OTQue7p_63CaL_BWPz_ve-wJVZ_WyyiwmI_sSRcI/s1600/800px-Boulevard_du_Temple_by_Daguerre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjbtX95GeLLeR5IgQ_wVan4XvK62ENx5SS9gmxfrQjTW16j8QNkRwa6zdE0k-IDcH6IzNxCPYJS_wB-EYVI8jXsUdrsEXidWTspI6OTQue7p_63CaL_BWPz_ve-wJVZ_WyyiwmI_sSRcI/s400/800px-Boulevard_du_Temple_by_Daguerre.jpg" height="287" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Daguerrotype, 1838, <i>Boulevard du Temple, </i>Paris</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A French-</span>Brazilian<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> inventor Hércules Florence, coined the term </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">photographia</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, in 1832 and perfected a similar process, but was relatively unknown in his time. </span>English<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> inventor John Herschel is credited with coining the term "photography" in 1839. He was an influence on Fox Talbot who in 1841 developed the </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">calotype </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">process of photography. This was the process adopted by George Eastman (inventor of roll film) who founded the Eastman Kodak company in 1889 which set the standard for how all consumer camera and photography equipment would be produced–kodak </span>originally<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> was a word specifically for a small hand-held camera. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The invention of roll film would be crucial for the development of motion picture film which is really just a further technical development of photography, pictures that move and later have sound–the first films were produced in the 1880s (the </span>automobile<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> was also invented during this time period), the first films made for a public were produced in 1895 as mentioned in the lecture on Caligari. This also changed the artistic standards in painting. Before the invention of photography, the standard of excellence for a a painter was the ability to recreate nature in painting and represent it accurately. The development of photography and its flawless accuracy makes "naturalistic" painting seem obsolete and it is in the latter half of the nineteenth century and after that you see the development of "abstract" forms of art–many of which we have discussed already or check the "modern art timeline."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">With photography, one is now able to enlarge images to see things that would be hard to see or invisible, and slow motion allows us to examine movement and motion in ways that people would not be able to in real time, <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">"For example, in photography, process reproduction can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens, which is adjustable and chooses its angle at will. And photographic reproduction, with the aid of certain processes, such as enlargement or slow motion, can capture images which escape natural vision" (p. 220). </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">How does this contrast with Jünger's analysis of the camera as the "evil eye?"</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">These technical developments in the reproduction of art leads to a "quantitative shift between its two poles" and causes a "qualitative transformation of its nature." What he means by that is that artistic production could be analyzed as having a "cult value" and "exhibition value"–the two poles. The cult value refers to its status in magic and rituals; exhibition value refers to the content or the "information" contained within the piece, literally by showing or exhibiting it. Although both values are always present one is always stronger than the other and until modern times, the cult value of art (which supports social order by making it seem mystical) tended to dominate, but reproduction of art in ever greater numbers has caused this to shift so much, that the defining quality of art now tends to emphasize exhibition value over cult value. This is the framework by which Benjamin analyzes art, and he is suspicious of any attempt to recreate "cult value" under the modern conditions of production. One form in which this takes is fascism; the other is the American entertainment system–Hollywood by this time had already been established. Emil Jannings, I already mentioned, star of <i>The Blue Angel</i> and later celebrity of the Nazi regime won the first Academy Award for Best Actor in 1928.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Benjamin stresses that the exhibition value of art clearly begins to dominate over the cult value for the first time with photography, especially with the the work of Eugéne Atget (1857-1927) who depicted street scenes in Paris, known for their haunting, almost supernatural quality–Benjamin says they look like "scenes of a crime":</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ujNGR1gXLXm3wc5hpn5RI5ONDx8WI_v16wBUxGZlZ5-ZFFDpnhBaBsSU8Q9FquG8Jtwy9sn95SihSYpGhCqp1eOJrEQUAC7BmhmZQaPDLIyf1XySAGx-jBQC4UN13kwsLgMoTzjSIlQ/s1600/pavers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ujNGR1gXLXm3wc5hpn5RI5ONDx8WI_v16wBUxGZlZ5-ZFFDpnhBaBsSU8Q9FquG8Jtwy9sn95SihSYpGhCqp1eOJrEQUAC7BmhmZQaPDLIyf1XySAGx-jBQC4UN13kwsLgMoTzjSIlQ/s400/pavers.jpg" height="332" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Pavers</i> (<i>Bitumiers</i>), 1899-1900</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">all Atget images from The Museum of Modern Art, New York</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVqy_mJLIQMVyFzNamjxGdHdpgzrYgSdw0g_Admf_0dbpO6ZinhfOl84MTmmKy6I0nRqHo5touRt8icrxxJuiGkq5RICg3CGyiQXM3zZocOQ_xAVAq2A07fXx-WCuuCc8Tal3eOjmbRNQ/s1600/CRI_165463.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVqy_mJLIQMVyFzNamjxGdHdpgzrYgSdw0g_Admf_0dbpO6ZinhfOl84MTmmKy6I0nRqHo5touRt8icrxxJuiGkq5RICg3CGyiQXM3zZocOQ_xAVAq2A07fXx-WCuuCc8Tal3eOjmbRNQ/s400/CRI_165463.jpg" height="303" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Edge of the Marne (Bords de la Marne), </i>1903</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHLvE6sMsqK8mZTFPU5VYDdtJ0emPrEFJ_IpMU0LEoNPjT09qocDy_C0_Q4WpkWWqIrnht7l07i8d9X3spurftNRhrZUBzEStTbqKjzgF624oAfwSqRyXSrufLguBpV9MrgGjr2dc-2eA/s1600/CRI_60893.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHLvE6sMsqK8mZTFPU5VYDdtJ0emPrEFJ_IpMU0LEoNPjT09qocDy_C0_Q4WpkWWqIrnht7l07i8d9X3spurftNRhrZUBzEStTbqKjzgF624oAfwSqRyXSrufLguBpV9MrgGjr2dc-2eA/s400/CRI_60893.jpg" height="322" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cour, 41 rue Broca,</i> 1912</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr6xHQ-fx52UCUqprvjtbYNm3pZziqpLEEG8XcvlkM_1NcraoFmjCBBKrBFs7s_6TDnfMCa-HOqs9OJWgHvm5wOoECIb5l_Q3ShkIU5RU_FTubrMnVyk66N0O8aUSVMXhA1Cs-GEHAZ-s/s1600/CRI_232042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr6xHQ-fx52UCUqprvjtbYNm3pZziqpLEEG8XcvlkM_1NcraoFmjCBBKrBFs7s_6TDnfMCa-HOqs9OJWgHvm5wOoECIb5l_Q3ShkIU5RU_FTubrMnVyk66N0O8aUSVMXhA1Cs-GEHAZ-s/s400/CRI_232042.jpg" height="301" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Magasins du Bon Marche,</i> 1927, Famous French department store</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Atget had a tremendous influence on a whole generation of photojournalists also from Benjamin's generation (although Americans), like Walker Evans (1903-1975) and Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) and others who became well-known for their depiction of scenes of the Great Depression and basically created the style of documentary photojournalism that is still popular today. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In this example, the camera is used not to glorify but to expose the contradictions within the economic and social system not by statistical arguments but by depicting human suffering, and to give expression to groups and individuals who normally would not be able to express themselves. This is true both of the economic underclasses but also of racial minorities such as many Japanese-American citizens who were placed in "internment" camps by the U.S. government during World War II:</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5D0S1liczQQOY3mPM6y3PXlRs4DHzVQbLhrWVXV8nOVVMMUTfZ0BFMOxQa2APRd1myp2ZIqzFtVzMkBDGFKIhShEcK-Ey-h3LX_fbKIrCJxlNuJLQi7xorvsfGQHhTLHkMvw8IijrtfM/s1600/vicksburg1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5D0S1liczQQOY3mPM6y3PXlRs4DHzVQbLhrWVXV8nOVVMMUTfZ0BFMOxQa2APRd1myp2ZIqzFtVzMkBDGFKIhShEcK-Ey-h3LX_fbKIrCJxlNuJLQi7xorvsfGQHhTLHkMvw8IijrtfM/s400/vicksburg1.jpg" height="323" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Walker Evans, <i>Vicksburg, </i>Mississippi,<i> </i>1936</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl1_9YUD0EsdWt5Ch27f6xhffJIzj-RorYqrUgGbwSE8KhOMKYQEOYEKEFP8H3iTIbR8UyNIyXC7Cc8LYFL3XTL7zuXrT9EDv5lofu7GDDSMwNvrtOFBbnA9TwuLWL6tW84tvU5JecrAY/s1600/461px-Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl1_9YUD0EsdWt5Ch27f6xhffJIzj-RorYqrUgGbwSE8KhOMKYQEOYEKEFP8H3iTIbR8UyNIyXC7Cc8LYFL3XTL7zuXrT9EDv5lofu7GDDSMwNvrtOFBbnA9TwuLWL6tW84tvU5JecrAY/s400/461px-Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg" height="400" width="308" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Dorothea Lange, <i>Migrant Mother,</i> Florence Owens Thompson, 1936</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis2iESv_gy9bsOT9eWm6tyMorppiSEdSvmU5YJzZAoa5kZKAQz-s5eo9cissf2OiOB1GB1Zs3r4PzfuKicZ9uJlJuc8jCUogzy0N_oF028ppQjObQydlJMUhTOAQG82PkxATjE4cNoqMg/s1600/lange2650.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis2iESv_gy9bsOT9eWm6tyMorppiSEdSvmU5YJzZAoa5kZKAQz-s5eo9cissf2OiOB1GB1Zs3r4PzfuKicZ9uJlJuc8jCUogzy0N_oF028ppQjObQydlJMUhTOAQG82PkxATjE4cNoqMg/s400/lange2650.jpeg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Dorothea Lange, <i>Japanese Americans line up at Tanforan Assembly Center, </i>San Bruno, California, 1942</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">It also increases our awareness of the horrors of the world and forces people to confront these aspects of life:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKKueh6ItjC5kgIseNIPw7F9B-SGCebli-5xQ5OnVA8OSuyoLGYXPHhft0mpGdEJd8_GXnaWYK2H8N4SZ-43HEeIS9xui_PUNPKR7rLbYA-f5Z1FgW_ThgTwXGVcR7Z7PVY-dJlhIzqOM/s1600/Lynching_of_Laura_Nelson_and_her_son.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKKueh6ItjC5kgIseNIPw7F9B-SGCebli-5xQ5OnVA8OSuyoLGYXPHhft0mpGdEJd8_GXnaWYK2H8N4SZ-43HEeIS9xui_PUNPKR7rLbYA-f5Z1FgW_ThgTwXGVcR7Z7PVY-dJlhIzqOM/s400/Lynching_of_Laura_Nelson_and_her_son.jpeg" height="258" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson, Oklahoma, 1911</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXMKudBhyEMJoA7ezkXqrP13_c5TDO5ELI05_3dydLISTFNu5FavrSQkgXSofEExJ37FsrhpAIFAIkzgMo6v152u4RoL1p9oD1yHTWQgOBAlgeU4Y064d4bwtaBUmT8fJxuyt5hkw3f8/s1600/1975-a-woman-and-a-girl-falling-down-after-the-fire-escape-collapses.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXMKudBhyEMJoA7ezkXqrP13_c5TDO5ELI05_3dydLISTFNu5FavrSQkgXSofEExJ37FsrhpAIFAIkzgMo6v152u4RoL1p9oD1yHTWQgOBAlgeU4Y064d4bwtaBUmT8fJxuyt5hkw3f8/s400/1975-a-woman-and-a-girl-falling-down-after-the-fire-escape-collapses.jpeg" height="400" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stanley Forman, <i>Fire Escape Collapse</i>, 1975</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Another prominent photographer during this time was Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971), the first Western journalist to photograph the Soviet Union and the first</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> female war correspondent. Here the camera allows the viewer to see distant locations and thus brings us into contact with these people in a way that was impossible before, but also serves as a chronicle of human abuse and misery and stands as a reminder to the atrocities committed by humanity:</span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lVDXidBeX1adag2vS_dp2sF7G05MRGSOSRuvm02D6SrWi8SJFXS6mehyphenhyphenhRS1EY5_HwBe4oxc1oWVsxLzRX-iPwhErsYNiQ3OROiAXpdH0V0ttpOXlyiwQ7kZ_p2O5_GQyLB82bUawpo/s1600/b-w_tractor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lVDXidBeX1adag2vS_dp2sF7G05MRGSOSRuvm02D6SrWi8SJFXS6mehyphenhyphenhRS1EY5_HwBe4oxc1oWVsxLzRX-iPwhErsYNiQ3OROiAXpdH0V0ttpOXlyiwQ7kZ_p2O5_GQyLB82bUawpo/s400/b-w_tractor.jpg" height="400" width="272" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Tractor Factory,</i> Stalingrad, USSR, 1930</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTexxjm9rdHOOFHVTJJ8fjPyusuNbv-ZUabdvFdq4rLLH33qa4QuFJOHvrFIOMxJfgN8doelXLWbRae9YBt-TrU6jVhm6oMJFXlKcE1eaXRggOldWXCw_Fv7tLToc6JGcQDoNaHrdRdcg/s1600/b-w_buchenwald.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTexxjm9rdHOOFHVTJJ8fjPyusuNbv-ZUabdvFdq4rLLH33qa4QuFJOHvrFIOMxJfgN8doelXLWbRae9YBt-TrU6jVhm6oMJFXlKcE1eaXRggOldWXCw_Fv7tLToc6JGcQDoNaHrdRdcg/s400/b-w_buchenwald.jpg" height="312" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Prisoners at Buchenwald, </i>Weimar, Thuringia,<i> </i>Germany, 1945</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUSrk_YeM8TxmCZDjWiw0BUBJ6jo1TB7_awNhR0yWZRafdbD1-_tjfdLLmfRyXiFVNC4zwshVYAr235K_KSuAZNriDuplWl6RYa376l_0dDU78O5_oPbVna0Iqy-wY7hnXUp65VT_dmeg/s1600/b-w_nuremberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUSrk_YeM8TxmCZDjWiw0BUBJ6jo1TB7_awNhR0yWZRafdbD1-_tjfdLLmfRyXiFVNC4zwshVYAr235K_KSuAZNriDuplWl6RYa376l_0dDU78O5_oPbVna0Iqy-wY7hnXUp65VT_dmeg/s400/b-w_nuremberg.jpg" height="303" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Nuremberg, </i>Bavaria, Germany, 1945</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The </span>reproducibility<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of all these photographs–indeed Benjamin points out it is absurd to ask for an "</span>original<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">" photograph–makes it difficult to use these images for a "cultic" purpose, instead however, the exhibition value–they communicate a lot of information–is strong. The later photographers of the 1930s, (the same time in which Benjamin is writing on this) mark an even stronger </span>insistence<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> on the social and political function of their photography and developed the "documentary" style of photojournalism which is still popular today. Atget's work, from another </span>generation<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, seems </span>otherworldly<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> and recreates almost an "aura" or auratic kind of quality, but not on the work itself, but what the work depicts: it gives the "real world" an aura, but also hints at a hidden darkness or evil under the surface of reality. Benjamin suggests that Atget's photos makes a person feel the traces of people who have occupied the spaces before even if they are empty. In this way, he is able to preserve a sense of historical connection in his work that makes integrated experience possible. After discussing photography, Benjamin shifts the discussion to film, which is not so much distinct from photography as it takes the technological development that is photography and refines it to a higher level of expression.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The American </span>photographer<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Paul Strand (1890-1976), </span>slightly<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> older than Evans, Lange, and Bourke-White was also a major influence on establishing photography in the early 20th century. However, I mention Strand in this context because he serves as a link between photography and film. In 1921 he co-directed with painter Charles Sheeler, the short film <i>Manhatta</i>. This film in some ways recreates the sense of experience captured by Atget but now with actual moving images:</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/qduvk4zu_hs/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qduvk4zu_hs&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qduvk4zu_hs&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Film more than any other art form destroys the aura of traditional works of art, or as he says "liquidates the cultural heritage." Again, this frees people from the cultic power that art once had, but also cuts the connection for integrated experience that has to be reestablished somehow. Also Benjamin's influence by the playwright Brecht means that he partially conceives of the relationship between film actor and audience similar to the relationship between stage actor and audience. Since Brecht especially emphasized the interactions between actors and audience in his plays (in some cases actors would "break character" and speak directly to the audience) and this element is obviously lost in filmmaking–there is no connection between actors and audience at all–Benjamin interprets some aspects of film negatively:</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The camera that presents the performance of the film actor to the public need not respect the performance as an integral whole. Guided by the cameraman, the camera continually changes its position with respect to the performance. The sequence of positional views which the editor composes from the material supplied constitutes the completed film. It comprises certain factors of movement which are in reality those of the camera, not to mention special camera angles, close-ups, etc (p. 228).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The </span>fragmentation<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of the actor's performance brought about by mechanical reproduction and the second-hand quality of the </span>performance<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> which is not delivered live, in person, but through the mediation of a machine naturally destroys the aura–aura depends on presence. Benjamin argues in this case the destruction of the aura (which implies the authority of the actor) is substituted with celebrityhood: "The film responds to the shriveling of the aura with an artificial build-up of the 'personality' outside the studio. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the 'spell of the personality,' the phony spell of a commodity" (p. 231). Elsewhere he argues that there is great potential in filmmaking–for example he says in Soviet films </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> like those directed by Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) who created frenetic, fast-paced films, using innovative film editing techniques that also speed up the flow of time by displaying rapid sequences of images from different perspetives and angles–similar to the pacing of music videos today. Eisenstein's editing techniques like Louis Armstrong's trumpet solos are both indicators of a new experience of time. In contrast to the Hollywood style Eisenstein's films usually </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">featured</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> "real" people instead of actors, and were </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">explicitly</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> political and revolutionary.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCNTNnNFNHM&feature=player_embedded">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCNTNnNFNHM&feature=player_embedded</a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">A</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">lthough</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">: "In Western Europe the </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">capitalistic</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> exploitation of the film denies consideration to modern man's </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">legitimate</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> claim to being reproduced. Under these circumstances the film industry is trying hard to spur the interest of the masses through illusion-promoting spectacles and dubious speculations" (p.232). </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> These are aspects more unique to film: there are not really celebrity photographers at least not to the level of famous actors and actresses; and photography requires much less capital to produce than film (although some forms of independent or "</span>guerrilla<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> filmmaking" get around this difficulty). </span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Film opens up entirely new areas of perception to humanity that previous art forms like painting could never do. Benjamin compares this to a surgeon:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> How does the cameraman compare with the painter? To answer this we take recourse to an analogy with a surgical operation. The surgeon represents the polar opposite of the magician. The magician heals a sick person by laying on of hands; the surgeon cuts into the patient's body. The magician maintains the natural distance between the patient and himself; though he reduces it very slightly by the laying on of hands, he greatly increases it by virtue of his authority. The surgeon does exactly the reverse; he greatly diminishes the distance between himself and the patient by penetrating into the patient's body, and increases it but little by the caution with which his hands moves among the organs. In short, in contrast to the magician–who is still hidden in the medical practitioner–the surgeon at the decisive moment abstains from facing the patient man to man; rather, it is through the operation that he penetrates into him (p. 233).<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc68ClIzg73fTxfwZvr1yXngduCs5D-Uit2WEGczRa_u2SZd-Uv2qLURrcTBvGAMM8fXJ71JpTZXkUGggb95NzMKtrUDgET-SGYs7njkf_QXRneJJJjVTYG4me4H__P5DOwDbTNtjs4_0/s1600/rembrandt_anatomy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc68ClIzg73fTxfwZvr1yXngduCs5D-Uit2WEGczRa_u2SZd-Uv2qLURrcTBvGAMM8fXJ71JpTZXkUGggb95NzMKtrUDgET-SGYs7njkf_QXRneJJJjVTYG4me4H__P5DOwDbTNtjs4_0/s400/rembrandt_anatomy.jpeg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rembrandt,"The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nichoales Tulp," 1632, The Hague</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Even if some aspects of this sound unpleasant and suggest something lost that painting had, at the same time the ability to record and reproduce living moving images of human beings for the first time in human history created new forms of perception which before this did not exist:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Then came the film and burst this prison-world asunder by the dynamite of a tenth of a second, so that now, in the midst of its far flung ruins and debris, we calmly and adventurously go traveling. With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended. The enlargement of a snapshot does not simply render more precise what in any case was visible, though unclear: it reveals entirely new structural formations of the subject. So, too, slow motion not only presents familiar qualities of movement but reveals in them entirely unknown ones 'which, far from looking like retarded rapid movements, give the effect of singularly gliding, floating, supernatural motions (p. 236).</span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">This even changes our own self-awareness so we can now study in detail how people move and behave:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Even if one has a general knowledge of the way people walk, one knows nothing of a person's posture during the fractional second of a stride. The act of reaching for a lighter or a spoon is a familiar routine, yet we hardly know what really goes on between hand and metal, not to mention how this fluctuates with our moods. Here the camera intervenes with the resources of its lowerings and liftings, its interruptions and isolations, its extensions and accelerations, its enlargements and reductions. The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses (p. 237).</span></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Benjamin compares the impact of film with the Dadaists, noting that the "shock effect" of Dada art is reproduced by the rapid sequences of images produced by film, in fact it is </span>enhanced<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> by the presentation of the film and that in many ways dadaism is a prelude to the film (this could also explain why Dadaism is usually </span>received<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> well even in the present by a modern movie going public). He also </span>contrasts<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> "concentration" with "distraction" as ways of </span>experiencing<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> art and argues that the distracted mode is most similar to the experience of architecture in that you are in contact and experiencing the "art" but you are not concentrated on it–he also mentions that architecture is the oldest and most durable of all the art forms and is indispensable for humanity. He also compares it to optical (visual) and tactile (touch) art. Benjamin argues that distracted mode of experience is more social than concentration which assumes a </span>certain<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> antisocial behavior, and that similar to how we use architecture, he suggests, that we will use art in the same kind of tactile way (maybe clothing could be another example).</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He ends by noting the difference between the fascist and communist appropriation of art so far. At the time in which Benjamin is writing in 1935-1936 there is a significant propaganda war going on throughout the whole world. Italy by this time has already invaded Ethiopia. Germany is about to make its first </span>expansionistic<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> move into the Rhineland. However, a new force has emerged in Europe to challenge the fascist influence–the Popular Front. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This was an alliance of communist, socialist, and even bourgeois liberal parties. In 1934, Stalin through the Comintern (international socialist organization) had decided to align the communist parties of Europe with their social democratic counterparts and even bourgeois liberal parties who were willing to accept any ally to counteract the fascists. Popular Front governments were established in France (where Benjamin was) and also in Spain and animated the spirit of '30s radicalism in the U.S. during the New Deal. It was the election of the Popular Front government in the Second </span>Spanish<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Republic (only established in 1931) that prompted right-wing extremists to initiate the Spanish Civil War in 1936 which culminated in the takeover by fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1939.</span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ahGqWVze4Szv8nxOH8pNpl57fl2isVYHsXOz9uGv578HAPkQpgjeDnRGOUXelywRHG1SZk4yj0UBbrPFdqoHlKieCDzR4NEkk0jbpDhkjTCaYuaMChC_iiXxuzoGr3cfUV5-jr3VKgQ/s1600/444px-Republique-allegorie-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ahGqWVze4Szv8nxOH8pNpl57fl2isVYHsXOz9uGv578HAPkQpgjeDnRGOUXelywRHG1SZk4yj0UBbrPFdqoHlKieCDzR4NEkk0jbpDhkjTCaYuaMChC_iiXxuzoGr3cfUV5-jr3VKgQ/s400/444px-Republique-allegorie-2.jpg" height="400" width="297" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Spanish Republic Allegory</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"> Note the symbols of progress and modernization. The plaque on the left is inscribed with a famous saying from the French Revolution: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was also notorious because it was the first time German warplanes were used to bomb a city, Guernica, in the Basque region of </span>Northern<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Spain. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">This was memorialized by the painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In many ways the Germans regarded this conflict as "practice" for their own war they were about to unleash on the continent. The Germans began their war just as the Spanish Civil War was ending, costing the lives of Walter Benjamin and over 60 million more (more than half civilians). The Popular Front collapsed completely in 1939 after the Germans and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact–a major betrayal by Stalin who initiated this five years before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Some have argued that Picasso's style was influenced by film. His style later referred to as "cubism" reveals another radical reconstruction of experience. If Armstrong and Eisenstein reveal radical new experiences of time in their work, then Picasso's paintings represent a new conception of space that defies the conventional </span>linearity<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> and separation of objects. Similarly, Eisenstein's film editing, being a visual form, also transforms the spatial configurations of objects, allowing the viewer to see combinations and sequences of imagery that could never occur in reality, and allows the director to juxtapose or combine distinct, unrelated images together. </span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Y2QAI9VoSY1VR8QCjqJ-4yeIYjBSLEMzWTl7lNJ-r5RY_S20G0B4rNpSgYUoCSqxKUMr8pMytAXGPA-S_MLjtzNeZlt27eRjZkquyYeuZ7uA5JdiyXfg7zc9A0YUY8Kqs2H06IBKq8s/s1600/arte_guernica_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Y2QAI9VoSY1VR8QCjqJ-4yeIYjBSLEMzWTl7lNJ-r5RY_S20G0B4rNpSgYUoCSqxKUMr8pMytAXGPA-S_MLjtzNeZlt27eRjZkquyYeuZ7uA5JdiyXfg7zc9A0YUY8Kqs2H06IBKq8s/s400/arte_guernica_2.jpg" height="237" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Pablo Picasso, <i>Guernica,</i> 1937, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; text-align: left;">Assignment Due 5/9:</u><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-align: left;"> Choose a passage from "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," write out the passage, explain what it means and why you chose it.</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-86950827728821960542015-04-25T00:00:00.000-04:002015-04-25T14:57:20.189-04:004/25 On Pain<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In the last part of this class we will be dealing with writers who attempt to bridge the gap between culture and politics, each of whom have their own take on nihilism. In the first part of the class we looked at the history of the idea of nihilism, not only as an abstract concept, but in how it manifested at a specific point in time–Weimar Germany–and expressed through various cultural forms: painting, literature, photography, film, music, dance, architecture being the most emphasized. In the second part of the class we looked at the political and historical context in which this took shape, and the difficulties of building and stabilizing the political system. Now, we will be looking at two authors writing in the post-Nazi era, after 1933, one ultra-conservative (but maybe not quite a Nazi) and one rather unorthodox communist. Both of whom, like I said at the beginning, draw upon the cultural and political forces we have been looking at in an attempt to synthesize the two together–and both offer a possible solution to the problem of nihilism in modern society.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Ernst Jünger’s essay, “On Pain” was written in 1934 the second year of Hitler’s dictatorship after taking power in 1933. Jünger (1895-1998) was a conservative–conservatives helped bring the Nazis to power–but soon regretted the Nazi seizure of power. After the war he became one of the most influential voices in German literature. Many other prominent Germans despite their sympathy or support for Nazism retained influential positions in society even after the war. This essay offers a way to interpret the authoritarian worldview the Nazis shared. Four elements in particular are important to consider: 1) The significance of pain as a human experience; 2) The relationship of pain to so-called "traditional metaphysics" which supports liberal political values; 3) The growth of a totalitarian state as the only way to deal with "pain"; 4) The importance of technology and bureaucratic organization in changing our perception of pain. </span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The basic premise of the essay is that pain is the central experience in human life and that most if not all human behavior–at the level of the individual and at society–is organized in relation to how it deals with pain. This viewpoint does not differ significantly from the Freudian view of instinct theory, and remember that Freud himself was a conservative (often identified as a </span>Hobbesian)<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> who favored a strong state to preserve civilization. Jünger preaches submission to the totalitarian tendencies of the age, the mass organization of people into collective forms ready at anytime to sacrifice themselves to preserve the higher order. Only with this kind of submission can the state function freely to protect the people from "pain." The strongest states are those that can endure the most pain. This idea seemed attractive to a German populace that had undergone a lot of pain in the last 20 years. His essay analyzes the creation of what he refers to as the "worker type" and "specialization" within the education system in relation to the pain and the organization of the state, as well as the impact of technology its "penetration" into human life–all defining aspects of the Nazi regime. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Although he anticipates what would later be called totalitarianism the term itself was not coined until the 1950s in the book by the political theorist and German é<i>migré</i> Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), <i>The Origins of Totalitarianism</i>, first published 1951. The major defining aspect of a totalitarian government, Arendt says, what separates it not only from democratic governments but even other so-called dictatorships, is the mass mobilization component. In other words unlike other forms of dictatorship which usually try to pacify or suppress the masses or depoliticize them, a totalitarian government, in almost all cases led by some kind of authoritarian political party actively works to co-opt and involve the public in political and social projects. Of course this is done in the most rigid, hierarchical, top-down fashion and the people have little choice but to obey. This form of power is constituted through the strict control of almost all institutions in society, including political parties and the media (ideology is central), but including trade and labor organizations, and even social and leisure activities. Jünger believes that this form of control is desirable, and is made possible through the power of technology that makes it possible to organize much more complex social systems.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Jünger also endorses the historical theory stating that liberalism basically died during the World War I and we have now entered a "post-liberal" phase in history. He is not the first to state this argument. Nietzsche–who is a strong influence on his and everyone's thinking–made similar arguments in the 1880s when he said things like "God is dead" and proclaimed the coming of the "superman" (<i style="font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">übermensch).</i><span style="font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;"> Liberalism and protestant values have always been closely associated with each other, from Weber's Protestant work ethic, to the promotion of liberal government and markets by the Protestant Anglo-American powers.</span><i style="font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;"> </i>Totalitarianism is then modern and advanced whereas the old liberal democracies are old-fashioned and outdated, and ill-suited for dealing with pain in modern life. Totalitarianism is a consequence of nihilism, and the only solution for the individual is to deindividualize themselves, submit to the process and become integrated within the technologically fused social-political-economic structure that has now replaced the traditional distinctions of different fields of activity supported by the liberal belief in the separation of public and private interests.</span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrrvEEZD6TmPTwGm7WmmqbExWRYoQQyQf5bxvzRG68EAM1WKvqIVUrn7gJKg18PyTx3ssp7innaDjxfwJqsoauWUpHNpM8gP9Phc8phXwEIfikOgxTP_O571hUO5fHHlZ41AYS4Ncq5gk/s1600/brazil+flag.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrrvEEZD6TmPTwGm7WmmqbExWRYoQQyQf5bxvzRG68EAM1WKvqIVUrn7gJKg18PyTx3ssp7innaDjxfwJqsoauWUpHNpM8gP9Phc8phXwEIfikOgxTP_O571hUO5fHHlZ41AYS4Ncq5gk/s320/brazil+flag.gif" height="232" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Order and Progress</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Liberalism as a political system and ideology still exist. This sense of continuity with the past is related to the idea of progress. Progress is the foundation of liberalism. Up until World War I, liberal governments in the United States, parts of Europe and parts of Latin America that had established liberal governments had believed rather uncritically that as technical and material development increased that social problems would become more manageable; that social conflicts between classes would be lessened; and that countries would resolve international conflicts peacefully (this latter view is summarized in the German philosopher Immanuel Kant's 1795 essay "Perpetual Peace"). The foundation of this belief is usually traced back to Francis Bacon (1561-1626) who made the famous proclamation, to paraphrase slightly: "if we learn to obey nature, we can control nature." In other words by discovering the laws of nature through the scientific method we can learn to adapt ourselves better to nature which will also give us some limited control over nature as well. Progress can be measured by how we have learned to obey/control nature. In a certain sense, Jünger does subscribe to this theory as well, although he claims to differ, since he has not really abandoned the idea of conquest over nature. Totalitarian government uses every means of science and technology available in order to better tighten control, and since this control is used to control pain, Jünger does implicitly at least, argue that the totalitarian state does represent a stage of progress past the older liberal-democracies.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrrvEEZD6TmPTwGm7WmmqbExWRYoQQyQf5bxvzRG68EAM1WKvqIVUrn7gJKg18PyTx3ssp7innaDjxfwJqsoauWUpHNpM8gP9Phc8phXwEIfikOgxTP_O571hUO5fHHlZ41AYS4Ncq5gk/s1600/brazil+flag.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">
Since World War II, liberals cannot hold on to their old ideas of progress anymore at least not without significant denial and indifference. Contemporary liberals have a much more cautious, reserved idea of progress now which revolves around the idea of "interest groups" and "pluralism." Where 18th and 19th century liberals would speak of perpetual peace and "universal brotherhood" (but how brotherly can it be when it is spread so far to people unknown?) liberals now define progress only in terms of material well-being and even then reduce that to a series of empirical "indices" or an index like income level, education level, life expectancy, etc. The United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) uses those same variables (income, education, life expectancy) as its measurements in determining the quality of life throughout the world. <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/">http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/</a></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Jünger's critique of liberalism is that it basically denies or conceals the relationship to pain. The existence of pain contradicts the dominant values of liberal society which holds out the myth that good will always triumph over evil. He also contrasts this with artistic depictions of pain, noting how modern and ahead of their time these painters were:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Pain’s disregard for our system of values greatly increases its hold on life...Our children’s tales close with passages about heroes who, after having overcome many dangers, live out their lives in peace and happiness. We hear such assurances with pleasure, for it is comforting for us to learn about a place removed from pain. Yet, in truth, life is without any such satisfying end... (p. 4).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzp7Z1tDI0ZohMkvzWHRVC5-UfXWb2hB0DZ1z2Iw8BC7Ng2BY4YW-rXlvW_36rRJpLA_D1J84FU540Hwz8rArf-6O4fzJI-oM_yHQm4rm_jMzXmfUCK5Khy64UN9x7rvUFdo6reP_MLmw/s1600/hieronymus_bosch_hal-hefner_gates_heavy-metal-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzp7Z1tDI0ZohMkvzWHRVC5-UfXWb2hB0DZ1z2Iw8BC7Ng2BY4YW-rXlvW_36rRJpLA_D1J84FU540Hwz8rArf-6O4fzJI-oM_yHQm4rm_jMzXmfUCK5Khy64UN9x7rvUFdo6reP_MLmw/s400/hieronymus_bosch_hal-hefner_gates_heavy-metal-1.jpg" height="292" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Hieronymous Bosch, <i>The Garden of Earthly Delights: Hell</i>, 1504</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7yNJMm7yNAhKjPRXb7_X-nVhjBasnclQpMd9n_y4fMtrk1KxX8vF-Mu7rLrg-PqWzxk7ajxUDLlrQEqT4Q4X9iOSTin6tl1AYAgdkl3euK-4d4fab6Tha2oNwCK8xz2AgSB0bSUywgCY/s1600/Pieter+Bruegel+the+Elder.+The+Triumph+of+Death.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7yNJMm7yNAhKjPRXb7_X-nVhjBasnclQpMd9n_y4fMtrk1KxX8vF-Mu7rLrg-PqWzxk7ajxUDLlrQEqT4Q4X9iOSTin6tl1AYAgdkl3euK-4d4fab6Tha2oNwCK8xz2AgSB0bSUywgCY/s400/Pieter+Bruegel+the+Elder.+The+Triumph+of+Death.JPG" height="287" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Pieter Bruegel the Elder, <i>The Triumph of Death</i>, 1562</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKvynwSE3JIcHc-7mrt0o4-YZVX6IPdkI-niB56yUer9iOgf2XddfKx2t8gsmVvtt5GnMLXry7fAFym71jTOmp_mqR11KNE_kb4TB80wL1KIOCLnw1_AY7GlzIShIn0hS2komRaVUELU/s1600/Lucas+Cranach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKvynwSE3JIcHc-7mrt0o4-YZVX6IPdkI-niB56yUer9iOgf2XddfKx2t8gsmVvtt5GnMLXry7fAFym71jTOmp_mqR11KNE_kb4TB80wL1KIOCLnw1_AY7GlzIShIn0hS2komRaVUELU/s400/Lucas+Cranach.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Lucas Cranach the Elder, Copy of <i>The Last Judgement</i> by Hieronymous Bosch, 1520</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">If there is any doubt about this, the experience of the war will confirm the cruel indifferent equality of life:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In war, when shells fly past our bodies at high speeds, we sense clearly that no level of intelligence, virtue, or fortitude is strong enough to deflect them, not even by a hair. To the extent this threat increases, doubt concerning the validity of our values forces itself upon us. The mind tends toward a catastrophic interpretation of things wherever it sees everything called into question (pp. 5-6).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Jünger acknowledges the real gains and benefits made during the liberal era, while suggesting that these advancements have had a weakening effect on people at the same time as it breeds complaceny:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In this situation, the biased belief that reason can conquer pain loses its allure. This belief is not only a characteristic feature of forces allied with the Enlightenment, but it has also produced a long series of practical measures typical for the human spirit of the past century, such as–to name just a few–the abolition of torture and the slave trade, the discovery of electricity, vaccination against measles, narcosis, the system of insurance, and a whole world of technical and political conveniences...Our recognition of these achievements already lacks the noteworthy cult-like characteristic still familiar to us from our fathers. Born in full enjoyment of all these blessings now taken for granted, it seems to us as if in truth rather little has changed (p. 10).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Or that liberalism has produced material benefits on a scale not seen before in history. These are the tangible symbols of progress and they help create the impression that liberal values define the world:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The <i>breadth </i>of people partaking of goods and pleasures is a sign of prosperity. Perhaps most symbolic are the grand cafes, in the halls of which one is fond of replicating the styles of the Rococo, Empire, and Biedermeier. They can be called the true palaces of democracy. Here one senses the dream-like, painless, and oddly agitated ease that fills the air like a narcotic. On the streets it is striking how the masses are dressed in such undeniably poor taste, yet in a uniform and “respectable” fashion. Bare and blatant poverty is rarely seen. The individual is greeted by a wealth of conveniences, such as the path paved for education and a career choice of preference, the free market of labor, the contractual character of almost all social ties and the unrestricted freedom of movement. The potential for conflict is thereby greatly reduced (pp. 12-13).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">However, appealing liberalism may be, Jünger insists that pain is still always just beneath the surface, even if it expresses itself in the restlessness of boredom:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As a rule one will not have to go far to uncover the pain. Indeed, even the individual is not fully free from pain in this joyful state of security. The artificial check on the elementary forces might be able to prevent violent clashes and to ward off shadows, but it cannot stop the dispersed light with which pain permeates life. The vessel, sealed off from pain’s full flow, is filled drop by drop. Boredom is nothing other than the dissolution of pain in time (p. 13).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Jünger’s intent then is to argue for a means to control pain. He says this comes through detachment. In a strange way, Siddhartha practiced a similar detachment from the world. Notice the reference in the passage, to the “priestly-ascetic kind.” Weber speaks of detachment as an essential quality of a political leader. However in Nazi Germany, the destruction of individuality also creates a sense of detachment. Jünger refers to this elsewhere as "objectification" or turning the individuals in society and society itself into objects that are manipulated by the state. The term objectification </span>originally<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> referred to the process of externalizing ideas through labor, or making something concrete and real. In Jünger's case, the "liquidation" of the individual might be more </span>appropriate<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, in other words to dissolve the inner life of the individual, including all resistance to power, into nothingness. This is accomplished by separating the connection between body and mind, the body is simply an object to be manipulated, the mind is just a reflection of the stimuli applied to the body. Jünger will make several references to attacking "zones of sensitivity," including the body, as if sensitivity itself or being a sensitive person is a vice. I</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">n the logic of totalitarianism,</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> the liquidation of the individual is necessary to protect the individual from pain:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This detachment emerges wherever man is able to treat the space through which he experiences pain, i.e., the body, as an object. Of course, this presupposes a command center, which regards the body as a distant outpost that can be deployed and sacrificed in battle. </span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Henceforth, all measures are designed to master pain, not to avoid it. The heroic and cultic world presents an </span>entirely<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> different relation to pain than does the world of sensitivity. While in the latter, as we saw, it is a matter of marginalizing pain and sheltering life from it, in the former the point is to integrate pain and organize life in such a way that one is always armed against it...Indeed, discipline means nothing other than this, whether it is of the priestly-ascetic kind directed toward abnegation or of the warlike-heroic kind directed toward hardening oneself like steel. In both cases, it is a matter of maintaining complete control over life, so that at any hour of the day it can serve a higher calling. The central question concerning the rank of present values can be answered by determining to what extent the body can be treated as an object (pp. 16-17).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Once the body has been objectified it can better assimilate itself to technological organization. Unlike liberals who originally saw scientific progress as an unmixed blessing, the application of science and technology to warfare has instead contributed to "dehumanization" (another term for objectification) as this chillingly prophetic passage shows:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Recently, a story circulated in the newspapers about a new torpedo that the Japanese navy is apparently developing. This weapon has an astounding feature. It is no longer guided mechanically but by a human device--to be precise, by a human being at the helm, who is locked into a tiny compartment and regarded as a technical component of the torpedo as well as its actual intelligence.... </span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">If one enlarges upon this thought, one soon realizes that it is no longer considered a curiosity once achieved on a larger social scale, i.e., when one disposes over a breed of resolute men obedient to authority.<i> Manned planes can then be constructed as airborne missiles</i>, which from great heights can dive down to strike with lethal accuracy the nerve centers of enemy resistance. The result is a breed of men that can be sent off to war as cannon fodder (p. 18 italics added).</span></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hziFBOx4yqc/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hziFBOx4yqc?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iV0cL83d408/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iV0cL83d408?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Besides the rapid introduction of technology into all areas of human life and its penetration into humanity another aspect of the post-liberal world is the transformation of liberal education into specialized education. Specialization is the process by which the individual converts themselves from the old humanist idea of the individual (the liberal arts) into a productive function, disciplined into performing a certain action, whether it be skilled or unskilled. Jünger also argues against "free inquiry" and provides the usual authoritarian argument for why information should be controlled–so as not to undermine the war effort (Germany was not at war in 1934, however, in a totalitarian state there is constant "preparation" for war). This also completes the process of liquidating the individual by destroying the sensitivity of their minds:</span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A second zone of sensitivity is devastated by the assault on liberal education. The effects of this assault are much less apparent. This has various reasons, but the most important one is that we continue to idolize ideas that artificially support the principles of liberal education, especially the idea of culture. Yet this changes nothing on the ground, because the assault on individual liberty inevitably involves an assault on liberal education. This becomes apparent when we are forced to deny the right of free inquiry. Free inquiry is impossible wherever its essential purpose is preparation for war, because, like a blind man, free inquiry opens all doors arbitrarily. Yet today the only door to unlock is the one to power. Free inquiry is pointless once it becomes clear what should be known and what should not (p. 20).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Despite supporting the manipulation of knowledge and information which inevitably will degrade the population, Jünger is also concerned with the growth of the masses and the lumpenproletariat. "Mass," refers more to the lack of integration in a localized community, that defines the term. The masses came from the proletariat, the workers, and the </span>petty bourgeoisie: small shop-owners, artisans, and small businessmen who all generally struggled economically during the Weimar period and in some cases were threatened with their livelihood becoming obsolete as new forms of economic activity and new economic processes replaced older ones. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In an ironic pattern that seems to recur often in politics: social classes who are marginalized give their allegiance to political leaders who represent the very same forces which are marginalizing them in the first place (large industrial monopolies). The Nazis are able to "transfer" this resentment and hostility towards Jews, communists, liberals, reason, and anything else they deemed a threat.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> The masses are in a sense homeless, anonymous, and alienated. The lumpenproletariat, unlike the proletariat are unemployed, or work irregular even illegal jobs: they are like the criminals and homeless that you see in <i>M</i>. It is out of the lumpenproletariat that the Nazis will recruit their street-fighters; just as they recruited their organizers out of lower middle class private organizations; the masses will later cheer them as they strip the people of their rights. </span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Jünger devotes a lot of time to talking about the impact of photography on increasing our awareness (and hence our control) of the human body. He seems to appreciate the objectivity of photography, again, for its lack of sensitivity:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The photograph stands outside of the zone of sensitivity. It has a telescopic quality; one can tell that the event photographed is seen by an insensitive and invulnerable eye. It records the bullet in mid-flight just as easily as it captures a man at the moment an explosion tears him apart. This is our own peculiar way of seeing, and photography is nothing other than an instrument of our own peculiar nature (p. 39).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Photography, then, is an expression of our peculiarly cruel way of seeing. Ultimately, it is a kind of evil eye, a type of magical possession. One senses this very clearly in places where a different cultic substance is still active. The moment a city like Mecca can be photographed, it falls into the colonial sphere (p. 40).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">He uses examples drawn from combat and colonialism, one can now study in close detail how people die and can access documentary evidence of foreign locations. Traditional cultures are known to have believed that if you are photographed it will steal your soul, or as he says a type of magical possession. A more harmless example could be even something like NFL films which are highly praised for their quality as they allow the viewer to analyze in detail how the game is played and how the players move. Professional athletes of all sports are usually required to study films of themselves or other athletes playing in order to learn how to perform better, move better, and correct mistakes–of course all this applies to the military as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IEqccPhsqgA/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IEqccPhsqgA?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The profussion of violent imagery, and the fast pace and constant danger of modern life forces people to become more tolerant of pain and death:</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The human will disciplines and outfits this flesh with such painstaking care that it now seems more indifferent to injury. Today, we again are able to bear the sight of death with greater indifference, since we no longer feel at home in our body as we did before. It no longer accords with our style to stop a flying show or a car race simply because of a deadly accident. Such accidents lie not outside but inside the zone of a new kind of security (p. 43).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> Precisely because we have the technology to study the body more and its appearances we become more conscious of appearances (especially our own) and more aware thus changing humankind’s standards of beauty, but also social interaction and human behavior as well, as well as turning beauty into a commodity (i.e posters and pictures of Lola the cabaret singer):</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The desire to see physical beauty in keeping with different standards is no less noteworthy A close connection to photography is also present here, especially to film, which is essentially the model of beauty. The eye has many occasions to grow accustomed to viewing the naked body, such as in sports, public baths, rhythmic dancing, but also in advertisements. We are dealing here with forays into the erotic zone, whose meaning has yet to be revealed even if we already have an inkling of it (p. 44).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Jünger reacts to these changes with a sense of regret–perhaps already seeing the direction Nazism is going in–but also sharing a fairly general suspicion of technology shared by many in his generation. His reference to the Copernican age is also a reference to Kant who considered his philosophy centered on the individual to be a "Copernican revolution" in philosophy, in other words just as Copernicus showed the earth was not at the center of the universe, the end of the Copernican age is the end of the age of the individual as the center of politics and society:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We find ourselves in a situation where we are still capable of grasping what is lost; we can still sense the destruction of values and how the world is becoming more shallow and superficial. New generations are growing up far removed from all our inherited traditions, and it is an amazing feeling to see these children many of whom will live to experience the year 2000. By then, the last remnants of the modern, i.e., Copernican, age will most likely have disappeared (p. 45).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In such a situation, pain remains the only measure promising a certainty of insights. Wherever values can no longer hold their ground, the movement toward pain endures as an astonishing sign of the times; it betrays the negative mark of a metaphysical structure (p. 47).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Pain dissolves–or negates–the structures of "metaphysics," systems of ideas based on concepts like: freedom, justice, and progress. In a very real sense pain is the ultimate reality, the others are illusions. Jünger's lament over the conditions of modern life and the loss of values are familiar themes that many other writers have approached as well. However, not many writers can bring you in to the "eye of the storm" so to speak and provide a sociological and cultural analysis of life inside Nazi Germany–even if Jünger is careful to avoid any explicit reference to the Nazi party. At many points it seems as if the essay is to provide a strategy for how to adapt to life like this, which is basically be an obedient worker and do what you are told. For most conservatives life under these conditions is still preferable to communism. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There are many things that can be said about this in relation to politics and culture today. Ultimately, the biggest criticism that can be thrown against Jünger I believe is that despite his posturing and all the pseudo-macho and heroic rhetoric he does not really confront pain at all. Instead, he runs away from it by preaching a kind of "spiritual suicide" which frees the individual from pain, but only by making them dead on the inside, mechanically going through their lives doing exactly what the authorities want them to do. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">If you want to have real life, you have to learn to live with pain and not just suppress it or block it out.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> In other words, </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">totalitarianism</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> represents a desire to destroy life physically and </span>spiritually<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> in order to be free of the sensation of pain, something not too far from Freud's conception of the "death drive." </span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Next class we will continue discussing the changes in perception and experience in the works of Walter Benjamin.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><u>Assignment Due 5/2</u>: Choose a passage from Jünger, write it out, explain the meaning of it, and why you chose this passage.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-64178965131546834042015-04-18T11:04:00.000-04:002015-04-18T13:22:15.287-04:004/18 Nazism<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In January 1919, </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">the same month that Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered in Berlin and shortly after Weber delivered his speech to the students at the University of Munich,</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> the German Worker’s Party (</span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei, </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">DAP) was formed in Munich
by right-wing nationalists and former soldiers. A few months after in September, a police
spy and veteran of the war, Adolph Hitler infiltrated the party. As part of his
cover he gave speeches in support of the party’s strong anti-communism, Antisemitism, nationalism, and its promise to resolve the differences
between business and labor and lead Germany back to prosperity and its past
glory. He had a strong effect on the audience. Soon he abandoned his cover and
became a real member of this party that claimed to represent the common man and
would lead Germany back to greatness. In 1920 the party is renamed the National
Socialist German Worker’s Party (</span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei, </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">NSDAP, or more commonly,
the Nazi Party).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 48px;">The symbol they adopt the Swastika is originally a symbol used in Ancient Indian society and found in other ancient cultures like the Greeks and the Celts. The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit word "svastika" and means "to be good" or "being with higher self."</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkx85O3KaEDk1qjQ6BOgIhevbGWTIU7B0PZagTnLaB8PDqGmcwsZ_EXHdzJyt7Uqvuu3IvS9cXlcwRpmXFjLQW45U0oTNW1t2yqmZKBQapbOB0J6Ds-YIjHbFzf1zpSAxXIYLy_kec5XM/s1600/swastika-hindu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkx85O3KaEDk1qjQ6BOgIhevbGWTIU7B0PZagTnLaB8PDqGmcwsZ_EXHdzJyt7Uqvuu3IvS9cXlcwRpmXFjLQW45U0oTNW1t2yqmZKBQapbOB0J6Ds-YIjHbFzf1zpSAxXIYLy_kec5XM/s400/swastika-hindu.png" height="400" width="391" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsowxkqP24AbAO4GOURKj_uxpSdfvHmjEtCgPQYahBWva6DUEdrqkIswnr06KtngrFaPIR3oM8jhBHi1WNItnpQAqu6sCpzDTHdcIWCNI5yxZZY21jtfN4rmQDpCiO7nXLtuWeVtwcmg/s1600/swastika-bangon.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsowxkqP24AbAO4GOURKj_uxpSdfvHmjEtCgPQYahBWva6DUEdrqkIswnr06KtngrFaPIR3oM8jhBHi1WNItnpQAqu6sCpzDTHdcIWCNI5yxZZY21jtfN4rmQDpCiO7nXLtuWeVtwcmg/s400/swastika-bangon.jpeg" height="322" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 48px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">By 1921, Hitler is the sole leader
of the party. In 1923, Hitler attempts to seize power in Munich. He fails and
police kill over a dozen of his supporters (Hitler reportedly fled the scene)
and he is put in jail. Despite committing what could clearly be called treason
he is released less than a year later in December 1924. During his time in
prison, he writes his biography and political statement <i>Mein Kampf </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(My Struggle) where he outlines his future plans for
Germany among these are: revenge against France for the war and its harsh treatment
of Germany after, expulsion of the Jewish influence, and the conquest of
“Living Space” (</span><i>L</i><i>ebensraum) </i><span style="font-style: normal;">so
that Germany could possess enough resources to be fully self-sufficient. 1923
is also significant because it is the same year in which German inflation hit
its peak when a pound of bread cost three billion marks. In 1923 France also
occupied parts of Germany’s Western industrialized areas in order to enforce
Germany’s war reparations; it was also the year after Italian fascist dictator
and future war ally Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy who became an
inspiration to Hitler.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Germany in 1925 was much different
than 1923. The government had managed to get inflation under control;
diplomatic relations with other countries improved from a series of treaties;
war reparations payments were reduced; and foreign trade expanded especially
with the United States who also helped the Weimar government in the other areas
as well. Hitler had to adjust his tactics, switching from a revolutionary
seizure of power to participating in the political system by gaining
representation in the parliament (<i>Reichstag</i><span style="font-style: normal;">)
while still openly condemning the political system. Although their party
membership steadily grows they have difficulties gaining political power. As
late as 1928, the Nazi party receives less than 3 percent of the vote in
national elections. The German Communist Party (KPD) the offspring of the
Spartacists and the Worker’s Councils, and the arch nemesis of the Nazi party
and also openly condemning the political system has three times as many members
in the Reichstag.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In general, however, the political system was in crisis and voters were deserting political parties and retreating into private life and private associations. Many of these organizations increasingly took on a nationalist and in many cases an anti-Semitic character. The officials who ran these organizations later supplied the Nazi party with disciplined party organizers and activists. This and the weakness of political parties were decisive factors in the Nazi seizure of power.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In late 1929 the Great Depression
hit worldwide as a result of the crash of the stock market in America and
resulting mass bank failures. Germany was particularly affected because its
economy had become deeply linked to the U.S. economy. Unemployment increases from
about 1.5 million workers in 1929 to over 5 million workers in 1932 out of a total population of about 60 million. The Nazi’s
capitalized on the severe economic disaster. By 1930 they had become the second
largest party in the Reichstag after the Social Democratic Party (SPD), it now
became impossible to form a majority in parliament without them. Street fights
between Nazi and Communist forces intensify. The centrist government under
Chancellor Heinrich Brüning, invokes article 48 of the Constitution and
declares a state of emergency in order to keep the government functioning
because the Nazis are completely uncompromising and will not work with the more
moderate parties. Years later, French Marxist, Alfred Sohn-Rethel would note the conflict between different "factions of capitalists" the newer, more prosperous industries siding with </span><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">Brüning and the older, less successful industries-namely coal, construction, and steel-favoring the Nazis.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In 1932 they became the largest
party in the Reichstag. Hitler runs for president (<i>Reichpresident) </i><span style="font-style: normal;">against the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg who is 84
years of age and in poor health. He was pushed to run because Brüning and the
other government leaders believed that this old-school monarchist who openly
condemned democracy was the only man who could beat Adolph Hitler. Hitler loses
narrowly. Hindenburg appoints Hitler Chancellor of the Reich (</span><i>Reichkanzler)
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">in January 1933, ten years after he fails
to seize power and is sent to jail, and two months before Franklin Roosevelt is
sworn in as the 32<sup>nd</sup> President of the United States (The 20<sup>th</sup>
amendment of the U.S. Constitution was passed in 1933 to change the date the
president is sworn in to January).</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In February, the Reichstag is set
on fire. The Nazis blame the Communists for the fire and under the pretext of a
terrorist attack, the Reichstag Fire Decrees are passed immediately and the
Enabling Act is passed in March 1933 granting Hitler’s government full
dictatorial powers. All of the communists and about a ¼ of the social democratic
representatives in the Reichstag are arrested, beaten, or otherwise forcibly prevented from voting for this
law. Only the remaining members of the SPD vote against the Enabling Act, the Catholic Center and conservative parties vote <u>for</u> the Enabling Act. This act gives permanent
emergency powers to the German Chancellor, Hitler, who promptly suspends all
civil and political liberties. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Weimar Constitution remains in effect but from this
point on it is just a formality. Political parties are dissolved except for the
Nazi party and it becomes illegal to form new parties. The government begins
cracking down on communists, artists, intellectuals, trade unionists, social
democrats, and other political opponents. Feminists are attacked, as are
homosexuals as traditional patriarchic values are forcibly re-established. Jews
and all racial minorities are persecuted and denied any legal protection. The
first concentration camp is created at Dachau, near Munich, the birthplace of
Nazism in 1933. Around the cultural center of Weimar which represents the highest achievements of German art and
humanism, the Buchenwald concentration camp is constructed in 1937 (along with
hundreds more). Buchenwald and Dachau were among the first concentration
camps in Germany liberated by the U.S. and allies in 1945 (the first concentration camp liberated by the U.S. was Natzweiler in France in August 1944) this was the first confirmation
for the West of the true horrors of the Nazi regime. On the Eastern front the Russians liberated the Majdanek concentration camp in July 1944 in Poland. It is in Poland where the "death factories" like Auschwitz and Treblinka are established.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">By 1934, Hitler’s dictatorship is
firmly established. <span style="font-style: normal;"> Hitler purges the party of all but his most loyal
supporters and those who share his ideology. Several political executions
occur, including the man responsible for Hitler being sent to jail in 1924.
President Hindenburg dies in office. Hitler fuses the offices of Chancellor (technical leader) and
President (emotional leader) into the new title, The Leader (</span><i>Fürher</i><span style="font-style: normal;">).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">By 1935, the militaristic and
expansionist ambitions of the fascist leaders are evident. In 1931 Japan occupies Manchuria in Northern China and establishes the puppet state of Manchukuo (Japan had also occupied the Korean peninsula since 1910 and Taiwan in 1895). Hitler’s ally
Mussolini invades Ethiopia in 1935. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Ethiopia and Liberia were the only African nations not to be conquered</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> by European imperialists in the 19th century. Unlike Liberia however which was founded in the 19th by American colonists looking to transport freed slaves, Ethiopia's origins date back to the Aksum Empire stretching back to the time of the Roman and Persian Empires, and for centuries had been an independent and sovereign power.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> Fascists in
Italy were driven by the the idea of recreating the Roman Empire that once controlled the Mediterranean and set about trying to conqueror North Africa to accomplish this. The modern day
state of Libya is actually a product of Italian fascism which fused together
three separate colonies in Northern Africa and renamed it Libya in 1934. The Ethiopian emperor
Haile Selassie I, puts up a good fight against a superior force. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> The Italian fascists resort to using chemical weapons against the Ethiopians, even attacking Red
Cross hospitals. Selassie becomes an icon of anti-fascism and becomes </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">Time </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">magazine’s "Man of The Year" for 1935, but the Italians
conquer Ethiopia. In 1936 Germany occupies the Rhineland, an area that had been declared a "demilitarized" zone after the first world war. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span>
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixVd13P59oO8n0IKnzrOHoOuaI_RC2dFDgecC2jbSqWiQuqHSQ0bekdodDKKqXla6uqHFkXvrH0Sen9VIo5NUl7JNLEwkiA6uZ_3KhhoShtejngrbxzTy5QhgEZSQ8-pRDfyUdm7pFA_Q/s1600/rhineland.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixVd13P59oO8n0IKnzrOHoOuaI_RC2dFDgecC2jbSqWiQuqHSQ0bekdodDKKqXla6uqHFkXvrH0Sen9VIo5NUl7JNLEwkiA6uZ_3KhhoShtejngrbxzTy5QhgEZSQ8-pRDfyUdm7pFA_Q/s400/rhineland.gif" height="343" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Also in 1936 Germans and Italians support a fascist revolt in
Spain led by General Francisco Franco against the republican government in
Spain. Already in 1933 a fascist government was installed in Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar, the "New State," or<i> Estado Novo. </i>This also inspires Getúlio Vargas who had ruled Brazil since 1930, a former Portugese colony, to institute a <i>Estado Novo</i> in Brazil in 1937 until the return of democracy in 1945. The Spanish Civil War is seen by many as a testing ground for World War
II, the Germans were able to test out their war equipment and see how well it
performs. It performs well because by 1939 Franco is installed as the fascist
dictator of Spain. Ironically, Franco and Salazar who stayed neutral during the war are possibly the most successful of the fascists in a way. Salazar lasts until 1968, the regime itself lasts until 1974. Franco and his regime last until
his death in 1975. Both nations, however, were accepted into all of the major international organizations after the war like the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after World War II.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In 1937 Japan launches a full-scale
invasion of China. </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">International relations theorist Immanuel Wallerstein refers to World War I and World War II as the "Thirty Year's War," suggesting a radical reinterpretation of of historical events.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> Eurocentric historians date the beginning of World
War II to the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the invasion of China in 1937
could just as easily be considered the beginning of World War II, because it was a continuous and unending conflict between the two Asian powers which expanded
into Japanese conquest of European colonial empires and into the war against
the U.S. and Japan in 1941 (however the "official date" is still given September 1st, 1939).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Despite the obvious militaristic
nature of the fascist governments many celebrate Hitler’s success. The economy
grows on average 9% between 1933-1939, roughly similar to the level that
the Chinese economy is growing today. Unemployment was lower in Germany than in the United States during the 1930s, although workers were paid less on average than U.S. workers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAPhTW3FSJ-MUs_hePHAQ44x3vPEXVTCREuo3tKX8AzJKrQDZ5pzY6hcEVUGy34txXcCMVPDQT5SyT4jhGMacJc_-y4VIt_3uwN8Hk_hyccOgEI_SRZuRLi-TjVf7vO-6FvgrVxz0Bb-0/s1600/JohnHeartfieldGoebbelsRecipeAgainst.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAPhTW3FSJ-MUs_hePHAQ44x3vPEXVTCREuo3tKX8AzJKrQDZ5pzY6hcEVUGy34txXcCMVPDQT5SyT4jhGMacJc_-y4VIt_3uwN8Hk_hyccOgEI_SRZuRLi-TjVf7vO-6FvgrVxz0Bb-0/s400/JohnHeartfieldGoebbelsRecipeAgainst.jpg" height="400" width="287" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">John Heartfield, <i>AIZ</i>, 1935</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Many U.S. business executives at Ford and General Motors praise the Germans success like GM head William S. Knudsen, who called Nazi Germany "the miracle of the twentieth century" and later as head of GM was the first civilian to be promoted directly to an U.S. Army General and played a key role in directing the economic side of the U.S. war effort in the 1940s. Hitler in turn praises industrialists like Henry Ford both for their success in business and antisemitism. The Nazi Volkswagen project was meant to imitate the success of the Ford Model T, while Ford published articles like <i>The International Jew </i>(Hitler was known to have a portrait of Ford in his office). In 1936 Germany hosts the Olympics and in 1938 Hitler is named <i>Time "</i>Man
of the Year." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNj0op-KJQIjsAOH41w28Kxw2O4Y9ox9JgOQXscZW5cQaHuzRg-90XdMOB-bBxpYOUOx93EyKIUMrk3elOcdA0LBMWugvWNFjK6TwWk47pIGe5tUPmtjdnuEaQ_Q4f0bpydJjl3Caw3vA/s1600/hitler-Time-man-of-the-year.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNj0op-KJQIjsAOH41w28Kxw2O4Y9ox9JgOQXscZW5cQaHuzRg-90XdMOB-bBxpYOUOx93EyKIUMrk3elOcdA0LBMWugvWNFjK6TwWk47pIGe5tUPmtjdnuEaQ_Q4f0bpydJjl3Caw3vA/s400/hitler-Time-man-of-the-year.jpg" height="400" width="302" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Groups like the America First Committee (largely funded by business executives) were committed to non-intervention in the war and peace with Germany right up until the attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941. Another controversial, and seldom discussed, event is the alleged "Business Plot" planned against Franklin Roosevelt in 1934 to overthrow the government and replace it with a fascist regime. Although no one disputes that plans were made, the extent of the execution of the planned coup is disputed, but it is believed to have involved major U.S. corporations such as General Motors, DuPont, Ford, and JP Morgan and other businesses</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> with close ties to the Nazi regime, as well as private organizations like the American Legion and the American Liberty League. In 1935, American novelist Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) publishes <i>It Can't Happen Here, </i>it takes place in a fictional U.S. taken over by a fascist government who similar to the Nazis claim to be restoring traditional values. The irony of the title is that even as the country becomes more of a totalitarian dictatorship characters are constantly assuring each other "fascism could never happen here." Even more ironically, the fascist paramilitary group in the story are referred to as "The Minute Men," a distorted version of the colonial militias who were supposed to "be ready to fight in a minute." In 2005 a group using that name who claim to be "a nightwatch on the border" has emerged composed of private individuals who have taken it on themselves to enforce "border security." </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbqfKgcgpfgGUj7QPJ0w0LNjb-7p4qQACXEsA_9ApquKwYrylcGUB06X1heH3L8Hhi22-0SYWrOmqQM7rIHouG1IP1il1Lyg26Pb6pcE0M_rxXcRwxau6U94zks5A5EXBvmKZfSx32l1A/s1600/Sinclair_Lewis_It_Can't_Happen_Here_1936_theater_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbqfKgcgpfgGUj7QPJ0w0LNjb-7p4qQACXEsA_9ApquKwYrylcGUB06X1heH3L8Hhi22-0SYWrOmqQM7rIHouG1IP1il1Lyg26Pb6pcE0M_rxXcRwxau6U94zks5A5EXBvmKZfSx32l1A/s320/Sinclair_Lewis_It_Can't_Happen_Here_1936_theater_poster.jpg" height="320" width="204" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">By 1938 however, Germany is making obvious moves to occupy other countries. Hitler (born in Austria near the birth of the Nazi movement in Bavaria) occupies Austria without
a fight. Through a vote, the country becomes part of Germany. Next, Hitler tries to occupy the
German speaking areas of Czechoslovakia. The British and French governments
allow him to do this believing this will satisfy the Hitler’s ambition at the end of 1938. A few
months later in early 1939, Hitler invades and occupies the rest of Czechoslovakia
absorbing its factories, its resources, and its workforce into the German
military machine. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In August 1939 the Germans and the Soviet Union under Josef
Stalin sign a “Non-Aggression Pact” promising not to attack each other. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">This signals to the world war is inevitable. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Prior to this, the Soviet Union had maintained a "Popular Front" stance working with liberal democratic governments in the West with an anti-fascist alliance. In China, a similar alliance is struck between the communist forces of Mao Zedong and nationalist Chiang Kai-shek who interrupt their own civil war to make an alliance against Japan that lasts till the end of the war, eventually culminating in the communist takeover in 1949. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">On September 1<sup>st</sup>,
1939 Germany invades Poland. On September 3rd, Great Britain and France
declare war on Germany. They begin an advance into Germany that stalls out and ends in stalemate. Poland is conquered in less than a month after the capital Warsaw is heavily bombed, the first time a city had been systematically bombed from the air, and becomes
the site of some of the worst atrocities of the Nazi regime. Hitler and Stalin
divide Poland before Hitler turns his sights west; the Second World War is
underway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">How then did Hitler and the Nazi
party come to power? We have discussed some of the political,
economic, and cultural variables that led to this. Obviously the strength of
extremists movements like this capitalized on economic crises to push its
message. Look at Hitler’s actions in 1923, and the strength of the party after
1929. Many have also looked to the political system as making it easier for the
Nazis to gain power without a majority.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Germany during the Weimar period,
unlike the U.S. system, had multiple large political parties competing against each
other. Germany also had a voting system that allocated seats in parliament
according the overall percentage of the vote each party captured. Most of the
time, one party falls short of having a majority of the vote (n < 50%).
Parties then form “coalitions” or alliances with other parties to reach the majority threshold. When the government was originally created there was a “Weimar Coalition" made up of the parties most supportive of the government. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The SPD was
the largest party but still depended on other parties like the Catholic Center
Party and the German Democratic Party (<i>Deutsche Demokratische Partei,</i> DDP) to form a majority. The DDP was made up of
left-leaning liberals and intellectuals like Max Weber, this party was the weak
link in the chain however and could not deliver enough of the votes. After 1920
this coalition never received a majority again. In order to form a majority
government a “Grand Coalition"</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> would have to include the conservative,
right-leaning parties, like the German People’s Party (</span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0.5in;">Deutsche
Volkspartei,</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> DVP) that represented big
business interests, or the German National People’s Party </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0.5in;">(Deutschenationale
Volkspartei, </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">DNVP) which represented the
remaining feudal nobles and was the most conservative class in Germany outside
of the Nazis.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Nazis from the beginning
identified themselves as representing the true Germans, <i>Das Volk</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (the people). The other conservative parties also
tried to identify with the “volk” and used it in their names. The Nazis were
given political legitimacy when they were endorsed by the DNVP as a junior
partner. Many of the old school aristocrats were equally anti-Semitic and had
equal contempt for democracy, they foolishly believed that they could control
Hitler and the Nazis while using their popularity. This changed after 1930 when
the Nazis became the dominant partner in the alliance. Most of the conservative
elements in Germany believed that Germany had been “stabbed in the back” by
foreigners and intellectuals who had too much influence in society. The Nazis
promised to “get their country back” and restore Germany to its proper place in
the world. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWdohH4Bfb8hK71OjFSz1n17tu5ERZ9KWQ8THTmufP4uBeViH4jWp2zeEKweyk79E1ihTLKn2l2MmhvF6fEsLPTCf_fLOO8v-LlOvJ9vGOET77yqW8VHQuV0fhxGaW-ZM2UtqzMY8YLGE/s1600/stab-in-the-back-legend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWdohH4Bfb8hK71OjFSz1n17tu5ERZ9KWQ8THTmufP4uBeViH4jWp2zeEKweyk79E1ihTLKn2l2MmhvF6fEsLPTCf_fLOO8v-LlOvJ9vGOET77yqW8VHQuV0fhxGaW-ZM2UtqzMY8YLGE/s320/stab-in-the-back-legend.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">They were also against both
communism and capitalism, blaming them both on Jews, even though that seems
like a contradiction. They promised to resolve the struggles between business
and labor, and originally tried to portray themselves as a non-communist
alternative for the working classes. In a sense they were not lying since their
strategy was to substitute racial struggle for class struggle. German
businessmen and workers should put their differences aside and recognize their
racial superiority over other races and nations. After coming to power the
Nazis were able to control class struggle by controlling the prices of products and wages of workers. Independent unions were destroyed in favor of a Nazi controlled national union, the German Labor Front (<i>Deutsche Arbeitsfront, </i>DAF). Managers and executives of major corporations were mostly left in control, since little
that they did was offensive to Nazi ideology, but they had to follow the
directions of the Nazi bureaucrats, but on the other hand the government became
their biggest customer with an increasingly bigger demand for goods to satisfy
their war production. Hatred of capitalism was more of the international
aspect of capitalism than any opposition to large-scale industry as long as it
was under the control of the German government.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Some of the earliest
interpretations of the Nazi regime like Franz Neumann’s <i>Behemoth </i>(1944) originally saw Nazism as the logical
consequence of "monopoly capitalism." Assuming that the free-market system of
supply and demand broke down during the first world war, Nazism is
only an attempt for large industrial monopolies to maintain control over
production through the power of the state. In other words it emerges as a crisis response to communism. Capitalism, which had developed
largely in a Protestant religious framework, also had some ethical principles that imposed some limitations on the process of accumulation for industries.
Under the Nazi regime these limitations are gone and the ruthless pursuit of
accumulating capital and wealth without any limitations becomes normal. All the war production by the Germans after 1936 that helped rebuild
its economy needed to find some kind of outlet. The behavior of the Germans
during the war would be to take over all factories and industrial components
and try to squeeze every last bit of resources and wealth out of the country
similar to a "leveraged buyout" of another company. The Germans also used slave
labor in the construction of roads and factories. Signs with the phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work is Freedom) were hung over the entrances of many concentration camps like Auschwitz. The “Final Solution,” the plan to exterminate all the remaining
Jews in Europe, was implemented when the Allies started bombing German
cities in 1942.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Major corporations in Germany
benefited during the Nazi regime. Especially in the first few years of the Nazi
regime, Hitler believed that automobile production was the key to reviving
German industry (much as it had become the cornerstone of American industry).
Companies like BMW profited under the Nazi regime. BMW actually stands for
Bavarian Motor Works, it was founded in 1916 producing airplane engines for the
German air force. This origin can be seen in the BMW emblem which is actually a
plane propeller spinning against the blue sky. After the Treat of Versailles
was signed in 1919, a stipulation of the treaty made it <u>illegal </u>to
produce airplane engines in Germany for five years. The company switched to
making motorcycles and cars. The famous design of BMWs then partially comes from the unintended consequences of the peace treaty which resulted in stripped down air plane engines installed in cars and motorbikes. After 1924 they were allowed to resume making airplane engines. During the Nazi era after 1933, production of airplanes increased
dramatically. The No. 2 person in the Nazi regime was Hermann Göring, the head
of the Air Force (<i>Luftwaffe)</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, which was
a key element in the German strategy of warfare the </span><i>Blitzkrieg </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(lightning war). BMW now admits to using as many as
20,000-30,000 slave laborers during the Nazi regime as well as producing military
equipment for the Nazis.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnzAMczOjzYHev1eHsBHLy_Rt-WP5NtJJK8YqY55LzN0fXfhqwNmSZcN6JajjF3t999p3Xe8GhoA14OxhNzdB58XgulDv5-bMDkzktBkSen0biDjJBWrzhxbD_mtyeSKWtHBLbAPvbNis/s1600/bmw_advert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnzAMczOjzYHev1eHsBHLy_Rt-WP5NtJJK8YqY55LzN0fXfhqwNmSZcN6JajjF3t999p3Xe8GhoA14OxhNzdB58XgulDv5-bMDkzktBkSen0biDjJBWrzhxbD_mtyeSKWtHBLbAPvbNis/s400/bmw_advert.jpg" height="276" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0y6rrKLb96asrX7VEjS_sEbHmAuGWpksomT3gpqGz8i2GMnyHEOqvDZVghCl-aT9iKi1F_Os0SkGdiPnD29gm8G8S5kKuj-nLKydIbFlUaIXDLm1b4SSZXbIlK698h43sZNHEL2XyVY/s1600/BMW_Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0y6rrKLb96asrX7VEjS_sEbHmAuGWpksomT3gpqGz8i2GMnyHEOqvDZVghCl-aT9iKi1F_Os0SkGdiPnD29gm8G8S5kKuj-nLKydIbFlUaIXDLm1b4SSZXbIlK698h43sZNHEL2XyVY/s400/BMW_Logo.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The automobile was invented by Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler in Stuttgart in 1885, also the birthplace of Hegel. Ironically, Daimler and Benz were working separately and independently from each other and both began a process of inventing more complex internal combustion engines from the 1870s that culminated in the first "horseless carriage" (technically Benz is given credit for his design being patented first).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQgmHjS8XiuQAilHNm_65AreJY97cn5-8jR5Q6w23kw4br8voyWT3D5EpprkcwYg1eCVkbg9rnT-IRYqhkFUIUpotjPjebs2s60eN6r1Bg3v5RgofEY6xt5u1Pv4dTizbO8Q5PrN31oA/s400/1885Benz.jpg" height="293" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first automobile, Karl Benz</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQgmHjS8XiuQAilHNm_65AreJY97cn5-8jR5Q6w23kw4br8voyWT3D5EpprkcwYg1eCVkbg9rnT-IRYqhkFUIUpotjPjebs2s60eN6r1Bg3v5RgofEY6xt5u1Pv4dTizbO8Q5PrN31oA/s1600/1885Benz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Until 1926, Benz and Daimler operated separate companies that eventually merged (Daimler also had another partner named Maybach). Daimler-Benz AG the company that
produces Mercedes Benz also produced military equipment for the Germans, and
reportedly used the most slave labor of all the German car manufacturers.
Daimler-Benz also owned Chrysler from 1998-2007.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Volkswagen was founded in 1937 by Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche (designer of the Porsche sports car and also designed several prototypes for tanks). Porsche had originally worked for the Daimler company before founding a design consulting firm that became the original Porsche company in 1931 (the sports car brand was not produced until after the war).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">Founded during the peak of the Nazi regime, Volkswagen (People’s Car),
was seen as a vehicle for the common people of Germany instead of the luxury
brands Germans were already famous for. Volkswagen today also owns Audi and even
foreign brands like Bentley (BMW owns Rolls Royce who made airplanes for the
British during the war).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Besides the major car manufacturers
other German corporations benefited from the Nazis. IG Farben, the parent
company of Bayer, the company that invented aspirin, was allowed to perform
experiments on people in concentration camps, and also developed “Zyklon B” the
nerve gas used in the gas chambers in Auschwitz and other “death factories.” <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Hugo Boss, the fashion designer, designed the Nazi SS uniforms.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> The Deutsche Bank, at one time the largest bank in the world, helped confiscate Jewish owned businesses and loaned the funds to build Auschwitz.</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBqEArbXKoWiLS_fV0WElt2mAlraoUw64Me5VyypoLSqwvXoIzJvruAODaU8Auy4YXM3XBeWXKjYmn3KsDrFaJsKtRqaqF02x1TEouR2fY8fdjWmtnUHwkJ5kgjMNMGJbMdaZb9GnjLt0/s1600/2738787798_c0d8f36b8f_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBqEArbXKoWiLS_fV0WElt2mAlraoUw64Me5VyypoLSqwvXoIzJvruAODaU8Auy4YXM3XBeWXKjYmn3KsDrFaJsKtRqaqF02x1TEouR2fY8fdjWmtnUHwkJ5kgjMNMGJbMdaZb9GnjLt0/s320/2738787798_c0d8f36b8f_o.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Deutsche Bank Towers, Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Apart from the German companies
that benefited from the Nazis major American corporations did as well. The support shown by many Americans for the Nazis in the 1930s until the U.S. entry in the war is a shameful chapter in American history. Linguistic theorist Noam Chomsky, who grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia, recalls people throwing block parties after Paris fell to the Nazis in 1940. In 1939 a major rally for American supporters of the Nazis was held at Madison Square Garden (not something you will see on the "50 Greatest Moments at MSG"). Besides these more individual and anecdotal examples there was active financial, trade, and commercial linkages between American banks and firms and their German counterparts. By the
1920s General Motors and Ford Motor Company were already considered “multinational
corporations” having set up offices and production plants in many corners of
the world. Henry Ford was an open Nazi sympathizer who also owned Ford
Motorwerke in Germany which produced vehicles for the Nazis. General Motors
purchased German auto manufacturer Opel and became sole owner in 1931. Although
both companies claim they lost control of operations during the Nazi regime
both companies still retained legal control throughout the Nazi era and
benefited from the profits of these companies during and after the war without
ever being asked to pay anything in reparations, the U.S. government actually
paid them after the war to repair damages to their facilities. Opel is known to
have produced as many as half of all the trucks used by the Nazis during World
War II. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">The Union Banking Corporation was a large bank based in New York City that had its assets seized in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act for</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> dealings with Nazis</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">. This bank was </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">owned by Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. a Wall Street investment bank that was run by W. Averell Harriman, later Governor of New York in the 1950s, and one of the highest-ranking advisor in the FDR and Truman administrations in the 1940s; Robert Lovett, another high-ranking advisor and later Secretary of Defense after World War II; and Prescott Bush, (among other partners) father of George Hebert Walker Bush, and grandfather of George W. Bush. Prescott Bush was also implicated in the business plot to remove FDR in 1934.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Brown Brothers Harriman is the oldest and largest private bank in the United States.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War during World War II, and later High Commissioner of Germany during reconstruction in the post-war era also had linkages to Nazi officials and industrialists through his association with IG Farben. Harriman, Lovett, and McCloy would later be dubbed the "Wise Men" of U.S. foreign policy along with other close friends of theirs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0YKNQTvUgQxu0oRF26mAWB_tHJeWjvj-Ci3P5blOe6BjksEPmWQC8r3ohtCcjO3J7iAGVgwhdME5hUrXTztGl2mkFzc5ExBL3SCWxLsUH8Iq_av62r04qLpZGQzpaN4Omv4MFTyRkEUY/s1600/German_concentration_camp_chart_of_prisoner_markings.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0YKNQTvUgQxu0oRF26mAWB_tHJeWjvj-Ci3P5blOe6BjksEPmWQC8r3ohtCcjO3J7iAGVgwhdME5hUrXTztGl2mkFzc5ExBL3SCWxLsUH8Iq_av62r04qLpZGQzpaN4Omv4MFTyRkEUY/s320/German_concentration_camp_chart_of_prisoner_markings.jpeg" height="320" width="224" /></a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">The International Business Machines Corporation, better known as IBM, provided the tabulating machines (literally counting machines) that enabled the Nazis to organize the Holocaust. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">Political philosopher Hannah Arendt would later speak of the "banality of evil" when writing about the infamous trial of Nazi Adolph Eichmann in the 1960s. Banality refers to something trivial, inconsequential, or overly concerned with small details. Her point, is that unlike popular depictions, most Nazis were not raving psychopaths but most seemed like very ordinary, boring bureaucrats.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">Despite the obvious benefits and
advantages given to major industries during the Nazi era, not all are convinced
that the Nazi regime was an outgrowth of monopoly capitalism. Fredrick Pollock, of the Frankfurt School, described the Nazi regime
as a form of “state capitalism” where he says, “the power motive takes
precedence over the profit motive,” in other words although industries are
still run as for profit businesses their activities are directed by the state
in the interest of increasing national power, not maximizing profitability. This state exercises control by its ability to control financing and credit, the prices of raw materials, and the wages paid to workers, as well as setting production goals for corporations to follow. The new ruling class is composed of industrial managers, the party bureaucracy, and the government bureaucracy (including the military). This assumes
that the political realm is independent somewhat of the economic realm.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">Certain aspects of the Nazi regime,
most notably the Holocaust are difficult to explain using economic analysis,
the war itself became extremely unprofitable and damaging to the German economy
yet it continued, so if decisions were made only on the basis of profitability
it would be hard to explain these things. Also most of the Nazi leadership
including Hitler did not come from the industrialist class in society.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Besides political and economic
factors there are certain cultural factors to look at. For one, many point out
that since the Germans had no history of democracy that they had a weak commitment
to the democratic process. Certainly many of the political parties did, both
the NSDAP (Nazis) and KPD (Communists) were openly committed to the destruction
of the political system despite participating in it, while other parties like
the conservative DNVP openly favored returning to the German Empire. At the same time, Weimar Germany had a very active civil society. The concept of civil society has recently become popular again since the late 1980s and 1990s during the wave of revolutions that toppled the communist governments in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The idea of a network of voluntary private associations (or interest groups) were believed to be the key mechanisms in explaining the transition from a communist state to a liberal democratic state. However, evidence of a similar institutional structure was present in Weimar Germany, and it remains unclear how important a role civil society plays in sustaining a democratic government even if it may play a role in overturning an authoritarian government. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Still, it
is unlikely without the severe effects of the Great Depression the Nazis would
have been able to take power. It should also be said despite all their appeals
to the working class, the Nazis failed to ever gain much support among the
working class who were either communists or social democrats. Nazis drew most of
their early support from disgruntled army veterans (Hitler was one himself);
the <i>lumpenproletariat</i>: the unemployed, irregularly employed, or illegally
employed urban classes (like the criminals in <i>M</i>); and the petty bourgeoisie or the lower middle classes.
This latter group is sometimes hard to define, they were not poor but were not
among the top levels of society. They were not the ones who ran the large national
and international corporations but the regional and small businesses, they were
“the big fish in the small pond” so to speak. The petty bourgeoisie formed the biggest base of support for the Nazis in the
earliest days. The big industrial and financial bourgeoisie were somewhat
skeptical of the Nazis at first because of their vaguely socialist rhetoric.
However Hitler himself despised the socialist aspects of his party and purged
these elements after 1934. From the early days he tried to appeal more to
business interests who eventually came around to Hitler seeing in him a way to
stop communism.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Probably what set Hitler apart from
other demagogues was his ability to exert “charismatic authority” (the Weberian
concept) over his audiences, who saw in him some super-natural quality. Hitler
was an admirer of Nietzsche and thought of himself as "the superman" (</span><span dir="auto" style="font-size: 1.6em; line-height: 1.2em; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Übermensch</i></span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.2em; text-indent: 0.5in;">)</span><i style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 1.2em; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </i><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2em;">creating a
new order of values that disposed of the weak liberal notions of human rights and
substituted it for a philosophy of power legitimated through violence. This
combined with claims to speaking for the “real Germans” and promises to
“restore German greatness” struck a chord with insecure Germans who felt lost
and directionless in their lives, and all too willing to find scapegoats for
their alienation. One of the most common claims made by early Hitler supporters
was the feeling that “he made me feel like I was not alone anymore.” Charismatic authority, combined with an appeal to tradition, and the highly bureaucratic nature of the party would then indicate all three major forms of authority identified by Weber (traditional, bureaucratic, and charismatic) and serves to illustrate that although these concepts can be analytically separated, in reality there is no clear separation between these forms of authority. The highly disciplined administrative staff that attached itself to Hitler would be an example of what Weber referred to as "the routinization of charisma" or the process of </span><span style="line-height: 28.796297073364258px;">institutionalizing</span><span style="line-height: 1.2em;"> charismatic authority.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What lessons if any are there from
the Nazi regime? I would argue that it seems sometimes that the extremes of the Nazis and the Holocaust is almost overemphasized sometimes to make them appear more
distant from the rest of Europe and the U.S. Again, Arendt's comment on the banality of evil is instructive. Popular representations of Nazism and the Holocaust like the film <i>Schindler's List </i>(1993) are open to criticism on this point for depicting Nazis as barbaric savages instead of the more "human" banal bureaucrats that Arendt speaks of. This exaggeration is perhaps explained by an even deeper criticism against the inability to reflect upon the connection between our own way of life and atrocity, for example, Imre Kertész, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner in Literature, who wrote in response to the film, "I regard as kitsch [junk] any representation of the Holocaust that is incapable of understanding or not willing to understand the organic connection between our own deformed mode of life and the very possibility of the Holocaust." From this perspective a disturbing set of questions emerge:</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Do we in the U.S. today have people who like to separate “real Americans” from
the rest and constantly talk about “taking our country back” and resort to all kinds of hysterical and paranoid theories? Do we not have those who exploit scapegoats, external or internal, as a way of directing attention away from other (possibly self-inflicted) problems? Do we not have those
who manipulate people through the mass media to promote conformity? Is the country constantly at war or in a
state of preparation for war? Do the military producers and contractors in this country (including companies like General Motors or Boeing) have a strong influence over government? Does our government keep
the population under surveillance and detain individuals even without trial? These are all aspects of the Nazi regime as well. In other words are the Nazis a mirror through which we look at our own society, </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">an extreme </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">exaggerated</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> behavior and worldview that reveals hidden impulses in all modern societies,</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> or something totally alien? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnVHey2RC9fRb7MZ38eJHDgln26WSBYjXjSUMILoMgg9wynx9BXOALhT7Iq1JsygtBIUnBSwWJ9SyiQWnjpwFY_j92PiSPq09qkFXjt1iKObT_bHey3MWfz-q_CeeedLgLGeL7xj3lFQw/s1600/loadimg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnVHey2RC9fRb7MZ38eJHDgln26WSBYjXjSUMILoMgg9wynx9BXOALhT7Iq1JsygtBIUnBSwWJ9SyiQWnjpwFY_j92PiSPq09qkFXjt1iKObT_bHey3MWfz-q_CeeedLgLGeL7xj3lFQw/s400/loadimg.jpeg" height="400" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leni Riefenstahl</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Supposedly the first thing
the Nazis would do when they conquered an area is to set up a public address
(PA) system. Hitler articulated what would later be known as "the Big Lie" theory in <i>Mein Kampf</i> (the bigger the lie, the more outrageous, the more people will think its true). The Nazis employed propaganda and tried to manipulate the masses
in their own country and in occupied areas as well. <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The following film is a
propaganda film entitled “Triumph of the Will,” (</span><i style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Triumph des Willens) </i><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">made in 1934, distributed by Ufa in 1935 and</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> a reference to the Nietzschian notion of the “will
to power.” The film was directed by Leni Riefenstahl who was given almost unlimited resources to construct this film. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">One thing that stands out is the complete absence of Antisemitic rhetoric in the film. This is because as we have already discussed film had become one of Germany's top exports and the propaganda conscious leadership also wanted to create a good image for the rest of the world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/GHs2coAzLJ8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; font-style: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; font-style: normal;">The other film is entitled Night and Fog (</span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Nuit et brouillard</i></span><span style="font-size: large; font-style: normal;">) a French film produced in 1955. The script was written by Jean Cayrol, a concentration camp survivor. It is noteworthy that this was <u>not</u> produced by a German. Even in France the film caused controversy for one scene that shows the back of a French police officer's head watching people being loaded into camps. This is because after Germany occupied France in 1940 a "collaborationist" government was set up in France--the Vichy government. In Germany there is even greater difficulty fully coming to terms with past crimes. Major political cleavages in Germany today are drawn along the lines of: how is the Nazi regime to be interpreted within German history? Please note this is an extremely graphic film depicting scenes of the Holocaust and is far more disturbing than anything else that we have seen in this class. [sorry if you have to watch deodorant ads before watching a Holocaust film]</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=373_1324912412">http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=373_1324912412</a> (part 1)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f32_1324912040">http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f32_1324912040</a> (part 2)</div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-63990257875788455222015-03-28T18:05:00.000-04:002015-03-28T16:02:08.795-04:003/28 Max Weber: Politics as a Vocation<span style="font-size: large;">In the film <i>M</i>, the liberal lawyer assigned to defend the killer is homeless. This represents the sense that liberal political values and attitudes were somehow homeless in Germany. In this class we look at the failure of liberals like Weber to win out over more authoritarian movements, as well as the history of the German state. Weber famously argued that the state is an organization that holds a monopoly over violence in a given territory. All states must develop ideas to legitimatize ruling over people. Finally, Weber is also known for arguing for the importance of charisma as a force in politics and seems to anticipate the rise of fascist leaders who relied on the "cult of personality" to maintain their rule. At the same time, Weber seemed to argue that charisma offers the slimmest chance of avoiding the crushing effects of modern rational political and economic authority.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC6AILaW9tWpn2qI1Bkin8dm1z_eSudFLn2pLgveYbRnLO8YTULMVqNV_LkpSLHRXzdC8crEcIRNVYePTH4f_m6Mk3848Gy3XVfEy_MPAnphHPy3G7zhzuheLzfV7WimfLmPbfkpVJHd0/s1600/ArticleWeber.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC6AILaW9tWpn2qI1Bkin8dm1z_eSudFLn2pLgveYbRnLO8YTULMVqNV_LkpSLHRXzdC8crEcIRNVYePTH4f_m6Mk3848Gy3XVfEy_MPAnphHPy3G7zhzuheLzfV7WimfLmPbfkpVJHd0/s320/ArticleWeber.jpeg" height="320" width="223" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Max Weber </span><span style="font-size: large;">(1864-1920) </span><span style="font-size: large;">perhaps more than any other figure of this time represents the–ultimately–failed attempt to bring about a democratic order in Weimar Germany. Despite these failings in political life, Weber is still generally considered to be the most important sociological thinker ever. <a href="http://www.isa-sociology.org/books/vt/bkv_000.htm">http://www.isa-sociology.org/books/vt/bkv_000.htm</a>.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> Weber helped found the German Democratic Party (DDP) which along with the Social Democratic Party and the Catholic Center Party tried to establish the left-liberal leaning Weimar Coalition in 1919. However this coalition failed to maintain power after 1920, from that point on any majority in parliament would have to include at least one of the more right-wing nationalistic and anti-democratic parties. The weakest link in the coalition was the DDP, although all parties lost support, which failed to attract voters as did many other newly created parties, instead voters withdrew from politics or joined private associations many of which had an authoritarian element to them.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">“Politics as a Vocation” (<i>Politik als Beruf</i>) was a speech delivered by Weber to the students at the University of
Munich in the Southern German state of Bavaria during the revolution in December 1918, published the following month, the same month as the failed Spartacus uprising. Apart from the revolution in Berlin, the capital of the German Empire,
where Rosa Luxemburg was based, revolutionary movements spread out throughout
all the major cities of Germany, one of which was Munich the capital of the
state of Bavaria. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">Before the Kaiser had formally vacated power,
revolutionaries had overthrown the 700-year old Wittelsbach dynasty that ruled Bavaria on November 7</span><sup style="text-align: center;">th</sup><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">
1918. Germany had such a dense feudal structure that they had overlapping
layers of monarchies, along with nobles, and all of the bishops and other officials who attended
to the kings and nobles. I had mentioned previously that Germany had a federal
system like the United States. That means that there was a division of power
between the national government and smaller states that make up the nation.
Unlike the U.S. which was a federal system made up of smaller republics, the
German state was made up of smaller monarchies (and a few “free cities”) that
were unified together in 1871. </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">Perhaps since Germany became a unified state in 1871 it could help explain why states like Bavaria would separate itself from the rest of Germany. However this begs the question why did Germany become a unified state so late, especially in comparison to other states like England, France, Spain, and Russia? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">Before there was a German Empire (or Second Reich) there was the Holy Roman Empire (First Reich). The French philosopher Voltaire once said, the Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire, it definitely was not Roman, although it claimed to be the successor to the Roman Empire, and it was not really an Empire either, nonetheless, it remained in existence for almost 900 years from the coronation of Otto the Great in 962 until it was dissolved during the Napoleonic wars in 1806.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCTmAMEAMUv-ddkFmovXEw_CafUxQeUKS0RZlZuNU5slM545F-XQ7x-rBVIZoxrkxbAgRkTg4QSBnpJaWbPCQlDakSraMu_2Jd40N7Xonb03xbbZBnCnXjnft2EEppWF9_dzl1FJueAE/s1600/El-Sacro-Imperio-Romano-Germanico-circa-1600-1294.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCTmAMEAMUv-ddkFmovXEw_CafUxQeUKS0RZlZuNU5slM545F-XQ7x-rBVIZoxrkxbAgRkTg4QSBnpJaWbPCQlDakSraMu_2Jd40N7Xonb03xbbZBnCnXjnft2EEppWF9_dzl1FJueAE/s400/El-Sacro-Imperio-Romano-Germanico-circa-1600-1294.png" height="245" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">At its peak the territories covered by the Empire besides Germany: Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and even parts of France and Italy</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">Following an ancient German tribal practice of electing kings, the emperor was elected by several of the most influential German princes. As this practice became institutionalized it gave the nobles much more power over the monarch, and thus prevented the consolidation of the state under one monarch, the opposite of what happened in England, France, and Spain. Besides the power of the nobility, there were also powerful independent city-states that were able to preserve some autonomy from either the monarch or the nobility. Germany today is made up of 16 states, however, three of those states are still "city-states," Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">In addition to power of the "electors" to choose the emperor there was an Imperial Legislature or Diet, that also checked the power of the emperor. The Imperial Diet was composed of three levels: at the highest level were the electors, the second level was made up of the other princes, and the third level, representatives from the city-states. In other words the very political institutions of the empire itself seemed to work against its consolidation into a unified state under an absolute monarch. However it did allow for a common German culture to develop in its territories, that created a sense of "German identity" that existed for centuries before there was a German state, some have argued that this can even partly explain why Germany has such a developed culture and a relatively underdeveloped tradition of democracy. In the Eastern areas where there was less industry the nobles had even more power and even more independent from the monarch. Bavaria was one of the eastern states, Prussia was another. After Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, he organized some of the German states including Bavaria into the Confederation of the Rhine (<i>Rheinbund</i>), after the Rhine River which runs through Germany–Prussia remained nominally independent but had to cede territory to this new Confederation. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLkLrk8kPdlmzVyOHefcaAWRtq8tOEbZZryhx2SZmJCYrmmwqp8Oz1bxL3LtbWlvBx1EvlPKBVXXoNJzmYocCNaeEKfvg4qmB3mWzj3u2Z6R2SKyKKle0eEKDnz2-dqzqZeGaS6fOyXgc/s1600/2000px-Flag_of_the_Confederation_of_the_Rhine.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLkLrk8kPdlmzVyOHefcaAWRtq8tOEbZZryhx2SZmJCYrmmwqp8Oz1bxL3LtbWlvBx1EvlPKBVXXoNJzmYocCNaeEKfvg4qmB3mWzj3u2Z6R2SKyKKle0eEKDnz2-dqzqZeGaS6fOyXgc/s400/2000px-Flag_of_the_Confederation_of_the_Rhine.png" height="282" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flag of Confederation of Rhine 1806-1813</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">The philosopher Hegel, who was completing the <i>Phenomenology of Spirit</i> at the same Napoleon was invading Prussia in 1806, regarded Napoleon as the world spirit, speaking to the sense of "cultural lag" that many Germanys saw in the old form of the empire. After the fall of Napoleon the boundaries of Europe were redrawn at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. As a result of this conference the German Confederation (<i>Deutscher Bund</i>) with the addition of Austria.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirc7N5-hNMTg3Cto8a9bOea8qwqWt4VNJtDPqy6Czao8HiuxVbzXoaO6m2ENkWcfKf9qNH_A1vGC350U7tXpN2Y4ia9b3wXYmFDs-76FFwITCzDyp3fHyuVx1tuh_L-UanVt8RuQ_1BJ0/s1600/2000px-Flag_of_the_German_Confederation_(war).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirc7N5-hNMTg3Cto8a9bOea8qwqWt4VNJtDPqy6Czao8HiuxVbzXoaO6m2ENkWcfKf9qNH_A1vGC350U7tXpN2Y4ia9b3wXYmFDs-76FFwITCzDyp3fHyuVx1tuh_L-UanVt8RuQ_1BJ0/s400/2000px-Flag_of_the_German_Confederation_(war).png" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">German Confederation 1815-1866</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This confederation lasted until 1866 when still independent Prussia went to war against Austria leading to the North German Confederation (</span></span><i style="font-size: x-large; text-align: center;">Norddeutscher Bun</i><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">d) which lasted until German unification in 1871.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjezCvvElkPO7m9QvGHBa7Ij_naKNmAsvbpqqpmvmWlmDu76ACmUlF_vZa3Am7enGBX07m3uP1i4xeRW9hK0XI4zVa_LO1qKdoJ1gfDIgfLOh4V5uyeJUA3hgVgN7nh3SvaBtjtfPdAbmk/s1600/Flag_of_the_German_Empire.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjezCvvElkPO7m9QvGHBa7Ij_naKNmAsvbpqqpmvmWlmDu76ACmUlF_vZa3Am7enGBX07m3uP1i4xeRW9hK0XI4zVa_LO1qKdoJ1gfDIgfLOh4V5uyeJUA3hgVgN7nh3SvaBtjtfPdAbmk/s400/Flag_of_the_German_Empire.png" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">North German Confederation 1867-1871</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> In the 18th century Prussia began to become dominant over the other German states. Berlin, unlike some of the other German cities that went back to the time of the Romans, was founded in the 12th century. Over time the local Prussian elector-ruler allied itself with the Prussian nobles to reassert power over the growing independence of the peasant, farmer class, and with little resistance from the towns, the landowners became dominant and became institutionalized within the Prussian state. Scholars</span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> argued that it was this top-down modernization initiated by the landowning class with a subordinate bourgeoisie led the Prussian state into becoming a fascist state. Again this argument only reinforces the point that liberalism, as seen through its "carrier" the bourgeoisie was marginalized and relatively powerless throughout German history.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">Munich is the capital of Bavaria which is the largest state by territory and
the second largest in population in Germany. It has a larger population than both the Czech Republic and Austria which border it. The Bavarian state enjoys a
higher degree of autonomy than most of the other German states, even being
allowed to maintain its own army, and even today the ruling Christian Democratic Party (CDU) has a separate Bavarian party the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), in parliament the parties are grouped together as CDU/CSU. BMW is headquartered in Bavaria which stands for <i>Bayerische Motern Werke</i> or "Bavarian Motor Works," among the many other corporations also there.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk-TWN1PfKPxldYo2HUaVk6VjzJ7mKIy6gzdnp869Re-zzLO8g3YkzQNcKY9KTdHJX4BjRcs4dIyV00EIl-lMmzkHG35VQNK79So9CFaqhl4UWkGYc416cuE8jGkpuWid4iDy9yHcyokk/s1600/Map-WR-Bavaria.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk-TWN1PfKPxldYo2HUaVk6VjzJ7mKIy6gzdnp869Re-zzLO8g3YkzQNcKY9KTdHJX4BjRcs4dIyV00EIl-lMmzkHG35VQNK79So9CFaqhl4UWkGYc416cuE8jGkpuWid4iDy9yHcyokk/s400/Map-WR-Bavaria.png" height="340" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bavarian Socialist Republic 1918-1919</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Bavarian Soviet Republic 1919</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It may seem surprising that a state would declare itself autonomous from the larger state it is part of, however it is important to remember, that for over 40 years after World War II, Germany was divided into two separate nations, West Germany and East Germany, only this time </span><span style="font-size: large;">the Northeastern part of Germany becomes the communist East German state and</span><span style="font-size: large;"> Bavaria remains in the capitalist West German state while. Most of the major industrial cities in Germany are in the West: Hamburg, Bonn (the capital of West Germany), Cologne, Bremen, Frankfurt am Main, where the Frankfurt School is and the financial capital of Germany; further South is Stuttgart where the automobile was invented, and Munich, the capital of Bavaria which was also where the tragic killing of the Israeli Olympic team took place in 1972. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The capital, Berlin, is in the East, however, and the stories of the standoff between American and Soviet forces in Berlin are well known, most famously the Berlin Wall built in 1961. In contemporary German politics there is intense debate over government spending over the more impoverished, less developed East. Many people in the West resent having to pay taxes to provide government services and welfare to the East. The former East German communist party, The Socialist Unity Party of Germany, also continues to exist, first renamed Party of Democratic Socialism, now just "The Left" (<i>Die</i> <i>Linke</i>) and is the fourth largest out of the five party groups represented in the German parliament, the <i>Bundestag </i>(Federal Diet).</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXhHPZ9-C8qpNy4CLyOL1hRTKXTCnAlfZBgTVUZRn-ENU-NbgrlE846k4cGkhL3VwQ_PaBat4DaQYnYAKPiXLpijpYGtWkXp3ES5ORMz3IoRYx8xoS9QjMmB6dpfUNvDHK_M057niZrQk/s1600/ddrmap.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXhHPZ9-C8qpNy4CLyOL1hRTKXTCnAlfZBgTVUZRn-ENU-NbgrlE846k4cGkhL3VwQ_PaBat4DaQYnYAKPiXLpijpYGtWkXp3ES5ORMz3IoRYx8xoS9QjMmB6dpfUNvDHK_M057niZrQk/s400/ddrmap.gif" height="400" width="343" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Note that Germany is almost completely surrounded by other states.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">Weber was addressing a revolutionary audience. Kurt Eisner, leader of the Bavaria USPD party, seized power
in November 1918 and proclaimed the Bavarian Socialist Republic. The USPD
became the centrist party in the post-revolutionary political structure; both
the SPD and the Spartacus group competed for their alliance. In this case the
USPD under Eisner was more to the left (closer to the Spartacus group), the
socialist republic proclaimed its independence from the rest of Germany. In
February 1919 a right-wing extremist assassinated Eisner. In April the state is
renamed the Bavarian Soviet Republic and becomes a satellite of the Soviet
Union. In May the Bavarian Soviet Republic is crushed by force after the
Bavarian army and <i>Freikorps </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(squads of
decommissioned soldiers returning from the front lines) invade Munich killing
almost 2,000 and injuring thousands more. By August the Weimar Constitution
takes effect and Bavaria is reintegrated into the Weimar Republic. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Weber himself was a liberal and not a
socialist, and was mostly critical of the social democratic parties throughout
his life. He was a well-connected individual who had access to the highest
officials in power, and he commanded significant authority for his singular
scholarly achievements–a true insider. He was also a defender of German
nationalism and imperialism. He also defended the controversial Article 48 in
the Constitution that later gave Adolf Hitler the legal pretext to seize
dictatorial power. The context of the speech suggests it is an instructional manual on politics delivered to a revolutionary student’s organization
while the revolution is going on. This would be similar if a well-connected political insider came down to Occupy Wall Street and taught them about politics and organization, this never happened though. Weber himself did not live much longer than
the soviet republic and died a year later in 1920, at 56, a victim of the
“Spanish flu” the 1918 influenza pandemic triggered by World War I.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The failure of the revolution sets the stage for a counter-revolution. Munich becomes one of the earliest breeding grounds of
Nazism. Hitler staged an attempt at seizing power in Munich with former Supreme
Commander Erich Luddendorf in 1923. He failed and was put in jail for four
years. Ten years later, Hitler would legally be appointed Chancellor of Germany
(<i>Reichskanzler)</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, before renaming himself
the </span><i>Fürher</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in 1934.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The “state” (<i>staat)</i>, is the dominant political organization and the object of the study of politics. Weber famously defines the ideal type of the state: as the organization that maintains a monopoly on the use of force (<i>macht</i>) over a given territory. All political orders are maintained through the use of force. This is a sobering lesson for people undergoing a revolution and something which those who have been leading the movement are already discovering, both from themselves and from their opponents. Power is wielded over a certain territorial area, the geography of the territory partially determines the character of the state. Otherwise the concentration of power over a certain area gives rise to distinctive nationalities who identify with the state and its particular form of domination. Weber is careful to define the state only in terms of means, not ends. The means the state uses, is force, the end, the goals it pursues is relative to the unique history of each state. The ends of the state today are termed the “national interests” of the state.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghmVUq-G3C-O52u8Z0uo1Fu2sYCga2bQp2yh5e-6CpODOkxHbIF5xRwakhVq9SfPbSlyWUBmUKxdK-3_b-enBj7lpVKLfYxl_8pa5HHvxG5XuU47Ho3tvNA4aPDHPSLf2Gi4pl4V-RXw8/s1600/CaravaggioContarelli.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghmVUq-G3C-O52u8Z0uo1Fu2sYCga2bQp2yh5e-6CpODOkxHbIF5xRwakhVq9SfPbSlyWUBmUKxdK-3_b-enBj7lpVKLfYxl_8pa5HHvxG5XuU47Ho3tvNA4aPDHPSLf2Gi4pl4V-RXw8/s400/CaravaggioContarelli.jpeg" height="377" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"> "The Calling of St. Matthew," Caravaggio, 1599-1600, Rome</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">The connections between Weber and nihilism deal with the
central conflict of trying to find meaning and purpose in a nihilistic world. If true knowledge is impossible then logically it leads to the question of how reliable or the meanings or interpretations we give to the world? For Weber the solution is politics, which he regards as a vocation and a way of creating something meaningful. Vocation
itself refers to a “calling” in the German Lutheran tradition, a specific
calling to serve God. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Weber draws upon this meaning while redefining it in a
secular way, to refer to devotion to one’s work and through that finding a
sense of fulfillment and purpose in life. “Vocational training” also refers to
the teaching of “procedural knowledge” and is used to refer to the teaching of
trades like carpentry or plumbing that require specific technical knowledge. He
develops this concept for professional politicians to what he refers to as <i>status
honor</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> a sense of achievement deriving from
the ability to perform the work processes that are necessary to carry out
political decisions. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;">At the same time everyone who lives ‘for’ politics
(vocation), also lives ‘off’ politics (avocation) in that they are financially
dependent upon politics for a livelihood. However, the typical way in which
politics, status honor, and meaning intersect and mediate each other
is through nationalism. The nation then becomes the substitute for the loss of
meaning in traditional authorities caused by the rise of nihilistic thought in
the late 19<sup>th</sup> century. The nation becomes a substitute for God. The
concept of </span><i>civic religion </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is
related to this idea and is closely related to the development of republican
states in the ancient world. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">At the close of the speech, Weber implores his audience to
balance what he calls an “ethic of ultimate ends” with an “ethic of
responsibility”, meaning that the goals which politicians strive for, like
creating a socialist society, need to be balanced by a concern for the
immediate actions one takes in order to pursue ultimate ends. In other words,
in a variation of the “ends justify the means” rationale, Weber says, the means
do count and cannot justify any goal no matter how good it sounds, bad means
are destructive of good ends. This is a strong statement to make when people
are questioning the most basic moral values they had been brought up on. At the
same time he realizes that in politics, good politics often comes from using
bad means as he says recounting a conversation he has with a friend who thought
he could get around the “ends justify the means” argument:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">My colleague, Mr. F.
W. Förster, whom personally I highly esteem for his undoubted sincerity, but
whom I reject unreservedly as a politician, believes it is possible to get
around this difficulty by the simple thesis: ‘from good comes only good; but
from evil only evil follows.’ In that case this whole complex of questions
would not exist. But it is rather astonishing that such a thesis could come to
light two thousand five hundred years after the Upanishads. Not only the whole
course of world history, but every frank examination of everyday experience
points to the very opposite. The development of religions all over the world is
determined by the fact that the opposite is true. The age-old problem of
theodicy consists of the very question of how it is that a power which is said
to be at once omnipotent and kind could have created such an irrational world
of undeserved suffering, unpunished injustice, and hopeless stupidity. Either
this power is not omnipotent or not kind, or, entirely different principles of
compensation and reward govern our life—principles we may interpret
metaphysically, or even principles that forever escape our comprehension (p.
122)</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The constant exercise of power requires some form of
continuous organization which requires an administrative staff to carry out the
needs and demands of the organization in order to maintain itself and to carry
out its objectives. Officials who work within the state can be separated by
those who play 1) an internal function maintaining the organization itself:
paying its bills, securing supplies and resources, etc; and 2) external those
who carry out the objectives of the organization and realize the goals for
which the organization is created. Often times these require separate skills
and that is why these types of officials can be separated. This division is
more or less common throughout every political system at all times. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Weber then goes on to explain the historical development of
modern states from feudal monarchies to large nation-states. Weber explains
this development through a process of <i>rationalization </i><span style="font-style: normal;">of political domination. Rationalization, again, is the
process of refining work tasks into repetitive, efficient procedures that
maximize the use of resources. Rationalization in the economic sphere shows the development of small family
owned business firms employing often crude methods of production into large
centralized corporations that are able to employ vast amounts of capital into constructing
advanced technological means of production and distribution. Workers are
inserted into the process of production by performing a singular task that is
repeated endlessly and systematically produces a product through the combining
of these tasks, otherwise known as the assembly line. Other more skilled
workers, are drilled incessantly from an early age to acquire the necessary
technical and administrative skill in order to run the machines and run the
corporation. While other workers are employed that specialize in distribution.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Rationalization in the political sphere shows a similar
development. Feudal governments divided power between kings who exercised
direct control over their own land and indirect control over the rest of the
kingdom through feudal nobles. Nobles up until the 16<sup>th</sup> century
often owned the “means of administration” meaning that they themselves owned
and managed the courts, the jails, bridges and toll roads, parks and hunting
grounds, and other “public” property and usually exercised final authority over
local matters. In exchange for this autonomy the nobles would grant the king
military service of himself and of the people he rules over. After the 16<sup>th</sup>
century there is a noticeable tendency towards centralization of political
power in the capital owing to developments in technology: military,
communication, and transportation technology (all undergoing their own process of rationalization) that allow for greater
concentration of power. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The major difference between traditional and modern
states, Weber says, is one authority that controls the use of power and the
officials who operate the machinery of government do not themselves own the
machinery. Weber compares this to the way in which workers are separated from
owning the production equipment they use to work. The growth in political power
of the central government is made possible by the development of expert
officials who attend to the needs of government. There had always been part
time politicians, or people who influenced politics for their own affairs. But
after the 16<sup>th</sup> century there is an increasing development in
professional politicians developing first in the areas of war, finance, and
law, these being the areas most important for the rulers power and too
important to be turned over to part time politicians. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The most important attribute for a professional politician
is time, the time necessary to devote oneself to learning the intricacies of
the political art. Also if the politician is not to derive a living entirely
‘off’ of politics and live ‘for’ politics, he must also be “economically
dispensable” meaning he does not depend upon politics at all for an income. In
modern times former President Franklin Roosevelt, also former Governor of New
York came from one of the wealthiest and oldest families in New York going back
to the original Dutch settlers. Even more recently, former governor Eliot
Spitzer’s father was Bernard Spitzer, a New York real estate tycoon who owned
many large apartment and office buildings in New York City. Gov. Spitzer first as attorney general
and later as governor built his reputation as the “Sheriff of Wall St” despite
his wealthy background. Weber says, “under normal conditions, the politician
must be economically independent of the income politics can bring him. However according to this meaning Mitt Romney would also be Weber's ideal politician. This
means quite simply, that the politician must be wealthy or must have a personal
position in life which yields a sufficient income” (p. 85). He also says:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">The leadership of a
state or of a party by men who (in the economic sense of the word) live
exclusively for politics and not off politics means necessarily a ‘plutocratic’
[rule of the wealthy, after the Roman god of wealth and the underworld,
Pluto—Prof.] recruitment of the leading political strata. To be sure, this does
not mean that such plutocratic leadership signifies at the same time that the
politically dominant strata will not also seek to live ‘off’ politics, and
hence that the dominant stratum will not usually exploit their political
domination in their own economic interest (pp. 85-6)</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">In modern day states, politics is carried out through
political parties, which he defines as “management through interest groups” (p.
94) and tends to be recruited from the legal profession. Weber separates
professional politicians into two categories: 1) political leadership who lead and
represent the organization or department to the public and to the rest of the
government and who are distinct because they are transient, they are the ones
who come and go when different parties or rulers are in power; 2)
administration officials, the permanent officials who stay on despite who is in
power and make up the middle managers of government agencies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The growth of professional officials who perform specialized
work processes organized into a ruling hierarchy under one central authority is
<i>bureaucracy. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">It is a form of
organization that occurs at a certain level of complexity of an organization,
when technical full time skill is necessary to maintain the organization. The
Germans had a developed tradition of bureaucratic organization that is missing
in America. Almost all political offices in America changed according to
elections up until the 1880s (the notable exception is the judicial branch of
government). In the Weimar Constitution the special class of German civil
servants that have been developing since the 1700s (</span><i>Beamte) </i><span style="font-style: normal;">have their own rights and responsibilities outlined
in the Constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Rationalization of politics does not mean that freedom,
justice, or equality is increased. It refers only to the ability for political
decisions to be carried out with increased effectiveness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Weber describes some of the major social groups that have
been recruited into the ranks of officialdom or “politically exploitable
strata” in Weber’s words. He gives special emphasis to the “university trained jurist”.
A jurist is one who is trained in manipulating the rules and procedures of the
legal system, <i>jurisprudence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Modern
jurisprudence developed out of Roman law, used to administer the empire and was
very procedural, and Christian natural law theories which were later
secularized into modern legal systems. Lawyers, the most common jurist, play a
special role in modern politics because they possess the required technical
skill to manipulate the machinery of government. They are also more dispensable
in terms of time, unlike the entrepreneur, who in most cases Weber says makes a
bad politician precisely because so much time is needed to watch over the
business enterprise. Weber also tends to separate out the more charismatic
trial lawyers who are more suited for playing the political roles of
leadership, while the more scholarly jurist who plays a more behind the scenes
role, writing and interpreting complicated legal texts, makes a perfect
administration official. He again emphasizes the different skills both of these
groups possess and how they tend to be exclusive. He says the division head
often knows more than the minister, but complains about administration
officials being unfit for leadership (</span><i>Beamtenherrschaft)</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Weber contends that civil servants and political leaders
have two different conceptions of honor which means they have different
concepts of success and prestige in carrying out their duties:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">The honor of the
civil servant is vested in his ability to execute conscientiously the order of
the superior authorities, exactly as if the order agreed with his own
conviction. This holds even if the order appears wrong to him and if, despite
the civil servant’s remonstrances, the authority insists on the order. Without
this moral discipline and self-denial, in the highest sense, the whole
apparatus would fall to pieces. The honor of the political leader, of the
leading statesman, however, lies precisely in an exclusive <i>personal </i></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">responsibility for what he does, a responsibility he
cannot and must not reject or transfer. It is in the nature of officials of
high moral standing to be poor politicians, and above all, in the political
sense of the word, to be irresponsible politicians (p. 95).</span><o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Within the ranks of political leadership, Weber sees a
division between the technical leader and the emotional leader. The emotional
leader is the king or the president, the one who commands the emotional loyalty
of the following. The technical leader is the one deals with the day to day affairs
of government, and is the one who has to deal with different government
agencies and parties, the one who gets his or her “hands dirty”. The prestige
of the emotional leader is preserved because they are insulated from having to
boss people around in order to get results, the technical leader takes on this
task. The Grand Vizier played this role for the sultan, as did the German
chancellor in the empire and the republic, or the prime minister in England and
the queen (emotional leader). Today’s modern American president has two
officials that play this role, the chief of staff, and the vice-president.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Furthermore he says that the leader must possess distinct
skills that cannot be taught, the ability to combine passion with cold
discipline: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">This is the decisive psychological quality of the
politician: his ability to let realities work upon him with inner concentration
and calmness. Hence his <i>distance</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> to
things and men. ‘Lack of distance’ </span><i>per se </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is one of the deadly sins of every politician. It is one of those
qualities the breeding of which will condemn the progeny of our intellectuals
to political incapacity. For the problem is simply how can warm passion and a
cool sense of proportion be forged together in one and the same soul? Politics
is made with the head, not with other parts of the body or soul. And yet
devotion to politics, if it is not to be frivolous intellectual play but rather
genuinely human conduct, can be born and nourished from passion alone. (p. 115)</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Marxist theory had stressed that all social conflicts originated in the
struggle between competing economic classes (more broadly defined as rich v.
poor). Capitalism was a specific form or mode of production that not only
enriched the few at the expense of the many but unleashed vast productive
forces that had been dormant for centuries leading to a tremendous material
improvement in the quality of life (for some) but also created unprecedented
means of control over the workers who were a dependent but necessary part of
the whole social process of production. Government, was itself the tool of the
ruling economic classes which used the power of the state to protect its
property through the courts and the legal system and through the use of
soldiers to put down strikes and labor disputes. Weber does not object to these
assertions as false but adds that the political realm has its own unique
existence that is not dependent on the economic, but that in fact the relation
between the politics and economics is more of a mutual feedback process, the political exerts influence
over the economic and vice versa. In later disputes over the origins of the
Nazi regime the dispute over the primacy of the economic over the political
will be stressed again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Although Weber shows ambivalence over the direction of the
modern world: industrialization; monopoly capitalism; political
bureaucratization and recognizes the negative aspects of these developments, he still
defends bureaucratic organization (and by extension capitalism) as a superior
form of political organization to that which only tries to live ‘off’ politics
through patronage, political job placement:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">The development of modern officialdom into a highly qualified,
professional labor force, specialized in expertness through long years of
preparatory training, stands opposed to all these arrangements. Modern
bureaucracy in the interest of integrity has developed a high sense of status
honor; without this sense the danger of an awful corruption and a vulgar
Philistinism threatens fatally. And without such integrity, even the purely
technical functions of the state apparatus would be endangered (p.88).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The opposite tendency towards patronage and job-seeking
grows more as politics becomes more bureaucratized, “this tendency becomes
stronger for all parties when the number of offices increase as a result of
general bureaucratization and when the demand for offices increases because
they represent specifically secure livelihoods. For their followings, the
parties become more and more a means to the end of being provided for in this
manner” (p. 87) In other words political parties which organize groups for
political competition (interelectoral compromises, unified programs endorsed by
broad segments of the population, unified agitation for these programs p. 101)
become essentially job placement machines. These activities are funded and
interrelated to the party’s other primary function—fundraising.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Although he praises the achievements and efficiency of
bureaucratic rationality, ultimately all politics takes one into the realm of
violence:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">Whoever wants to
engage in politics at all, and especially in politics as a vocation, has to
realize these ethical paradoxes. He must know that he is responsible for what
he may become of himself under the impact of these paradoxes. I repeat, he lets
himself in for the diabolic forces lurking in all violence. The great <i>virtuosi
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">of acosmic love of humanity and goodness
whether stemming from Nazareth or Assisi or from Indian royal castles, have not
operated with the political means of violence. Their kingdom was ‘not of this
world’ and yet they worked and still work in this world. The figures of Platon
Karatajev and the saints of Dostoievski still remain their most adequate
reconstructions. He who seeks the salvation of the soul of his own and of
others, should not seek it along the avenue of politics, </span><i>for the
quite different tasks of politics can only be solved by violence </i></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">[italics added]. The genius or demon of politics
lives in an inner tension with the god of love, as well as with the Christian
God as expressed by the church. This tension can at any time lead to an
irreconcilable conflict. (pp. 125-26)</span><o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He closes with a rather nihilistic (and prophetic) message:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">It would be nice if
matters turned out in such a way that Shakespeare’s Sonnet 102 should hold
true:<br /> <i>Our love was new,
and then but in the spring,</i><i>When I was wont to
greet it with my lays;</i><i>As Philomel in
summer’s front doth sing,</i><i>And stops her pipe
in growth of riper days.</i></span></blockquote>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">But such is not the
case. Not summer’s bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy
darkness and hardness, no matter which group may triumph externally now. Where
there is nothing, not only the Kaiser but also the proletarian has lost his
rights. When this night shall have slowly receded, who of those for whom spring
apparently has bloomed so luxuriously will be alive? And what will have become
of all of you by then? Will you be bitter or banausic? Will you simply and
dully accept world and occupation? Or will the third and by no means the least
frequent possibility be your lot: mystic flight from reality for those who are
gifted for it, or—as is both frequent and unpleasant—for those who belabor
themselves to follow this fashion? In every one of such cases, I shall draw the
conclusion that they have not measured up to their own doings. They have not
measured up to the world as it really is in its everyday routine. Objectively
and actually, they have not experienced the vocation for politics in its
deepest meaning, which they thought they had. They would have done better in
simply cultivating plain brotherliness in personal relations. And for the
rest—they should have gone soberly about their daily work (p. 128)</span></blockquote>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Next class we will look at the rise of Nazism and its consequences for Germany and the world.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Assignment Due 4/18 Choose a passage from Weber, write out the passage. Then explain the meaning of it, and then explain why you chose this passage.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><br /></u></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>References:</u></span><br />
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; widows: 2;">
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Barrington
Moore Jr., </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Social
Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the
Making of the Modern World</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Dietrich
Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John Stephens, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Capitalist
Development and Democrac</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">y,
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Gregory
Luebbert, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Liberalism,
Fascism, or Social Democracy: Social Classes and the Political
Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1991</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Daron
Acemoglu and James Robinson, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Economic
Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Reinhard
Bendix, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Nation-Building
and Citizenship</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, [1964] 1977</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Max
Weber, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">From
Max Weber: Essays in Sociology</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
ed. Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, New York: Oxford University
Press, 1944</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Max
Weber, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Economy
and Society</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
trans. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, [1922] 1978</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">G.W.F.
Hegel, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Elements
of the Philosophy of Right</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
trans. H.B. Nisbet, New York: Cambridge University Press [1820] 1991</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Charles
Tilly, "War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,"
in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Bringing
the State Back In</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 169-91</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Charles
Tilly (ed.), </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
Formation of National States in Western Europe</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Perry
Anderson, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lineages
of the Absolutist State</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
New York: Verso, 1974</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Michael
Mann, "The Autonomous Power of the State,"</span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
Archives de Européenes de Sociologie</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
Vol. 25, No. 19, (1984), pp. 185-213</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Thomas
Ertman, </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Birth
of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early
Modern Europe,</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto; text-decoration: none; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-after: auto; page-break-before: auto; page-break-inside: auto;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Alexander
Gerschenkron, <i>Economic
Backwardness in Historical Perspective: A Book of Essays</i>,
Westport, CT: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962</span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-13862316183862495282015-03-21T15:46:00.000-04:002015-03-21T13:34:20.730-04:003/21 The Weimar Republic<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZOSXRHCvHVFhN3T4Y4JyFDu4HjbX3RRbsU8d9rTXrFlWdrrhHRVKfv21wVSDsBDSU7fWciny4EsPxwqRIEhQskkT6PxhbVGxOM6DQ4Q49gjiV-auYT6rq3JrnP_SOIb510jhfQINmKdM/s1600/tumblr_m66urogFWY1r6y3vao1_1280.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZOSXRHCvHVFhN3T4Y4JyFDu4HjbX3RRbsU8d9rTXrFlWdrrhHRVKfv21wVSDsBDSU7fWciny4EsPxwqRIEhQskkT6PxhbVGxOM6DQ4Q49gjiV-auYT6rq3JrnP_SOIb510jhfQINmKdM/s400/tumblr_m66urogFWY1r6y3vao1_1280.jpeg" height="183" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"Metropolis," Otto Dix, 1928</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The reading for today's class is the Constitution of the German Reich. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.zum.de/psm/weimar/weimar_vve.php">http://www.zum.de/psm/weimar/weimar_vve.php</a>.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"> Every modern state has a constitution or a document that outlines the structure of the government and the rights of the citizens. Before explaining more the constitution I would like to explain briefly why the breakdown of democracy in Germany is significant, as well as give a brief history of the republic, before finishing up with an analysis of the constitution itself.</span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The short life of the Weimar Republic has been studied as a key example in the breakdown of democratic government. Political science strives to find the causes of stability in government, and this includes studying examples of governments that have turned into dictatorships. However, there is probably no example of another government whose self-destruction has had such far-reaching and devastating consequences for the rest of the world.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although it is agreed that the immediate cause of the later Nazi-takeover was set into motion by the Great Depression which began in late 1929, and hit Europe hard the following year, it is hard to imagine such a drastic and radical change happening to a major country without several factors that contributed to this. Most political scientists and sociologists focus on the weakness of the political institutions of the republic. Specifically, the political party system which featured several parties but failed to attract many supporters including the Nazi party early on. The only political party that continued to have significant mass support was the Social Democratic Party, SPD party. However, as discussed, the SPD had seriously comprised itself by supporting the war effort in 1914 and then brutally suppressing communists in 1918 and the following winter. When the depression came, the SPD once again failed to act decisively in the interests of its people and largely looked on helplessly as the depression reduced workers to poverty, mostly engaged in the ritualistic behaviors of parliamentary parties with the equally ineffective liberal and conservative parties. The weakness of the establishment made it easier for an "outside" group like the Nazi party to establish itself with disaffected voters who were frustrated with the political system.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">These voters were mostly from the middle and upper classes in both the cities and rural areas, and across religious lines. Political thinkers since Plato and even the American founders like Madison had conventionally assumed that popular uprising of the poor were most likely to bring about dictatorships. Yet, research into the voting habits of people in the last days of the republic clearly shows that it was the <i>bourgeois</i>, the middle and upper classes, and the <i>petit bourgeois</i>, the lower middle classes that provided the most electoral support to the Nazis. The working classes on the other hand remained loyal to the SPD which were the only credible opposition to the Nazis.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The lack of support for establishment parties are one reason why the Nazis appealed to the middle and upper classes, but certain cultural factors are also important. For one, the Nazis appealed to a sense of "community" which was traditional and appealed to a sentimental image of German history, and which was also highly nationalistic and pro-German. This imagery was in sharp contrast to the radical rhetoric of the SPD, even though in reality it had abandoned its radical stance and become part of the establishment. Many have argued that bourgeois classes had a kind of "paranoia" about the socialists, perhaps stemming from the relative strength of the SPD compared to other parties. The Nazis from the beginning also employed a version of "syndicalist tactics" stressing direct action, and often utilizing violence and terror. These brutal tactics were applauded by many paranoid bourgeois who were happy to see people brutalized by the Nazis, even if many times it was their own supporters instead of socialists and communists.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Finally, the Nazis were more than capable organizers and many were drawn to their blood drenched efficiency. It was not simply a question of violence, Nazis were able to organize themselves and this took effect most dramatically at the local level. The idea of civil society has become an important part in explaining how democracies maintain themselves. This belief goes back at least to the French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville who observed this in the U.S. in the early 19th century. Tocqueville remarked that it was the loose network of voluntary groups and organizations that gave Americans the skills and habits necessary to maintain democratic government. This idea became influential again during the last days of the Cold War in 1989 and after when it was believed that civil society groups played the biggest role in bringing down the communist dictatorships. It has become something of conventional wisdom in political science that civil society is necessary for a well-functioning democratic government. Yet, a puzzle is raised when you look at Germany during this period of time because the Weimar republic had a very active and developed civil society, although separated by class divisions. In fact, just the opposite seems to happen, civil society here becomes the training ground for the later Nazi takeover, many of whom are very active in civil society before joining the party, and were very active at the local level before the takeover of the state. It is important to point out that after the Nazi takeover, they made sure to suppress almost all private organizations, or to "fuse" civil society with the party, so that everything from athletic clubs to chess clubs and music clubs had to become "Nazified" and all competing organizations like trade unions were destroyed in favor of Nazi sponsored organizations. In most cases the tendency was to fuse several different organizations into one centralized organization, for to example to combine all athletic clubs of differing classes and religion into one Nazified athletic club. This created what William Sheridan Allen refers to as the "atomization of society" meaning that deprived of the support network of civil society the individual in Nazi Germany was rendered helpless against the state by first being isolated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">These are some of the leading causes to explain the breakdown of democracy in Germany, and in a more general sense can be seen as factors that would weaken any democratic government: lack of political legitimacy, aggressive nationalism, a culture of paranoia and violence, a civil society that tolerates and encourages authoritarian behavior, class divisions, and an economic environment that creates resentment and desperation. For the rest of the lecture I will try to explain briefly the history of the Weimar republic and the structure of its government under the constitution.</span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">This is the period of time in which the artistic and cultural texts we have looked at were produced like Hesse's <i>Siddhartha</i>. If Expressionism was pre-war Germany, and Dadaism was during the war itself and lasting till about 1919-1920, then New Objectivity (<i>Neue Sachlichkeit</i>) was characteristic of the 1920s till the rise of the Nazis. The 1920s was also the beginning of expressionist cinema as well with <i>The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari</i>.</span> <span style="font-size: large; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The history of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) is usually divided into three periods. A period of crisis (1919-1923); a short “golden age,” a period of </span>stabilization<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> (1924-1929); and a second crisis with the onset of the Great Depression and the rise of Nazism (1929-1933). </span></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8uQPn-Fzq7kF6_XN6Qz2glEO3kELsLWLYo99MTZ431m6B81tuMoQVOEeJutNRv9UjwfwlF4mpgSrv1yr1tGmIc_BMyW3pCJkWPFNS6Iq_7d_tFqIQKLSjuSbEWYsc3GzxboaWsHQUGPg/s1600/goethe_5_reichsmark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8uQPn-Fzq7kF6_XN6Qz2glEO3kELsLWLYo99MTZ431m6B81tuMoQVOEeJutNRv9UjwfwlF4mpgSrv1yr1tGmIc_BMyW3pCJkWPFNS6Iq_7d_tFqIQKLSjuSbEWYsc3GzxboaWsHQUGPg/s200/goethe_5_reichsmark.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Weimar is the name of a small town in Germany famous for German culture and civilization and the symbolic capital of the new republic. It was a cultural center and the home of some of Germany’s most respected writers such as Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), and Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). After his mental breakdown in 1889, Nietzsche lived out rest of his life in Weimar under the care of his sister who began to consciously build a cult of personality around her brother. Later the Nazis would build one of the largest concentration camps, Buchenwald, outside Weimar, thus forever perverting the cultural lineage of the town.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">I.</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> The first period of time deals with the immediate aftermath of the revolution in Germany; the aftermath of the war to which Germany is held responsible; and to the severe economic stress placed upon the country following the war. The major problem during this time was dealing with inflation which is when prices increase usually because the value of the money declines or the demand for goods increases. Hyperinflation is a particularly extreme example of this process. The value of paper money in 1923 was worth roughly 1 trillion (!) for every one goldmark in Germany (the value of the currency in gold).</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3A2kIhWMhWm5Iu0I5vG6F-lv0X6Yj4tqBGraADJx04N0hR1legp74NPBj44t_w_RZFIVz-ppGlxQBiIb9gCT_YVSdxg6g4PDFnx3u9cpwlZKtFjvR8InYNGrcMJcQtVn7pxHVoI0mWbA/s1600/GermanyHyperChart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3A2kIhWMhWm5Iu0I5vG6F-lv0X6Yj4tqBGraADJx04N0hR1legp74NPBj44t_w_RZFIVz-ppGlxQBiIb9gCT_YVSdxg6g4PDFnx3u9cpwlZKtFjvR8InYNGrcMJcQtVn7pxHVoI0mWbA/s400/GermanyHyperChart.jpg" height="400" width="318" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYKV2JeNoIr6n8nJC2y7zehVqcP-z7aioPQc4_hIu-SyqueO_QhJUQtjP7qtm_FoqC8gWKyEV5uJd4t3Q75w2_rGZfKHv5SWDQVhAYAqyJVhOB2GpYWiToFOJbZYYoAWv1vWLE2D0nWyE/s1600/Inflationmedal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYKV2JeNoIr6n8nJC2y7zehVqcP-z7aioPQc4_hIu-SyqueO_QhJUQtjP7qtm_FoqC8gWKyEV5uJd4t3Q75w2_rGZfKHv5SWDQVhAYAqyJVhOB2GpYWiToFOJbZYYoAWv1vWLE2D0nWyE/s400/Inflationmedal.jpg" height="362" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> The inscription reads: </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"On 1st November 1923 1 pound of bread cost 3 billion</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1 pound of meat 36 billion</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1 glass of beer 4 million."</span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Governments in debt often times are forced to print more money to spend their way out of immediate problems or to pay off debts which only increases inflation. In Germany’s case this began in 1914 when the decision was made (unopposed) to pay for the costs of the war by borrowing money, not by raising taxes or other means of increasing government revenue. Also important to consider are the exchange rates between states, or the value of your currency relative to another states' currency. Prior to the war the only institution regulating this was the "gold standard," which each state agreed to value their money in relation to gold thus setting a standard by which to compare the value of currency in each state. For example if $1000 was equal to an ounce of gold and 500 German marks were equal to an ounce of gold then, one German mark would be equal to two dollars, this would then allow you to determine the value of goods in America that you could purchase from Germany. In other words, trade between countries is almost impossible without exchange rates, and unstable exchange rates will hurt trade. During the war and after the gold standard was </span>severely<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> disrupted as states took their country off the gold standard thus creating uncertainty and unpredictability in each nation's money supply.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8FOoj5WHdI18RbKDXgnKbq4Sbdt1JalHAlBjy8WsIxtjzwanZyWy0xWMY2ZE7F_SMCGhM4x88lVWnet_FrhNd6_xyUVsei1yzhNZ8mNIxL8z7EUCPfscurmoEQuJh4P2WRg1JZh_I_k/s1600/woman-burning-cash-for-heat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8FOoj5WHdI18RbKDXgnKbq4Sbdt1JalHAlBjy8WsIxtjzwanZyWy0xWMY2ZE7F_SMCGhM4x88lVWnet_FrhNd6_xyUVsei1yzhNZ8mNIxL8z7EUCPfscurmoEQuJh4P2WRg1JZh_I_k/s320/woman-burning-cash-for-heat.jpg" height="320" width="233" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">The already high levels of debt from the beginning of the war only magnified the problems faced after the war. Many believe this period of inflation (or hyper-inflation in this case) was a direct cause of the rise of Nazism. Hitler was known to blame the high levels of debt as signs of the incompetence of the democratic government, as well as channeling resentment against bankers which was seen as a “Jewish” profession, some referred to the worthless German money as “Jewish confetti.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Violent political demonstrations are common during this period of time, including several failed attempts at taking over the institutions of the state, known by the French term "coup d'etat," including one led by Adolph Hitler in 1923, which fails and ends in his arrest.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8FOoj5WHdI18RbKDXgnKbq4Sbdt1JalHAlBjy8WsIxtjzwanZyWy0xWMY2ZE7F_SMCGhM4x88lVWnet_FrhNd6_xyUVsei1yzhNZ8mNIxL8z7EUCPfscurmoEQuJh4P2WRg1JZh_I_k/s1600/woman-burning-cash-for-heat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">II.</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> The so-called golden period began after Germany began to get some control over its inflation problems. During this time the economy improves and cultural life begins to come to life again. This period of time is really the height of the post-Dada period and "New Objectivity," Bauhaus, Expressionist cinema, as well as German nightclubs or <i>cabarets </i>such as the fictional one like the Blue Angel (a real Blue Angel eventually opened in Paris) or the real ones with Josephine Baker. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/wmw5eGh888Y?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The stability of this period can partly be explained because after trying several forms of money, the Germans were able to make one that was relatively stable, the <i>Rentemark</i> and afterwards the <i>Reichsmark</i> (understanding why is fairly technical but it has to due with valuing the currency against certain kinds of stable bonds and creating "confidence" in the currency, money only has value to the extent people "believe" that it does).</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">U.S. policy in the early 20s contributed to inflation in Germany. After the war Germany had to make reparations payments to Britain and France. At the same time, Britain and France had to pay back loans to the U.S. during the war. In other words Germany had to pay Britain and France (increasing the money supply) so they in turn could pay the U.S. It was because the U.S. insisted on this policy even when its damaging consequences were known that contributed to the high inflation in Germany, and to a global economic recession in the 1920s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Eventually, the U.S. backed Dawes Plan was also put into effect in 1924. This helped ease the burden of war reparations, especially after French troops occupied parts of Germany in 1923 to enforce reparations payments. The plan provided for the withdrawal of foreign troops; gave Germany money from the U.S.; and also tied the German economy to the world economy especially the U.S. (for example the film industry and also banking). This provided relief for a few years, but because of its connections to the U.S. economy, when the Great Depression hit, Germany was effected especially harshly. This more or less set into motion the chain of events that led to Hitler’s rise to power. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">However, even during the relatively stable period between 1924-1929, there were deeper problems under the surface. For one, the government had trouble finding support, there were extremists on both the right and left neither of whom regarded the government as legitimate. Throughout the 1920s (although declining between 1924-1929) street battles become increasingly common between Communists and Nazis, both of whom are becoming increasingly militarized in their organizations.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Frankfurt School claims authoritarianism was developing just below the surface of society, as revealed in films we have looked at: the choice between chaos and tyranny, the choice always resolved in favor of tyranny. The Weimar state was founded through violence. The undeniable reality of this fact of violence undermined democratic government, and showed the </span>willingness<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to turn towards tyranny. Despite all this, under better economic conditions, the appearance of stability and order was put forward, if never a real consensus, but even this fragile appearance</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> was demolished by the Great Depression.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;">III</span><span style="font-size: large;">. In 1929 the Great Depression began triggered by the collapse of the U.S. stock market. The full effects of the Depression did not hit Germany until 1930-31, this set into motion the chain of events that led to rise of the Nazi party–we will come back to this in a couple of weeks.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">On face value, the Weimar Republic was supposed to be one of the most progressive and most democratic forms of government ever created. Its Constitution was considered the best Constitution written at that time. It's chief architect was Hugo Preuß a progressive German-Jewish lawyer and politician. The obvious point of comparison is the U.S. Constitution and the comparisons are revealing. First, both </span>Constitutions<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> display a similar basic structure although in a different order they outline the powers and </span>responsibilities<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of: the Legislative, the Executive, and Judicial branches of government; the relationship between the individual states and the federal government (Germany was and is a federal government like the U.S.). The German constitution contains additional sections outlining the details of Legislation and Administration which are lacking in the U.S. Constitution and is much longer overall than the U.S. Constitution </span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">There is also an additional branch of government, the <i>Reichsrat</i><i style="font-style: normal;">, </i>which represents the individual states. In the U.S. members of Congress are selected from the states and represent those states. In Germany legislators elected to the German parliament, the <i>Reichstag</i><i style="font-style: normal;">, </i>do NOT represent the states they come from, they represent all of Germany, and are thus less responsive to regional areas. This is because of the methods of voting used. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">At this time, the Germans used Proportional Representation (PR) which means that seats are given in the legislature based on the total percentage of votes won by the party, for example, 40% of the vote equals 40% of the seats in the <i>Reichstag</i>. This makes the representatives less responsive and less dependent on local voters, but it also reduces “wasted votes.” Votes are wasted when they are unnecessary for the candidate to win.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In a proportional system those votes would be counted towards the overall percentage of votes for that party, distributed nation-wide. Unlike the electoral system in the U.S. votes are not really cast for individual candidates, instead political parties usually publish a list of candidates, more votes for the party equals more people selected from the list which follows a set order. The downside is voters have less control over choosing individuals for office. Proportional voting systems tend to have multiple political parties competing instead of two. This increases the tendency for minority groups to have a voice in politics, but this is a double-edged sword because it also allowed the Nazis to come to power despite never gaining more than about 30% of the vote. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The <i>Reichsrat</i> was created to allow each state in Germany to elect their own representatives, thus balancing out the <i>Reichstag</i> who are not tied to any specific state or province in Germany. As we will see in next week's lecture, before there was a state called "Germany" there was a network of city-states and small kingdoms that shared a common German culture. This history of independence translates into a political system where there is a large degree of regional autonomy, and this autonomy is registered in the Reichsrat.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The President under the Constitution is granted extensive powers. He serves a seven year term instead of four as in the U.S. system and can still run for re-election. T</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">he </span><i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Reichpresident</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> is granted control over the armed forces and over foreign affairs and has the power to appoint Ministers of government and the Chancellor who oversees the various ministries (Finance, War, Foreign Affairs, Education, etc). The U.S. presidential system has no equivalent to a Chancellor, and so the German system can be called "</span>semi-presidential<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">." In the U.S. Constitution, the Senate has to approve of all presidential nominations. This is a power <u>not</u> given to the </span><i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Reichstag</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, although they can force ministers to resign on a vote. Article 48 of the constitution gives the president the power to suspend civil liberties in times of crisis. This was the legal pretext the Nazis used to turn Germany into a dictatorship, however it was originally invoked by the government before the Nazis took power, they simply continued the "state of emergency." </span></span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">There were only two <i>Reichpresidents</i>: Fredrich Ebert, leader of the SPD during the revolution of 1918, who authorized the violent suppression of protestors using returning soldiers and militias and Paul von Hindenburg (one of the leading members of the Supreme Command during the war). Adolph Hitler eventually became the Chancellor, appointed by the President in 1933, and charged with overseeing the day to day operations of government. After Hindenburg's death in 1934 Hitler fused both offices together creating his new title as the <i>Fürher</i> (Leader in German).</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The second section of the Constitution like the U.S. Bill of Rights but also longer lays out the rights of German citizens. Unlike the Bill of Rights which were added as constitutional amendments, the more extensive rights outlined here are part of the original document. Voting is a right given to everyone over the age of 20. Minority rights and other protections not in the U.S. Constitution are given here such as Article 113: </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Reich</i> communities speaking a foreign language may not be deprived by legislation of their national identity, especially in the use of their mother language in education, in local administration and jurisdiction.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Some social rights seem strange in an American context because of the American idea of “limited government” like Article 119 which provides Constitutional protection for marriage and motherhood: </span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Marriage, as the foundation of the family and the preservation and expansion of the nation enjoys the special protection of the constitution. It is based on the equality of both genders. It is the task of both the state and the communities to strengthen and socially promote the family. Large families may claim social welfare. Motherhood is placed under state protection and welfare. </span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Or regarding education. The U.S. Constitution does not provide for a right to education. In contrast to this, the Weimar Constitution not only provides a right to education but specifies in detail what this right entails like Article 146:</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Public schooling has to be
organized organically. Middle and high schools are based on an elementary
school common for everybody. For the organization of the school system the
variety of occupations, for the acceptance of a child into a school his talent
and inclination, but not the economic and social position nor the religious
confession of his parents are authoritative.</span><span style="font-size: large;">Within the communities, at the request of
<i>Erziehungsberechtigten</i> (legal guardian), <i>Volksschulen</i> (primary school) of their confession or world outlook
have to be established, if this does not obstruct the regular operation of the
school. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The wish of those <i>Erziehungsberechtigter</i> has,
when possible, to be considered. Further details are specified by state
legislation, according to principles laid down in a Reich law.</span><span style="font-size: large;">Reich, states and communities have to provide
funds to allow poor children access to middle and high schools, to grant
financial aid to parents, whose children are regarded qualified for the
education on middle and high schools, until their education is ended.</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">However, the increased intervention of the state in matters like education does lead to a nationalist tendency in education, such as Article 148:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">All schools have to work towards ethical education, patriotic spirit, personal and occupational fitness in the spirit of German nationality and international understanding. In the instruction at public schools it has to be taken into consideration not to hurt the feelings of dissenters. Civics and teaching by doing are school subjects. Every pupil, upon graduation, will be given a copy of the constitution. Secondary education, including <i>Volkshochschulen</i> (general education schools open to everyone)</span><span style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;"> have to be promoted by Reich, states, and communities</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The Weimar Constitution is also distinctive in that it creates economic rights for the citizens also not stated in the U.S. Constitution such as Article 151 (economic justice) </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Article 159 (the right to form labor unions) </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Article 161: “In order to maintain health and the ability to work, in order to protect motherhood and to prevent economic consequences of age, weakness and to protect against the vicissitudes of life the <i>Reich</i> establishes a comprehensive system of insurances, based on the critical contribution of the insured.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">After the Nazis took power in 1933, the Constitution, although never formally abolished, was suspended and all political and civil rights were taken removed.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Next class we look in more detail how German liberalism and their ideas of politics changed after the war and revolution, and which still influence political science in the present today.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>Assignment (Due 3/28)</u>: Please choose TWO sections from the Weimar </span>Constitution<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> one from the first part on the structure of government, (Art. 1-108) and a second from the section on rights (Art 109-181). Write out the passages, interpret the meaning of them, then explain why you chose these passages.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>References</u>:</span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">Juan Linz, </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown, and Reequilibration</i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978</i><br />
<i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, </i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Europe</i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978</i><br />
<i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">Rudolf Heberle, </i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">From Democracy to Nazism: A Regional Case Study on Political Parties in Germany</i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">, Louisiana State University Press, 1945</i><br />
<i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">William Sheridan Allen,</i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"> The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945</i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">, Franklin Watts, 1984 [1965]</i><br />
<i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">Sheri Berman, "Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic," </i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">World Politics</i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Apr. 1997) pp. 401-29</i><br />
<i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">Thomas Ertman, "Democracy and Dictatorship in Interwar Western Europe Revisited," </i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">World Politics</i><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal;">, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Apr. 1998) pp. 475-505</i></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="color: #000099; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-39387291665307257692015-03-14T18:32:00.000-04:002015-03-14T14:58:02.149-04:003/14 The German Revolution of 1918 & Spartacus Uprising 1919<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepveAWTwt1joikBN3CUoRHeyH99osbD0B6-xZ5DORC1ML40FvFik06zSmsANAErtKj7Zfjd2rKp3rVPKgCs_TYv2QpsXP5DDfEqeOmYcfQpBFH1BIOQphwNKrr7DFD6bsHm0tJcSGJDw/s1600/Spartakusbund_1916.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepveAWTwt1joikBN3CUoRHeyH99osbD0B6-xZ5DORC1ML40FvFik06zSmsANAErtKj7Zfjd2rKp3rVPKgCs_TYv2QpsXP5DDfEqeOmYcfQpBFH1BIOQphwNKrr7DFD6bsHm0tJcSGJDw/s400/Spartakusbund_1916.jpg" height="400" width="286" /></span></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We are now beginning the second part of this course where we will focus more on the political context of the times. Prior to this we have discussed some major artistic and cultural responses to nihilism, to the loss of traditional morals and values which had provided a sense of stability to German life right up until World War I. The aftermath of the war has been the backdrop in which we've discussed most of the works, now we are shifting more to discussing the political aftermath of the war. The first essay, "The Junius Pamphlet," written in 1915 when Luxemburg was in jail</span> is a great essay to read to 1) gain an understanding of the central conflicts in Germany during World War I; 2) to understand the historical developments that led up to the war; 3) an understanding of Marxist or social democratic ideology.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Still one of the most influential books to study political revolution is <i>The Anatomy of Revolution</i> by Crane Brinton, first published in 1938. As the title suggests the author attempts to dissect political revolutions and to reveal its insides with the hopes of understanding what causes revolutions. Brinton limited his study to four important revolutions: the English, American, French, and Russian. He breaks down the revolutionary process into four stages: the fight against the "old regime"; the establishment of a moderate regime; the radical regime; a conservative backlash, in some cases leading to dictatorship (France, Russia). Brinton compares this pattern to a fever that reaches a peak of intensity before starting to decline. In the case of Germany we see can this pattern play out in the following way: the revolt against the Empire in November 1918; a provisional government led by the social-democratic party; the Spartacus uprising and rise of worker's councils (a failed radical regime); the suppression of this movement and the establishment of the Weimar Republic. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The major difference would be that in the case of Germany the radical stage never really developed being very quickly crushed by the provisional state. Brinton tends to analyze revolution from the perspective of internal class dynamics, in other words the major causes leading to revolution itself are traced to class conflicts within society. This tends to underestimate the extent where external factors like war contribute to the weakening of the old regime.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A more recent and equally influential work is by another Harvard professor, Theda Skocpol's <i>States and Social Revolution</i> (1979). Looking at the French, Chinese, and Russian revolutions, Skocpol isolates two main developments that she says leads to revolutions. The first being competition between states, thus taking an international focus that Brinton lacks. Competition, Skocpol argues, reveals the weaknesses of states who are unable to compete in the international political and economic environment. This leads to a second development which is a process of "reforming the state", which she argues, weakens the state structures enough for a revolutionary movement to potentially seize power. </span><br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Losing the war was an extremely traumatic event in itself. Losing a war is after all a collective humiliation of sorts and the trauma induced and the failure to come to terms with this trauma can partially explain why movements like the Nazis were able to take off. On top of this the peace terms set in the Treaty of Versailles which ended the war were extremely harsh to the Germans and very short-sighted when you consider the reactions this created. Germany had to accept <i>sole responsibility</i> for starting the war and had to make massive payments of <i>reparations</i> amounting to billions of dollars to every nation that they fought in the war; they also had to<i> give up territory</i> on their Western border which is where most of their industry was concentrated; and to <i>dismantle their military </i>and industries that produce for the military. It is during this time that German bankers start promoting German "culture industries" like film to make up for this loss and provide distractions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: center;">In the last days of the war, the political system established in 1871 collapsed. The military: the army and the navy began to refuse to take orders anymore. People were terrified at the idea of “infinite war” waged by nations that were so large and powerful they would never run out of money, manpower, or equipment. By all accounts it would appear as if the German "Supreme Command" did not intend to surrender even though the situation was hopeless. At the same time, mass strikes are occurring throughout the industrial cities of Germany and its capital Berlin. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd1JMEmzyneE4QS1dj2qzXNiHhTxNIr4K4DisdokmzB0FsxET17X98BkqJhD0UeRbMnug6kodDrRHS5zO9n1NnHnsWO3u4No5mi8RWwYDnp67nk3m2fG5lUx4lsV3WLR6m15g7r_k3JWU/s1600/arbeiterstreiks1801.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd1JMEmzyneE4QS1dj2qzXNiHhTxNIr4K4DisdokmzB0FsxET17X98BkqJhD0UeRbMnug6kodDrRHS5zO9n1NnHnsWO3u4No5mi8RWwYDnp67nk3m2fG5lUx4lsV3WLR6m15g7r_k3JWU/s400/arbeiterstreiks1801.jpeg" height="237" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Independent councils were formed of soldiers and workers designed to take direct control of their army bases, naval depots, or factories. With no choice left, the <i>Kaiser</i> (Caesar), the "Emperor of the German Empire" stepped down from power and fled the country on Nov. 9th, 1918. The <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/armistice" target="_blank">Armistice</a> ending the war is signed Nov. 11th, </span>Armistice<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Day, celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Between the removal of the Kaiser in late 1918 and the establishment of what became known as the Weimar Republic in August 1919, major uprisings took place that lasted for months.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This led to massive repression and massacres as the authorities released </span>returning<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> soldiers to crush these uprisings. More shocking, the party leading the effort to crush the revolution was the Social Democratic Party (SPD) world-wide leader of </span>the "revolutionary" labor movement<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">To discuss the revolution in Germany in 1918-1919 you have to understand the the conflict between the different political parties operating in Germany at this time. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">National Liberals represented the business interests and favored expansion and militarism. Although called liberals in reality they represented a conservative element in society. Liberals are really "homeless" in Germany, as represented by the homeless liberal lawyer in <i>M</i>. Catholics in Germany made up a large segment of the population and like many Catholics today tended to be conservative on social issues but more liberal on economic issues and so more critical of business. </span>Most of the time it sided with the National Liberals.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The present day ruling party in Germany the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is a descendant of this party. It is still conservative but still favors government intervention in economic matters. The modern day version has unified Catholics and Protestants (divided along Southern and Northern regions in Germany), who were still separate during the early 20th century. The SPD or social democratic party is supposed to represent the working class. Since the 1970s, there has also been a Green Party in Germany that formed a "coalition government" (cooperative party government) with the SPD between 1998-2005, the "Red-Green coalition." </span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The first "welfare state" was created in Germany in the 1870s by the first Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and provided services like unemployment insurance and disability insurance. It is interesting that the first welfare state was created basically to control the poor and the working class, and to neutralize the criticisms of more radical Marxists by giving in to certain demands. Since Germany had developed one of the first real organized labor movements in the 19th century they were able to put pressure on the political system. Bismarck (an arch-conservative German noble) then designed the welfare state to respond to the pressures created by the SPD and to relieve public pressure </span>generated<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> by economic hardship. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As a consequence of this, today most Germans even the conservatives accept a certain amount of state involvement in the economy that would seem more involved than what most Americans are used to. There is also a much stronger presence of labor unions in the economy. One of the most striking differences between Germany and the United States is that by law union officials are required to sit on the corporate board of directors in some cases having equal representation, this is known as "codetermination." In the United States labor unions negotiate with management as two separate parties negotiating a contract. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Although there was a party system and "universal suffrage" (actually only men over 25 could vote), Germany was not a democracy but an authoritarian country that placed some limits upon the government's exercise of power. Executive power was concentrated in the hands of the Chancellor and the Kaiser.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjxUBiZi-viUuvf4_6orfSH8PLSDP0boT8L6cxZ3w6tXTyNdra-i_JMQbXKA3-SE7w2u0YJJzG5hL3eOVa3vQNJsv7E7NYzRtJsupcAMRJa9ZwKMBWtIOIOw7jLdOfGGTbuBFtn6DIc08/s1600/reichstag+1889.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjxUBiZi-viUuvf4_6orfSH8PLSDP0boT8L6cxZ3w6tXTyNdra-i_JMQbXKA3-SE7w2u0YJJzG5hL3eOVa3vQNJsv7E7NYzRtJsupcAMRJa9ZwKMBWtIOIOw7jLdOfGGTbuBFtn6DIc08/s400/reichstag+1889.jpg" height="282" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Reichstag 1889</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The various parties competed in the </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Reichstag</i><i style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> or German Parliament. </span>Although the Kaiser had powers, the Reichstag, like most Legislative bodies had the power over financing in the government and had to approve of all budgets. It was the parliament's approval of the financing of the war the led to the crisis in social democracy that Luxemburg speaks of in her essay.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There was also a second body, the </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Bundesrat </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">that represented the 25 states that made up the German empire. Germany is similar to the United States in that it has a federal system, meaning that there is a division of power between a centralized national government and smaller state governments. This is in contrast to nations like France, Great </span>Britain<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, or Japan which have a </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">unitary </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">state meaning there is no division of power and lower officials are usually appointed by higher officials in the central government. Unlike the United States however which was a federal system of republics, the German system was a federalism of smaller monarchs. This meant that for the average German living in this period that you had to deal with multiple layers of</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> upper classes all of whom claim </span>privilege and superiority<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> by birth right. These upper classes were allied with the new industrial upper classes in iron and steel production, mechanical engineering, and mining.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">After the revolution of 1918 the Political Structure shifted:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIaiIdefJhLz1o7J0WwVRdiOHr4ewUJy0bXBMdf-Z7vmmQr7dWGdDxERKEJFWz3dxRpyWmQr8yIP7_-4U_aoOsQ7enQKR2JwjF5mVbjxpjmUfWepkzcpQwhV04ZypnHSUAKSDESP0otk/s1600/Spartakus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIaiIdefJhLz1o7J0WwVRdiOHr4ewUJy0bXBMdf-Z7vmmQr7dWGdDxERKEJFWz3dxRpyWmQr8yIP7_-4U_aoOsQ7enQKR2JwjF5mVbjxpjmUfWepkzcpQwhV04ZypnHSUAKSDESP0otk/s400/Spartakus.jpg" height="400" width="271" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Now the Social Democratic Party represented the conservative elements in society. The experiences of the war destroyed the National Liberals and the feudal monarchies. However these groups who became the conservatives in Germany continued to exert power behind the scenes. The SPD was the only party from the old system that had any credibility with the people so they assumed power after the Kaiser fled. New parties had formed. The USPD (Independent Worker’s Party) split off from the SPD during the war. It tended to side more with the SPD but had alliances with the far left worker’s movement, the Spartacists, who always tried to recruit more USPD members into its ranks. Finally, the communist wing led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht named themselves Spartacus after the Roman slave who led a slave revolt against the Romans (c. 71BCE). Liebknecht was the son of Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826-1900) one of the </span>founders<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of the Social Democratic party and a disciple of Karl Marx. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The communists were opposed to German militarism from the start. Most of their leadership including Luxemburg and Liebknecht were arrested during the war. It is during this time in 1915 when Luxemburg writes “The Junius Pamphlet” while in prison.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The actions of the SPD during and after the war would definitely qualify as being conservative. I had already mentioned previously that the SPD in what is referred to now as the "Great Betrayal" voted to support the war in direct contrast to the supposedly international character of socialism–"Workers of the World Unite"–was one of their slogans, itself a quote by Karl Marx. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/suVB3YGIUk0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Just to put things in perspective, the party itself had over a million members at this time, and the unions that were associated with the party had around 2.5 million members. You cannot wage a war without workers in factories producing war materials and had they refused to cooperate Germany would not have been able to wage a war of this magnitude, but in one of the most momentous decisions probably in Germany history the party voted to support the war effort by approving the military’s request for financing, referred to as “war credits”.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">After the Kaiser fled, the SPD, the socialist party, stepped in to fill the void. However to many on the radical left, the new regime looked like the old regime. In the climate of 1918 many on the left believed that they had a good opportunity to really take power. Unlike the SPD which was trying to restore order, the Spartacists were trying to foment even more strikes and uprisings. Luxemburg was torn because she did not want Spartacus to challenge the government directly, but on the other hand she felt that what the SPD was doing was a fundamental betrayal of their core principles and had effectively become the defenders of the status quo they were originally trying to overthrow. The following is a quote by Luxemburg explaining the importance of the masses in revolutions as opposed to the leadership, and the educational process of revolution, going back and forth between spontaneity and organization: </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Social democracy is simply the embodiment of the modern proletariat's class struggle, a struggle which is driven by a consciousness of its own historic consequences. The masses are in reality their own leaders, dialectically creating their own development process. The more that social democracy develops, grows, and becomes stronger, the more the enlightened masses of workers will take their own destinies, the leadership of their movement, and the determination of its direction into their own hands. And as the entire social democracy movement is only the conscious advance guard of the proletarian class movement, which in the words of the Communist Manifesto represent in every single moment of the struggle the permanent interests of liberation and the partial group interests of the workforce <i>vis à vis</i> the interests of the movement as whole, so within the social democracy its leaders are the more powerful, the more influential, the more clearly and consciously they make themselves merely the mouthpiece of the will and striving of the enlightened masses, merely the agents of the objective laws of the class movement. (“The Political Leader of the German Working Classes, <i>Collected Works 2, </i>280)</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBaVbxpcy05XBATj8oScb5Xso1vVCs5dlsnYVICe3I2TCfFaZHQWUDLomFg2Xy5M229RYVoUZqaAujuKyYJe8e-70FSOG99s-iRS7mWLLITWGRXRNgGbXVbMUf0JZT1Vrq1ZTljsEcAHI/s1600/index.44.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBaVbxpcy05XBATj8oScb5Xso1vVCs5dlsnYVICe3I2TCfFaZHQWUDLomFg2Xy5M229RYVoUZqaAujuKyYJe8e-70FSOG99s-iRS7mWLLITWGRXRNgGbXVbMUf0JZT1Vrq1ZTljsEcAHI/s320/index.44.gif" height="320" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Unfortunately, in January 1919 Luxemburg and Liebknecht (also lovers) were captured by soldiers used by the SPD to crush the rebellion (many of the these squads, <i>freikorps</i> contributed many members to the Nazi party). They were beaten and shot and their bodies dumped in a river. </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">With the leadership more or less dead or in jail, the Spartacist Uprising was put down. In August 1919, the Weimar Republic was officially proclaimed after putting down several other </span>revolutionary<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> movements throughout Germany. Their whole strategy focused on power remaining with the soldier’s and worker’s councils. Yet it seemed as if the members of these councils were only too willing to hand over control to the authority of the SPD. It seems that most workers in Germany were less interested in revolution than in stability and security. </span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-W7uB0D_mvcUKMzp9EwohznKGFOmOo5WZLeg_OUw1jSy_LydKo9cHNlNkzauAiXOKILBJ3mcZvu_zuENXmka0mxpdY3uKdWpVE2q_yBLT63PXgUSizdoPjOiJP2HG3bRS2V4xjB7jMa4/s1600/1298964625_large-image_george_grosz_a_winters_tale_006_oil_painting_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-W7uB0D_mvcUKMzp9EwohznKGFOmOo5WZLeg_OUw1jSy_LydKo9cHNlNkzauAiXOKILBJ3mcZvu_zuENXmka0mxpdY3uKdWpVE2q_yBLT63PXgUSizdoPjOiJP2HG3bRS2V4xjB7jMa4/s400/1298964625_large-image_george_grosz_a_winters_tale_006_oil_painting_large.jpg" height="400" width="241" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">"A Winter's Tale," </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">George Grosz</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> 1918</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> By the Spring the revolution had more or less died down although it remained active in some areas especially in Southern German like Munich. The same place where Nazism originally flourished in the early 1920s as if in response to the strong presence of the communists. Nazism was in many ways a reaction against communism.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The reaction to the actions of the German working classes were far reaching. In Russia, Luxemburg's counterpart Vladimir Lenin found further confirmation that his highly centralized, highly bureaucratic approach to revolution, which he termed the <i>vanguard</i> was superior to Luxemburg's spontaneous mass based uprising, with its anarchist tones that Lenin hated. The German Communists now known as the KPD or Communist Party of Germany turned to the Communist party in Moscow.</span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In the first essay, "The Junius </span>Pamphlet<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">," Luxemburg explains the catastrophic scene in Germany at this time. A scene that follows what she says is a fleeting euphoria over the idea of war:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Gone is the euphoria. Gone
the patriotic noise in the streets, the chase after the gold-colored
automobile, one false telegram after another, the wells poisoned by cholera,
the Russian students heaving bombs over every railway bridge in Berlin, the
French airplanes over Nuremberg, the spy hunting public running amok in the
streets, the swaying crowds in the coffee shops with ear-deafening patriotic
songs surging ever higher, whole city neighborhoods transformed into mobs ready
to denounce, to mistreat women, to shout hurrah and to induce delirium in
themselves by means of wild rumors. Gone, too, is the atmosphere of ritual
murder, the Kishinev air where the crossing guard is the only remaining
representative of human dignity.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In this environment only the military industrial complex benefits from the devastation an resulting nihilism:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Business thrives in the
ruins. Cities become piles of ruins; villages become cemeteries; countries,
deserts; populations are beggared; churches, horse stalls. International law,
treaties and alliances, the most sacred words and the highest authority have
been torn in shreds. Every sovereign “by the grace of God” is called a rogue
and lying scoundrel by his cousin on the other side. Every diplomat is a
cunning rascal to his colleagues in the other party. Every government sees
every other as dooming its own people and worthy only of universal contempt.
There are food riots in Venice, in Lisbon, Moscow, Singapore. There is plague
in Russia, and misery and despair everywhere.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In this situation Luxemburg can only argue that this disaster offers the opportunity to learn from the experience. This refers to the previous passage where she refers to the historical dialectic but you will also remember that Siddhartha emphasizes the importance of experience for learning and development:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The modern proletariat comes
out of historical tests differently. Its tasks and its errors are both
gigantic: no prescription, no schema valid for every case, no infallible leader
to show it the path to follow. <i>Historical experience is its only school
mistress</i>. Its thorny way to
self-emancipation is paved not only with immeasurable suffering but also with
countless errors. The aim of its journey – its emancipation depends on this –
is whether the proletariat can learn from its own errors. Self-criticism,
remorseless, cruel, and going to the core of things is the life’s breath and
light of the proletarian movement. The fall of the socialist proletariat in the
present world war is unprecedented. It is a misfortune for humanity. But
socialism will be lost only if the international proletariat fails to measure
the depth of this fall, if it refuses to learn from it.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">However, besides the sheer devastation of the war, something which is universally experiences, she refers specifically to the crisis of "social democracy" underpinning this war. To provide context she first describes, the preeminent role the German Social Democratic party had:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">German Social Democracy, as
the Vienna <b>Arbeiterzeitung</b> wrote
on August 5, 1914, was “the jewel of class-conscious proletarian
organizations.” In her footsteps trod the increasingly enthusiastic Social
Democrats of France, Italy, and Belgium, the labor movements of Holland,
Scandinavia, Switzerland, and the United States. The Slavic countries, the
Russians, the Social Democrats of the Balkans looked upon [German Social
Democracy] with limitless, nearly uncritical, admiration. In the Second
International the German “decisive force” played the determining role. At the
[international] congresses, in the meetings of the international socialist
bureaus, all awaited the opinion of the Germans. Especially in the questions of
the struggle against militarism and war, German Social Democracy always took
the lead. “For us Germans that is unacceptable” regularly sufficed to decide
the orientation of the Second International, which blindly bestowed its
confidence upon the admired leadership of the mighty German Social Democracy: the
pride of every socialist and the terror of the ruling classes everywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Luxemburg emphasizes the radical break with the past this crisis has created. This is an important nihilistic theme while also suggesting the necessity to adapt and to change tactics, in part to prepare for even greater disasters that might come after:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One thing is certain. The
world war is a turning point. It is foolish and mad to imagine that we need
only survive the war, like a rabbit waiting out the storm under a bush, in
order to fall happily back into the old routine once it is over. The world war
has altered the conditions of our struggle and, most of all, it has changed us.
Not that the basic law of capitalist development, the life-and-death war
between capital and labor, will experience any amelioration. But now, in the
midst of the war, the masks are falling and the old familiar visages smirk at
us. The tempo of development has received a mighty jolt from the eruption of
the volcano of imperialism. The violence of the conflicts in the bosom of
society, the enormousness of the tasks that tower up before the socialist
proletariat – these make everything that has transpired in the history of the
workers’ movement seem a pleasant idyll.</span></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Like with any great crisis, Luxemburg tries to make sense of it by suggesting that it somehow represents the force of history pushing mankind forward. However she suggests that human will can alter this process somewhat by the kind of action it takes:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Did it have to come? An
event of this scope is certainly no game of chance. It must have deep and
wide-reaching objective causes. These causes can, however, also lie in the
errors of the leader of the proletariat, the Social Democrats, in the waning of
our fighting spirit, our courage, and loyalty to our convictions. Scientific
socialism has taught us to comprehend the objective laws of historical
development. Men do not make history according to their own free will. But they
make history nonetheless. Proletarian action is dependent upon the degree of
maturity in social development. However, social development is not independent
of the proletariat but is equally its driving force and cause, its effect and
consequence. [Proletarian] action participates in history. And while we can as
little skip a stage of historical development as escape our shadow, we can
certainly accelerate or retard history.</span></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the last chapter of the essay, Luxemburg sums up the situation in the present moment (1915, still early on in the war). She notes, the collapse of the authority and the seeming uncertainty that comes in a nihilistic world where you no longer know who to trust. She interprets this as creating the objective necessity for revolutionary action:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Thus proletarian policy is
locked in a dilemma when trying to decide on which side it ought to intervene,
which side represents progress and democracy in this war. In these
circumstances, and from the perspective of international politics as a whole,
victory or defeat, in political as well as economic terms, comes down to a
hopeless choice between two kinds of beatings for the European working classes.
Therefore, it is nothing but fatal madness when the French socialists imagine
that the military defeat of Germany will strike a blow at the head of
militarism and imperialism and thereby pave the way for peaceful democracy in
the world. Imperialism and its servant, militarism, will calculate their
profits from every victory and every defeat in this war – except in one case:
if the international proletariat intervenes in a revolutionary way and puts an
end to such calculations.</span></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Unlike the other social classes in German society, the proletariat according to Luxemburg is the only one that recognizes the break with the past and does not mourn its loss:</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The class-conscious proletariat
cannot identify with any of the military camps in this war. Does it follow that
proletarian policy ought to demand maintenance of the status quo, that we have
no other action program beyond the wish that everything should be as it was
before the war? But existing conditions have never been our ideal; they have
never expressed the self-determination of peoples. Furthermore, the earlier
conditions are no longer to be saved; they no longer exist, even if historic
state borders continue to exist. Even before its results have been formally
established, the war has already brought about immense confusion in power
relationships, the reciprocal estimate of forces, of alliances, and conflicts.
It has sharply revised the relations between states and of classes within
society. So many old illusions and potencies have been destroyed, so many new
forces and problems have been created that a return to the old Europe as it
existed before August 4, 1914 is out of the question. [It is] as out of the
question as a return to pre-revolutionary conditions even after a defeated
revolution.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Luxemburg returns to the idea of historical dialectic as the driving force in history, a process that reaches its climax at the same time it reaches the peak of oppression and exploitation. In this case, the unity of opposites represents the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the form of the class struggle, the synthesis of which produces socialism according to Marxist theory:</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The historical dialectic
moves forward by contradiction, and establishes in the world the antithesis of
every necessity. Bourgeois class domination is undoubtedly an historical
necessity, but, so too, the rising of the working class against it. Capital is
an historical necessity, but, so too, its grave digger, the socialist
proletariat. Imperialist world domination is an historical necessity, but, so
too, its destruction by the proletarian international. Step for step there are
two historical necessities in conflict with one another. Ours, the necessity of
socialism, has the greater stamina. Our necessity enters into its full rights
the moment that the other - bourgeois class domination – ceases to be the
bearer of historical progress, when it becomes an obstacle, a danger to the
further development of society. The capitalist world order, as revealed by the
world war, has today reached this point.</span></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The theory of imperialism was actually developed by Lenin who we will discuss more next class. This theory was meant to explain a failure within social democratic theory which presumed that the socialist revolution would be completed in the most developed countries first. Lenin argued that Marx overlooked the importance of imperialism as a way to indefinitely stall socialism in the developed countries, at the same time, it "exports" revolution to the less developed countries which included Russia. Both Lenin and Luxemburg than reinterpret this theory to state that socialist revolution will occur when imperialism has developed to its highest level:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The expansionist imperialism
of capitalism, the expression of its highest stage of development and its last
phase of existence, produces the [following] economic tendencies: it transforms
the entire world into the capitalist mode of production; all outmoded,
pre-capitalist forms of production and society are swept away; it converts all
the world’s riches and means of production into capital, the working masses of
all zones into wage slaves. In Africa and Asia, from the northernmost shores to
the tip of South America and the South Seas, the remnant of ancient primitive
communist associations, feudal systems of domination, patriarchal peasant
economies, traditional forms of craftsmanship are annihilated, crushed by
capital; whole peoples are destroyed and ancient cultures flattened. All are
supplanted by profit mongering in its most modern form.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
Again she argues that the war represents a critical juncture in the development of imperialism:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The world war is a turning
point. For the first time, the ravening beasts set loose upon all quarters of
the globe by capitalist Europe have broken into Europe itself. A cry of horror
went through the world when Belgium, that precious jewel of European
civilization, and when the most august cultural monuments of northern France
fell into shards under the impact of the blind forces of destruction. This same
“civilized world” looked on passively as the same imperialism ordained the
cruel destruction of ten thousand Herero tribesmen and filled the sands of the
Kalahari with the mad shrieks and death rattles of men dying of thirst; [the
“civilized world” looked on] as forty thousand men on the Putumayo River
[Columbia] were tortured to death within ten years by a band of European
captains of industry, while the rest of the people were made into cripples; as
in China where an age-old culture was put to the torch by European mercenaries,
practiced in all forms of cruelty, annihilation, and anarchy; as Persia was
strangled, powerless to resist the tightening noose of foreign domination; as
in Tripoli where fire and sword bowed the Arabs beneath the yoke of capitalism,
destroyed their culture and habitations. Only today has this “civilized world”
become aware that the bite of the imperialist beast brings death, that its very
breath is infamy. Only now has [the civilized world] recognized this, after the
beast’s ripping talons have clawed its own mother’s lap, the bourgeois
civilization of Europe itself. And even this knowledge is grappled with in the
distorted form of bourgeois hypocrisy. Every people recognizes the infamy only
in the national uniform of the enemy. “German barbarians!” – as though every
people that marches out to do organized murder were not transformed instantly
into a barbarian horde. “Cossack atrocities!” – as though war itself were not
the atrocity of atrocities, as though the praising of human slaughter as
heroism in a socialist youth paper were not the purest example of intellectual
cossack-dom!</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
In the second essay, "What Does the Spartacus League Want," written in December 1918 only a month before she was murdered , she lays out the goals of the doomed revolutionary movement. Again she stresses the importance of experience for the development of the masses, and again returns to the ideas of spontaneity and organization:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">From dead machines assigned
their place in production by capital, the proletarian masses must learn to
transform themselves into the free and independent directors of this process.
They have to acquire the feeling of responsibility proper to active members of
the collectivity which alone possesses ownership of all social wealth. They
have to develop industriousness without the capitalist whip, the highest
productivity without slavedrivers, discipline without the yoke, order without
authority. The highest idealism in the interest of the collectivity, the
strictest self-discipline, the truest public spirit of the masses are the moral
foundations of socialist society, just as stupidity, egotism, and corruption
are the moral foundations of capitalist society.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<br />We will look more at the spread of communism in the 1920s and the political structure of the Weimar Republic. Perhaps one of the most direct consequences of the failure of the Spartacus movement was the emergence of Berlin dada. Dadaism as a worldwide movement had begun during the war, but German dada especially was known for being more political. Many of the dada "anti-artists" were former members of the KPD. Georg Lukacs, an important Marxist literary critic and theorist, argued that Expressionism was the art form of the more centrist USPD. However the change in "tactics" from revolutionary seizure of power in the state to artistic production is relevant in itself as it suggests a retreat from more direct modes of confrontation with political authorities. Finally, the development of Marxist thinking to take into account cultural and psychological factors to better explain the resistance of the workers to revolutionary politics was one of the prime motivations for the establishment of institutions like the Institute for Social Research, also known as the Frankfurt School.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Assignment (Due 3/21 )</u>: Please choose a passage from one of Luxemburg's essays. Write out the passage. Explain the meaning of the passage and how it relates to politics today.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">References:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Crane Brinton, <i>The Anatomy of Revolution</i>, Vintage Books, [1938] (1965)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Rosa Luxemburg, </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">Rosa Luxemburg Speaks</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">, Pathfinder Press, [1970] (1986)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Theda Skocpol, <i>States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China</i>, Cambridge University Press, (1979)</span></span></div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-71366629038073504422015-03-07T10:01:00.000-05:002015-03-07T19:29:47.821-05:003/7 M<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVnpLjRnAt4f7iXVkj-JlAtNUbxrregOp9sxz9nHNm3DZusXmmCfF4lzOyUAOlnUnZO4lsCsB87em12HF-49VugiYt-Q2emWkVrp98be3A2aBYMF1JxRMUbSDwnPZbfD22jqyN-tSQMU/s1600/220px-M_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVnpLjRnAt4f7iXVkj-JlAtNUbxrregOp9sxz9nHNm3DZusXmmCfF4lzOyUAOlnUnZO4lsCsB87em12HF-49VugiYt-Q2emWkVrp98be3A2aBYMF1JxRMUbSDwnPZbfD22jqyN-tSQMU/s400/220px-M_poster.jpg" height="400" width="263" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The film, <i>M</i>, was released in 1931, only two years before the Nazi seizure of power. This film was produced by the independent studio Nero-Film and so was not produced by Ufa. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Germany was in chaos a</span><span style="font-size: large;">fter the Great Depression, caused by the U.S. stock market crash in late 1929.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> This set in motion the chain of events that led to Hitler's appointment as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_Germany" target="_blank">Chancellor</a> in 1933. Before 1929, the Nazis could not get 3% of the vote in national elections. By 1932, they were the largest party in the Reichstag (German Parliament), although still short of an overall majority of more than 50% of the vote. The reasons why the Nazi's could gain power without having an absolute majority of votes is a feature of the political system of Germany which allowed parties to hold power with less than a majority, we will discuss this more in a future lecture.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The movie was directed by Fritz Lang (1890-1976) who is perhaps best known for directing the 1927 silent film, </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">Metropolis. </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><i>M</i> was his first sound film. Lang like Dietrich and many other German directors and artists, came to the United States after the Nazis took power. In Hollywood he became a successful film director there as well. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> The lead actor, Peter Lorre (1904-1964), also became a star in Hollywood, most notable, having a supporting role in the American films <i>The Maltese Falcon </i>(1941) and </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">Casablanca </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">(1942), both starring Humphrey Bogart and the latter with Ingrid Bergman.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ5QYpnybqn5fSSiMWZHJ_VsATplCSsxmQJVNMnbrLs6ChEgDhpqN09gZPQfdMp_WgEcazwTzKgKfaPNa5bFAFnjmirWTvGCxCRTy2aCBFbnRQ7t9g53tGSSVQgbXHHCOmkGwoz04x1gg/s1600/casablanca2b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ5QYpnybqn5fSSiMWZHJ_VsATplCSsxmQJVNMnbrLs6ChEgDhpqN09gZPQfdMp_WgEcazwTzKgKfaPNa5bFAFnjmirWTvGCxCRTy2aCBFbnRQ7t9g53tGSSVQgbXHHCOmkGwoz04x1gg/s400/casablanca2b.JPG" height="400" width="375" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conrad Veidt, the Nazi, also played Cesare in <i>The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari</i>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The sense of terror and chaos is explicit in the film. The film follows the investigation of a child murderer who is terrorizing the citizens of Berlin. This film is in German and it is subtitled. The German word for child, <i>kinder</i>, as in <i>kindermörder</i>, might sound familiar. Kindergarten, which literally means, "children's garden," was a German educational innovation which was taken to the U.S. in the 19th century. The killer in the film, Hans Beckert, is partially based on real life serial killers in Germany at this time including:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Fritz Haarman (1879-1925), known as the "Butcher of Hanover," he was also a known police informant for many years which caused embarrassment for the police department. Found guilty of 24 murders (claimed responsibility for 50 or 70). Executed by the state.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Carl Großmann (1863-1922), committed suicide while awaiting trial. Is believed to be responsible for as many as 50 murders.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Karl Denke (1870-1924) committed suicide after being arrested. Responsible for as many as 30 murders.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Peter Kürten (1883-1931), dubbed the "Vampire of Düsseldorf" by the media. Responsible for as many as 30 murders. Executed by the state. Kürten was still on death row when the film premiered in May 1931. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Some are mentioned in the film. The connection between serial killings and bad economic times is not definitive but there are indications of it: all of these the killers struck during a period of extreme economic uncertainty in German history. In a more contemporary American context, the closest parallel perhaps might be the "Son of Sam" killings in New York in 1976-1977 (in '76 the city declared bankruptcy).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Finally, although it occurred after the film premiered and not technically a serial killer, Bruno Hauptmann's (1899-1936) kidnapping and murder of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping" target="_blank">Lindbergh baby</a> could be added to this list because of the brutality of the crime, that the victim was a child, and the media <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sensationalism" target="_blank">sensationalism</a> surrounding it. It also stirred up anti-immigrant protests since Hauptmann was a German immigrant. Many of the methods of investigation depicted in the film were used to convict Hauptmann at his trial like handwriting analysis.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">All of these killers targeted women and children, and some of them were even cannibals (eat human flesh). The horrors of the crime and the obvious sexual nature of the crimes became instantly popular with a mass audience and there was a large demand for similar stories and to this day movies based on killers and horror in general are still popular. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Related to this have been the recent string of shootings, going back at least a decade, in public places like schools, supermarkets and movie theaters. The most recent being the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut and the Washington Navy Yard. However, despite the renewed push for tougher gun legislation some wonder if that really addresses the core issue which drives people to such extreme behavior in the first place. The issue of mental health and providing care for those who are mentally disturbed, as well as the social causes of this behavior continue to be pushed aside. Mental health is not in many cases covered under most health insurance plans or only partial and very inadequate coverage. One wonders how well gun legislation can deal with these problems when similar incidents occur among our armed forces as this article from 2012 describes:</span></span><br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/world/asia/afghanistan-civilians-killed-american-soldier-held.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/world/asia/afghanistan-civilians-killed-american-soldier-held.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The seeming randomness of the targets of these shootings, in some respects, seems even more chilling than the character of Beckert stalking his victims. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">What they all have in common is an utter disregard for other people and a desperate desire for attention. The most obvious example of this is the tendency of some of these killers, including in the film, to write letters to the public, something also done by the "Zodiac" killer in the 1970s, and even "Jack the Ripper" in the late 19th century (Note, also the tendency to create nicknames for these killers, sometimes by the media but sometimes by the killers themselves).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In a second sense, the killer metaphorically represents the terror and chaos spreading through Germany (and to an extent the whole world) at this time. Germany had barely recovered from the hyper-inflation of the early 1920s, before going back into another severe economic crisis in the early 1930s. This reflects the growing intensity of anti-democratic movements like the Nazis (NSDAP) and the Communists (KPD), who were engaging in more violent street battles throughout German cities.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Besides the sensationalism of a film about serial killers, this film was also influenced by American gangster films like </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">Little Caesar </i><span style="font-size: large;">(1930)</span><span style="font-size: large;"> and </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The Public Enemy</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1931). Although produced in the U.S. even at this time the film industry was a global industry and American films were seen throughout the world, even as they imported foreign films from other countries. Although not depicting prohibition or ethnic gangs, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">M </i><span style="font-size: large;">tries to show the viewer the inner workings of the underworld. Some critics would argue also, that like many American gangster films, this film tends to glorify the criminals, something which may be even more significant in this case, since the criminals also symbolize the Nazis (this then would help reinforce Kracauer's thesis that the German middle-class desired an authoritarian leader).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If we emphasized sexuality and sexual norms more in the last lecture on <i>The Blue Angel,</i> this films deals more with the opposite pole of human behavior–violence. During World War I and after, Freud began to revise some of his earlier theories, like in the essay "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death" (1915) <a href="http://www.panarchy.org/freud/war.1915.html">http://www.panarchy.org/freud/war.1915.html</a></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">and especially in his essay "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" (1920). As the title suggests, Freud now believed that there was a level of the human psyche that had previously been unexplored. Prior to this, the emphasis of psychoanalysis was on the adaptation of the pleasure principle to the reality principle. Although Freud had always believed that the unrestricted pursuit of desire was destructive, he had interpreted this as a result of negligence or recklessness in the pursuit of pleasure overwhelming self-preservation instincts. In the 1920s though Freud began to speculate that human beings have a compulsive drive towards self-destruction, or as he put it an "urge for organic matter to return to an earlier state of things," he would later call this </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">Todestrieb</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> which translates into "death drive" often mistranslated as "death instinct," instincts refer to characteristics that preserve life, the death drive does not help preserve the individual and is something even below the level of instincts, but something that we are compelled or driven to act on, and more primal and of course unconscious as well. Ironically, the idea of the death drive, the urge to return to an earlier state to cease suffering, is not distinct from the concept of </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">nirvana</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. The concept of nirvana, the goal of these meditative practices, essentially refers to an "emptying out" of the self which some interpret as similar to the drive to "an earlier state of things," the word itself literally means "blown out" as in blowing out a candle flame, the flame representing desire–Nietzsche had believed that Buddhism was just as nihilistic as Christianity in its attitude and orientation towards life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In this newer conception of the instincts, the erotic impulses of the libido (which prior to this had been the focus of repression as the ego develops out of id) are what counter-acts the destructive impulses of the death drive. The id is not simply opposed to the ego, but opposed to itself. "Eros" comes to symbolize Freud's conception of "life instincts" which he opposes to the death drive. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Eros is not inherently "good" in this formulation it simply opposes the destructive impulses, on the other side, knowledge of death, our own mortality, and acknowledgement of our destructive potential towards others helps balance out the narcissism</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> produced by Eros which is guided only by desire.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> When developing this new theory, Freud had originally focused on the internal, self-destructive aspect of it, however by the end of the decade his emphasis had turned more towards how these destructive impulses are directed outward. The political implications of Freud's theory are very conservative: human behavior is primarily narcissistic, self-centered and destructive and dangerous and require strong external authority to keep their destructive impulses under control. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> This aspect of Freud's thinking is the most controversial and is important to emphasize it is rejected by most mainstream psychoanalytic schools, who still adhere to the older conception based around the ideas of pleasure principle and reality principle, although most mainstream schools of psychiatry seem to accept Freud's "Hobbesian" view of human nature, after English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is the position more or less adopted by Erich Fromm who later broke from his colleagues Adorno and Horkheimer who accepted Freud's new theory based around Eros and the death drive. The sociological twist they would add to it however, is that Freud's theory does not speak to an "inherent condition" of all humanity, but reflects the psychological development of individuals under a modern bureaucratic, industrialized capitalist economy. Capitalist organization of society harnesses and cultivates the death drive while repressing and channeling "eros" for the purposes of labor and production. At the same time the commodification of pleasure through the culture industry satiates the erotic drives of the population in order to keep them docile. Erotic impulses are conservative however and tend to preserve the status quo, whatever it may be, so for the purposes of revolutionary politics, a certain cultivation of the death drive is necessary as well. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In economic theory, the concept of "creative destruction" has been used to emphasize the dynamics of capitalist development by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter who was in turn influenced by Marx. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> The relationship between the death drive and nihilism should be obvious as well, but where previously we had been talking about nihilism as a set of ideas, that people can "choose" to accept or not accept, now Freudian theory suggests that nihilism is a biological drive of human life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The relationship between eros and the death drive is complicated, they are seen as opposing forces, yet since they are combined together in one psyche they express themselves simultaneously. So in other words, destructive impulses begin to take on a sexual nature to them, and sexual relations have a destructive element to them as well. Although the precise dynamic between the two is difficult to understand (if the theory is accepted) in its most simplest terms the death drive tends to dominate more when there is a relative deficiency in the expression and satisfaction of erotic impulses. The relationship between erotic impulses and destructiveness are one of the many themes emphasized in the film.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The film opens with children standing in a circle (as we discussed previously a symbol of chaos according to critics like Kracauer) as they sing a song whose lyrics refer to the killings. People spinning in circles was also characteristic of "dancing fever" which we discussed in the first class. This opening is similar to <i>The Blue Angel</i> which shows a woman cleaning while her children go off to school. This gives you a sense of the rhythms of everyday life in Germany, however in this case, a killer violently disrupts the quiet routines of people's lives.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> We witness various scenes of social disintegration as the people begin to turn on each other, causing riots. Less noticed, but equally important is the indifference which the door-to-door book seller shows the mother when she asks about her daughter. He clearly does not care all and is indifferent even though it was well-known that a killer had been terrorizing children for months. Depictions like this make democracy seem more like a kind of mob rule, mocks the idea of citizenship, and it might suggest what critics have said about Germany democracy in this time: it failed because the public did not have a commitment to democratic values and attitudes. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The police in the two previous films had a minimal role. The police in this film have advanced means of scientific detection at their disposal and they use it. In this regard the film can be seen as a precursor to shows like <i>Law and Order, CSI, </i>and <i>The Wire </i>in that they depict as accurately as possible "police procedures" or how they conduct investigations and prosecutions. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Also because of its depiction of crime, social order and chaos, police work, etc, this film is more self-consciously "sociological" then the other films. By this, I mean that the director Lang strives to depict real social environments from different class perspectives as if giving the viewer a glimpse into the social world. </span><span style="font-size: large;">A good portion of the film takes place outside in the streets, unlike the previous films.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> Several scenes in the film are shot in a way to give the impression that the camera is entering into some hidden world through a doorway or a window. Unlike <i>The Blue Angel</i>, where you are closely bound to the characters and the environments they are in, this film, lacks a central main character and so approaches the world more as an outsider looking in. Lang himself described his technique as being like a surgeon who uses his camera like a scalpel to cut through the surface of social reality (the social body). This metaphor comparing cinema to surgery is also used by Walter Benjamin who we will discuss at the end of the semester. It is also anticipated in older works of art which realized the increasing ability of art to depict social life.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The film also shows the growth of the power of the state also represented by the police who are given more powers to search people's houses and interfere more. This reflects actual developments in Germany, in 1930 Chancellor Brüning, (the last chancellor before Hitler) invoked the "emergency powers" clause in the Constitution. Most agree, that this only made it easier for Hitler to claim full dictatorial powers later on. Its important to note that this was declared BEFORE the Nazis take power, but gave them a pretext for continuing the "state of emergency." </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Chancellor was forced to in a sense because with the growth of Nazi representation in parliament after 1929 they made it impossible to pass any kind of legislation. Emergency government without proper legal procedures became normal. We will also talk about this more, but it is a basic mechanism of any democratic government that before the executive can act on any laws he needs some kind of approval from the legislature. A legislature that refuses to work with the executive can effectively paralyze government indefinitely.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The way in which murder is depicted in this film is different from Caligari as well. Cesare is compelled to kill because he has no will of his own; Beckert kills because he cannot control himself. Rath is also shown as someone who is consumed by lust, but in this film, Beckert's extreme sexual perversion makes him a danger to any young child. All of the films deal with the theme of mental insanity to some extent as well: Caligari and Rath are both placed in strait jackets during the film; Beckert has a history of mental instability (the police use this to track him down, by obtaining a list of patients who have recently been in mental hospitals). The stark treatment of themes like murder and insanity in the films relate to another argument of Kracauer, who argued that specifically <u>German</u> films produced in this period of time are more brutal and unflinching than films produced in other countries, precisely because of the aftermath of the war, internal revolution, horrible economic circumstances, etc. To use a more modern term, the Germans are essentially "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_(psychology)#Desensitization" target="_blank">desensitized</a>" to violence and so are able to consume cultural products such as this despite the repeated use of such nihilistic themes. However, Kracauer interprets this as providing a more realistic depiction of social reality and thus of greater artistic value to the critic. In the film this insight is also depicted in the way Beckert whistles "In the Hall of the Mountain King" almost compulsively as he commits murder. One scene even uses this to build dram and tension without the actual appearance of the killer on screen.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFhPlXpVxLa03TOQglLXjTx4V64-j2QJFt2-VQjmEUb3Cygjpx8n1tIMH5pElFKjdzcqoQdebaLUJQ8yQhYWZWMhV7UNkNKUMcTmkgKI3F3fWRIR1j9pinr2zxA-Ipmr4jNH49PK2RBxc/s1600/jewish_star_350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFhPlXpVxLa03TOQglLXjTx4V64-j2QJFt2-VQjmEUb3Cygjpx8n1tIMH5pElFKjdzcqoQdebaLUJQ8yQhYWZWMhV7UNkNKUMcTmkgKI3F3fWRIR1j9pinr2zxA-Ipmr4jNH49PK2RBxc/s200/jewish_star_350.jpg" height="138" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0YKNQTvUgQxu0oRF26mAWB_tHJeWjvj-Ci3P5blOe6BjksEPmWQC8r3ohtCcjO3J7iAGVgwhdME5hUrXTztGl2mkFzc5ExBL3SCWxLsUH8Iq_av62r04qLpZGQzpaN4Omv4MFTyRkEUY/s1600/German_concentration_camp_chart_of_prisoner_markings.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0YKNQTvUgQxu0oRF26mAWB_tHJeWjvj-Ci3P5blOe6BjksEPmWQC8r3ohtCcjO3J7iAGVgwhdME5hUrXTztGl2mkFzc5ExBL3SCWxLsUH8Iq_av62r04qLpZGQzpaN4Omv4MFTyRkEUY/s200/German_concentration_camp_chart_of_prisoner_markings.jpeg" height="200" width="140" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A chart, circa 1938 - 1942, of prisoner markings<br />
used in German concentration camps.<br />
The 5th column from the left was for homosexuals–from wikipedia.<br />
The pink triangle is now a symbol of gay rights.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The criminals organize the "association of beggars," based on real "beggars organizations" that were in Germany at this time to find the criminal. The prevalence of beggars that seem to be everywhere is also a social critique of the economics of the time. They organize them into a network of spies and informants. They eventually track him down and mark him with an 'M' for murder to signal to the other criminals who he is. The idea of marking "social undesirables" was another feature of the Nazi regime, and so "foreshadowed" by this film.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The Nazis are depicted in the film as the criminals who take it upon themselves to catch the killer. They are willing to do the things the regular authorities will not in order to catch this criminal. Their motivation: to get the police off their backs who have been disrupting "business" since the killings started. Unlike Dr. Caligari, who Kracauer argues anticipates Hitler (that is it shows a desire for a leader like Hitler before Hitler was even around). The leader of the criminals "Safecracker" or "Schrenker" is a Nazi right down to his manner of speaking and his body language. Also like Caligari he assumes the appearance of "legitmate authority" this time by impersonating a police officer. One scene in particular is edited in a certain way that you almost cannot tell if the criminals or the police are speaking. The criminals even stage a trial at the end of the film that is highly ironic including blind eyewitnesses and a homeless defense attorney who actually gives a decent defense. Of course the film has the required "happy ending" and the legitimate authorities step in, but even then the closing scene showing weeping mothers suggests that the damage has been done, the trauma has already been inflicted and the official pronouncements of the state do nothing to relieve that kind of pain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Next week we will have a regular text instead of a film. The essays by Rosa Luxemburg, as we will now be looking more at the political context of the times.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Here is an interview w/ Friz Lang by William Friedkin director of movies like, <i>The French Connection</i> (1971), and <i>The Exorcist</i> (1973), discussing his major films like <i>M</i> and <i>Metropolis</i>, his career, and fleeing from the Nazis.</span><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/37035514"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">http://vimeo.com/37035514</span></a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/nM0w1dTNAH0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>Assignment: Due 3/14</u> Choose a scene from M and interpret the scene and explain why you picked this scene.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><br /></u></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>References</u>:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Thomas Hobbes, <i>Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill</i>, ed. Ian Shapiro, Yale University Press, [1651] (2010)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Joseph Schumpeter, <i>Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy</i>, Harper Perennial, [1942] (2008)</span>Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-52272874346964492532015-02-28T17:41:00.000-05:002015-02-28T19:09:12.521-05:002/28 The Blue Angel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrGck55jLnFFUFa4yDxvi-wTkPpQAU9HBl1ScCLK4PnN1NqwF3JSx8VYQ4m5xMsnsU9rk_h6wSIy1qtWKnklmGj649cNTnKbVqiQGnSlYZ-jRcsHh2ly1hotMUimw6ExeZhhu1zHYpPWk/s1600/the_blue_angel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrGck55jLnFFUFa4yDxvi-wTkPpQAU9HBl1ScCLK4PnN1NqwF3JSx8VYQ4m5xMsnsU9rk_h6wSIy1qtWKnklmGj649cNTnKbVqiQGnSlYZ-jRcsHh2ly1hotMUimw6ExeZhhu1zHYpPWk/s400/the_blue_angel.jpg" height="400" width="278" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDELzY-YiMmSQ4pJBMjFwOTIhXkKGlt_2MNLNfBgcNBoaqJvHt_mMqOcfIJvaa5CcWlkV3TZycE6P0W2WMrw5FAKAt-9qNy7rG-U2kzX5nCqHWC7Y7xfLg9-QNmiMJAJ2BJj1HVipmp_M/s1600/fotos_de_sigmund_freud_2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDELzY-YiMmSQ4pJBMjFwOTIhXkKGlt_2MNLNfBgcNBoaqJvHt_mMqOcfIJvaa5CcWlkV3TZycE6P0W2WMrw5FAKAt-9qNy7rG-U2kzX5nCqHWC7Y7xfLg9-QNmiMJAJ2BJj1HVipmp_M/s320/fotos_de_sigmund_freud_2.jpeg" height="320" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freud</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I had mentioned last class of the influence of psychoanalysis in devising techniques used to interpret the "text" made up by the film. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) had made his name through his book, <i>The Interpretation of Dreams </i>(1899) where he claims that it is through dreams that we unlock the secrets to our deepest motives and desires. Through this Freud is credited with "discovering" the unconscious part of our minds. Dreams are essentially unconscious "wishes" that manifest themselves in the dream-content, however, the dynamics of the unconscious work in a way to conceal the true meaning of the dream by censoring certain aspects of the mind even during a dream, that is why dreams often seem strange or illogical, as images seen in a dream are usually something other than what they appear to be due to this internal censoring of the mind. Through analysis the true meaning, or repressed desire communicated through the dream can be revealed. This process of interpreting the dream forms the basis of how studies of culture are performed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Critics have spoken of interpreting a text–whether it be a book, a film, or other artistic work–as possessing a "textual unconscious," in other words, that there is a level of meaning to a text (or connected sequences of words, images and sounds) that is not revealed through reading the text itself but through interpreting the text, sometimes called the "latent meaning" of a text, latent meaning something that has the potential of developing but is not visible. The role of the critic then is to bring out the latent meaning of the text. Freud himself had relied upon texts in developing his theories like his analysis of Shakespearean plays, also, the origin of the infamous "Oedipus complex" comes from literature, namely the Greek play <i>Oedipus Rex </i>by Sophocles. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">However, besides the analysis of dreams and of texts, Freud developed his theory of the unconscious based on his own clinical observations working with patients. Besides the consciousness of the individual–the ego–the awareness the individual has of their own actions and memories of past actions, Freud noticed a tendency among his patients to repress certain aspects of themselves or memories of things. The "repressed material" that is hidden from the consciousness of the ego he would later term the Id, and represents impulses that are normally repressed from consciousness, however, Freud noticed a disturbing tendency for these repressed impulses to sometimes unexpectedly break through to the surface level of consciousness, or in more normal cases to be expressed through dreams. Finally, he noticed what he called a "defensive agency" that would regulate what was considered acceptable for consciousness and what was to be repressed. Freud also noted that the work of this defensive agency was also largely unconscious as well, even as it screened and filtered what would enter into conscious thought. He would call this "defensive agency" the super-ego. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Combined the super-ego, ego, and id, made up what Freud called the "structural model of our psyche," or mind. Interestingly the vast majority of our psyche, Freud would argue, is unconscious, and only a tiny portion of our minds are made up by our ego or consciousness. However, Freud tended to assume that the relations between the three agencies of the psyche: super-ego, ego, id, were relatively fixed and stable, later psychoanalysts especially those influenced by Marxism, like Erich Fromm or Wilhelm Reich, would argue that social conditions alter the relations between these psychic structures, especially the amount of psychic repression exercised by the super-ego over the ego. More radically, psychoanalytic theories from the 1960s and after have concluded that concepts like the Oedipus complex and even the unconscious itself are obsolete and no longer apply to modern subjects, although this is disputed by more mainstream psychiatrists influenced by Freud.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Nietzsche was a big influence on Freud as well. For instance, Freud believed that humans were fundamentally driven by a "pleasure principle" to seek pleasure and avoid pain, at the same time, the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure is not sustainable for the individual or the species. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The unconscious realm of the pleasure principle and the Id can be seen as similar to Nietzsche's idea of the Dionysian, while the conscious realm of the reality principle and the ego are similar to the Apollonian.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> The basis of civilization and morality are based on this repression, and to a large extent on repression of impulses in order to survive, this leads to the transformation of the pleasure principle to the "reality principle," still the same pleasure seeking, pain avoiding impulse, but adapted to the constraints of society. The "reality principle" and "pleasure principle" as it has been defined also sounds similar to the "will to power," or the ability to act on and satisfy your desires. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Freud unlike Nietzsche was a real practicing, clinical </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">psychiatrist</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">, and besides his book on dreams, and his later theoretical work, Freud is probably most famous for the publication of his case studies working with real patients and his theory of psychosexual developmental stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, gential). These studies show both Freud's theoretical approach in action, but also maybe unintentionally, especially his case studies with patients, reveal the hidden substratum of bourgeois society in the early 20th century, as it reveals in detail the hidden side of social and sexual relations among the upper classes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It is fitting that we begin with this since films are in a sense a projection of dreams. The theoretical approach developed by the Frankfurt School sees films as a way of projecting unconscious motives and desires into objective, or empirical, form (cf. Kracauer's thesis that German films betray a desire for authority or Lowenthal's statement "mass culture is psychoanalysis in reverse"). Films are also important in the sense of "group psychology" or the mechanisms used to elicit collective reactions from the audience: the happy ending, the surprise twist, shock, sadness, anger, happiness, etc. Finally, in a more direct sense, the other major preoccupation of Freud's early work was with human sexuality and the content of the film we are looking at this week deals with this theme explicitly.</span><br />
<div style="color: #000099; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>The Blue Angel</i> (1930) is considered to be the first major sound film produced in Germany. Unlike films today where we take sound for granted you can tell that the novelty of using sound in a film was new, like when you hear a character whistling, or when a door opens and you hear music from the interior. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> The movie was directed by Josef von Sternberg who later became an important Hollywood director in many genres but also known for the <i>film noir</i> genre popular in the late 1940s and 1950s. Later, a film professor at UCLA where he was an influence on</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> the 1960s counter-culture group, The Doors. The movie was released by Ufa, and produced by Erich Pommer, who produced Caligari and it was filmed in both German and English versions. We will be watching the English version, although some characters still speak German.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The movie is based on a novel <i>Professor Unrat </i>(1905)<i> </i>(literally Professor Garbage) by Heinrich Mann (1871-1950), the older brother of</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Thomas Mann (1875-1955) who became an even more important writer. The screenplay was written by Carl Zuckmayer.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">The main story of the film deals with a professor, Immanuel Rath, who is overwhelmed with passion and lust over a cabaret performer, Lola, which leads him down a self-destructive path. The theme of respectable or intellectual characters suddenly being overwhelmed by passion leading to destruction is also treated in the famous short story </span>"Death in Venice" <span style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">(1912) by Thomas Mann. In the 1970s this story would also be made into a film by the controversial Italian director Luchino Visconti. The name Lola also sounds similar to the name Lolita, the character and the title of the controversial novel by Vladimir Nabokov that also deals with similar themes first published in 1955. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Lolita</i></span><span style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;"> was also made into a film, directed by Stanley Kubrick </span><span style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">in 1962.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The film opens on a street scene emphasizing the curved features of the buildings but doing away with the painted sets in favor of more realistic constructions. A woman is seen mimicking the pose of a cabaret singer Lola-Lola. A cabaret was a kind of night-club or sometimes even bordello that was popular in Germany in the 1920s, and continued to be in the Nazi era as well.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The camera then shifts to an apartment bedroom where we see a maid enter a chamber and then Professor Rath (Raat in the novel) as he wakes up. His pet bird has died and he gives it to his maid who coldly disposes of it in the furnace. He then descends the stairs into the outside world.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Rath is now at the local school where he teaches. The boys are restless and aggressive and mercilessly pick on one of the weaker students. Later, the student gives him postcards that also have Lola's picture on them.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The camera then shifts to another scene and we are first introduced to Lola in the middle of a performance at the Blue Angel</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">. The dancers seem bored and uninterested in the audience.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">At night he goes to investigate, walking down dark and twisted streets he makes his way to the Blue Angel. Rath is first confronted by Lola when she shines a </span>spotlight<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> on him, and </span>embarrasses<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> him causing him to flee the room as he chases after a student. As he moves from room to room he encounters several odd looking performers including a clown who reappears several times.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Rath makes his way backstage and confronts Lola. He is helpless against her, and despite his stern, authoritarian nature Lola seems not to take him very seriously. He later leaves abruptly chasing after one of his students.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The students later attack the student who they know must have tipped-off the professor. The scene seems very similar to Cesare's shadow stalking Alan before he kills him.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The next day in class, neither teacher nor student seem willing to confront the other about the previous night. At </span>nighttime<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, Rath goes back to the nightclub, where again his students are there. This time Rath confronts and even attacks a large man who harasses Lola and the stage magician when he intervenes. Lola seems impressed by this. He hides to avoid the police where he finds his students in the same hiding spot. He then smacks his students and </span>severely<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> reprimands them in front of everyone. She sings a song to him which Rath thinks is a sign of her love for him (the lyrics of the song would warn him though if he listened). He drinks too much and ends up spending the night at Lola's apt, thus making him late for school the next day. Before he leaves they have breakfast and you can hear a bird chirping in a cage that Lola keeps. The bird seems to symbolize life or vitality, something that has died in Rath's life but that Lola has and something he wants.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The next morning at school, the students write </span>humiliating<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> messages and draw pictures of the professor's supposed affair. This actually causes him to lose his job. This is a clear example of how social structure affects psychological attitudes and behavior, another theme emphasized by Fromm. It was not simply that people were more prude about sex back then, there was (and is) a real social structure that could punish people that did not conform to </span>societies<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> standards, in this case losing your job. In a similar way, the student's aggressiveness could be interpreted as a result of too much repression, in another sense though, they foreshadow the Hitler Youth. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The majority of the film takes places in the interior, usually in crowded and small spaces, doors and stairways are shown throughout separating and compartmentalizing the spaces the characters inhabit, stairs also symbolize hierarchy and different levels between people. This also emphasizes the importance of social structure. We are embedded in these environments and they structure to a large part our interactions with people. The Blue Angel, the cabaret, symbolizes almost any social environment: it has a performance area where interaction takes place according to norms and established rules of behavior, and there is a backstage area. People interacting in a social environment are performing according to some kind of social role which has established rules for interaction. The backstage area permits the social actor to relax in some of the role requirements forced upon them by their social position. Appearances then become a crucial part of performance. Sociologists call this "dramaturgical" analysis, and literally draws upon theatre or drama to supply concepts used to analyze social behavior: role, performance, frontstage area, backstage area, etc, and most associated with American sociologist Erving Goffman. The clothes that Rath is wearing at different points in the film signify his status and even his sanity. The magician wears a fake mustache to signify his pretension to a higher status level (facial hair was considered a sign of status and dignified). Lola is almost constantly changing her outfits and appearance throughout the film thus emphasizing the changing roles and characters she plays at different times.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">After losing his job Rath returns to Lola and proposes marriage. She eventually agrees and they are married. Rath, still with no job, becomes increasingly jealous and resentful of Lola using her sex appeal to make a living. He becomes increasingly subservient to Lola and as the years pass, he seems to be a broken man. He is forced to perform now to help provide and he now becomes the clown, thus the clown foreshadows his own fate. The original clown could even have been another former lover of Lola. After touring for awhile they are back at the Blue Angel so Rath is forced to perform in front of his former colleagues and even students.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Lola begins to have an affair with another man in front of Rath, this causes him to have a complete mental breakdown and he attacks Lola. He is put in a straitjacket, the same as Caligari is at the end of the film. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He comes to some time afterwards and looking like a monster instead of the </span>distinguished<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> gentleman at the beginning he stalks through the dark streets, eventually making his way to his old school. The caretaker finds him dead at his desk, his hands locked in a death-grip on the desk he used to teach from.</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last class, we went over the relationship between painting and film and the transition from </span>traditional<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to modern forms of culture. With the advent of sound film, another traditional art form, theatre, or theatrical drama, is transfigured into the modern form of film. Until sound film, dramatic theatrical acting in the Shakespearean sense or in the sense of Greek drama </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">could not really be performed</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">: live theatrical performance staged by actors who memorize lines and </span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/elocution" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">elocution</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">. With sound their performances can be filmed and reproduced, but, the live component is sill missing. Many of the stars of the silent era had theatrical training, yet many top stars of the silent era like Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were not able to transition successfully to sound films, even despite a theatrical background. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Pickford and Douglas, along with Charlie Chaplin and director D.W. Griffith would found the influential studio United Artists in 1919, one of eight major studios that dominated the American film industry, the "five majors": 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, MGM, RKO, Paramount, and "three minors": Universal, </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Columbia, United Artists</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">. All of the surviving studios are owned by one of the media conglomerates mentioned last class. Today, United Artists is owned by MGM which in turn is owned by a consortium that includes Sony and Comcast who also owns NBCUniversal. Walt Disney Pictures has also emerged as a "major studio."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Prior to sound film, stars like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Max Linder relied on more of a physical and visual kind of comedy. Again, many of silent comedic film stars had a hard time making the transition, only Charlie Chaplin of the three remained a star in the sound era. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) was founded in 1927 by stars like Fairbanks and Pickford (also husband and wife, one of the first celebrity couples) as well as studio executives like Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (MGM). Pickford described the Academy as a "League of Nations of the motion picture industry" and with Fairbanks and others came up with the idea of giving "awards of merit" to people who worked in film. The "star" of the film Emil Jannings, won the first Academy Award ever given for Best Actor in 1929 (the year before this film premiered), and personifies the kind of serious, classically-trained dramatic actors emerging in the sound era. At this time, it was quite common from stars from Europe to travel to the U.S. to do films and go back and forth between both countries. After the Nazi takeover in 1933, most of the German film actors, directors, fled to other parts of Europe or the U.S.</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Emil Jannings (1884-1950) however did in fact become a Nazi sympathizer. If you watch the film <i>Inglorious</i><i style="font-style: normal;"> </i><i>Basterds</i><i style="font-style: normal;"> (</i>2009<i style="font-style: normal;">)</i> there is a scene towards the end during the film premiere where he is introduced to some of the characters and presumably dies along with Hitler and everyone else. In real life, he did star in many films produced during the Nazi regime, his association with the Nazis effectively ended his film career after the war and retired to Austria as a private citizen. </span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The character that Jannings plays, Professor Immanuel Rath represents 19th century morality. "Immanuel" was the first name of the philosopher Kant (1724-1804), who also theorized about the relationship between "freedom" (<i>freiheit</i>) and "duty" (<i>deon</i>), Rath even says at one point he was simply doing his duty, when defending Lola. This idea of acting from a sense of duty was the foundation of Kant's moral theory, or practical reason, which had a significant influence on 19th century thinking. "Freedom" in Kant's sense is acting out of a sense of ethical obligation or duty, but in a way that is freely chosen by the individual, not coerced, based upon their rational awareness of ethical principles. To this extent, Reason becomes critical because it has the potential to create an awareness in the </span>individual<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to their ethical responsibilities and bases the legitimacy on choices that are made without coercion. For Kant, it was important that ethics be self-conscious in order for it to be freely chosen, even above good actions done out of habit. The standards of ethical conduct can be reduced to rational principles that can be learned and acted upon. Furthermore, knowledge of these rational and ethical principles do not depend upon experience to learn (empiricism) but can be revealed through a logical process of thought (rationalism). </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">However, Kant by making freedom purely rational reduces the idea of freedom essentially to a mental concept that is not effected by external causes. The external world of the senses and the <i>body</i> is where the laws of "causal necessity", the laws of nature, play themselves out, or what we call cause/effect, and to the extent that outside forces work themselves upon people and influence them, they are not free. How can we have free will, let alone a rational free will under the constraint of so many external forces? The failure to deal with this moral paradox, had led to a reaction against "Kantian ethics" and duty that we see displayed in this film, represented by the character of Rath. Ultimately, we are still dealing with the same ethical problems Kant was dealing with. If our actions are determined by external causes then we cannot really have free will. Kant attempts to provide a theoretical foundation that explains how we do in fact choose our own actions based on our ability to reason, but in the process he seems to create an artificial separation between the mind and body–a separation very common in the history of philosophical thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Kant deals with the contradiction of free will v. external causes by separating the idea of freedom from the external world of cause/effect, freedom is outside the realm of causal necessity, or rather Kant says freedom is another form of causality, the spontaneous causes of events that we </span>initiate. Kant argues that the logic of cause/effect reasoning depends upon finding a prior cause for every event, and only knowledge that can justify itself in this way can be taken as valid. Yet the certainty of this knowledge eventually runs into the contradiction that past a certain point in any investigation, prior causes for events cannot be shown which ultimately undermines the claim to valid knowledge. Unless we show every cause how can we be sure what we think to be true is really true? This failure to ground knowledge with a workable standard of truth, is also one of the central concerns of nihilistic thinking. Nihilism in part refers to the inability to come to any final statement of truth. In other words, Kant was deeply concerned with the problem of nihilism by trying to establish a solid foundation to both justify our knowledge of freedom and knowledge itself, which he saw as threatened by the contradictions of philosophy or what he called an "antinomy" of thought, the mutual incompatibility of two apparently true laws, and which leads to nihilism. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This still does not answer however how freedom which is rational, can be unaffected by the physical laws of nature. Kant's famous move is to argue that the antinomy of external causes and freedom results from the improper use of reason, leading to a separation of reason (theoretical reason=science; practical reason=ethics). His philosophy is seen as a corrective, to place reason within its proper boundaries and limits. Theoretical reason cannot provide an infinite series of causes to explain the origin of all events but can provide "cognitive understanding" on the appearances of things (<i>phenomena</i>), but not the things-in-themselves, or the essence of a thing (<i>noumena</i>), furthermore, the study of appearances is separate from practical reason which specifies the conditions and requirements of ethical action. In a sense, Kant argues, we are always limited by our own interpretation of the world, and this interpretive part of consciousness is necessary in order to have knowledge of the world in the first place. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">However, as discussed previously, Kant seems to argue that the structure of our interpretation of the world, has only one correct form, and this structure can be revealed through rational analysis of how our consciousness works. Hegel, argues that consciousness (our interpretation of the world) actually goes through several different stages of development throughout history, but also argues that the highest development of reason is also the final stage of development for consciousness. Furthermore, Kant misses this developmental aspect of consciousness, precisely because he sees the subject of experience (the individual) as fundamentally separate from the objects of experience that the subject sees and interacts with in the world. Hegel argues that relationship between subject and object is organic, and on closer analysis are not separate at all but two aspects of the same process, the development of reason in the world. However, Hegel like Kant also tended to reduce subjective experience to its mental categories and move away from the actual physical or bodily aspects of experience, in favor of the idea of an Absolute Spirit developing through history through which we are all connected in some way, and which is revealed through reason. Yet, Hegel's insistence on the connection between subject and object, created the pathway through which later thinkers would argue for a more physical understanding of subjectivity, beginning with Marx, but continuing with many other thinkers into the 20th century. Freud, would argue almost the opposite, that we are animals, and our reason develops out of a conflict with the natural world, including the internal regulation of our instincts in order to better adapt for survival, in other words, all ethical content and free will that Kant had seen in reason is drained out by Freud in favor of self-preservation, however, Freud's idea of a well-adapted ego guided by the reality principle, would match up well with the Kantian idea of freedom.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Kant argues that freedom must be law-like for it to be rational and must not be chaotic or destructive, but these laws must be freely accepted for it not to be coercive. Kant argues that the necessity of laws makes it acceptable and beneficial to freely submit to these principles. In effect, Kant reintroduces the idea of causality, but one that does not depend upon natural phenomena, but has an internal cause born out of the self-evident truth of knowledge itself, while remaining independent from any external conditioning, to do so would undermine the idea of freedom as Kant has defined it, because then the choice would not be self-chosen but "caused" by something external. In a sense, Kant argues, that the cause of our freedom is our knowledge of our potential to be free, which again is revealed through logic.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> From this point, Kant then deduces the principles of ethical conduct and duty, what he calls the Categorical Imperative. Put simply, the Categorical Imperative is a </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">philosophical</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> articulation of the golden rule: "treat others as you would like to be treated yourself," in Kant's terminology "act only according to the maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that is should become a universal law," or a later formulation of this idea: "act in such a way that you always treat humanity, either in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time an end." In other words, do not use people, or treat them as a means to an end, but to treat them with dignity is an end in itself. The problem as already said is that one is left with a concept of freedom that is fairly indifferent to the material conditions faced by individual subjects who supposedly embody freedom, even though Kant is fundamentally concerned with action not just thought. In the end, Kant is not able to follow through on what he claims to do. The obstacles to freedom, Kant says, is a lack of awareness of the categorical imperative not due to any concrete historical conditions. </span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The film then deals with the conflict of an older system of moral values being confronted with a society that is rapidly changing. The most obvious example is Rath's proposal of marriage to Lola when she is obviously a more "bohemian" or "free-spirited" type than he is. Of course that divergence is what causes their relationship to go so bad. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">However change itself cannot explain the content of these newer values without understanding the reaction against the still unresolved contradictions within Kant's philosophy. The idea of freedom as duty turns back into itself and becomes unfreedom when it neglects the unavoidable factors of the external world. Despite all his maneuvering, Kant is never really able to resolve the tensions between freedom and causality, he even acknowledges that the "cause" of following the categorical imperative is the desire for greater inner personal worth, which some have argued reveal a need to escape the constraints of desire and passion. Critics argue the drive to freedom is not produced by deductive moral reason but produced by the sensuous world it claims to be independent of i.e. the will to power. Thinking and reason are aids in asserting power over the world, although this tendency to domination also creates a whole new series of problems.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEYr_F-p2_hDNuWE8ndOjjlLLF0OeVHnv-6WjL9iiKrSmcKucC8kN44Eh0_ALaSfKx5x-i9h13T_C5wp7bI2kwrYByqdEO6Ii5TI5zupGpZJ8vXFSIArRjBiij14Kgw8LY_nrGnxLgpRU/s400/raoul_hausmann.jpg" height="400" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="286" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">, "Self-portrait of the Dadasopher," Raoul Haussman, 1920</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The weakness of the intellectual, physically and spirtually, also a major theme in Thomas Mann's story, deals with their </span>inability to share in the sensual pleasures of the world resulting from their isolated and non-physical lifestyles. It suggests a division in people between mental and physical, the mind and body, that is incomplete, and one that has run through the history of Western culture since the time of Plato. It should not be a surprise that the Romantic movement developed as a reaction against Enlightenment rationalism of which Kant was the best representative. The Romantic hero was often tragic and some remnant of this has carried over into German film and literature we are dealing with. Often, attempts to cross over into the other realm is destructive for these characters. Hesse's character Siddhartha was in many ways a non-tragic character that draws on romanticism, and of course his embrace of the sensual world is a major turning point in the story. In a more political sense, many duty-bound middle-class intellectuals were pro-war during World War I. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">There is a scene in the beginning of the novel </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">All Quiet on the Western Front </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">(1929) by </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Erich Maria Remarque</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">,</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> where the school teacher encourages his students to enlist in the army and fight for the "Fatherland," and suggests that many teachers and professors probably propagandized their students during the war by encouraging them to fight. The novel was later made into an American film released in 1930, later remade in 1979.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEYr_F-p2_hDNuWE8ndOjjlLLF0OeVHnv-6WjL9iiKrSmcKucC8kN44Eh0_ALaSfKx5x-i9h13T_C5wp7bI2kwrYByqdEO6Ii5TI5zupGpZJ8vXFSIArRjBiij14Kgw8LY_nrGnxLgpRU/s1600/raoul_hausmann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"></span></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiquDPeWGEYOYCm8FTmLIBmOOG0ti4JlGDQtmxhLwPSkj3j4bMKMEnpH_T0kjfGEfWLJwlf6_4VJKe72J6XSLovNzD2gp9_ZUPz0CXCBmRkJqSBfExcuKK9yXphfFPfTLF3lF8mUQYpR5g/s1600/marlene-dietrich-young-smoke-photos1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiquDPeWGEYOYCm8FTmLIBmOOG0ti4JlGDQtmxhLwPSkj3j4bMKMEnpH_T0kjfGEfWLJwlf6_4VJKe72J6XSLovNzD2gp9_ZUPz0CXCBmRkJqSBfExcuKK9yXphfFPfTLF3lF8mUQYpR5g/s400/marlene-dietrich-young-smoke-photos1.jpeg" height="400" width="322" /></a><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) was the main breakout star of the film. She plays the nightclub singer Lola who seduces Prof. Rath </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">played by Jannings. The film was made in both German and English, even though Dietrich could not speak English at this time and delivered her lines phonetically. By 1930 the Nazi movement was in full swing and gaining momentum by capitalizing on the chaos and uncertainty unleashed by the worldwide Great Depression in 1929. In this climate, m</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">aking a film in English at this time carried some risk with it</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">. Nazis had won over the conservative establishment by their paranoid, hysterical attacks on things "un-German," and like most right-wing movements tried to foster a sense of hyper-</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">patriotism</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> towards the German nation and culture. English was considered a corrupt foreign influence, so in part producing the film in an English version was meant to show solidarity with the outside world against the Nazis. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is reported that high Nazi officials begged her to do propaganda films. She was known for having an athletic build for her time and thus fit their model of the German "Aryan master race." She refused and actually did the opposite by going to America the day after the film's premiere and became a star in the U.S. while also volunteering to do shows and performances for Allied troops during the war. In Germany some still consider her a traitor to this day and protested her when she returned to visit after the war. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">She also became an atheist during the war, giving her own take on Nietzsche's God is dead line: "If God exists, he needs to review his plan."</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> In the U.S., she was reunited with von Sternberg who directed her in several Hollywood films in the 1930s like </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Blonde Venus </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">(1932)</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Shanghai Express </i></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">(1932), </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">and </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Scarlett Empress </i></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">(1934)</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It was said that von Sternberg's lighting effects helped accentuate Dietrich and of course the manipulation of shadows and light is a trademark of expressionist cinema.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> These films are also notable for being produced before the Motion Picture Production Code, known as the "Hays Code," began to be enforced in 1934 (first adopted in 1930), the </span>predecessor<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to today's MPAA rating system (R, PG, etc), the same year the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is established. Ironically, the first film to be reviewed under the code was <i>The Blue Angel</i>. Prior to this, actresses like Dietrich and Mae West (1893-1989) were allowed to be not only sexually suggestive, but play strong lead roles who often dominated the men, and it was in large part due to their sexuality and suggestiveness (and perhaps threatened by strong females), as well as the violence of a new genre, gangster films, that nation-wide censorship of the movie industry began in the U.S. Films produced during this period are known as "Pre-Code" films, the label is significant because it refers to </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">a relatively short period of time where Hollywood actually produced high-quality but edgy and sometimes controversial films,</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> if you consider that sound films were not produced until 1927, and arguably mostly of not good quality until 1930 then the peak of the pre-code era is roughly between 1930-1934. Dietrich</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> became one of the actresses associated with creating the image of a "femme fatale." Andy Warhol (1928-1987), for example, tried to recreate Dietrich's persona in the 1960s with German fashion model Christa Päffgen (1938-1988), who he renamed Nico, and joined with the art-rock punk band the Velvet Underground, before starting her own solo career.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/m8IV6lJSm1c?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The song has one line that goes: "She builds you up just to put you down, what a clown."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The American Film Institute recently voted Dietrich the ninth greatest film actress from the "golden age" of Hollywood. </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.afi.com/100years/stars.aspx">http://www.afi.com/100years/stars.aspx</a></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In real life Marlene Dietrich was bi-sexual. Amazingly, even though she led an open life and had several relationships with women and frequently attended gay and drag shows in Germany in the 1920s, </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">this part of her life was not known to the public till after her death. She also</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> helped popularize "</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">androgynous</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">" fashion (she is credited with being the first woman to wear men's pants as a fashion statement). Dietrich was married and had a child, but had numerous affairs with her male co-stars and allegedly had relations with, among others, the novelist Erich Maria Remarque of <i>All Quiet on the Western Front</i>, and John F. Kennedy who was almost twenty years younger than her. Here is a clip from her last film-performance in 1978 <i>Just A Gigolo</i> along with David Bowie, here singing the title song. The popular song itself was a 1929 adaptation by lyricist Irving Ceasar of an Austrian cabaret song, "Schöner Gigolo," written in 1928 by Leonello Casucci and Julius Brammer.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gjkm5PXhqXE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Some like Kracauer have described her character in the film as "totally </span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/impassive" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;" target="_blank">impassive</a>.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">" However, like with his analysis of Caligari, modern critics have noted the one-sidedness of Kracauer's critique of German cinema. Does Lola represent a strong female character? Is she a </span>villain<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">? Does she represent a new form of subjectivity, a new level of consciousness overlooked by Hegel, and a new balance of instinctual drives overlooked by the chauvinistic Freud, or a regression into nihilism and chaos, the product of a rebellion against repressive morals, that is itself as empty as the values it claims to be opposing? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Kracauer's thesis is that German cinema from this period reveals the unconscious desires and fears of the German middle-class. How does this film portray middle-class values? In some ways the film seems to suggest that the values of the 19th century are no longer suitable for life in the 20th century, but at the same time the narrative of the film seems to reveal fear or anxiety over a dominant female character–thus the need to at least partially villainize the character. In this sense, the film seeks to neither move backwards or forwards. Lola is nihilistic in the sense that her values "negate" or destroy, the values of Rath, in every situation she seems superior to him, yet, the world that she inhabits cannot really be said to be better than the one Rath comes from, she despises her own world as much. To this extent: Lola and Rath themselves represent opposites, however in this case, no synthesis or unity-in-difference is created from the two and Rath is destroyed in the process.</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/o7gIiBl0ZJM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>Assignment Due 3/7</u>: </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Go to the link for "Weimar Republic" and where it says Primary Sources on the drop-down menu, go to "culture." Listen to the cabaret songs then choose two of those songs. Choose a specific part of each song to analyze and interpret the lyrics and explain why you chose these lyrics. When writing it out, write it out both in German and the English translation.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">On the same website, go to "society" under Primary Sources, and summarize Paragraph 175 and how it relates to this lecture.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">References:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Gregory D. Black, <i>Hollywood Uncensored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies</i>, Cambridge University Press, 1996</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sigmund Freud, <i>The Freud Reader</i>, ed. Peter Gay, W. W. Norton, 1995</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Erving Goffman, <i>The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life</i>, Anchor Books, 1959</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Colin Hearfield, <i>Adorno and the Modern Ethos of Freedom</i>, Ashgate, 2004 </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Immanuel Kant, <i>Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals</i>, ed. Mary Gregor, Cambridge University Press, [1785] 1997</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-10906152467878898972015-02-21T16:43:00.000-05:002015-02-21T12:14:52.859-05:002/21 Expressionism: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuVw1_Ugm2JdXZCDo2kiN-p5cr4BpcbzqcH9eG9mV1RWDgScqIq_WO0FAdp7tY4yIOfHmteeYe5GpPLE5fC791DG9qSQvCObEJrQZHTKZlU3lZg_nzuGFG82dWS5KQ8ybeY-0-U_6yq4/s1600/cabinet-of-dr-caligari_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuVw1_Ugm2JdXZCDo2kiN-p5cr4BpcbzqcH9eG9mV1RWDgScqIq_WO0FAdp7tY4yIOfHmteeYe5GpPLE5fC791DG9qSQvCObEJrQZHTKZlU3lZg_nzuGFG82dWS5KQ8ybeY-0-U_6yq4/s400/cabinet-of-dr-caligari_poster.jpg" height="400" width="252" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="color: #000099; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari </i>(1920, released worldwide 1921) begins with two men, one old one young, speaking in a garden. A woman soon walks into view. It appears as if something is wrong with these men and the woman. The young main claims she is his betrothed. He says they have been through an incredible experience and then begins to tell a story. The movie ends with these men speaking in the garden as well, apparently insane. This is known as a "framing device" (like a picture frame holds a picture, the framing device "holds" the main story) and it was actually added on to the movie against the strong protests of the writers of the film who had a much different ending in mind.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This film became a huge </span>success<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> in Germany and throughout the rest of the world. It is considered one of the first horror films, but more importantly, it is considered to be one of the first expressionist <i>films</i>. Similar to expressionist painting, this style of film depicts the inner emotional state of the individual, expressed outwardly in the form of a dark and dangerous world. Expressionist cinema is notable for its use of shadows and light, and for the use of strange, irregularly shaped, jagged, stage sets and objects</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. In France, at the same time, Impressionist films were being made by French directors, which emphasized the changing perceptions of nature characteristic of Impressionist painting, by simulating this effect with the rapid movements of the camera, as this film review describes of Abel Gance's film <i>Napoleon</i> (1927).</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mlox9bsPb6s?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Expressionism perhaps took this one step further by actually changing the external world itself to reflect the subjective sense of anxiety and dread permeating every aspect of German life, on the other hand the camera is much more stable and immobile compared to directors like Gance.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Both styles were highly influential. For example, in Japan both styles were borrowed from and experimented with in one of the first great Japanese films, <i>A Page of Madness</i> (1926) by Kinugasa Teinosuke (Japanese names have the surname or "last name" first, in the West it is Teinosuke Kinugasa):</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/jLGQe4kGG-U?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The main narrative of the film opens on a strange painted landscape filled with sharply angled irregularly shaped objects, this is the fictional town of 'Holstenwall'. A strange old man appears, this is Dr. Caligari. </span>A young man is seen in a small bedroom, the narrator's friend, Alan, he is leaning against an absurdly large chair. He goes out into the town which is also irregularly shaped, he sees an advertisement for the Holstenwall fair and goes to find his friend, Francis, the narrator at the beginning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The scene switches back to Caligari. He goes to apply for a permit to operate his booth. He is rudely dismissed by a minor official sitting on an absurdly large stool.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The next scene opens on the fairground, focusing narrowly on the circular motion of the organ grinder before opening onto the whole fairgrounds with a large merry-go-round spinning in the background. The people seem to be enjoying themselves. Caligari reappears to promote his attraction. At the same time, the body of the official who was rude to Caligari is discovered. Francis and Alan walk into Caligari's tent. Caligari displays his attraction, the somnambulist (sleepwalker) Cesare, who Caligari says who tell your fortune for you. Alan asks how long he is to live. Cesare responds "You die at dawn." Alan reacts with shock. They both leave, seemingly forgetting the prophecy, they are concerned with winning the love of Jane. At night, a shadow comes into Alan's room and kills him. The second murder so far.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When Francis learns of his friend's death, he immediately remembers the prophecy of the somnambulist and rushes off to alerts the authorities having to ascend an extremely large staircase to get to them. He also tells Jane. The authorities agree to investigate. At the same time another man is caught trying to commit a murder.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Caligari is feeding Cesare, when Francis and the police come demanding answers. They are just starting to question Caligari when they are informed they have captured a murder suspect and they leave. The suspect denies committing the other murders. Jane goes to the fair to find her father. She sees Caligari instead who shows her Cesare, he in turn seems to become interested in her before she becomes frightened and runs off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Francis decides to investigate Caligari again on his own. He is spying on him through a window and it appears Cesare is in his coffin. However, at the same time Cesare is moving through the shadows on his way to see Jane. He sneaks in through her bedroom window and stands over her ready to stab her. However he is unable to and instead flees with her when Jane's attendants come into the room. This sets off a chase scene, Cesare drops Jane, then runs some more before falling off a cliff from exhaustion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The police come back to Caligari's trailer and find Francis who sees he has been watching Cesare all night. It turns out that it was a mannequin instead. Caligari slips away in the confusion, but Francis follows him to a mental institution. He asks for assistance in finding Caligari, he is directed to the Institute's head. The head of the Institute is Caligari!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Francis enlists the help of some of the staff who go through Caligari's papers. They find that he is obsessed with the fictional story of an 11th century monk who was able to wield hypnotic powers over a sleepwalker. When, a sleepwalker was delivered to this hospital he began his plan on using the sleepwalker as his hypnotized slave to carry out murders and gain power.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The authorities recover Cesare's body from the ravine where he fell. They bring it to Caligari. He breaks down and becomes hysterical. The doctors restrain him and put him in a straight jacket and lock him up, with Francis looking on. The film then appears to fade out, but then returns to the opening scene in the garden. Apparently the whole story has been a fantasy invented by Francis who is a patient in the hospital along with Jane, Cesare, and Alan. Caligari is the real head of the institute, who is treating Francis and believes that now that Francis has given a name to his terror, he can begin to cure him now.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">A proper understanding of Caligari as a cultural product requires an interpretation of at least three levels of meaning: the original screenplay of the writers; the finished product of the film; and the unintentional meaning that is revealed through the interpretation of the critic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The screenplay for Caligari was written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Janowitz was not German but Czech, growing up in Prague. He inspiration for the script was a </span>bizarre<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> incident where he may have witnessed a murder. Visiting a fair in Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany, one day in 1913 Janowitz was strolling on a street not coincidently named 'Holstenwall' when he heard laughter:</span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The laugh, which apparently served to lure a young man, vanished somewhere in the shrubbery. When a short time later, the young man departed, another shadow, hidden until then in the bushes, suddenly emerged and moved along–as if on the scent of that laugh. Passing this uncanny shadow, Janowitz caught a glimpse of him: he looked like an average bourgeois. Darkness reabsorbed the man, and made further pursuit impossible. The following day big headlines in the local press announced: "Horrible sex crime on the Holstenwall! Young Gertrude...murdered." An obscure feeling that Gertrude might have been the girl of the fair impelled Janowitz to attend the victim's funeral. During the ceremony he suddenly had the sensation of discovering the murderer, who had not yet been captured. The man he suspected seemed to recognize him, too. It was the bourgeois–the shadow in the bushes (Kracauer 2004 p. 61).</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Carl Mayer was an Austrian whose father, a businessman and a compulsive gambler, committed suicide when Mayer was 16. During the war he was examined several times by a psychiatrist, who Mayer did not like which gave him the inspiration for Caligari. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Both men were veterans of the war and whose war experiences had turned both into committed pacifists. Caligari was then supposed to symbolize a world of insane murderous authorities and universal conscription (forced recruitment into the military) for total war, something which they experienced. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">Cesare is like all the young soldiers who are hypnotically drilled into becoming killing machines on the battlefield.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> The most subversive element in their script was the idea of the insane Caligari posing as a legitimate authority–worse, as an authority who judges the sanity of others. The same way in which people thought the German military was insane in </span>bringing<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> the country into war. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This strangely subversive script was picked up by producer Erich Pommer, also the head of film studio Decla-Bioscop (bioscop being an old 19th word for film projector) which owned </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Babelsburg Studio, now</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> the oldest film studio in the world</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">. Pommer liked the script, but his decisions as the producer were mainly driven by the profit motive, especially international trade. In the early 1920s, Germany's economy was desperately struggling to survive. As part of the peace conditions in the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had to partially "deindustrialize" large segments of its economy, basically anything that could be used for military production, the problem is that almost everything produced in an industrial economy can be used for war purposes. Film was then seen as a very important export for Germany's economy. Pommer believed that this film could compete with American films, and it did Caligari was a big box office success in Berlin where it premiered in May 1920, and the next year in Paris and New York.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It was the director, Robert Weine, that added that surprise twist ending and the framing device. It was the profit-motivated decision to have a surprise ending that completely transforms the message of the film. Francis is now the crazy person, and Caligari is really the hero. The anti-war message is removed and traditional authority is no longer criticized. Film, is unique among most of the major art forms because it is the most industrial and requires the largest division of labor to produce, and this is what leads to the often discussed "creative tensions" between writers, directors, actors, producers, etc, in the making of numerous films past and present. Usually, however, these tensions are resolved in favor of the profit motive. In this case: to add the more conservative "surprise" ending.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> The ending would presumably have the effect of reinforcing </span>traditional<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> authority assuming the audience receives the message in the intended way. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The earliest "motion picture camera" was the </span>kinetoscope<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> invented by Thomas Edison in 1888. This early prototype only allowed one viewer at a time to watch a short film projected through the eye piece.</span></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU-FV9DNEqneQ5CL27BSKNOQIyeEfZiwTxjtzy1LfJk1BeVbvcDD66tOUTBNp5SHok899uNKR5L1ZZ37HTDLf5_GVXGcQDY2n2qq593R_4ZXN0jlnvpzgNd2xI-t7Ne_ux0UfA5ix-fX8/s1600/Kinetoscope.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU-FV9DNEqneQ5CL27BSKNOQIyeEfZiwTxjtzy1LfJk1BeVbvcDD66tOUTBNp5SHok899uNKR5L1ZZ37HTDLf5_GVXGcQDY2n2qq593R_4ZXN0jlnvpzgNd2xI-t7Ne_ux0UfA5ix-fX8/s400/Kinetoscope.jpeg" height="400" width="280" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Edison's Kinetoscope. Note the eye-piece at the top that you would look into to see the film</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Lumière Brothers (Lumière means "light" in French) are generally credited with inventing the first real motion picture camera, the <i>cinématograph</i> (derived from the Greek: "writing in movement") or cinema, and for producing the first films shown to the public, in 1895.</span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/P_6RIWrY0Os/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P_6RIWrY0Os&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P_6RIWrY0Os&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">At first film was seen as a passing fad but within a few years, the former magician George Méliès had introduced the first special effects into film. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Méliès</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> had been in the audience when the Lumière brothers had premiered their first films. </span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/7JDaOOw0MEE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Over the next several years most of the fundamentals of </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">filmmaking</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> were developed as directors found more ways to manipulate the camera and create images: tracking shots, reverse angles, close-ups, editing, etc. In</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> twenty-five years the industry developed very quickly, especially in the U.S. The first U.S. film industry was actually based out of New Jersey where Edison's lab and factory were located. In the early 20th century, </span>filmmakers<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> wanting to make films but also wanting to avoid paying the licensing fees to Edison's company who owned all the cameras, moved out to a location that would be good for filming and also be as far away from Edison as possible. They settled in an undeveloped area of Southern California known as Hollywood. By 1915 Hollywood had already become the capital of the U.S. film industry. Artistically it was led by directors like D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, however by the 1920s the so-called "big five" studios had already become dominant in the industry: Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM, RKO, and Columbia pictures, and later 20th Century Fox. Today all but RKO, which effectively went out of business in the 1950s, are the biggest film studios in the U.S. and the world.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Even as early as the 1920s the </span>monopolistic<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> tendencies of the "culture industries" were </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">evident in Germany as well. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Decla-Bioscop was the second largest film studio in Germany. In 1921 because of financial pressure from the U.S. film industry which had already become dominant in the world, Decla merged with the largest film studio in Germany, Universum Film AG (Ufa). AG stands for <i>Aktiengesellschaft</i>, a German word for corporation. Ufa was formed in 1917 as a government propaganda arm during the war. After 1916 the German government had banned foreign films and had heavily subsidized the German film industry, as a result the industry developed quickly. Ufa always maintained close ties with the state and large banks including the Deutsche Bank. The Deutsche Bank itself was formed in 1870 at the dawn of the German Empire and until WWI it was considered the largest bank in the world devoting itself mainly to international banking. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Ufa was purchased in 1927 by Alfred Hugenberg (the 1920s version of Rupert Murdoch). Hugenberg became Reich Minister of Economy in Hitler's first Cabinet, but control passed quickly over to Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">. Ufa produced Nazi propaganda films during the war including </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Triumph of the Will.</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> After the war, possession of Ufa's assets went to the communist East German state and was reincorporated as DEFA (Deutsche Film AG). DEFA went out of business after reunification in 1990, and Ufa was </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">resurrected</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">. Today it is owned by the Bertlesmann AG a major international media conglomerate.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Bertelsmann began as a publishing house in the 19th century, it was also the largest producer of Nazi propaganda during the war. Like most major media corporations however, its activities are diversified </span>throughout<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> all forms of media: print, radio, television, film, and now the internet. Bertlesmann's revenue in 2011</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> was €15 billion (about $20 billion dollars), putting it ahead of major U.S. multinational media corporations like CBS Corporation ($15 billion), and Viacom (which owns MTV, $14 billion). Although still trailing behind the three largest media corporations in the world: The Walt Disney Co. ($42 billion), News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch's company, $34 billion), and Time Warner ($29 billion). </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Today, the impact of films like Caligari can be seen in the pseudo-tribal forms of sub-cultures, like the horror subculture. Caligari was an influence on films like <i>Frankenstein </i>(1931) which created the horror genre in the 1930s. In the late 1940s and 1950s, many aspects of expressionism were borrowed by the genre now known as "film noir" which like horror is still a highly influential genre today. Most of the best German directors had come to the U.S. after the Nazi regime was established in 1933, many of whom like Fritz Lang and Josef von Sternberg directed noir films, as did other influential directors like the Austrian director Billy Wilder. The consolidation of media empires and commodification of culture over the last hundred years leads to a diversified form of product that appears in many different forms, usually we call this 'merchandising':</span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Jj0g3lmhTwOwcvxTJmDs4s3vA4AXgLM0RVnR17yRptrFHddVJrrL56ZbXfuG9W_PQzs37cKh5sRjCg53MUo4XjWm1n9qFqcLrf-FoQQfdSrX-d14cbnubKVzYx7F1hTG1fVj9CLS23U/s1600/caligaritoy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Jj0g3lmhTwOwcvxTJmDs4s3vA4AXgLM0RVnR17yRptrFHddVJrrL56ZbXfuG9W_PQzs37cKh5sRjCg53MUo4XjWm1n9qFqcLrf-FoQQfdSrX-d14cbnubKVzYx7F1hTG1fVj9CLS23U/s320/caligaritoy.jpg" height="320" width="252" /></a><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/BvsMPOfblfg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The last level of meaning, I mentioned was the unintentional meaning revealed by the critic. This is the area where the critic or the one engaging the cultural product attempts to unearth the hidden meanings within the object, or as literature critic Leo Lowenthal, remarked, "mass culture is </span>psychoanalysis<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> in reverse" (Jay 1996 p. 173). In other words, there is a "textual unconscious" that potentially can be revealed through the analysis of the critic. A text can be more than simply just written words, but almost any kind of language, and film has its own kind of language, but of course in a more literal sense almost all films are based on some sort of screenplay. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The </span>significance<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of the fairground and carnival are one of the major themes where critics dispute the intended meaning of the scene. Film critic Siegfried Kracauer </span>believed that<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Janowitz and Mayer consciously intended to show the fairground as an area of freedom and happiness, that their intended meaning was to portray the fairground as a contrast to the evilness of Caligari who is seen as foreign element invading the peaceful land. However, Kracauer argues the latent (or hidden) meaning of the fairground represents chaos and anarchy. The desire to express freedom as the carnival is really the desire to go back to the pre-industrial, pre-modern past (most carnivals and festivals date back to medieval times). The circular movements of the merry-go-round and the organ grinder's arm as he plays his music box are supposed to symbolize chaos, also with the organ grinder you are reminded that someone is working even while others are at leisure in this utopia. Caligari anticipates Hitler. Not that Janowitz and Mayer even knew who Hitler was when they wrote this script, but Kracauer believes that the combination of con-man and psychiatrist is a good representation of the kind of leader Hitler was. Kracuaer's analysis is that the film reveals the </span>nihilistic<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> core of German life in the 1920s and 1930s: a choice between tyranny on the one hand and chaos on the other.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The so-called revolutionary nature of "expressionism" is also criticized by Kracauer–and the Dadaists. Expressionism is a turn away from the external world and instead depicts the external world as expressions of internal states, or to "make the contents of the soul objective." However it is precisely this innwardness that Kracauer and others would criticize. The inwardness of expressionists similar perhaps to Siddhartha's philosophy of detachment, critics argue, reveals a withdrawal and a distancing from the social world and a retreat into the self.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFnghYJZJ34-ZDX1VdVOqYvPmt-cNjC64iwN3N2L-Kiv0ac8bwOoUusTdZF3_U3cWa0xpcUxEXV9l3XXk4JpAyEgOgKujfpxeUUY73PciGERQxlDnJLlZaapKhPD4ObZ10kKNFpmIBy6E/s1600/Rolf-Nesch-Bro-Over-Elben.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFnghYJZJ34-ZDX1VdVOqYvPmt-cNjC64iwN3N2L-Kiv0ac8bwOoUusTdZF3_U3cWa0xpcUxEXV9l3XXk4JpAyEgOgKujfpxeUUY73PciGERQxlDnJLlZaapKhPD4ObZ10kKNFpmIBy6E/s400/Rolf-Nesch-Bro-Over-Elben.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Rolf Nesch, <i>Elbe Bridge I, </i>(1932)</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Expressionism as a movement in films like Dr. Caligari are important in that it marks almost the exact point in which traditional forms of culture like painting became obsolete by mass culture, and in a secondary sense you can actually see the visual styles of expressionism integrated in the films, summed up by one of the film designers who declared that "films must be drawings brought to life." The use of shadows and light for dramatic effect also became one of the main visual styles of expressionism along with strange distorted shapes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Here is the film itself. If you want to make the screen bigger, click the lower right corner. After watching the film, please read the second part of the lecture which is also relevant for the next couple of lectures which will be shorter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/xrg73BUxJLI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">Assignment Due 2/28</u>: </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> Choose a scene from the film and describe the scene. Then write your interpretation of the scene and the meaning of it. After that write why you chose this scene and how it relates to the class.</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">References:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Theodor Adorno, <i>The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, </i>Routledge, 2001</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, <i>Dialectic of Enlightenment</i>, Continuum, 1972</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Thomas Elsaessar, <i>Weimar Cinema and After: Germany's Historical Imaginary, </i>Routledge, 2000<i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Alvin W. Gouldner, <i>The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology, </i>Oxford University Press, 1976</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Martin Jay, <i>The Dialectical Imagination,</i> University of California Press, 1996</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Siegfried Kracauer, <i>From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film, </i>Princeton University Press, 2004</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Dietrich Scheunemann, <i>Expressionist Film: New Perspectives, </i>Camden House, 2003</span>Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-18108499840417046972015-02-14T18:28:00.000-05:002015-02-14T10:07:46.712-05:002/14 Siddhartha<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZPFqkVZSNNtFr0w0TGFSdY4gRS2tslxZ2gqKo8BS30YIVQiXm-iu-NM3SVRNt6vAkRcwqlQxM63s05q1mDwUpYszRMP_mxbEF0iLNj3Wb_uQHYSPO49P0MmGAlmJzlGD3uwFSZ5bw5to/s1600/HermannHess-Siddhartha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZPFqkVZSNNtFr0w0TGFSdY4gRS2tslxZ2gqKo8BS30YIVQiXm-iu-NM3SVRNt6vAkRcwqlQxM63s05q1mDwUpYszRMP_mxbEF0iLNj3Wb_uQHYSPO49P0MmGAlmJzlGD3uwFSZ5bw5to/s320/HermannHess-Siddhartha.jpg" height="320" width="194" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br />
<div style="font-size: x-large;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">This class we are going over Hermann Hesse's (1877-1962) novel </span></span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Siddhartha</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> (1922). The name Siddhartha come from the Sanskrit words </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">siddha</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> (achieved) and </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">artha</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> (wealth), together the name means "he who has attained his goals." The word <i>Aryan</i> is also a Sanskrit word meaning "Noble." </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sanskrit<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, now considered an extinct language was the ancient precursor to modern Hindi, what is even more striking is that at least since the 17th century linguists have noticed the similarities between Sanskrit, Persian, Latin and Greek for example. Today, these languages are grouped together as the "Indo-European" language family, the largest </span>language<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> family in the world, approximately 46% of the languages spoken today are Indo-European including: Hindi, Farsi (Persian), other Iranian languages; Germanic languages including English which is considered a Germanic language; Latin including all the Romance languages like French, Spanish, and Italian; Greek, Baltic-Slavic languages including Russian, Polish, Czech; and all of the other languages spoken in Europe including Dutch and Scandinavian, etc.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The common structures to these languages have led historical linguists to speculate on the existence of a "Proto-Indo-European" language, or a common ancestor language from which all these other languages descended from. This has led some to speculate on the existence of a "Proto-Indo-European" people who spoke this </span>language, and this could have been the semi-mythical Aryan people,<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> but all of this is speculative even the existence of such a language of which no historical evidence exists. The earliest evidence of Indo-European written languages date back to the Hittites in what would be Eastern Turkey today (Asia Minor) from 1650 BCE.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Different theories regarding the origin and spread of Indo-European languages have been put forward. The most commonly accepted is what is known as the "Kurgan theory." Kurgan being a derivation of a Turkic word meaning burial mound, in reference to the evidence of burial mounds found in the area.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfinvRuxs7NvVoC8jqH0Fj19FkZ3-Dne9X8Y0G7I2oFHCaQ0gc86JB5Ydz41bY2jPeVEwLIigrUHdge18SDRbfgYZOZ9y3GvbNxTWZGG9wgDsRpIja7CpDYc98-G4A_GHO76CqmtgaO1c/s1600/kurgan+hypothesis-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfinvRuxs7NvVoC8jqH0Fj19FkZ3-Dne9X8Y0G7I2oFHCaQ0gc86JB5Ydz41bY2jPeVEwLIigrUHdge18SDRbfgYZOZ9y3GvbNxTWZGG9wgDsRpIja7CpDYc98-G4A_GHO76CqmtgaO1c/s400/kurgan+hypothesis-1.jpeg" height="246" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">c. 4000-1000 BCE</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The earliest evidence of any human language dates back to the ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia, circa 2900 BCE, followed by the Egyptians 2700 BCE, and the Akkadian and the Eblaite languages also in Mesopotamia, from 2400 BCE, the latter two being the earliest "Semitic" languages of which the two most well-known modern examples of Semitic languages are Arabic and Hebrew. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Semitic languages belong to the "Afro-Asiatic" language family which is the third largest language family in the world (Second is "Sino-Tibetan" which mainly comprises Chinese, there are also several other language families). Another very speculative linguistic theory tries to establish a "Proto-World" language or "global etymology" in order to establish a single common ancestor for all languages, also known as "monogenesis," however again, there is no evidence to support such a view and many linguists regard it as impossible to trace the </span>origins<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> of language back that far, and instead rely on a theory of "polygenesis" or multiple origins to explain the historical development of language.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The relationships between these linguistic structures suggest certain cultural similarities and the exact relations are still mysterious. However, it is not only linguistic similarities that drew people like Hesse to Eastern culture.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Hesse did extensive research into Hindu and Buddhist scriptures and practice. He was in his own words looking for a cure with his "sickness with life" (</span><i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">lebenskrankheit</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">). Hesse like most other artists of his generation is influenced by Nietzsche, for example in Siddhartha's rejection of the priestly lifestyle which was also attacked by Nietzsche and who shared a similar cultural critique of modern life. Unlike Nietzsche who was hostile to all religion, Hesse draws upon the philosophy of the Upanishads (circa 1000-500 BCE) in order to cure it. The most important belief and one that has been reproduced in various ways in Western philosophy is the belief in the oneness of the universe, between the self and the universe, this is sometimes known as "monism" (as in mono, one). In particular, a belief in "unity-in-difference" the mystical belief that underneath the differences in reality there is actually a sameness that pervades everything. Usually in these belief systems, God is immanent (or inside) meaning that God is not seen as personal entity existing outside the universe, but is inside the universe, or the universe itself</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. The chief difficulty has always been explaining what is the origin of difference if unity is the ultimate reality? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The book is divided into 12 chapters, part one, four chapters (</span>The Four Noble Truths<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">) and part two, eight chapters (</span>The Eight Fold Path<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">). The narrative structure of the book follows the four stages of life in Hindu philosophy: student (</span><i style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">brahmacharya</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">), householder (</span><i style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">grihastha</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">), retiree (</span><i style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">vanaprastha</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">), and </span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/renunciate" style="letter-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">renunciate</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> (</span><i style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">sannyasa</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">). At the same time the novel also follows the German literary tradition of </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Bildungsroman</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> (literally "road story" or coming-of-age tale) that follows the moral and psychological development of the main character as they go through various stages of life. </span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkjqQveCFn-yiRUuadkslk-79KEvOO9gNna-LmhJC_VXcSD0ic8fuie4_VUZHoQfD140BFkdGFnsID_X7JecPzP7khyVTSCukpaQXrOA9HoSSqukbRmWqyccN240aC2IhhNf0zD73Wns/s1600/Printing3_Walk_of_Ideas_Berlin.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkjqQveCFn-yiRUuadkslk-79KEvOO9gNna-LmhJC_VXcSD0ic8fuie4_VUZHoQfD140BFkdGFnsID_X7JecPzP7khyVTSCukpaQXrOA9HoSSqukbRmWqyccN240aC2IhhNf0zD73Wns/s400/Printing3_Walk_of_Ideas_Berlin.jpeg" height="400" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">"Modern Book Printing," from <i>Welcome to Germany–Land of Ideas,</i> Berlin, 2006</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Sculpture with Hesse's name and other important German writers (many we talk about or mention in class: Goethe, Brecht, Mann, Marx, Hegel, Kant, </span><span style="font-size: small;">Arendt. Note also the absence of Nietzsche's name.</span><span style="font-size: small;">)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The similarity between these literary styles is not </span>entirely<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span>coincidental<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> because philosophy is </span>significantly<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> influenced by similar beliefs to the ancient Indian Upanishads. The Upanishads deal with two major concepts self (</span><i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">atman</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">) and the universe (</span><i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Brahman</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">), and concludes there is a fundamental unity between atman and Brahman, which upon closer analysis reveals that everything is really Brahman and the apparent difference between atman and Brahman is an illusion. The 17th century Dutch-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) for example concluded that God and the natural world were identical, in his words, </span><i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Deus Sive Natura</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> (literally, God or Nature) and that we are all of the same "substance" God or nature that makes up the universe. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The 19th century German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) believed that Spinoza was the "starting point for all philosophy." However, Hegel believed that Spinoza failed to account for how things begin to change and become different. If unity implies oneness, then how did multiplicity come into existence, or more than one? Or to put it another way, what is the relation between the "</span>infinite<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">" and the "finite?" If the infinite is everything and limitless, how could something limited, the finite, exist outside of it and still be limitless? Without explaining this, Hegel thought, Spinoza's idea that everything in nature was connected cannot withstand criticism. Spinoza like the ancient Indian mystics believed that "difference" we see in the world is an illusion (</span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Maya</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">) it only appears different.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXd9GAp95u_1p7M37DpAcIgm8NoHqZ0GQ47K5Gh2aGVoY_GwH5F0koGNIy1GKLRJA6gjrrGnQMENReDG3Tuclz-agOvGik0SG-uQ3K76BDFGqkrqsCLg7Ip4RyHujNCwGkok8zCRMZVw/s1600/Hegel_portrait_by_Schlesinger_1831.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXd9GAp95u_1p7M37DpAcIgm8NoHqZ0GQ47K5Gh2aGVoY_GwH5F0koGNIy1GKLRJA6gjrrGnQMENReDG3Tuclz-agOvGik0SG-uQ3K76BDFGqkrqsCLg7Ip4RyHujNCwGkok8zCRMZVw/s1600/Hegel_portrait_by_Schlesinger_1831.jpg" height="400" width="315" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hegel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Hegel instead argues that differences we perceive in the world are real, but also that the unity of the universe is real as well. The original unity develops differences in itself but this in turn gives way to a greater and more complex unity which then </span>differentiates<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> itself, etc, this process continues seemingly endlessly. Hegel tracks this development in the realm of consciousness, trying to determine the different stages of development that has consciousness has attained throughout history. Exploring this process in detail, Hegel believes, will reveal the ultimate direction in which consciousness is meant to take and its purpose. Expanding upon Spinoza who used the concept of "substance" to refer to the oneness of the world, Hegel says he wants to explain substance as Subject, meaning to explore the relationship of the individual's subjectivity within the substance of the reality, and thus trying to bring together the realm of thought with being or existence, and explain the connection between both. In other words he tries to unite these two paradoxical statements together in what is referred to as the "unity-of-opposites"–this belief did not originate with Hegel but besides ancient Greek sources like Heraclitus (circa 535-475 BCE), and Renaissance figures like Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), Pico Mirandola (1463-1494), this debate is also found within early medieval Indian philosophers like Shankara (c. 788-820 CE) and Ramanuja (c. 1017-1137 CE) as well as the ancient Chinese symbol for the Yin-Yang. </span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW6__4O66ZZfbB6LRBjTkinCm52ZYnKrPqri_WVmTBmsLnf86KCdwK81wtWGvnpwvj_Vf6gVsk-OSRh7tSyUyEJmFXbp2w3GRGkfMpCl6hq9rNHjeZ1GVa8wT-MeAUuIrnZuSdMeJGcvE/s320/yinyang(1).png" height="301" width="320" /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Where Hegel differs from ancient philosophers is his belief that this unity-in-opposites was not a </span>transcendent<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> (or </span>otherworldly)<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> principle but something immanent (or concrete), or something empirical, something that can be known through reason. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The subject is what creates and transforms the world, however this is not external to the substance, but internal since the subject is made of the same substance. However the uniqueness and singularity of the subject is also real and has substance and has to be preserved in the identity between subject and substance, this leads to perhaps Hegel's most perplexing formulation, the "identity of identity and non-identity," which is to say that things that are similar and things that are different are in fact part of the same overarching process by which the substance and subject develop, and in a way "need" each other. Eventually this leads to the realization that different subjects are also the same, being of the same substance. This means that consciousness itself is not an individualistic possession but something that is shared by virtue of which we all draw from a stored set of ideas and traditions as we develop awareness, this is clearly seen in how we internalize language.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> Hegel, then starts with the Spinozist idea of substance and ends calling this <i>Geist</i> or Spirit. Hegel believed that in his time human reason had advanced to the point where it could understand the idea of unity-in-opposites and could preserve the balance without crushing the diversity of the different, and preserving the order of unity represented in real terms by the nation-state. Understanding this is mediation, or the process by which abstract ideas take physical shape. The essence of a people is mediated through its political and social institutions and through its culture. Hegel's work then can be summarized as tracing the different mediations that ideas take throughout history. However this is usually the starting point for the Marxist </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">critique</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> of Hegel which we will return to, who argue he conceals the real material basis of history.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The unity of opposites plays itself out by a dialectical process going through various stages of development, usually from one extreme to another. In this regard, Hegel believed that his philosophy could account for the unity of the universe but also for the complexity and the mysterious, paradoxical aspects of nature as well. In the story, Siddhartha's development seems to go from one extreme to another: from a comfortable upper class life, to a life of ascetic self-denial, to enjoying the sensual aspects of life, etc.</span></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDkc-oUA6PY_zMGrJVupKh5AdaD4CK_OpEWDka50dasoAxhfjfnfvp0rxYAcgWHN0BqsrRCGkbbBxRKqjTDKlwaO_YHVDgYwTodbHg_u2Py-1VC_kM8zXilJeuW6HFTTYh0FcVO1KlTYY/s1600/VesicaPiscis_1000.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDkc-oUA6PY_zMGrJVupKh5AdaD4CK_OpEWDka50dasoAxhfjfnfvp0rxYAcgWHN0BqsrRCGkbbBxRKqjTDKlwaO_YHVDgYwTodbHg_u2Py-1VC_kM8zXilJeuW6HFTTYh0FcVO1KlTYY/s400/VesicaPiscis_1000.gif" height="273" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Vesica</i> <i>Piscis</i>, literally "fish bladder" in Latin illustrates the idea of synthesis or "unity of opposites" by showing two circles intersecting. The circles can be seen as coming together or pulling apart. The unity is illustrated by the shaded figure in the middle, this figure, known as the <i>Aureola</i>, also has religious significance.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Remember that Hesse is writing in the same period the Dada artists are producing their work, and that his turn towards Eastern religion is really at the same time a rejection of Western religion and culture. This even continues on into the present: many people are interested in Buddhism, Hinduism and Yoga, or practices closely associated such as veganism or vegetarianism (ironically, Hitler claimed to be a vegetarian who also abstained from smoking or drinking alcohol). To a certain extent then, this novel performs the function that all culture does to some extent–escapism. In other words, the desire to escape or forget the mundane or painful conditions of life. At the very least this requires one to immerse oneself in the reading, and so I will use extensive quotes to get at the meaning of the text and put it in context–the idea of immersion also refers to being </span>immersed<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> in water and you will see the water symbolism plays a key role in this story and in philosophy in general.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The gentle, paradise like conditions the author describes in the opening of the book contrasts so sharply with the actual lived conditions in Germany during this period, thus setting the tone of the whole book:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree is where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahman. The sun tanned his light shoulders by the banks of the river when bathing, performing the sacred ablutions, the sacred offerings. In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Now contrast this kind of imagery with the imagery evoked by the dada artists (Otto Dix for example) and try to consider that they are both being made around the same time! But you can sense that the otherwordliness of Siddhartha's world can give the impression that this land of paradise is very far away from the actual reality of Germany in 1922.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If the character interacts with the historical Buddha, then the story would have to take place sometime between the 6th and 4th century BCE. This period of time has been referred to as the Axial Age (as in axiom, meaning basic belief, or axis, the point at which the earth turns) and is noteworthy because of the fact that many of the major figures in world history apparently were living at or near the same time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In other words at or around the same time Buddha walked the earth, so did Socrates in Greece, Confucius in China, Zoroaster in Persia (an alternative spelling is "Zarathustra" and is used by Nietzsche in the title of one of his most influential books<i> Thus Spoke Zarathustra</i>), Mahavira the founder of Jainism, the prophet Elijah in Israel, and others. Buddhism itself was originally a reform movement of the ancient Vedic religion in India, now known as Hinduism. Although Buddhism in China or Japan may be more well known in the West, originally Buddhism developed in Western India. The Buddha adopts many of the philosophical insights of the Upanishads, especially the belief that sensual world of appearance is not real. However he simplifies the beliefs even more, removing all of the polytheistic aspects of ancient India. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although Buddhism eventually developed into different branches and sects, originally it was an atheistic religion, the Buddha was not defied, and denied the existence of gods. The basic beliefs of Buddhism as codified in the Four Noble Truths was to end suffering by extinguishing desire, there is no belief in salvation or an afterlife. The goal of Buddhism was to reach <i>nirvana</i> which literally means "blown out" like as in blowing out a flame. The self represents the flame, you reach nirvana by blowing out this flame, in other words by removing all desire and self-interest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Furthermore, the Buddhist belief in rebirth and karma actually then influenced the Vedic religion of India which adopted these beliefs. The ancient Vedic religion dates at least as far back as 1500 BCE and thus was established for about a thousand years before the Buddha came around and 1500 years before Jesus (the use of BC and AD refer to "Before Christ" and <i>Anno</i> <i>Domini</i>, "the year of the Lord." The more secular version is BCE and CE, "before the common era" and "in the common era." Either of which is still acceptable. So for example between the 6th and 4th century BCE is the same as saying 600-301 BC or BCE and roughly 600-300 years before Jesus). </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">This is not to say that Hesse completely blocks out the social reality of his time and you can sense some of the familiar anger and resentment against the upper classes of German society: public officials, merchants (middle class bourgeoisie), priests, as well as common sentiment and conventions shared by the masses of people:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Govinda knew: he would not become a common Brahman, not a lazy official in charge of offerings; not a greedy merchant with magic spells; not a vain, vacuous speaker; not a mean, deceitful priest; and also not a decent, stupid sheep in the herd of the many. No, and he, Govinda, as well did not want to become one of those, not one of those tens of thousands of Brahmans.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The first part of the book deals with Siddhartha's attempts to find meaning in life. This should be a fairly familiar nihilist theme by now, as nihilism is fundamentally concerned with the question of meaning in the world. Siddhartha is a nihilist to the extent that he rejects existing value systems: the priestly caste of his father (brahman) who controlled Indian society at this time:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">He had started to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmans had already revealed to him the most and best of their wisdom, that they had already filled his expecting vessel with their richness, and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied. The ablutions were good, but they were water, they did not wash off the sin, they did not heal the spirit's thirst, they did not relieve the fear in his heart. The sacrifices and the invocation of the gods were excellent—but was that all? Did the sacrifices give a happy fortune? And what about the gods? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not the Atman, He, the only one, the singular one? Were the gods not creations, created like me and you, subject to time, mortal? Was it therefore good, was it right, was it meaningful and the highest occupation to make offerings to the gods? For whom else were offerings to be made, who else was to be worshipped but Him, the only one, the Atman? And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself? But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught. So, where, where was it? To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for? Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs! They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much—but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing?</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Besides the brahmins, Siddhartha joins with the ascetic samanas who he joins with at first after leaving his father. After learning techniques of meditation, fasting, and other acts of self-discipline Siddhartha begins to grow tired with this lifestyle as he begins to suspect that all this self-control is unnecessary and ultimately fails to do what it is supposed to--lead to salvation:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">What is meditation? What is leaving one's body? What is fasting? What is holding one's breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice-wine or fermented coconut-milk. Then he won't feel his self any more, then he won't feel the pains of life any more, then he finds a short numbing of the senses. When he falls asleep over his bowl of rice-wine, he'll find the same what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape their bodies through long exercises, staying in the non-self. This is how it is, oh Govinda."</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">And also:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Siddhartha answered: "How old, would you think, is our oldest Samana, our venerable teacher?"</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Quoth Govinda: "Our oldest one might be about sixty years of age."</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">And Siddhartha: "He has lived for sixty years and has not reached the nirvana. He'll turn seventy and eighty, and you and me, we will grow just as old and will do our exercises, and will fast, and will meditate. But we will not reach the nirvana, he won't and we won't. Oh Govinda, I believe out of all the Samanas out there, perhaps not a single one, not a single one, will reach the nirvana. We find comfort, we find numbness, we learn feats, to deceive others. But the most important thing, the path of paths, we will not find."</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">But he does not reject meaning in total or that there is no meaning in the world, but that the traditional ways of uncovering meaning will not lead you there, and that it can only be learned through <i>experience </i>it cannot be taught. This sets up his experience with what is supposed to be his encounter with Buddha (where Buddhism gets its name from, also originally named Siddhartha, Siddhartha Gotama):</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">But let me say this one more thing: I have not doubted in you for a single moment. I have not doubted for a single moment that you are Buddha, that you have reached the goal, the highest goal towards which so many thousands of Brahmans and sons of Brahmans are on their way. You have found salvation from death. It has come to you in the course of your own search, on your own path, through thoughts, through meditation, through realizations, through enlightenment. It has not come to you by means of teachings! And—thus is my thought, oh exalted one,—nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! You will not be able to convey and say to anybody, oh venerable one, in words and through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment! The teachings of the enlightened Buddha contain much, it teaches many to live righteously, to avoid evil. But there is one thing which these so clear, these so venerable teachings do not contain: they do not contain the mystery of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he alone among hundreds of thousands. This is what I have thought and realized, when I have heard the teachings. This is why I am continuing my travels—not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are none, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal by myself or to die. But often, I'll think of this day, oh exalted one, and of this hour, when my eyes beheld a holy man.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">At the end of the first part Siddhartha he rejects the conservative views of priests and monks and throws himself into the sensuous world of appearances:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. All of this, all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)" target="_blank">Maya</a>, was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity, who seeks unity. Blue was blue, river was river, and if also in the blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest, and here Siddhartha. The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Siddhartha had just met the Buddha and had decided to reject all the teachings he had learned so that he could throw himself fully into the physical world around him. Now he seeks to enjoy Beauty:</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">But now, his liberated eyes stayed on this side, he saw and became aware of the visible, sought to be at home in this world, did not search for the true essence, did not aim at a world beyond. Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without searching, thus simply, thus childlike. Beautiful were the moon and the stars, beautiful was the stream and the banks, the forest and the rocks, the goat and the gold-beetle, the flower and the butterfly. Beautiful and lovely it was, thus to walk through the world, thus childlike, thus awoken, thus open to what is near, thus without distrust. Differently the sun burnt the head, differently the shade of the forest cooled him down, differently the stream and the cistern, the pumpkin and the banana tasted. Short were the days, short the nights, every hour sped swiftly away like a sail on the sea, and under the sail was a ship full of treasures, full of joy.</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Shortly after he begins to encounter women (in dreams and reality) and has a few sexual experiences leading up to going into the city for the first time, and second meeting with Kamala (which means lotus and is associated with the goddess of wealth also known as Lakshmi), who becomes his lover for many years and eventually has his child. Siddhartha characterizes his time with Kamala as a "learning experience", as he learns how to be a lover:</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">She beckoned him with her eyes, he tilted his head so that his face touched hers and placed his mouth on that mouth which was like a freshly cracked fig. For a long time, Kamala kissed him, and with a deep astonishment Siddhartha felt how she taught him, how wise she was, how she controlled him, rejected him, lured him, and how after this first one there was to be a long, a well ordered, well tested sequence of kisses, everyone different from the others, he was still to receive. Breathing deeply, he remained standing where he was, and was in this moment astonished like a child about the cornucopia of knowledge and things worth learning, which revealed itself before his eyes.</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">There is a price to be paid to be with a beautiful woman like Kamala, and she informs him that he will have to have nice things if he wants to be with her. Even despite this she is still attracted to him for his poetry. Fortunately, his skill and education can also be put to profitable use.</span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Relating this back to the German context for a moment, Hesse seems to be reflecting the sexual mores of bourgeois society and its attachment to materialism, but also showing the openness of this society for those who are educated. Siddhartha goes on not to become a starving poet but a rich and successful person. If this were modern times we would say Siddhartha got a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-collar_worker"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">"white collar"</span></a> job, when he goes to work with the merchant:</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"Very beautiful are your verses," exclaimed Kamala, "if I was rich, I would give you pieces of gold for them. But it will be difficult for you to earn thus much money with verses as you need. For you need a lot of money, if you want to be Kamala's friend."</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"The way you're able to kiss, Kamala!" stammered Siddhartha.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"Yes, this I am able to do, therefore I do not lack clothes, shoes, bracelets, and all beautiful things. But what will become of you? Aren't you able to do anything else but thinking, fasting, making poetry?"</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"I also know the sacrificial songs," said Siddhartha, "but I do not want to sing them any more. I also know magic spells, but I do not want to speak them any more. I have read the scriptures—"</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"Stop," Kamala interrupted him. "You're able to read? And write?"</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"Certainly, I can do this. Many people can do this."</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"Most people can't. I also can't do it. It is very good that you're able to read and write, very good. You will also still find use for the magic spells."</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">This leads Siddhartha to go to work with Kamaswami the richest merchant in the city. He learns how to trade is done, and he learns the values and ethics of the rich but he remains detached from it, something which annoys his benefactor to no end. Kamaswami cannot stand how carefree Siddhartha is, how unconcerned he is with money, how freely he spends his time instead of focusing on business. Besides the merchant, Siddhartha seems to enjoy observing people, an experience which fills him with both love and disgust with the things he observes:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Indeed his soul was not with the trade. The business was good enough to provide him with the money for Kamala, and it earned him much more than he needed. Besides from this, Siddhartha's interest and curiosity was only concerned with the people, whose businesses, crafts, worries, pleasures, and acts of foolishness used to be as alien and distant to him as the moon. However easily he succeeded in talking to all of them, in living with all of them, in learning from all of them, he was still aware that there was something which separated him from them and this separating factor was him being a Samana. He saw mankind going through life in a childlike or animallike manner, which he loved and also despised at the same time. He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honoured, he saw them scolding and insulting each other, he saw them complaining about pain at which a Samana would only smile, and suffering because of deprivations which a Samana would not feel.</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">However as the years go by, Siddhartha begins to assume some of the qualities of these "child-like people":</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Just slowly, among his growing riches, Siddhartha had assumed something of the childlike people's ways for himself, something of their childlikeness and of their fearfulness. And yet, he envied them, envied them just the more, the more similar he became to them. He envied them for the one thing that was missing from him and that they had, the importance they were able to attach to their lives, the amount of passion in their joys and fears, the fearful but sweet happiness of being constantly in love. These people were all of the time in love with themselves, with women, with their children, with honours or money, with plans or hopes. But he did not learn this from them, this out of all things, this joy of a child and this foolishness of a child; he learned from them out of all things the unpleasant ones, which he himself despised. It happened more and more often that, in the morning after having had company the night before, he stayed in bed for a long time, felt unable to think and tired. It happened that he became angry and impatient, when Kamaswami bored him with his worries. It happened that he laughed just too loud, when he lost a game of dice. His face was still smarter and more spiritual than others, but it rarely laughed, and assumed, one after another, those features which are so often found in the faces of rich people, those features of discontent, of sickliness, of ill-humour, of sloth, of a lack of love. Slowly the disease of the soul, which rich people have, grabbed hold of him.</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">This behavior escalates and eventually Siddhartha loses all trace of his previous spiritual enlightenment and sinks into the worst excesses of the world around him. This marks a very powerful theme which tends to characterize almost all religion and philosophy: the corrupting tendencies of the sensual world around us. Things have come full circle from the world of Beauty that Siddhartha was celebrating previously, now the sensual world around him is seen as a negative, and a poisonous influence on him. But which is more real? That the physical world is the world of sensual beauty or the physical world is corrupting and distracting? This leads him to leave the city and his lover. He wanders off into the wilderness and overcome by despair and emptiness he contemplate suicide!:</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">A hang bent over the bank of the river, a coconut-tree; Siddhartha leaned against its trunk with his shoulder, embraced the trunk with one arm, and looked down into the green water, which ran and ran under him, looked down and found himself to be entirely filled with the wish to let go and to drown in these waters. A frightening emptiness was reflected back at him by the water, answering to the terrible emptiness in his soul. Yes, he had reached the end. There was nothing left for him, except to annihilate himself, except to smash the failure into which he had shaped his life, to throw it away, before the feet of mockingly laughing gods. This was the great vomiting he had longed for: death, the smashing to bits of the form he hated! Let him be food for fishes, this dog Siddhartha, this lunatic, this depraved and rotten body, this weakened and abused soul! Let him be food for fishes and crocodiles, let him be chopped to bits by the daemons!</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Siddhartha stops himself at the last moment and falls asleep. When he awakes he feels different and has what could be loosely called a very mystical experience with the river where he previously considered drowning himself in. He is reunited briefly with Govinda who watched over him while he was sleeping even though Govinda did not recognize him at first. Siddhartha speaks to Govinda and this leads him to "reflect" on his experiences up until then. And now you see here the purpose of reflection and now you have something to compare yourselves to when you write your own reflection papers. Reflecting is like taking stock of your experiences and trying to analyze what you have learned so far:</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Wondrous indeed was my life, so he thought, wondrous detours it has taken. As I boy, I had only to do with gods and offerings. As a youth, I had only to do with asceticism, with thinking and meditation, was searching for Brahman, worshipped the eternal in the Atman. But as a young man, I followed the penitents, lived in the forest, suffered of heat and frost, learned to hunger, taught my body to become dead. Wonderfully, soon afterwards, insight came towards me in the form of the great Buddha's teachings, I felt the knowledge of the oneness of the world circling in me like my own blood. But I also had to leave Buddha and the great knowledge. I went and learned the art of love with Kamala, learned trading with Kamaswami, piled up money, wasted money, learned to love my stomach, learned to please my senses. I had to spend many years losing my spirit, to unlearn thinking again, to forget the oneness. Isn't it just as if I had turned slowly and on a long detour from a man into a child, from a thinker into a childlike person? And yet, this path has been very good; and yet, the bird in my chest has not died. But what a path has this been! I had to pass through so much stupidity, through so much vices, through so many errors, through so much disgust and disappointments and woe, just to become a child again and to be able to start over. But it was right so, my heart says "Yes" to it, my eyes smile to it. I've had to experience despair, I've had to sink down to the most foolish one of all thoughts, to the thought of suicide, in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear Om again, to be able to sleep properly and awake properly again. I had to become a fool, to find Atman in me again. I had to sin, to be able to live again. Where else might my path lead me to? It is foolish, this path, it moves in loops, perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let it go as it likes, I want to to take it.</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Even more than this though, Siddhartha begins to see the river of representing something else, as representing the fullness of existence, something which cannot be taught but experienced. He confides his experiences to the ferryman he encountered when he first began his journey decades ago when still a young man (remember by this point Siddhartha is middleaged). The ferryman, Vasudeva (the name of the father of Krishna), has long ago realized the kind of truth that Siddhartha is only beginning to understand, and he has learned it only by traveling on the river not through any teaching:</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"Did you," so he asked him at one time, "did you too learn that secret from the river: that there is no time?"</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Vasudeva's face was filled with a bright smile.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"Yes, Siddhartha," he spoke. "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?"</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"This it is," said Siddhartha. "And when I had learned it, I looked at my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a shadow, not by something real. Also, Siddhartha's previous births were no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present."</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Siddhartha spoke with ecstasy; deeply, this enlightenment had delighted him. Oh, was not all suffering time, were not all forms of tormenting oneself and being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything hostile in the world gone and overcome as soon as one had overcome time, as soon as time would have been put out of existence by one's thoughts? In ecstatic delight, he had spoken, but Vasudeva smiled at him brightly and nodded in confirmation; silently he nodded, brushed his hand over Siddhartha's shoulder, turned back to his work.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">And once again, when the river had just increased its flow in the rainy season and made a powerful noise, then said Siddhartha: "Isn't it so, oh friend, the river has many voices, very many voices? Hasn't it the voice of a king, and of a warrior, and of a bull, and of a bird of the night, and of a woman giving birth, and of a sighing man, and a thousand other voices more?"</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"So it is," Vasudeva nodded, "all voices of the creatures are in its voice."</span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"And do you know," Siddhartha continued, "what word it speaks, when you succeed in hearing all of its ten thousand voices at once?"</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Siddhartha learns to love the childlike people he encounters and starts to see an inner nobility to their seemingly insignificant struggles. His newfound life working on the ferry with Vasudeva seems to be good for him. He is free now from the lustful desires he felt while being in the city, but he does not live the life of a priest anymore but lives essentially with the river. This leads him to feel a sense of oneness with the world. This feeling has been described by psychologists as an </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_feeling" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"oceanic feeling"</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">--note also the use of water imagery:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him, was shining back at him from Vasudeva's old, childlike face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, oneness.</span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The oneness of the world cannot be expressed in language because language cannot properly describe experience as you actually experience it, which is why it cannot be taught, which echoes what Siddhartha said in his encounter with Buddha earlier:</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">I'm not kidding. I'm telling you what I've found. Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard as a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness. When the exalted Gotama spoke in his teachings of the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently, there is no other way for him who wants to teach. But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided. A person or an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this, because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real. Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often again. And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception.</span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">During the years he spends with Vasudeva, he is reunited with Kamala who later dies from a snakebite, and encounters his own son who later leaves him and presumably begins his own life in the city. Siddhartha attempts to find him at first but later gives up after he realizes that his son has his own journey and his own life to live. He stays with Vasudeva until he Vasudeva goes into the woods to begin the next and probably final stage of his own life. As he is leaving, Siddhartha begins to suspect that the ferryman is a god or the river itself which is speaking to him. At the end of the book, Siddhartha encounters Govinda again. The Buddha who Govinda has followed since they encountered him when they were young is dying and supposed to ending the last of his human lives. Siddhartha repeats his theory that whatever truth the Buddha has experienced can only be experienced and not be taught, and Govinda confesses that he has not come as far as Siddhartha. What seems to separate the two is that Siddhartha has lived the life of a sinner, and through this experience as well as his religious experiences he has learned and experienced the oneness of the universe:</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Listen well, my dear, listen well! The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha—and now see: these 'times to come' are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.—These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind.</span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">So the major themes at the end of the book seems to be that language cannot communicate the fulness of the universe which needs to be experienced and the oneness of the self with the universe which implies that time and even space are not real. The river serves as a metaphor for the universe, it is the same but paradoxically it always changing at the same time (Water also has symbolic and philosophic meaning but we won't go into that right now). But is this just another way of putting some kind of transcendent meaning back into the world–something which nihilism is opposed to? The nihilistic response is that there is no unity between the self and the universe, that self is instead "alienated" from the universe, and that fundamentally the universe is a hostile and dangerous place, power is the only thing that matters. In the context of post-WWI Germany it can be understood why people would accept this belief, just as it is understandable that writers like Hesse would want to reject it, but are they denying reality?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Also, how do you evaluate Siddhartha's "philosophy of detachment?" Siddhartha seems reconciled with the world but he also seems to have no inclination to change it. Germany at this period of time was going through a period of tremendous instability, street fighting was common, and many groups were calling for revolution. Hesse, speaking through Siddhartha, seems to express a conservative tendency to want to preserve society as it is, and a sense of exhaustion from years of political struggle. Still Hesse seems to show some ambiguity even with Siddhartha's detachment, for example with his son, it is unclear if Siddhartha's detachment from family is an improvement. He also leaves his father never to see him again. Does detachment such as this lead to a lack of emotion in general and a reduced capacity to enter into relationships with people? Is detachment even from family a necessary part of life? On the other hand his close friendship with Govinda seems to last through decades.</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I started off by suggesting that their is a strong interest in Eastern religion and philosophy that stems from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenchantment" target="_blank">disenchantment</a> with Western religion, but are the causes that lead to disenchantment with Western religion also applicable to Eastern religion? Isn't it only substituting one body of myths and superstitions for another? Or is Hesse on to something more here? The issue isn't whether you go to a church or a temple or practice one thing over another, but can you have any kind of belief that suggests there is some connection or some purpose underlying the whole universe or is there nothing?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">For the next few classes we will be watching a series of expressionist films. There are no required readings except for the posted lecture. </span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: left;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>Assignment Due 2/21</u>: For the next assignment please choose a passage from the book that interests you. Once you have chosen a passage please do the following and post it on your blog. 1) Write out the passage; 2) Explain the meaning of the passage; 3) Explain why this passage is important to you.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-85875637018161255682015-02-07T17:39:00.000-05:002015-02-07T15:33:10.287-05:002/7 Expressionism, Dadaism, "New Objectivity"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Welcome everyone. Like I said in the introduction and the syllabus this website will be where the class lectures are posted. From here on, students should try to have all the readings and assignments done <u>before</u> the lecture. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In the last class, I explained the basic history of the term nihilism and some German history up to World War I which began on July 28, 1914 and ended on November 11, 1918, this date is now commemorated as Veterans Day in the U.S. The main part of this course, however, we will be looking at the period of time roughly in between World War I and World War II (1918-1939), although we will talk about events during both of these wars as well. The idea being that since these wars are generally considered to be the two most destructive and cataclysmic events in history, the period of time in between these two events might shed some light on these wars themselves, and might reveal something about humanity in general. How did people react to the end of the first world war which left 8 million people dead, and over 20 million wounded? What forces pushed the world into a second war, even more deadly than the first, only twenty years later? These are two questions to keep in mind as we approach all of the topics of the class. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Nihilism is both cause and effect of these events, what are the ways in which nihilism shows itself? In other words, rather than an abstract, philosophical concept you define in a dictionary or encyclopedia, what are the concrete manifestations in which this idea takes shape. One key area is in art, so for the first part of the course we will be looking at different artistic and cultural objectifications of nihilism. In this class we will be discussing several styles of painting: naturalism, impressionism, expressionism, dadaism, and "new objectivity," although we will spend most of out time discussing the latter three it is important to understand what came before these styles as well.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Around the turn of the 20th century, a new distinctly German school of art, Expressionism, was developing and gaining attention. French artists had dominated the 19th century, but now as if to mirror to rise of Germany as an imperial power, its art and culture were beginning to develop and gain more of an influence in the world.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The term "expressionism" is meant to refer to the artist's expression of their soul in the painting. This is contrast to artistic schools which favor realism and naturalistic depictions of art. Ironically, the development of photography in the late 19th century made the demand for naturalistic depictions of art somewhat obsolete, thus in a sense, freeing artists to pursue other means of using color and line (the foundations of painting). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">For example, the influence of photograph-like "naturalism" is evident in the work of 19th century painters like Édouard Manet (1832-1883).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGTpFS0pGQVUQY4WlKknNLaIKQYy68ppyOGHn34K8ua7lsj5T2M7EfIm80jk3E1sslLL0q6OsMu4JCZ8_RsLQgun81-C5m5JsbyvHjuL3N4OMI5akKaaMZqRMcM8cgXJxzBb-cEiXQ2pc/s1600/Edouard_Manet_061.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGTpFS0pGQVUQY4WlKknNLaIKQYy68ppyOGHn34K8ua7lsj5T2M7EfIm80jk3E1sslLL0q6OsMu4JCZ8_RsLQgun81-C5m5JsbyvHjuL3N4OMI5akKaaMZqRMcM8cgXJxzBb-cEiXQ2pc/s400/Edouard_Manet_061.jpeg" height="400" width="311" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Spanish Singer," Manet, 1860</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nGV6VLwn5-ZV-0_Af727t9Nn1w32wbJJHCreufoJdZNPE_icH1DDbGINfgRf5RxVKZX6w15Of-HqiZzQ2s3MuB2ew_3nhgMedHnWvvIdvJ4pgUoA5tF7wXYqJGd40ELihduk2Aj1dJc/s1600/Still_Life_with_Melon_and_Peaches.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nGV6VLwn5-ZV-0_Af727t9Nn1w32wbJJHCreufoJdZNPE_icH1DDbGINfgRf5RxVKZX6w15Of-HqiZzQ2s3MuB2ew_3nhgMedHnWvvIdvJ4pgUoA5tF7wXYqJGd40ELihduk2Aj1dJc/s400/Still_Life_with_Melon_and_Peaches.jpeg" height="283" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Still Life with Melons and Peaches," Manet, 1866</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4JiW5eHFldALNcgFohRuvcvyEQ_fOOUqtRx0CBJHgL6u3LZ2dx_EI8RmN5rGVeKA8nESuYMS72VSDL1NiTk-YXy1CW4ieSxoBZF42t5wlfw7wi5I-hqoR2S5F4OVpvIKhSIcj5C3wCzM/s1600/Edouard_Manet_Boating.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4JiW5eHFldALNcgFohRuvcvyEQ_fOOUqtRx0CBJHgL6u3LZ2dx_EI8RmN5rGVeKA8nESuYMS72VSDL1NiTk-YXy1CW4ieSxoBZF42t5wlfw7wi5I-hqoR2S5F4OVpvIKhSIcj5C3wCzM/s400/Edouard_Manet_Boating.jpeg" height="301" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Boating," Manet, 1874</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Cw9QEtikypbEJdOUGlZE11L4nWce5yG9t5s4Pa7zBDB27c0GYetbsBt5_DmRjTvrCQGIgAzlH99N-cHuJ0zQUnEn4As3h9TNVtGZDdSC7poNF23wY1cK72fba4ymoWLR5NC65qicewI/s1600/Edouard_Manet_064.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Cw9QEtikypbEJdOUGlZE11L4nWce5yG9t5s4Pa7zBDB27c0GYetbsBt5_DmRjTvrCQGIgAzlH99N-cHuJ0zQUnEn4As3h9TNVtGZDdSC7poNF23wY1cK72fba4ymoWLR5NC65qicewI/s400/Edouard_Manet_064.jpeg" height="400" width="327" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Still Life, Lilacs and Roses," Manet, 1883</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> Here you can see the influence of both "naturalistic" looking portraits, and the impressionist style that experiments more with color, made most famous by Claude Monet (1840-1926).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaegH_8e-QjZ2gk4lRyC6M93c3L3IxT1GFBMR2sVhI6AjVYyOcz17TrkUAILz3cBLETituQhVb_eaaU9we16ggJgUi3QzuKAEGhOqRhROHeUNSXtjwjOT78datsWzhpS9aMhL1tjIljHU/s1600/Claude_Monet%252C_Impression%252C_soleil_levant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaegH_8e-QjZ2gk4lRyC6M93c3L3IxT1GFBMR2sVhI6AjVYyOcz17TrkUAILz3cBLETituQhVb_eaaU9we16ggJgUi3QzuKAEGhOqRhROHeUNSXtjwjOT78datsWzhpS9aMhL1tjIljHU/s1600/Claude_Monet%252C_Impression%252C_soleil_levant.jpg" height="311" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Impression, Sunrise," Claude Monet, 1872</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWhaJ7s9a6bmwH4YSkWr3jbcKsR2lalWIPuPD64ZiPe2mTZnHFSngVfsZfoeRIkUH2i8g53_i09QLcxfStRXh8lj9qc5ejUJ6GvY4Kt6Z4UhQ_-iL48gPubhTc5qklGx4yXi6xe6xO5Ng/s1600/Claude_Monet,_Saint-Georges_majeur_au_cre%CC%81puscule.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWhaJ7s9a6bmwH4YSkWr3jbcKsR2lalWIPuPD64ZiPe2mTZnHFSngVfsZfoeRIkUH2i8g53_i09QLcxfStRXh8lj9qc5ejUJ6GvY4Kt6Z4UhQ_-iL48gPubhTc5qklGx4yXi6xe6xO5Ng/s1600/Claude_Monet,_Saint-Georges_majeur_au_cre%CC%81puscule.jpg" height="285" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk," Monet, 1908-12</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In a sense, expressionism is itself a transitional stage between art from the 19th century and abstract art of the 20th century, which developed out of expressionism.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggG7qGVhT6Yopk55cj-QMeZQ2JMB8whPHWt7hyQ5gUT1wHMnqSB9FcvzwbxoFjXKJKyh1HJqtf2ie2qj7ealyVKNeXDQWHxu6a0LkmRY3k0uWTFmaF2DGcBB5XCv1_ApeRus4Iuk0s3Q/s1600/pollock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggG7qGVhT6Yopk55cj-QMeZQ2JMB8whPHWt7hyQ5gUT1wHMnqSB9FcvzwbxoFjXKJKyh1HJqtf2ie2qj7ealyVKNeXDQWHxu6a0LkmRY3k0uWTFmaF2DGcBB5XCv1_ApeRus4Iuk0s3Q/s400/pollock.jpg" height="400" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"No. 5, 1948" Jackson Pollock, 1950</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> The roots of expressionism are seen in artists, sometimes called "post-impressionists" like Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) and Edvard Munch (1863-1944). They were a strong influence on</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> younger expressionist artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938). What they all had in common is they</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> were known for their self-expression over formalism and photographic realism and the visual style of expressionism: dreamy, moody, somber. Expressionists also wanted to draw on local customs and traditions, and helped popularize "woodcuts," portraits that are literally carved out of wood as a way of connecting with "folk traditions." In other words expressionist art in many ways represents the "Dionysian" influence that Nietzsche identified in Greek culture, and the classically influenced art of naturalism represents the "Apollonian" influence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Post-Impressionism: Van Gogh & Munch</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXJC9q9MAYVpyPI28JobIK_bXCR9Mp1NyAQl7NjP69zxVB7fR3OGY9sBT4t890LQ93cKaEgjJxDd-smz5VNBmzDQh2PrWFoT0fjiyHIFtty_9SC1f1i6ZkoKNxa_TKEWyjHg_pNbXtzU/s1600/VanGogh-starry_night_ballance1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXJC9q9MAYVpyPI28JobIK_bXCR9Mp1NyAQl7NjP69zxVB7fR3OGY9sBT4t890LQ93cKaEgjJxDd-smz5VNBmzDQh2PrWFoT0fjiyHIFtty_9SC1f1i6ZkoKNxa_TKEWyjHg_pNbXtzU/s400/VanGogh-starry_night_ballance1.jpeg" height="321" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The Starry Night," Vincent van Gogh, 1889</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPyzHUKA_uwBCnsgYOnqO41oKjtRguM0nVT2GM7HQMUZ1sie9CantkP5VAQm2xyLkOPIAByjMiSffmBAmFXDiKdLdD6pkw9LcmIlQ7EXts5kSPXYC7E8Sn0GJRbzRfhDQFSJ4HF9yhX7o/s1600/20100830193250!The_Scream.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPyzHUKA_uwBCnsgYOnqO41oKjtRguM0nVT2GM7HQMUZ1sie9CantkP5VAQm2xyLkOPIAByjMiSffmBAmFXDiKdLdD6pkw9LcmIlQ7EXts5kSPXYC7E8Sn0GJRbzRfhDQFSJ4HF9yhX7o/s400/20100830193250!The_Scream.jpeg" height="400" width="313" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">"The Scream," Edvard Munch, 1893</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBV065gzKYrYmahDrG8azRJLy2ICA_W_1_o5GIZhqXO5mrn-RZHgzb9cDhnNslnukvpMmSET3qNRuC8bNmBHgg-9soKq42kVEnL4JQobKyQS_EkxY74m8HL5cMt29pqFmIOK1SuZQZv8/s1600/Nietzsche-munch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBV065gzKYrYmahDrG8azRJLy2ICA_W_1_o5GIZhqXO5mrn-RZHgzb9cDhnNslnukvpMmSET3qNRuC8bNmBHgg-9soKq42kVEnL4JQobKyQS_EkxY74m8HL5cMt29pqFmIOK1SuZQZv8/s1600/Nietzsche-munch.jpg" height="400" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche," Edvard Munch, 1906</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Expressionism can be further broken down into two schools: <i>Die Brücke</i> (The Bridge) and <i>Der Blaue Reiter</i> (The Blue Rider)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Expressionists (Die Brücke): Kirchner, Nolde</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzMPe1BrkQFYwIw3osqloNG1DqGNGVHdu7EdeOQJFekLmwevwF-4NWxZBcAyecLUfgLnS_wBXwSLLNatGA6hsWk5EUiM8q-tAPfyiFlGgMSSkaX78GbTlBLlfA31_XxEtJhpqNqKKh0VQ/s1600/kirchner.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzMPe1BrkQFYwIw3osqloNG1DqGNGVHdu7EdeOQJFekLmwevwF-4NWxZBcAyecLUfgLnS_wBXwSLLNatGA6hsWk5EUiM8q-tAPfyiFlGgMSSkaX78GbTlBLlfA31_XxEtJhpqNqKKh0VQ/s400/kirchner.jpeg" height="330" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">"Davos under Snow," Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1923</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH9cTIo7yhdP4c1xOeUpvffxMB2mMKHJkp9bx5d6daxVuUP-Qsm1aeUT5mitRmHtEHtAgLQg6I5R6g1QtQNZq0o17HMB2GSeNf2rsF-OY5WqfPJSVh9boAIQ_cbNGW6z8yMzRuBt3mnyY/s1600/'The_Prophet'%2C_woodcut_by_Emil_Nolde%2C_1912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH9cTIo7yhdP4c1xOeUpvffxMB2mMKHJkp9bx5d6daxVuUP-Qsm1aeUT5mitRmHtEHtAgLQg6I5R6g1QtQNZq0o17HMB2GSeNf2rsF-OY5WqfPJSVh9boAIQ_cbNGW6z8yMzRuBt3mnyY/s1600/'The_Prophet'%2C_woodcut_by_Emil_Nolde%2C_1912.jpg" height="400" width="280" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The Prophet," Emil Nolde, 1912 [woodcut]</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Expressionists (Der Blaue Reiter): Kandinsky, Marc</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBttLTFrT5LlDBhOnMLH2lY1nH6IhnTWyPpJne3Qy8nNy5P-NsDOcvfoMaKmGoknWc4mm0BrdFyR-pIXossoZfohZAsjbfS_xJJrhmgVj0TfRj4bKZ1zxCgZEPE7FxL8M-QQdsroFIl3I/s1600/Kandinsky-Blue_Rider.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBttLTFrT5LlDBhOnMLH2lY1nH6IhnTWyPpJne3Qy8nNy5P-NsDOcvfoMaKmGoknWc4mm0BrdFyR-pIXossoZfohZAsjbfS_xJJrhmgVj0TfRj4bKZ1zxCgZEPE7FxL8M-QQdsroFIl3I/s1600/Kandinsky-Blue_Rider.jpg" height="375" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Der Blaue Reiter," Wassily Kandinsky, 1903</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg45eGG1ssGGX4vAgwW3VerjGXJI7Gc7we3KqIGngKtFnGNkasR5bNfPEYB2xHrJTweD6EV-XaUZnvwypAhmHgG1BxDwkgzkN8gCXRca0JRLBFoAVz3PrqimeouO7Gv7omvRfdKW-GzgiM/s1600/Marc,_Franz_-_Blue_Horse_I_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg45eGG1ssGGX4vAgwW3VerjGXJI7Gc7we3KqIGngKtFnGNkasR5bNfPEYB2xHrJTweD6EV-XaUZnvwypAhmHgG1BxDwkgzkN8gCXRca0JRLBFoAVz3PrqimeouO7Gv7omvRfdKW-GzgiM/s1600/Marc,_Franz_-_Blue_Horse_I_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" height="400" width="301" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Blue Horse I," Franz Marc, 1911</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Kandinsky (1866-1944) would later go on to paint the some of the first truly abstract paintings and later taught at the German Bauhaus school along with Paul Klee (1879-1940), who was also loosely affiliated with Der Blaue Reiter.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuLfwiQ7OqDXSA7tLdaekBYn0T8X6f6Gkrt-T3cVJWMgo6yR4zTHNiDedFIiHW_A0jVbU0A1FG92gerM59eHF1bLVBhjHEV1fcuUGIZk_wKAta1zGYr1K0T1FVHmrn3YhAezgyYQD1HOA/s1600/Wassily_Kandinsky,_1920_-_Points.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuLfwiQ7OqDXSA7tLdaekBYn0T8X6f6Gkrt-T3cVJWMgo6yR4zTHNiDedFIiHW_A0jVbU0A1FG92gerM59eHF1bLVBhjHEV1fcuUGIZk_wKAta1zGYr1K0T1FVHmrn3YhAezgyYQD1HOA/s1600/Wassily_Kandinsky,_1920_-_Points.jpg" height="400" width="331" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Points," Wassily Kandinsky, 1920</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fIyxqGpUYGjzw7IA-lmDaEzBO8N9O9JIekixc64bVqkuBWdDxHXWwTU3SpHd60ILjAE4iUvyzhethhswgjhGF7e-feW5mmxUwQzb407WZ100SZ3979NGDsCrU3HOwO_cAPFIAYcOlz0/s1600/Red_Balloon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fIyxqGpUYGjzw7IA-lmDaEzBO8N9O9JIekixc64bVqkuBWdDxHXWwTU3SpHd60ILjAE4iUvyzhethhswgjhGF7e-feW5mmxUwQzb407WZ100SZ3979NGDsCrU3HOwO_cAPFIAYcOlz0/s1600/Red_Balloon.JPG" height="400" width="382" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Red Balloon," Paul Klee, 1922</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Artistic movements though do not exist in isolation from social forces but are connected to them as moments in a larger social process. Although technological developments like the invention of photography may have caused changes in the visual style of painting, the development of photography itself was one aspect of all the overall direction of "modernization" that many European states were still going through in the later 19th century. Modernization can be understood as the process of moving from a more rural and agricultural society to a larger and more industrial and urbanized society. In other words, art reflects the social conditions in which it is produced. The isolation in expressionist art suggests a sense of isolation felt by individuals in modern society. The trauma of the war however created an entirely new form of artistic expression, known as Dadaism.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: normal; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDsE9HXwys15gegSk1ZsvznXBoxp5bDN7qlq72zJat3YNVj_ZQ6homg8ftIQGJ-N0W4GRUj74SZhwiEBjzAfxRoeiUtv35AU6LH5FCUviN5P8e5koOnCxqW5UTy2P53tYs37gDxE6djDA/s1600/dada_berlin_08.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDsE9HXwys15gegSk1ZsvznXBoxp5bDN7qlq72zJat3YNVj_ZQ6homg8ftIQGJ-N0W4GRUj74SZhwiEBjzAfxRoeiUtv35AU6LH5FCUviN5P8e5koOnCxqW5UTy2P53tYs37gDxE6djDA/s400/dada_berlin_08.jpeg" height="400" width="317" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px;"><br /></span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px;">"</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15px;">Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px;">," </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px;">Hannah Höch, </span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 15px;">1919</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgel09k-vtFZ8JxCk5QOCcd0JZ2tDZbJnvcEA8SJD-L8_VEvgn0KRd5w_2iukGa7sJBHVnd32Az0Uyb2dR59oeQq__L53AWA4RDoGrLDNzoJC13GjOd2bmMm51zuNOZuwpjZWnN9_OqfgE/s1600/Republican_Automatons_George_Grosz_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgel09k-vtFZ8JxCk5QOCcd0JZ2tDZbJnvcEA8SJD-L8_VEvgn0KRd5w_2iukGa7sJBHVnd32Az0Uyb2dR59oeQq__L53AWA4RDoGrLDNzoJC13GjOd2bmMm51zuNOZuwpjZWnN9_OqfgE/s1600/Republican_Automatons_George_Grosz_1920.jpg" height="400" width="306" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Republican Automatons," George Grosz, 1920</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHdA0JrDZVgX4keNwvxDFDlc05HohV64SmlFu0HDrCe2u72WNELzzDblAcqeyDQQkOxsjNWJ5jnbrSsN92jlxVTsNtG3U5Yr2tjBoqfZea-Jc3gWVt5Zjb1x5mDk310L3AfSvg8rsMSA/s1600/ABCD-Hausmann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHdA0JrDZVgX4keNwvxDFDlc05HohV64SmlFu0HDrCe2u72WNELzzDblAcqeyDQQkOxsjNWJ5jnbrSsN92jlxVTsNtG3U5Yr2tjBoqfZea-Jc3gWVt5Zjb1x5mDk310L3AfSvg8rsMSA/s1600/ABCD-Hausmann.jpg" height="400" width="271" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"ABCD," Raoul Hausmann, 1923-24</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga8mnwgOD7CFXc1NLvncJRiHDSBLNyDPPXUxaIy8pHR7MgM0QTKA98k5dFu76JZhk-He4XS7Fujnpgd4zwFYBEz8O1I5ECO-wGvnbqu8M8H5U_OcYjqDkDSHmngtsprvHApt-5XTJ5oX8/s1600/pillars-of-society-by-george-grosz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga8mnwgOD7CFXc1NLvncJRiHDSBLNyDPPXUxaIy8pHR7MgM0QTKA98k5dFu76JZhk-He4XS7Fujnpgd4zwFYBEz8O1I5ECO-wGvnbqu8M8H5U_OcYjqDkDSHmngtsprvHApt-5XTJ5oX8/s1600/pillars-of-society-by-george-grosz.jpg" height="400" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Pillars of Society," George Grosz, 1926</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA_Xb81HZNJRVsfv6tQ7aa8e2WR-SDAUH4qNnENfhZk5Hkxoq2zHvrmKg-xCX6OATItqLkFwo67KbMepgfdBjyzlQdphJXNCG8NeHRsaim_lJbETwXwn0lrsi1WQBYHPERhe6oiaVNyLE/s1600/adolf_the_superman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA_Xb81HZNJRVsfv6tQ7aa8e2WR-SDAUH4qNnENfhZk5Hkxoq2zHvrmKg-xCX6OATItqLkFwo67KbMepgfdBjyzlQdphJXNCG8NeHRsaim_lJbETwXwn0lrsi1WQBYHPERhe6oiaVNyLE/s1600/adolf_the_superman.jpg" height="400" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Adolf the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk," John Heartfield, 1932</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx-DXauaqlY1CTV9O049LVef9fLcFeQAFf_RhUZYnRip8PgVStEiSDYMcv3GtRUGtmHLigUjzxrz0MioFAF6ClJaOJOPZYTYjBLKJrZUYhHUo2UB84wn0AQ1F0m4Qi5A5Mp1HlUf64Rng/s1600/grosz16.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx-DXauaqlY1CTV9O049LVef9fLcFeQAFf_RhUZYnRip8PgVStEiSDYMcv3GtRUGtmHLigUjzxrz0MioFAF6ClJaOJOPZYTYjBLKJrZUYhHUo2UB84wn0AQ1F0m4Qi5A5Mp1HlUf64Rng/s400/grosz16.jpeg" height="400" width="286" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"People," George Grosz, 1919</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY74N9sbhEmh5tetJKhe_aOgsqQ2LUAQS62RIwK2I_PbvN3iIeqTRQmIX8FCz5zvEI0TFzAfrTUw1vCJVPrbgdVcsWYR5NV8n8icWk0Myw5-KNCx3w4p3G4ETSMqB9oJGcp3GaFafb7ag/s1600/1178.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY74N9sbhEmh5tetJKhe_aOgsqQ2LUAQS62RIwK2I_PbvN3iIeqTRQmIX8FCz5zvEI0TFzAfrTUw1vCJVPrbgdVcsWYR5NV8n8icWk0Myw5-KNCx3w4p3G4ETSMqB9oJGcp3GaFafb7ag/s400/1178.jpeg" height="400" width="275" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The Hand has Five Fingers," John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld), <i> </i>1928</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLNDdgbSUmJxAuwVj4QMtCJ8690k-mGukRmP8PdYZ3vOg_FTnLYvzx7dD0nzvUXW7mVV4IbuPSGzBBXH4D4ZbMn3BwHuAXpEqaZZNPnIoj6ZHHMRf1l8ArNch88O7x7rqMnece0NwcNZQ/s1600/raoul-hausmann.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLNDdgbSUmJxAuwVj4QMtCJ8690k-mGukRmP8PdYZ3vOg_FTnLYvzx7dD0nzvUXW7mVV4IbuPSGzBBXH4D4ZbMn3BwHuAXpEqaZZNPnIoj6ZHHMRf1l8ArNch88O7x7rqMnece0NwcNZQ/s400/raoul-hausmann.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647893270759952578" style="display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 323px;" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;">"Dada Conquerors," Raoul Hausmann, 1920</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfZd7lC5e7kWS9ZxRrWX4iGlIMRI0NNvvQeG4qtM35TZ0qtEdvZCbWWjc_S1_2LdOn3ogjTT5PQx1_mp8Jq1hvyQJLqWBXpLgC5oH8qDYkoqrBw-q_b0CG-KBB6BPQws_e1cKSmIbhn9k/s1600/tumblr_m9arzgEd5W1qky223o1_1280.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfZd7lC5e7kWS9ZxRrWX4iGlIMRI0NNvvQeG4qtM35TZ0qtEdvZCbWWjc_S1_2LdOn3ogjTT5PQx1_mp8Jq1hvyQJLqWBXpLgC5oH8qDYkoqrBw-q_b0CG-KBB6BPQws_e1cKSmIbhn9k/s320/tumblr_m9arzgEd5W1qky223o1_1280.jpeg" height="320" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Trench Warfare," Otto Dix, 1932</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">The word "dada" is supposed to be a nonsense word, a word with no meaning. Dadaism as an artistic movement is supposed to play up the meaninglessness and absurdity of life–key nihilist themes. Although the movement itself began in Switzerland shortly after the beginning of World War I in 1914, different currents of "dada" sprang up throughout Europe and America. The movement became famous for its use of "photomontage" as a way of creating a fragmented experience of art, t</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">hat they believed reflected modern experience</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> and for its "anti-art" stance in favor of depictions of unpleasant even ugly pictures. In Germany, the dada movement was more consciously political than other dada movements.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Dadaism as a movement emerged out of the profound disillusionment that followed the outbreak of the first world war. It is hard to imagine but for at least 20 years before the actual outbreak of war, the threat of war was almost constant. In this context, Nietzsche's nihilistic writings about the decline of culture in modern civilization found favor, and even more so during and after World War I. However his "affirmation of life" also found favor as much as his critique of modern morals, especially the idea that cultural elites like artists can create new values–this especially had an influence on basically every German artist who came around after Nietzsche. However, Nietzsche's understanding of the socio-economic context in which he was living in was limited, although he had some understanding</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> that the inner contradictions of European culture and civilization was causing it to collapse in on itself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">What were some of these contradictions? For one, the system of <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook34.html"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">imperialism</span></a> that made up the economic foundation of many European powers like Great Britain and France was beginning to fall apart. Besides being at odds with the professed liberal values of these nations, the exploitative imperialist system helped create nationalist movements in many of the colonized European territories like in China, India and most directly related to the war itself in the Balkan regions once controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire that today comprise states like Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo–a region that is still plagued by ethnic conflict in the present. Maintaining possession of these territories was becoming increasingly more costly due to increased resistance from the local population, as well as increasing competition between the European powers themselves for control over these territories. A big reason why World War I was in fact a <i>world</i> war was because the European powers fought each other in Europe and in their overseas territories that spanned large parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands (South America was not really in the European sphere of power).</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">This is all more or less true about all the major European powers, but two things distinguish Germany from the other powers: 1) unlike Great Britain and France Germany developed much later. and 2) Germany had the largest and most advanced socialist movement and party in Europe. The second point especially is important to understanding how the Dada movement developed in Germany. Socialism also developed out of the French Revolution, but by far the most influential socialist thinker was <a href="http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Karl Marx</span></a>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">The movement really became a force to be reckoned with in German politics with the founding of the <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERsdp.htm" style="text-decoration: underline;">Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)</a> and associated trade unions. The movement focused primarily on improving the economic conditions of workers and winning political representation in parliament. Despite having a powerful party with strong popular support, the SPD threw its support in with the German imperialist government and endorsed the war and the German cause in 1914. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">So to bring this back to Dadaism and how it relates to Nihilism. Dada was an artistic movement that self-consciously styled itself as "anti-art" or art that defies conventional notions of artistic beauty and correctness. Dadaists spoke of the "untruth of style" arguing that stylized artistic products only mask the suffering of the oppressed. If life is ugly then art should be ugly too, they thought. In Germany especially, the dada movement that developed there sought to break away from:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> 1) German militarism and nationalism; </span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">2) German bourgeoisie (middle class) which had done little to stop the outbreak of war and in some cases sought to profit from it; </span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">3) German socialism which had comprised itself and betrayed its principles. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The artists that made up this movement found very little if anything in contemporary society worth preserving or saving. Their view was that German society was corrupt and built on exploitation and oppression and needed to be negated or destroyed before anything new could be created. Their art, or anti-art, then was to help accomplish this, their aim was to help the bases of German society by destroying the culture, that is by ridiculing it so much that people lose respect and their sense of obedience to authorities, and to expose people to shocking and even grotesque images in order to force an awareness of the ugly side of life.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> The sometimes shocking nature of dada is easier to understand if you understand how thoroughly disgusted they are with German society, especially after their hopes had been crushed by the 'betrayal' of the socialist party but in general with their disgust with the imperialist system Germany (and Europe) rested on. </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Another reason is that unlike the other European powers which had to suffer the consequences of the war, the full responsibility for the war was laid at Germany's doorstep. The peace treaty that ended the war, the <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005425"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Treaty of Versailles</span></a>, made it a requirement that Germany had to accept full responsibility for the </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">war, could not produce things for military use, and to pay off the war debts of the other nations. Obviously something like this had devastating c</span>onsequences for the German economy, it led to high unemployment, and high inflation, so much that German money, the "deutsche mark" was practically valueless, as this picture shows: the woman is actually burning German money because it was cheaper to do that than to use it to buy wood or coal. Inflation is when prices increase dramatically or “inflate”. There are many causes of inflation, one is when the value of the money decreases. The lower value of the money causes the price of goods to increase.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEMf1d4VBoTNG-Rxe2-oByqF0X0BYPFqK6-DZIlyO3evGd7G4lqxg_6yFTH9W5vGTetrNTkn_-MMLNyZ3eFYlJt_IQ_KiCx6K3wLhP0AboypmzQgjacVV6hdGtX6bFtMmgne-jpQUlN3E/s320/woman-burning-cash-for-heat.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647883270025514466" style="height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 234px;" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">circa 1923</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This also helped create one of the myths that Nazi's used when they seized power, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_legend"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">"stabbed in the back"</span></a> myth which stated that Germany didn't really lose the war, only their weak civilian authorities had comprised themselves. Throughout the 20s, art like this was in vogue in Germany, even though there was increased competition from newer media like film. However after 1933 when the Nazis began to crack down many artists were persecuted and many fled the country.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Dadaism was in part a reaction against the still high artistic standards of expressionism. Dadaism then sought to 'negate' or to 'cancel out' expressionism by becoming the opposite of expressionist art. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Despite being almost 100 years old a lot of the visual themes in Dada continue to be reused over and over again. For example take this video by the band Franz Ferdinand (ironically named after an Austrian heir to the Austrian empire whose assassination sparked the beginning of World War I). This was released in 2004 however if you look carefully it seems that the video copies many Dada styles. Cultural critics, many who grew up during the period we are looking at, argued that constant repetition and recycling of ideas endlessly repeating itself creates the impression in people that society as it is is unchangeable and permanent. They also argue that mass produced culture industries take away whatever critical or revolutionary message art has turning it into a consumable commodity instead. </span></span></div>
<div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ijk4j-r7qPA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">As I said in our last class, the expressionist painting style is still popular today. One of the most well-known of the "neoexpressionists" was Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0UF1wo96H30Wux6vVDoNd_C67S9Et1w9NQAwGKNe_7rZcU-IEisCBw7fL2GrAamzRPp2_njYjQ3Pmho-3p6FEZ8ABeJm0dQKbhnog3dPBx6f_s2iLDYxM9n72N8R-cELPiOuRY8ci70/s1600/004-jean-michel-basquiat-theredlist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0UF1wo96H30Wux6vVDoNd_C67S9Et1w9NQAwGKNe_7rZcU-IEisCBw7fL2GrAamzRPp2_njYjQ3Pmho-3p6FEZ8ABeJm0dQKbhnog3dPBx6f_s2iLDYxM9n72N8R-cELPiOuRY8ci70/s1600/004-jean-michel-basquiat-theredlist.jpg" height="336" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Untitled (Fallen Angel)," Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1981</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgELsPBKJtMLxye8NieNqbp_0eCicjtWSPkn_4nKHr13fmiLKr0WE2Qq6Gt9GRJfCCAYcdiA30s1N4ETmVjfUuiHv_Efgpfjt2tnxGFXIH0ZrYaH-bQitaY1dYUOTf2EbZpFv52GE9KOFc/s1600/Untitled_acrylic_and_mixed_media_on_canvas_by_--Jean-Michel_Basquiat--,_1984.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgELsPBKJtMLxye8NieNqbp_0eCicjtWSPkn_4nKHr13fmiLKr0WE2Qq6Gt9GRJfCCAYcdiA30s1N4ETmVjfUuiHv_Efgpfjt2tnxGFXIH0ZrYaH-bQitaY1dYUOTf2EbZpFv52GE9KOFc/s1600/Untitled_acrylic_and_mixed_media_on_canvas_by_--Jean-Michel_Basquiat--,_1984.jpg" height="400" width="332" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Untitled (Skull)," Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1984</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In contemporary art, there is a school which defines itself as "anti-anti-art" and is known as "Stuckism." The anti-anti-art approach, also known as "remodernization" seeks to re-infuse spiritual values in art, which they claim is now lacking in so-called "ugly art."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPLyFBrg0-tp4kMy0yMY1j5J2GkFUCU2eaS0xF79EMKxZlsFBw-ryV1v5j8z93L5sAXTH7-y6oDmbFkVfa1gaDW_FNB0vX_MfwS_Gue3C7pIOMYkWE2EQ6jsj6GQEy4_GojCYCxtp1fc/s1600/Childish,-The-Drinker-600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPLyFBrg0-tp4kMy0yMY1j5J2GkFUCU2eaS0xF79EMKxZlsFBw-ryV1v5j8z93L5sAXTH7-y6oDmbFkVfa1gaDW_FNB0vX_MfwS_Gue3C7pIOMYkWE2EQ6jsj6GQEy4_GojCYCxtp1fc/s1600/Childish,-The-Drinker-600.jpg" height="400" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The Drinker," Billy Childish, 1996</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1uSxXFLLfMXtIsdDIx6tvDE99sCW3Fvk_H1-vfO5kKNAZpBJj-jJ7ejD682ZO3e1Qvr-p0n7H7TFVmGfU6v7Kykoas7XnHVwHg9OoyyQvas9xuwNpybEcrgb1YuxolX5aHx257It4-Y0/s1600/Charles_Thomson._Sir_Nicholas_Serota_Makes_an_Acquisitions_Decision.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1uSxXFLLfMXtIsdDIx6tvDE99sCW3Fvk_H1-vfO5kKNAZpBJj-jJ7ejD682ZO3e1Qvr-p0n7H7TFVmGfU6v7Kykoas7XnHVwHg9OoyyQvas9xuwNpybEcrgb1YuxolX5aHx257It4-Y0/s1600/Charles_Thomson._Sir_Nicholas_Serota_Makes_an_Acquisitions_Decision.jpg" height="400" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"<span style="font-size: small;">Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision," Charles Thomson, 2000</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHW0FJS8YjfeV-5IKyOzAVRp_g4LkX365RQQpc2feXxs2RT7Gj42QRlE4tSJwhmJeCmLRFu3b1nZwwhRc-xZ4VxRit5Z6mRBpI2symHcoLMrtNfKtoP899_gMDx8mWRfRbkSE9DFAjR0/s1600/Jane_Kelly._Psychosis_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHW0FJS8YjfeV-5IKyOzAVRp_g4LkX365RQQpc2feXxs2RT7Gj42QRlE4tSJwhmJeCmLRFu3b1nZwwhRc-xZ4VxRit5Z6mRBpI2symHcoLMrtNfKtoP899_gMDx8mWRfRbkSE9DFAjR0/s1600/Jane_Kelly._Psychosis_1.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"If We Could Undo Psychosis I," Jane Kelly, 2000</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Dadaism and</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> the next major </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">artistic</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> movement combines features of both </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">expressionism</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> and dadaism in Germany: </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Neue Sachlichkeit </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">(New Objectivity). You will notice that even though I speak of expressionism, dadaism, and new objectivity separately, in reality there is overlap between all three. Once a certain cultural form has taken shape and is produced, it continues to be produced in most cases, even if newer forms have developed to "replace" the older form. Also, all of these art forms had influence in artistic forms besides painting like sculpture or even architecture. Later we will look at a few films that are "expressionist cinema," which also had a strong influence on Hollywood films.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As its name suggests, New Objectivity, this style distanced itself from the "emotionalism" of expressionism while keeping the idea that art should reflect a more in depth experience, while also retaining the dadaist's emphasis on breaking away from the traditions of the past (expressionists want to reconnect with traditions) but also rejecting the </span>calculated<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> ugliness and offensiveness of dadaism. The style of New Objectivity however was not confined to only painting. Various art forms tried to incorporate this unsteady synthesis between expressionist and dadaist ideas. The architectural style known as "Bauhaus" (literally "house of construction") was a product of this period as well. Guided by the idea that "less is more," Bauhaus architecture sought to create a modern experience of art that would integrate all the experiences of a person's life in the modern world.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW6fU6hRfgCtoLg8KI6Umcbs29Xx3drlkqsg8OhYVqqNIJfBfS_a50-wIWzxlKXYbIRxXhf4qCTJu12qNpNowQtaF7EO6Yh0vpsO8U6zRcotkAMBmzlcFnSQf4Jpdu4Nv_mPzixJ8a-fY/s1600/bauhaus02.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW6fU6hRfgCtoLg8KI6Umcbs29Xx3drlkqsg8OhYVqqNIJfBfS_a50-wIWzxlKXYbIRxXhf4qCTJu12qNpNowQtaF7EO6Yh0vpsO8U6zRcotkAMBmzlcFnSQf4Jpdu4Nv_mPzixJ8a-fY/s320/bauhaus02.jpeg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">Bauhaus School, Walter Gropius, 1925-26, Dessau, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany,</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
</div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">New Objectivity painting combined elements from both. Some artists like George Grosz were considered to be a part of both schools. By objectivity, the emphasis was to display things "as they really are" instead of the self-expressions of expressionism, but it also moved away from the more radical "anti-art" stance of dadaism and returned to somewhat more conventional depictions of form and figure. Historians usually divide the New Objectivity into two camps: the <i>verists</i>, (meaning the true, as in verify) and the </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>classicists</i>.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBtbGPfi5C8wBQNkxfqdZzcJiJX96D24V3q81Blis9knwPRqVw9B2Zbc_1QS0x9Xaf_lqDCiC0noFgFu2xqcc-OmM7ZIV-w82WgKpHaFlW259NiOhqR2eniuWB3oQw-2X_4btrFusmQmY/s1600/George_grosz-the_eclipse_of_the_sun.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBtbGPfi5C8wBQNkxfqdZzcJiJX96D24V3q81Blis9knwPRqVw9B2Zbc_1QS0x9Xaf_lqDCiC0noFgFu2xqcc-OmM7ZIV-w82WgKpHaFlW259NiOhqR2eniuWB3oQw-2X_4btrFusmQmY/s400/George_grosz-the_eclipse_of_the_sun.jpeg" height="400" width="351" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"</span><span style="font-size: small;">The Eclipse of the Sun,<i>" </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">George Grosz, </span><span style="font-size: small;">1926</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span>
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO1OE5EUssylWypQx_oBlH4nMN5bE5d1dOi8nXxSvSr6VBVhLbC-UpSJt74p-kji6pG07xJ61t2gjxsNgCTyrLarzhEzOKa92Afg_YA2oqFuU6qjLofHCwGErMp6ILUbRU-IJ9c6XYYbY/s1600/Alexander_Kanoldt_-_Der_rote_Gu%CC%88rtel.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO1OE5EUssylWypQx_oBlH4nMN5bE5d1dOi8nXxSvSr6VBVhLbC-UpSJt74p-kji6pG07xJ61t2gjxsNgCTyrLarzhEzOKa92Afg_YA2oqFuU6qjLofHCwGErMp6ILUbRU-IJ9c6XYYbY/s400/Alexander_Kanoldt_-_Der_rote_Gu%CC%88rtel.jpeg" height="400" width="310" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"</span><span style="font-size: small;">Der rote Gürtel</span><span style="font-size: small;">," (The Red Belt), </span><span style="font-size: small;">Alexander Kanoldt, </span><span style="font-size: small;"> 1929</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span>
</span><br />
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">With the assumption of power by the Nazis in 1933 all forms are not approved by the Nazi party were banned including expressionism, dadaism, and the new objectivity. Almost all forms of modern art were labelled <i>Entartete Kunst</i> (Degenerate Art) and were considered "un-German" or Jewish, in favor of what they considered "romantic realism" expressing so-called classical Germany values.</span></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWDCOEGIEyp-ltdI2mxZgGaiKpYTh3-4XI1uOTAWK5BnqhPM6k-Ud2K5_xy0vwNYTEOlGoD_WQnJUOYbqEoJgVFcVGZOKWXPey87cpBwPB4At3SBRrgX-BJY2VskS4zMdLmB4DMMaboM/s1600/Degenerate-Hitler-Ziegler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWDCOEGIEyp-ltdI2mxZgGaiKpYTh3-4XI1uOTAWK5BnqhPM6k-Ud2K5_xy0vwNYTEOlGoD_WQnJUOYbqEoJgVFcVGZOKWXPey87cpBwPB4At3SBRrgX-BJY2VskS4zMdLmB4DMMaboM/s1600/Degenerate-Hitler-Ziegler.jpg" height="286" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Degenerate Art" Exhibition, 1937; Note the word "Dada" in the background</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>Assignment DUE 2/14:</u></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> 1) choose a passage from the "Dada Manifesto" by Hugo Ball and </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">2) choose one of the artists from either expressionism, dadaism, or new objectivity. You can ask me if you are not sure which artist belongs to which movement. Use the Modern Art Timeline link on the blog for assistance. Choose <u>three</u> examples from one or more of the artists, and try to depict what is going on in the piece, and what meaning it may have, especially drawing attention to how nihilistic themes show up in these pieces or how it reflects social conditions.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">For written assignments choose a specific piece of the text that you want to quote. Write out the quote. Then interpret the quote, what is the meaning of this quote, why is the author saying this? Then explain why you chose this quote, do you agree or disagree? Did the quote make you think about something or challenge you? Does it relate to anything going on in the present?</span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For the picture assignment, post the picture on your blog (contact me if you have problems) besides that, please include: </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">1) the name of the artist and a little summary on their life;</span></span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">2) the title of the piece and its date; </span></span> </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">3) your interpretation of the piece, try to describe in as much detail as you can the physical appearance of the piece (how does it look, what kind of techniques are being used, what kind of colors, light etc are used, what kind of actions are going on) and the meaning of the piece what is it trying to say, what themes does it address, especially paying attention to nihilistic themes.</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">From this point on, you should complete one of these “reflections” on the course readings every class. You also should respond to your fellow student's postings completing at least two responses per class. You can post them as comments under the student's post. When leaving a post make sure you hit "subscribe by e-mail" so you will get notifications if someone else comments on what you say. You can leave comments on this page as well or send e-mails to me directly.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com58tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-3246062228522203642015-01-31T12:30:00.000-05:002015-01-31T10:56:36.573-05:001/31 Introduction<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The syllabus and a link to this sight can be found on blackboard under "information." There is also a box where you can enter your email to get updates when I post something, otherwise I will send out mass emails to the class when the lecture is ready.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Instructions For Creating a Student Blog:</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although I use blackboard for sending messages the majority of work will be done on our class blog:<a href="http://nihilismlehman.blogspot.com/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); color: #003366;" target="_new"> http://nihilismlehman.blogspot.com/</a></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To create a Blog</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1) Go to Blogger.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">2) Create a Title and an Address for your blog and choose a template which you can change later</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3) Once you have created it you will be on your "Dashboard," click the arrow pointing down in the center</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4) Click on "Layout" to design you blog</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">5) Click on "Template" to change the background if you want to</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">6) Click on "Settings"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">7) Go to Posts and Comments and turn "word verification" to NO.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">8) Go back to the dashboard</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">9) Email me the link to your website, copy and paste the web address. <a href="mailto:bmurdaco@gc.cuny.edu">bmurdaco@gc.cuny.edu</a>. </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Definitions of Nihilism: Wikipedia </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism</a>; </span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/nihilism/">http://www.iep.utm.edu/nihilism/</a>; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Nihil.org </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.nihil.org/">http://www.nihil.org/</a>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">These definitions focus on nihilism as rejecting established notions of meaning and belief, but equally important is the political aspects of nihilism which holds that institutions based upon these outmoded belief systems must be destroyed.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A nihilist referred to a revolutionary and is usually attributed to the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev in the novel <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_and_Sons"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><i>Fathers and Sons</i></span></a><i> (1862). </i>The nihilist movement in Russia in contrast to moderate liberals and conservatives openly pushed for the overthrow of the czar (the Russian emperor) and the destruction of traditional Russian society. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">This idea of a complete break with the past and the desire to create new values and institutions has been a si</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">gnature feature of nihilism since then.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">So then why not call the course Nihilism in Russia? Because the most famous thinkers to be labeled as nihilists have been German, and none is probably more famous than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Friedrich Nietzsche</span></a> (1844-1900). </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-style: normal; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBwQfaAL-GYKFvGa_hpuMWxZzbX-uvGPii_YPSsj4aEYtPuY0jL7nLmTXvmg8uLTSClCwRJyDueYtjGOk8haScZ7NajEQhn-_3qGdYiYnqqekvRFlv2fifvIiobclGEnB1Ko1z-QC3-w/s1600/Nietzsche187a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBwQfaAL-GYKFvGa_hpuMWxZzbX-uvGPii_YPSsj4aEYtPuY0jL7nLmTXvmg8uLTSClCwRJyDueYtjGOk8haScZ7NajEQhn-_3qGdYiYnqqekvRFlv2fifvIiobclGEnB1Ko1z-QC3-w/s320/Nietzsche187a.jpeg" height="320" width="227" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nietzsche</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;">He declared that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">"God is dead"</span></a>. Christianity in effect destroys itself. God is commonly identified as the source of truth and knowledge and the "bringer of light." But it is the same relentless pursuit of the truth that in the modern scientific age undermines the foundations of religion. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> In his view, these moral beliefs were completely incompatible with our "life-affirming" vital instincts, and to that extent they were nihilistic in that were against "life." Nietzsche was searching for a "cure" for nihilism. In contrast the phrase "<i>Amor fati</i>" a Latin phrase that literally means, "love of ones' fate," but specifically in this context, one who does not shut themselves off from life. </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Besides the "denial of life" which he sees inseparable from most traditional moral systems (Christianity is a model) he believes that the priests who manage and oversee morality and the institutions which support them secretly have the same desires for power and glory that they outwardly condemn in the less "good" warrior classes, as sociologists C. Wright Mills and Hans Gerth said: "Nietzsche modified Matthew's statement, 'He who humbles himself shall be raised,' into 'He who humbles himself wants to be raised.' Thus he ascribed volitions to the speaker which lay beneath the content of his ideas. 'I did that,' says my memory, 'I could not have done that,' says my pride and remains inexorable. Eventually the memory yields" (Gerth and Mills, 1944, pp. 61-62). It is Nietzsche's insight into the deepest desires which drive humanity and his biting social criticism and ability to point out hypocrisy that helped build his reputation as a writer:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">Humanity itself still suffers from the aftereffects of these
priestly cure naïvétes! Think, for example, of certain dietary forms (avoidance
of meat), of fasting, of sexual abstinence, of the flight “into the
wilderness”…in addition, the whole anti-sensual methaphysics of priests, which
makes lazy and overrefined, their self-hypnosis after the manner of the fakir
and Brahmin–brahma used as glass pendant and </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">idée fixe</i><span style="font-size: large;">–and the final, only too understandable general
satiety along with its radical cure, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">nothingness</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (or God–the longing for a </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">unio mystica</i><span style="font-size: large;"> with God is the longing of the Buddhist for
nothingness, Nirvana–and nothing more!) With priests </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">everything</i><span style="font-size: large;"> simply becomes more dangerous, not only curatives
and healing arts, but also arrogance, revenge, acuity, excess, love, lust to
rule, virtue, disease;–though with some fairness one could also add that it was
on the soil of this </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">essentially dangerous</i><span style="font-size: large;"> form of human existence, the priestly form that man first became </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">an
interesting animal</i><span style="font-size: large;">, that only here did the
human soul acquire </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">depth</i><span style="font-size: large;"> in a
higher sense and become </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">evil</i><span style="font-size: large;">–and
these are, after all, the two basic forms of the previous superiority of man
over other creatures!...(Nietzsche 1998 pp. 15-16).</span></blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">He contrasts the "priests" with the "warriors" especially the Romans or the Greeks, which also reinforces the idea of "amor fati." Note again the recurring theme in Nietzsche's writing about the conflict between our 'natural' and 'human' or moral qualities. The other major themes of this passage is the historical recognition that 'culture' and 'civilization' are built on violence and oppression. So then the Greeks, who have the reputation of the being the most civilized and advanced of ancient people had an unmistakable power lust and even cruelty which is inseparable from their other cultural achievements. In fact, Nietzsche suggests that these achievements would be impossible without the cruelty and violence:</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">When one speaks of humanity, the idea is fundamental that this is something which separates and distinguishes man from nature. In reality, however, there is no such separation: “natural” qualities and those called truly “human” are inseparably grown together. Man, in his highest and noblest capacities, is wholly nature and embodies its uncanny dual character. Those of his abilities which are terrifying and considered inhuman may even be the fertile soil out of which alone all humanity can grow in impulse, deed, and work.</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Thus the Greeks, the most humane men of ancient times, have a trait of cruelty, a tigerish lust to annihilate—a trait that is also very distinct in that grotesquely enlarged mirror image of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellen"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: underline;">Hellenes</span></a>, in <a href="http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/AncientMacedonia/AlexandertheGreat.html"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: underline;">Alexander the Great</span></a>, but that really must strike fear into our hearts throughout their whole history and mythology, if we approach them with the flabby concept of modern “humanity.” With the same feeling we may also observe the mutual laceration, bloody and insatiable, of two Greek parties, for example, in the <a href="http://www.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Thucydides.htm"><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: underline;">Corcyrean revolution</span></a>. When the victor in afight among the cities executes the entire male citizenry in accordance with the laws of war, and sells all the women and children into slavery, we see in the sanction of such a law that the Greeks considered it an earnest necessity to let their hatred flow forth fully; in such moments crowded and swollen feeling </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">relieved itself: the tiger leaped out, voluptuous cruelty in his terrible eyes. Why must the Greek sculptor give form again and again to war and combat in innumerable repetitions: </span>distended human bodies, their sinews tense with hatred or with the arrogance of triumph; writhing bodies, wounded; dying bodies, expiring? Why did the whole Greek world exult over the combat scenes of the <a href="http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/netshots/homer.htm">Iliad?</a> I fear that we do not understand these in a sufficiently “Greek” manner; inde<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">ed, that we should shudder if we were ever to understand them “in Greek” (Nietzsche, 1976 pp. 22-23).</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNJvQzfvGgcCu3jV3fZEoBcrap3mDcgMNZLtCyLOO8mkMJN8A7Y6sQ6gpHrIVf2bB-VFuQABFSkocSIzrXnmBpESY7aVXPw8jsDXY4O3cKQdICSV0TiYeSIchPZynW4D6wNOILUsXIreg/s400/greek_laocoon.jpg" height="400" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645251447190055842" style="height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 218px;" width="273" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Laocoön and His Sons, </i>The Vatican<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laoco%C3%B6n_and_His_Sons">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laoco%C3%B6n_and_His_Sons</a>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Elsewhere he refers to Aryan "blond beast" and the need to "discharge itself," but also includes non-European races like Arabs and Japanese in his list of "noble races":</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">At the base of all these noble races one cannot fail to
recognize the beast of prey, the splendid <i>blond beast</i> who roams about lusting after booty and victory;
from time to time this hidden base needs to discharge itself, the animal must
get out, must go back into the wilderness: Roman, Arab, Germanic, Japanese
nobility, Homeric heroes, Scandinavian Vikings–in this need they are all alike
(Nietzsche 1998 p. 22).</span></blockquote>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Those who are victimized by these races then develop their own values, which Nietzsche emphasizes are the opposite of the values of the oppressors:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">That the lambs feel anger toward the great birds of prey does not strike us as odd: but that is no reason for holding it against the great birds of prey that they snatch up little lambs for themselves. And when the lambs say among themselves “these birds of prey are evil; and whoever is as little as possible a bird of prey but rather its opposite, a lamb,–isn’t he good?” there is nothing to criticize in this setting up of an ideal, even if the birds of prey should look on this a little mockingly and perhaps say to themselves: “<i>we </i>do not feel any anger towards them, these good lambs, as a matter of fact, we love them: nothing is more tasty than a tender lamb.”–To demand of strength that it <i>not</i> express itself as strength, that it <i>not </i>be a desire to overwhelm, a desire to cast down, a desire to become lord, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as nonsensical as to demand of weakness that it express itself as strength (p. 25).</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">In contrast to the noble values he sees in Greek culture and other warrior cultures, he contrasts these "Aryan" cultures with the "Semitic" culture of the Jews. Although many modern scholars have been concerned with trying to rehabilitate Nietzsche's image in relation to Nazism, it is clear that he subscribed to many of the late 19th century racial theories which later influenced the Nazis:</span><br />
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">Of all that has been done on earth against “the noble,” “the mighty,” “the lords,” “the power-holders,” nothing is worthy of mention in comparison with that which the <i>Jews </i>have done against them: the Jews, that priestly people who in the end were only able to obtain satisfaction from their enemies and conquerors through a radical revauluation of their values, that is, through an act of <i>spiritual revenge</i>. This was the only way that suited a priestly people, the people of the most suppressed priestly desire for revenge. It was the Jews who in opposition to the aristocratic value equation (good= noble= powerful= beautiful= happy= beloved of God) dared its inversion, with fear-inspiring consistency, and held it fast with teeth of the most unfathomable hate (the hate of powerlessness), namely: “the miserable alone are the good; the poor, powerless, lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly, are also the only pious, the only blessed in God, for them alone is there blessedness,–whereas you, you noble and powerful ones, you are in all eternity the evil, the cruel, the lustful, the insatiable, the godless, you will eternally be the wretched, accursed, and damned!”… (pp. 16-17).</span></blockquote>
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Under the guise of Christianity, these values have continued to grow in European civilization, something which in Nietzsche's time he sees as something degenerative:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">Assuming it were true, that which is now in any case believed
as “truth,” that the <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">meaning of all culture </i>is simply to breed a tame and civilized animal, a <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">domestic
animal</i>, out of the beast of prey “man,”
then one would have to regard all those instincts of reaction and <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">ressentiment</i>, with the help of which the noble dynasties together
with their ideals were finally brought to ruin and overwhelmed, as the actual <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">tools
of culture</i>; which is admittedly not to say
that the <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">bearers</i> of these
instincts themselves at the same time also represent culture. On the contrary,
the opposite would not simply be probably–no! today it is <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">obvious</i>! These bearers of the oppressing and
retaliation-craving instincts, the descendants of all European and non-European
slavery, of all pre-Aryan population in particular–they represent the <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">regression</i> of humankind! These “tools of culture” are a
disgrace to humanity, and rather something that raises a suspicion, a
counter-argument against “culture” in general! It may be entirely justifiable
if one cannot escape one’s fear of the blond beast at the base of all noble
races and is on guard: but who would not a hundred times sooner fear if he might
at the same time admire, than <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">not </i>fear
but be unable to escape the disgusting sight of the deformed, reduced,
atrophied, poisoned? And is that not <i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">our</i> doom? (p. 23).</span></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXu3FphrJGybTrWg-Uy9TXQjN3vqXtkfrB9KRuHFWJTX5NGjaQqLIRjoNC3317DQQYDyh96Amg1uB8lq5HegJxz7Atgrz4L3kafGHd9ySHqXu0XqvG4oGya3hjcghBIbuEr4986SLhqY/s1600/Victims-of-dancing-mania.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXu3FphrJGybTrWg-Uy9TXQjN3vqXtkfrB9KRuHFWJTX5NGjaQqLIRjoNC3317DQQYDyh96Amg1uB8lq5HegJxz7Atgrz4L3kafGHd9ySHqXu0XqvG4oGya3hjcghBIbuEr4986SLhqY/s400/Victims-of-dancing-mania.jpg" height="400" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645252512434014194" style="float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 237px;" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Depiction of "Dancing Plague of 1518" in Strasbourg,<br />
Alsace, France<br />
by Hendrick Hondius (1642)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">It was not just a warrior lifestyle that Nietzsche praised but the vigor of life that Nietzsche admired which he thought was so lacking in Christian society, something which he equated with a kind of spiritual sickness, an inability to enjoy life which turns into a desire to destroy life, and this is nihilism. This sickness was rooted in the incompatibility between Christian morals and our own natural instincts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The continuous repression of our instincts </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">builds up pressure and tension which manifests itself in different ways. One of the stranger ways in which this manifested itself was in what was called in the middle ag</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">
</span>
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiiGz9NACKYHy6hBIub2PG9O5c-EBROpKSaS_B_MoyyE-LKolJolmBMfkn_f_zrFdaLxXJpeThK-XfU4ym-xJylCY9PxPo57C698ZTVHbOGd1l15vjc4Bd5b9hMjUqltN1BLYOqpk8Nn8/s1600/400000000000000124176_s4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiiGz9NACKYHy6hBIub2PG9O5c-EBROpKSaS_B_MoyyE-LKolJolmBMfkn_f_zrFdaLxXJpeThK-XfU4ym-xJylCY9PxPo57C698ZTVHbOGd1l15vjc4Bd5b9hMjUqltN1BLYOqpk8Nn8/s400/400000000000000124176_s4.jpeg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cover of <i>The Black Death & Dancing Mania</i>,<br />
by Justus Hecker (1832)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">es, St. Vitus' dance or simply just <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">dancing mania</span></a>. Is this evidence of people's instincts reacting uncontrollably to the repressive morals of their day? It is hard to say, although it is interesting that this condition seems to have stopped by the mid-17th century. Some other people have said that raves are the modern day version of this.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">
</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Nietzsche saw the time he was living in as beginning now to move past the Christian epoch and move into a new era. He looked forward to this new era as a time when people will have to create new values and new ways of living, </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"The value of these values must itself be called into question." </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> In opposition to nihilism, Nietzsche's ultimate objective is to provide guidelines for living a joyful life in a world where God is dead, or as he called it "the gay science."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />Or as he goes on to say:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One has taken the value of these "values" as given, as a fact, as beyond all calling-into-question; until now one has not had even the slightest doubt or hesitation in ranking "the good" as of higher value than "the evil," of higher value in the sense of its furtherance, usefulness, beneficiality–with respect to man in general (taking into account the future of man). What? if the opposite were true? What? if a symptom of regression also lay in the "good," likewise a danger, a temptation, a poison, a narcotic through which perhaps the present were living at the expense of the future? Perhaps more comfortably, less dangerously, but also in a reduced style, on a lower level?</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">...So that precisely morality would be to blame if a higher power and splendor of the human type–in itself possible–were never attained? So that precisely morality were the danger of dangers?...(p. 5).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">After his death, the idea of a "will to power" became the central concept associated with Nietzsche's thinking, under the influence of his sister who managed his estate after his death. The will to power essentially is his earlier thoughts on the "noble races" (Aryan literally means noble), that humanity is fundamentally driven by a need for power, and the most powerful are those who are able to achieve their values. Ideas such as this fit in well with the political context of the early 20th century leading up to World War I.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">That partly answers the question of why this class is called Nihilism in Germany, but even a brief overview of German history will show why studying nihilism in a German context fits together best. First of all Germany is a very important country today, it is the third largest exporter in the world today (the U.S is #4) and is the main force behind the European Union which combined gives the EU the largest GDP in the world today at over $15 trillion (CIA,<i> The World Factbook, </i>Germany <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gm.html">https://www.cia.gov/</a>). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Although it is the most economically powerful country in Europe it has almost no military power. This is a direct consequence of the legacy of World War II which we will talk about more later on.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">What is most surprising to those unfamiliar with German history is the state of Germany has only been in existence since 1871. Prior to this "Germany" existed only as a loose collection of independent states known as the "German Confederation" made up of a few dozen smaller states. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The ancient Romans used to refer to the ancient "Germanic" tribes that lived in the dense woods to the North of their empire. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">However German culture and a sense of German identity had been developing since the Middle Ages especially after the Protestant Reformation begun by the German monk Martin Luther in the 1500s. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">By the 1800s German culture and identity had reached a high level of development. Figures like Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, the Brothers Grimm, Heinrich Heine, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Hegel, Friedrich Hölderlin, Novalis and other important artists and philosophers helped establish German literature and philosophy and its distinctive emphasis on development and the dynamics of opposing forces. German culture and later German social science has also had a profound effect on American culture at many different levels in part owing to the large number of German immigrants to this country in the 19th and 20th century, and the exile of many Germans fleeing from the Nazis in the 1930s. Until 1871 however, the modern German state did not exist. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJz2U-SwCrSOg9j-mlTE2Ow36f_c77XtMM8_Ah_YYL4xOuzZJDVMtN2B0Wy153HaxvFvhwQXY37pi-691uknB4yzTrDOucHKdTueOs392I3NUGiK50XOzoUKitcvbBPS2jGylutsHDl8/s1600/germanconf1815.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJz2U-SwCrSOg9j-mlTE2Ow36f_c77XtMM8_Ah_YYL4xOuzZJDVMtN2B0Wy153HaxvFvhwQXY37pi-691uknB4yzTrDOucHKdTueOs392I3NUGiK50XOzoUKitcvbBPS2jGylutsHDl8/s400/germanconf1815.jpg" height="258" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Beginning in the 1700s one of these states, Prussia, began to become a dominant power in European politics mostly because of its highly centralized state and efficient military bureaucracy, it was also able to suppress any democratic uprisings that swept most of Europe in the 19th century. Its power grew until it was able to unify all of the German states together into one new entity–the German Empire.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_gAYB1lAG04OxTy-erYTgu5xGZl3p1pUsEF8aUwxiBvST_iUH3OlY7HkMukQJMnZhRRGVyiE-cqERKiCqja8bsb73DFI_xid_Bs2D5Wjpras5lPsgQfNRoZqhH4BfyzHePb489fBnFfM/s1600/596px-Deutsches_Reich1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_gAYB1lAG04OxTy-erYTgu5xGZl3p1pUsEF8aUwxiBvST_iUH3OlY7HkMukQJMnZhRRGVyiE-cqERKiCqja8bsb73DFI_xid_Bs2D5Wjpras5lPsgQfNRoZqhH4BfyzHePb489fBnFfM/s400/596px-Deutsches_Reich1.png" height="400" width="397" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">From 1871-1914, Germany was considered (along with Japan in the East and the United States in the West) as one of the rapidly developing powers in the world quickly moving past the older powers in the world: Great Britain, France, and Russia (considered the most backwards country). Nietzsche is writing in the late 1870s and 1880s, a period of time in which Germany is basically a new state filled with self-confidence which also breeds a strong <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jingoism" target="_blank">jingoistic</a> and nationalistic current in German society that was relatively new. German industry and banking were quickly becoming the envy of the world. Everything was developing fast in Germany and it looked as if old ways of life were rapidly being swept away by history.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd7CqYZIjK2uQiJ7r1rKkRV2E5MKyV6Q32djVh8VM1BkglwnRZqO-JTjmKwFccUNlrRIleITLVU3BOKgn1e_Aaet0DjgqRuQ0RpDLHyFeDEfuV3eHOcmbWPd5GRVHBraH69ag6rzzdgfU/s1600/germany1871.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd7CqYZIjK2uQiJ7r1rKkRV2E5MKyV6Q32djVh8VM1BkglwnRZqO-JTjmKwFccUNlrRIleITLVU3BOKgn1e_Aaet0DjgqRuQ0RpDLHyFeDEfuV3eHOcmbWPd5GRVHBraH69ag6rzzdgfU/s400/germany1871.jpeg" height="335" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Germany also had come to have the most highly developed social democratic party in the world. Modern socialism also developed in France during the French Revolution, however after the 1870s, the center of the movement switched from Paris to the major cities of Germany like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, and Cologne, and others. This change </span>occurred<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> after "communards" in Paris were violently suppressed by French troops after the establishment of the Paris Commune (March to May 1871). Karl Marx (1818-1883) was German from the city of Trier in Western Germany near France and Luxembourg. The development of socialism and communism in Germany is not identical but a parallel development to nihilism that develops roughly during the same period of time and we will discuss it from time to time.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">One of the major catalysts for the growth of socialism (or social democracy) in Germany was the Franco-Prussian War fought between France and Prussia in 1870-1871. The mobilization effort for this war was created a sense of Germany unity against a perceived foreign </span>aggressor<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. Germany almost immediately became a major industrial power and it immediately had one of the largest, best educated, and most skilled working classes in the world. Afterwards the final unification of the German state took place under the Kaiser (Emperor or literally Caesar) Wilhelm I of Prussia. In addition Germany took possession of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine in France and combined them into a single German province Alsace-Lorraine. Contention over this territory (which </span>stretches<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> back centuries) was one of the major reasons for the beginning of World War I (1914-1918). It was given back to France after World War I but was then re-conquered by the Nazis along with most of France during World War II.</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUtKnvupHLSd_6TM2Ier6Hdv3M1dcORSaPncI0TJdFp8GYj-YBy0yF_avivcB8NdrKK8ef8L4OwNfttzLW8VbZDWdftSVAuoBnYXsiOp08AIkpan_qE4nbEJxWk2RHZzRWAwBh8V1RdvY/s1600/AlsaceLorraine_map.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUtKnvupHLSd_6TM2Ier6Hdv3M1dcORSaPncI0TJdFp8GYj-YBy0yF_avivcB8NdrKK8ef8L4OwNfttzLW8VbZDWdftSVAuoBnYXsiOp08AIkpan_qE4nbEJxWk2RHZzRWAwBh8V1RdvY/s400/AlsaceLorraine_map.jpeg" height="400" width="387" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">map of France showing Alsace-Lorraine</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"> from Bargeladycruises.com</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Over 65 million people fought in World War I and over 8 million were killed, Germans themselves lost over 1.7 million in the war not including wounded and other casualties (</span><a href="http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">).</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Our class will pick up in the aftermath of the war and how Germans attempted to put their lives back together again. But besides that, there were serious political, economic, and social consequences to the war, the immediate was the break up of the German Empire and the overthrow of the emperor (the Kaiser, in German meaning Caesar). This led to a full scale revolution in Germany which was put down brutally and violently by the authorities. The revolution was led by German workers who since the 1870s had also developed into one of the most organized and developed working class parties in the world. Germany is the land of Karl Marx and although socialism (like nihilism) came out of the French Revolution in the late 1700s, it was in Germany where the movement reached its highest level of development in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (<i>Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands</i>, SPD). Regrettably, like many movements that start out opposing the status quo, success and popularity brought with it entry into the halls of power but also seemed to compromise the integrity of the movement, or at the least the leadership of the movement. There is no better example of this than the fateful decision that the working class social democratic party made to support the war effort in 1914. Despite always seeing itself as an international movement in the critical moment the German working class party chose nationalism over internationalism and helped bring about the atrocities that followed.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The 1920s in Germany is a time of many conflicting, contradictory trends and developments. The revolution is crushed by the now establishment SPD, a new republican government is formed, The Weimar Republic, and Germany begins a brief experiment in democracy that lasts a little over ten years. At the same time in which the early Nazi party is beginning to make its move, sexual openness is at an all time high in Germany and more women are beginning to challenge traditional gender roles which had grown oppressive over time.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although our class deals with the crucial period of time in between the two world wars, Germany history after the war has hardly been much better than first half of the century. The 50s and early 60s are referred to as the "Amnesia Era" for reasons that should be obvious by the end of the course. After the war, Germany became a symbol and a center stage for the coming Cold War conflict. Germany was divided into a capitalist West and communist East Germany, the capital Berlin was also divided into East and West Berlin, and the infamous Berlin Wall was built in 1961. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, one of the dramatic symbols of the end of the Cold War. The following year Germany was reunified as one state with the current borders it has today.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXhHPZ9-C8qpNy4CLyOL1hRTKXTCnAlfZBgTVUZRn-ENU-NbgrlE846k4cGkhL3VwQ_PaBat4DaQYnYAKPiXLpijpYGtWkXp3ES5ORMz3IoRYx8xoS9QjMmB6dpfUNvDHK_M057niZrQk/s1600/ddrmap.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXhHPZ9-C8qpNy4CLyOL1hRTKXTCnAlfZBgTVUZRn-ENU-NbgrlE846k4cGkhL3VwQ_PaBat4DaQYnYAKPiXLpijpYGtWkXp3ES5ORMz3IoRYx8xoS9QjMmB6dpfUNvDHK_M057niZrQk/s400/ddrmap.gif" height="400" width="345" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">East and West Germany 1949-1990</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>
</span></div>
<div style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">That will about cover the opening introduction to the course. Please email me the link to your blog as soon as you can. I would then like to post a list of all of the student's websites so the class can communicate with each other. You can leave comments below if you have any questions or comments or you can email me directly at bmurdaco@gc.cuny.edu.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>Assignment Due 2/7</u>: Go the link that says Nietzsche on the blog main page. Read through the quotes and select one that interests you. Write out the quote, followed by your interpretation of this quote and explain how it applies today. </span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Also, using the CIA World Factbook write a short one page summary of either German society, politics, or its economy. These assignments will be your first assignments posted on your blog which are due by next week's class. Once they have been posted I and the rest of the class can read and comment upon what you write.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">References:</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, <i>From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology,</i> Oxford University Press, 1944</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Friedrich Nietzsche, <i>The Portable Nietzsche</i><i style="font-style: normal;">,</i> translated by Walter Kaufmann, New York: Penguin, 1976; <i>On the Genealogy of Morality, </i>translated by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen, Hackett Publishing, 1998</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Merteen B. ter Borg, "The Problem of Nihilism: A Sociological Approach," <i>Sociological Analyses, </i>Vol. 49, No. 1 (Spring, 1988) pp. 1-16</span></div>
</div>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-49244710487175970852012-10-27T12:13:00.000-04:002012-10-27T15:10:14.389-04:00Midterm Questions & Review<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Midterm will be posted on blackboard Monday. The deadline will be 11/5 at midnight, that should be enough time for anyone who has work or other conflicts to be able to take the exam. The format of the exam will be one essay question. You will have a choice of two questions. Once you begin the exam you have to complete it, so don't start it until you know you have time to complete it before the deadline.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The exam will consist of the following two questions, please read the directions carefully.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Choose <u>three</u> examples from either: </span><span style="font-size: large;">painting (Expressionism, Dadaism, and New Objectivity), literature (Siddhartha), music (Cabaret), and film (Expressionism)</span><span style="font-size: large;"> and answer <u>one</u> of the following. Explain the content or the structure of the work in your answer:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">1. How is authority undermined or reinforced in these cultural forms?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">2. How is the sense of 'crisis' (political, economic, social) depicted in these cultural forms?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Review:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In a short time we have gone over a lot. We started off the class talking about the origins of the Nihilism as a concept and especially how this idea was taken over by the late 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). We went over a few of his key ideas such as: <i>ressentiment</i>, ascetic morality,"God is dead," and his views on the Greeks, especially stressing their dual nature of being civilized and cruel at the same time. Nihilism refers to a sense of meaninglessness and disbelief and to a radical, often violent break with the past and traditional society which is believed to be constructed according to false principles. Many of you in your blogs focused on passages emphasizing Atheism or Nietzsche's hostility to Christianity and religion. Undoubtedly, Nietzsche believed that religion was the still foundation of European culture and by extension, Nietzsche became a critic of all of Western civilization.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What these ideas all have in common is they all relate to Nietzsche's overall worldview that European civilization by the late 19th century was suffering from a kind of "spiritual sickness," resulting from the "denial of life" that structures conventional morals and values. This has resulted in a sense of meaninglessness and emptiness in life that easily turns into pessimism, and this in turn breeds a violent reaction against those same forces.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In his research on the Greeks Nietzsche concluded that their way of life was superior in that it did not cause this kind of sickness. However, because they did not repress themselves as much as modern people do they had an unmistakable tendency for cruelty that would seem almost inhuman today. At the same time, this suggests that the values necessary to overcome nihilism might be more ruthless than conventional morality suggests. Either way violence seems inescapable. Still he thinks it is possible to create a new value system that would say "yes" to life, and such values will be created by a "superman." These ideas were also taken over by the Nazis. People are still trying to figure out if it is possible to say "yes" to life without being cruel to other people.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">After explaining Nietzsche I tried to introduce some of the important historical events in German history and give you a sense of why I choose Germany as a country to study nihilism. I tried to emphasize how the history of the German state is fairly recent; that it had no tradition of democracy; and that it industrialized extremely fast compared to other nations. Nietzsche was writing in the period of time when the German Empire was still a new creation. As discussed more in the Luxemburg essay from this week, the creation of the German Empire also set into the motion the chain of events that culminated in World War I (1914-1918). It was during this war and after where the idea of nihilism began to have an impact upon the masses.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The first part of the class we looked at cultural depictions of nihilism which reflected social conditions in Germany from around the time of World War I to the 1930s. We looked at painting (expressionism, dadaism, and New Objectivity), literature (Siddhartha), music (cabaret), and film (expressionism).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Many of these pieces showed scenes of alienation and isolation; the effects of excessive self-control and repression; changing sexual norms; they also depicted scenes of violence and war; social and cultural decay; and suggested a sense of crisis just below the surface of society. We also looked at influential critics and thinkers who were beginning to write about mass culture and relate to contemporary mass movements and political conflict.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We have just begun the second part of the class where we are now looking at the same period of time from the point of view of politics instead of culture. Nihilism in politics is expressed as revolutionary politics aiming to destroy or transform completely the old structures of society. Both Communists and Fascists have been labeled as nihilistic movements, yet strangely both also claimed to have a solution for nihilism. The communists always had more popular support but the fascists ended up winning. In the process the Weimar Republic was destroyed because of extremists on both sides and because the majority of people were not motivated enough to try to save their government having no tradition and no habits of democratic government. However if it had not been for the Great Depression it is unlikely the Nazis would have even gotten near the popular support they needed to win. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This week I tried to focus only on the events that led to the destruction of the German Empire in 1918, the aftermath, and the failed revolution of 1919. A Communist uprising by the Spartacus (Spartakus) group was led by Rosa Luxemburg. Luxemburg herself tried to prevent the uprising believing they could not win but she was outvoted. She was one of the most influential Marxist theorists who advocated a non-authoritarian form of revolution that would not require a centralized bureaucratic party like the Communist Party but would also be revolutionary and not compromise itself with the status quo like the Social Democratic Party had done, but emphasize constant self-criticism.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The best way to review is to go over the lectures again and study the individual works that you will use in your answers. Any questions contact me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-886299090383828202012-05-19T12:43:00.000-04:002012-05-19T12:43:03.571-04:00Final Review<br />
The second half of the class we focused more on the politics and the history of the period (1918-1939) after examining some of the cultural and artistic works in the first half. Beginning with Rosa Luxemburg who was also covered in the midterm we looked at the aborted revolution in Germany led by German communists known as the Spartacus Group or the Spartacists. However, in all of the following lectures, the theme of communism was a topic that we dealt with repeatedly. Some of the important things to remember:<br />
What were the basic arguments against capitalism used by communists?<br />
How did they predict its collapse?<br />
What was the theory of imperialism and how did it change communist doctrine from the 19th century?<br />
What thinkers were associated with the theory of imperialism?<br />
What were the empirical events used to support/disprove this argument?<br />
What role did communists play in the Weimar Republic?<br />
How did communists oppose fascists?<br />
<br />
Fascism/Nazism was the other main political movement that developed during this period of time:<br />
What were the origins of fascism?<br />
What were its major appeals to German people?<br />
Why was fascism seen as a revolt against civilization?<br />
What part of the population gave the most support to the Nazis?<br />
In what ways could both communism and fascism be considered nihilistic?<br />
<br />
Besides these political movements/ideologies we also discussed the political structure of Germany: during this time both the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime.<br />
How did Germany divide power between its Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government and between state and local government?<br />
What were some of the distinctive rights guaranteed in the Weimar Constitution?<br />
What were the major political parties and how did the party system work?<br />
What were the major weaknesses in the Weimar government?<br />
When did Germany experience hyperinflation?<br />
How did the Great Depression contribute to the Nazis seizing power?<br />
How did Hitler seize power in 1933?<br />
How did the Nazi regime control the economy?<br />
What was the <i>Volk</i>?<br />
What were the major artistic/cultural movements in the 1920s-early 1930s?<br />
What was German propaganda like?<br />
How is anti-Semitism central to understanding Nazism?<br />
Why was fascism supported by many western capitalists?<br />
What were other fascist governments doing during the 1930s?<br />
Why is the Spanish Civil War important for the rise of fascism?<br />
How did World War II begin?<br />
<br />
The last few readings dealt with the radical social changes caused by the rise of fascists regimes and the cultural changes this was causing. Especially changes in education, in values and even perception, but also the "politicization" of culture in the writings of Ernst Jünger (conservative) and Walter Benjamin (radical/Marxist):<br />
What is different about the post-liberal age from the liberal age?<br />
Why are they skeptical of progress?<br />
How does science and technology increase political control?<br />
How does technology and science affect education?<br />
How does modern forms of art change perception and experience?<br />
What is the difference between integrated and isolated experience?<br />
Why is culture becoming more important in political conflicts?<br />
What was the Popular Front?<br />
Why is Jünger more pessimistic about mass culture? Why is Benjamin more positive?<br />
What is the aura and and how does mechanical reproduction destroy it? What are the consequences for culture?<br />
How does the past influence our interpretation of the present?<br />
What is the relationship between progress and nihilism?<br />
<br />
These questions or some form of will make up most of the material on the final exam. In some cases I will also ask to compare some of these ideas/themes to the films and books we looked at in the first half of the class.<br />
<br />
<br />Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-78557594699616760562012-02-06T18:36:00.000-05:002012-02-06T09:58:33.894-05:00Dada: Otto Dix<div>
<a href="http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dix-otto.htm">http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dix-otto.htm</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ6-Sq5q5bGMCSsKWCXkTBZF5Q9wFYjcUPtES77Gidq0GV2t7gk1cXkUX3iztLuxBULpM2ktjn4QAHPWB_XxtIA-RDqBJaKVv_pYHuHW0Jr-bn_qXqiRKris7y3kMZEsEyxxuRueP3vrA/s1600/Otto-Dix_Expressionist.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647895303514178034" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ6-Sq5q5bGMCSsKWCXkTBZF5Q9wFYjcUPtES77Gidq0GV2t7gk1cXkUX3iztLuxBULpM2ktjn4QAHPWB_XxtIA-RDqBJaKVv_pYHuHW0Jr-bn_qXqiRKris7y3kMZEsEyxxuRueP3vrA/s400/Otto-Dix_Expressionist.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-i2EjR_5DmsRz_oV6QuVqA-ZzyVvE-6ZF_SZTUULjw5tjjXJz9InGg4lE7dQjbrQe_zhuFZojIs55VGfAd3b1UGtpG5sZgAMuIyAgne7xGk5mpHjBHuPuNTVbna5yAFUg8Q1kkwESuWg/s1600/OttoDix-ThreeProstitutesOnTheStreet.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647895164052415826" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-i2EjR_5DmsRz_oV6QuVqA-ZzyVvE-6ZF_SZTUULjw5tjjXJz9InGg4lE7dQjbrQe_zhuFZojIs55VGfAd3b1UGtpG5sZgAMuIyAgne7xGk5mpHjBHuPuNTVbna5yAFUg8Q1kkwESuWg/s400/OttoDix-ThreeProstitutesOnTheStreet.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 385px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoz1il2ua0su2I45KycmgKCjJrBzt4Wv3IUhgi9ZQ_m9xWs0Oj8uzUmbN7f3iASvq_6LD3wzqYf9sFCjvkFj7gvqFRnKAIX4nG2ujJkZ_GmZ_gydTGSLKnkvs2usNnPO980sh6j9BSVHw/s1600/otto-dix.1241163645.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647895160667412914" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoz1il2ua0su2I45KycmgKCjJrBzt4Wv3IUhgi9ZQ_m9xWs0Oj8uzUmbN7f3iASvq_6LD3wzqYf9sFCjvkFj7gvqFRnKAIX4nG2ujJkZ_GmZ_gydTGSLKnkvs2usNnPO980sh6j9BSVHw/s400/otto-dix.1241163645.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 347px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjozh7vn1c_QvNfWfOYpHRCXKwBt372rKiNpSvJq5CvNUpFmjDV0WqOZToGFASjMU77-SoGlvU7OK3ssB1vKT1ItQpk8upqPSgEOm9ZNMO8D5xaD1n_RZmBES8PkXiEaA0pRjmztYnnxl4/s1600/otto+dixP.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647895156572973890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjozh7vn1c_QvNfWfOYpHRCXKwBt372rKiNpSvJq5CvNUpFmjDV0WqOZToGFASjMU77-SoGlvU7OK3ssB1vKT1ItQpk8upqPSgEOm9ZNMO8D5xaD1n_RZmBES8PkXiEaA0pRjmztYnnxl4/s400/otto+dixP.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 324px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj47bgSJAtvI3_9hEUek25GyEy4RFkuOzRZ5mQ19XUZ68OtrfJ_EyV1JeN-c_oPknwAiq2UdXeqPNiYnioT543C5Jxb0pS-ZrGrEXqggW4NtbeprOPijE9A5kkuEILq0E17CTy2Ikcfdl0/s1600/Dix_InvalidsOfWarPlayingCards1920.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647895156161894434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj47bgSJAtvI3_9hEUek25GyEy4RFkuOzRZ5mQ19XUZ68OtrfJ_EyV1JeN-c_oPknwAiq2UdXeqPNiYnioT543C5Jxb0pS-ZrGrEXqggW4NtbeprOPijE9A5kkuEILq0E17CTy2Ikcfdl0/s400/Dix_InvalidsOfWarPlayingCards1920.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 302px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpyg7-ran5siMlL1aqFG3oBfXVwnxWY0ZNwZLie8jpoXejJzb871H9DlMMArTegqfD3QtFAFRQVHoXrUIC2hfBw_BtNy_8EXhIKCrKDiH9Et43s26InM2OM-Zn3iTncD1tyyF1T8VFon0/s1600/Dix011.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647895149454658546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpyg7-ran5siMlL1aqFG3oBfXVwnxWY0ZNwZLie8jpoXejJzb871H9DlMMArTegqfD3QtFAFRQVHoXrUIC2hfBw_BtNy_8EXhIKCrKDiH9Et43s26InM2OM-Zn3iTncD1tyyF1T8VFon0/s400/Dix011.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 328px;" /></a>Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-51926748948711596582012-02-06T18:29:00.000-05:002012-09-10T11:11:34.616-04:00Dada: Raoul Hausmann<div>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Hausmann">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Hausmann</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gbruVKN1XnSBGBRMqCUvwJ6GZQPoF8o-n-rYGV_0MkIrRxqCLJLplGmcYUhJYoJb38UYKNEzrwHpm1HX56mcaSVy9C_W-xjgK-ZxcltRa7OJzCrWagZl8rF4me3jBhJKWiXkVRbtpdE/s1600/raoul_hausmann.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647893284299907186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gbruVKN1XnSBGBRMqCUvwJ6GZQPoF8o-n-rYGV_0MkIrRxqCLJLplGmcYUhJYoJb38UYKNEzrwHpm1HX56mcaSVy9C_W-xjgK-ZxcltRa7OJzCrWagZl8rF4me3jBhJKWiXkVRbtpdE/s400/raoul_hausmann.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 286px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzUlT4cJn37DjCfWXS-oGN9b1DcXvjtWpELTTcTOsOVud9S5ql_MpniwmlVXzVGPnxb7y3EmYRyywou_lQItDUoyryB0gaCpn50VcnXce4so8xIwUfz5KptHjIoMoXCot0NaY7hmiUFaU/s1600/raoul-hausmann-elasticum-1920.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647893278562428818" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzUlT4cJn37DjCfWXS-oGN9b1DcXvjtWpELTTcTOsOVud9S5ql_MpniwmlVXzVGPnxb7y3EmYRyywou_lQItDUoyryB0gaCpn50VcnXce4so8xIwUfz5KptHjIoMoXCot0NaY7hmiUFaU/s400/raoul-hausmann-elasticum-1920.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 336px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYwyiKMl5vJ0v-K4nRmC5CPujamlsy66UbNGHWAgmchumEQIfjtz65ga9oQQyndE0FCw8ysfTqBpoSHCsVuGp3XQNcS79ri2_ptwzOvNR7WguD3XOe6ZmWRFjiM0as1eZb6f40c3WDsqE/s1600/Raoul-Hausmann-1935.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647893276094474178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYwyiKMl5vJ0v-K4nRmC5CPujamlsy66UbNGHWAgmchumEQIfjtz65ga9oQQyndE0FCw8ysfTqBpoSHCsVuGp3XQNcS79ri2_ptwzOvNR7WguD3XOe6ZmWRFjiM0as1eZb6f40c3WDsqE/s400/Raoul-Hausmann-1935.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 255px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLNDdgbSUmJxAuwVj4QMtCJ8690k-mGukRmP8PdYZ3vOg_FTnLYvzx7dD0nzvUXW7mVV4IbuPSGzBBXH4D4ZbMn3BwHuAXpEqaZZNPnIoj6ZHHMRf1l8ArNch88O7x7rqMnece0NwcNZQ/s1600/raoul-hausmann.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647893270759952578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLNDdgbSUmJxAuwVj4QMtCJ8690k-mGukRmP8PdYZ3vOg_FTnLYvzx7dD0nzvUXW7mVV4IbuPSGzBBXH4D4ZbMn3BwHuAXpEqaZZNPnIoj6ZHHMRf1l8ArNch88O7x7rqMnece0NwcNZQ/s400/raoul-hausmann.jpg" style="display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 323px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Raoul Hausmann, <i>Dada Conquers</i>, 1920</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-18010653919194265502012-02-06T18:12:00.000-05:002012-02-06T09:57:39.268-05:00Dada: John Heartfield<div>
<a href="http://www.john-heartfield.com/">http://www.john-heartfield.com/</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZPDEwo8ODfk_KH156EFrppyeFg-OnVOgH-jA1Iz3au-4POKTSmVHQVGbusThnWvCtuWQWpgZBghWg0xWt5cof4vGo2KH2RQywlyDlxOL5EeAPB9_bwEqgaDzDGKsLhaTkUNBAwaFLqo/s1600/Self_Portrait_with_Police.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647889969313763714" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZPDEwo8ODfk_KH156EFrppyeFg-OnVOgH-jA1Iz3au-4POKTSmVHQVGbusThnWvCtuWQWpgZBghWg0xWt5cof4vGo2KH2RQywlyDlxOL5EeAPB9_bwEqgaDzDGKsLhaTkUNBAwaFLqo/s400/Self_Portrait_with_Police.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 294px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgplKPNyN3M1qB9owqKvQnEPlGZKdcuz4BNU5PDV15mxoJvlQhPz7HV1siRS9362GxymuXw3Fe4FHoJ-TGBYWXi8kDX8L_PR-ORypaxrX8a2D1YbBQyTdMMv5oo7d_FUADQ2_1KeRAEfvY/s1600/Johnhf1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647889869954398466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgplKPNyN3M1qB9owqKvQnEPlGZKdcuz4BNU5PDV15mxoJvlQhPz7HV1siRS9362GxymuXw3Fe4FHoJ-TGBYWXi8kDX8L_PR-ORypaxrX8a2D1YbBQyTdMMv5oo7d_FUADQ2_1KeRAEfvY/s400/Johnhf1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 322px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 223px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4p2whNtOD6kEWB3j411Nq6oWE9xhq-d93E0hLMl6WUTHWw911qWBLnVZpLonyQ5Nz5cbxgB1DN9erKakVgRpjrfApqNYvG49-pD6dEhD_eHKdyxv5M1kNDN5tDE4V8QR0q0zQb_2LTRg/s1600/JohnheartfieldP.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647889796676038130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4p2whNtOD6kEWB3j411Nq6oWE9xhq-d93E0hLMl6WUTHWw911qWBLnVZpLonyQ5Nz5cbxgB1DN9erKakVgRpjrfApqNYvG49-pD6dEhD_eHKdyxv5M1kNDN5tDE4V8QR0q0zQb_2LTRg/s400/JohnheartfieldP.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 285px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGxk_JR7d0ZAauO0Nkr2mpH_MJ7vBYatAy70-dUSXHNbewJTMXMYUlOJ34dAbRC5GOaQQVhgkx0JzWD9-svfWkanxxr6iRt-pDT4zyppytVT_QUhj5b1t9y7pOjl-Y8LQYybUImqaiqS0/s1600/john_heartfield.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647889792633836018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGxk_JR7d0ZAauO0Nkr2mpH_MJ7vBYatAy70-dUSXHNbewJTMXMYUlOJ34dAbRC5GOaQQVhgkx0JzWD9-svfWkanxxr6iRt-pDT4zyppytVT_QUhj5b1t9y7pOjl-Y8LQYybUImqaiqS0/s400/john_heartfield.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid-pLFpIDZPaEsHMgb5TBorNliD_zgKqcZhntaFcaO07xiPt6b4DdGYAye02wEoRwFc0_0j6Qw70Inm_czXYgdiP7CHBNbuCmD-q9SUDzglCRi2HlgTJeFIvLpetMPJzZdRXhMsTsPhL8/s1600/John+Heartfield_002.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647889787981803010" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid-pLFpIDZPaEsHMgb5TBorNliD_zgKqcZhntaFcaO07xiPt6b4DdGYAye02wEoRwFc0_0j6Qw70Inm_czXYgdiP7CHBNbuCmD-q9SUDzglCRi2HlgTJeFIvLpetMPJzZdRXhMsTsPhL8/s400/John+Heartfield_002.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 351px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk2XbaMV7wmyFnoSMcqELwKa1jmNVEkGOqX9HDv-Hua9H4_neRmkmuNxj4bu6dK_ZdpA25dVCnPoJjYZssI9ZnnOxLPa7-7Teykun2fVbh8v-QY_5c5DK0rwYUwfARJ6JWvPsJFAeogTw/s1600/John+Heartfield.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647889782574880466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk2XbaMV7wmyFnoSMcqELwKa1jmNVEkGOqX9HDv-Hua9H4_neRmkmuNxj4bu6dK_ZdpA25dVCnPoJjYZssI9ZnnOxLPa7-7Teykun2fVbh8v-QY_5c5DK0rwYUwfARJ6JWvPsJFAeogTw/s400/John+Heartfield.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 281px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwtKKX0jA7Z9SSJso_as3Sfuo-xC_BwZmVY8Qa71sbaYojujyeiIn-0ZTgrEWQWFWtv4gbg6uzE4Yz-gCz0kFsjIPiYyxjfQPJZvfSBpBBz_VE3MlCq1C2mBgO8VuFg9Qq9OJ-_SwqHuQ/s1600/And_Yet_it_Moves.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647889782789637090" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwtKKX0jA7Z9SSJso_as3Sfuo-xC_BwZmVY8Qa71sbaYojujyeiIn-0ZTgrEWQWFWtv4gbg6uzE4Yz-gCz0kFsjIPiYyxjfQPJZvfSBpBBz_VE3MlCq1C2mBgO8VuFg9Qq9OJ-_SwqHuQ/s400/And_Yet_it_Moves.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 270px;" /></a>Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-44235383827464057972012-02-06T18:01:00.000-05:002012-02-06T09:57:25.549-05:00Dada: Hannah Hoch<div>
<a href="http://www.dadadandy.com/DADADANDY-HannahHoch.html">http://www.dadadandy.com/DADADANDY-HannahHoch.html</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIuPgKyADNwxRB5i5sacUN0O2XvGb0fjNGdmF-W2jii4-rXCj66jIy3QjkZA2ve0L3YmCNfyOMfwxb69mIxsZiFn9i-7Rhh3AivvOmvo6VgqQ8xswujaFd-3VVNyEAMn1Y6_oveSqGd2I/s1600/HannahHoch.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647886964297561122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIuPgKyADNwxRB5i5sacUN0O2XvGb0fjNGdmF-W2jii4-rXCj66jIy3QjkZA2ve0L3YmCNfyOMfwxb69mIxsZiFn9i-7Rhh3AivvOmvo6VgqQ8xswujaFd-3VVNyEAMn1Y6_oveSqGd2I/s400/HannahHoch.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 315px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmG-0WgKTbsNKP16NMYZRi9J8Y9yOn1ooOfmk-pL2up9tUzEV8zcDYiWh_TZ98lf3oMU2RsLdMpTgvg72vhwMr0-SQx46Kne8mwN9HwVfnHisDxCbn4R1vWgEA_h5Vir7j2qFkZXzBL6M/s1600/Hannah+Hoch+BMW.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647886962257231874" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmG-0WgKTbsNKP16NMYZRi9J8Y9yOn1ooOfmk-pL2up9tUzEV8zcDYiWh_TZ98lf3oMU2RsLdMpTgvg72vhwMr0-SQx46Kne8mwN9HwVfnHisDxCbn4R1vWgEA_h5Vir7j2qFkZXzBL6M/s400/Hannah+Hoch+BMW.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 331px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1EX-Ujw_zauEvm6Q4NK6ZhJJOkPY5dJS5LGVkaMMv15PE89_UFzAcnrfgW9XGBz0s6O7zZcgOUXZCwRhxhg45zfZYLKtKHF-63TCrSlcr5WEpuAvok-rwSYI6_Ryqw-ZNgOfZyHoxls/s1600/Hannah+Hoch.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647886955660532002" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif1EX-Ujw_zauEvm6Q4NK6ZhJJOkPY5dJS5LGVkaMMv15PE89_UFzAcnrfgW9XGBz0s6O7zZcgOUXZCwRhxhg45zfZYLKtKHF-63TCrSlcr5WEpuAvok-rwSYI6_Ryqw-ZNgOfZyHoxls/s400/Hannah+Hoch.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 271px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxgUWDwylw4FklaP0bvt6p3Oq_b48jpyjhvpY5WPQz-VtXvuac8HTte9bshGo2UcCitl1IazAaV0ybYNAfpaIWqN6oPNXz7c6_yjevQBECeaTRNDUJKhHRT3f20syPd9wJv3X-cThqEmk/s1600/Hannah++Hoch.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647886953194440962" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxgUWDwylw4FklaP0bvt6p3Oq_b48jpyjhvpY5WPQz-VtXvuac8HTte9bshGo2UcCitl1IazAaV0ybYNAfpaIWqN6oPNXz7c6_yjevQBECeaTRNDUJKhHRT3f20syPd9wJv3X-cThqEmk/s400/Hannah++Hoch.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 378px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-74658641606185149152012-02-06T17:54:00.000-05:002012-02-06T09:56:57.772-05:00Dada: George Grosz<div>
<a href="http://moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=2374">http://moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=2374</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAhZsV_vvQb7Fkp9D6flRBL5ygiCVoUCsGNswJVmg0c93j2AG63jAgsUAGfr4e-I3N8Qbhs8spiitMJOMf7CZmrnxXzmfdx9OrXvJD6OajeOz76DUYlRszWP8I5vnEiQHNr0Lx2LlbllI/s1600/georgegroszyounourishwithhate_greyday_th.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647885470623261026" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAhZsV_vvQb7Fkp9D6flRBL5ygiCVoUCsGNswJVmg0c93j2AG63jAgsUAGfr4e-I3N8Qbhs8spiitMJOMf7CZmrnxXzmfdx9OrXvJD6OajeOz76DUYlRszWP8I5vnEiQHNr0Lx2LlbllI/s400/georgegroszyounourishwithhate_greyday_th.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 353px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 238px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicS_p0JlzZ7JYC21cMy9pdXIpvWGgzHyAXeYWL6LqpmgWUiv71y054uav3mcguQTQu5Db_1PtxFnWZJvxWTwQZn9X_xB7XeZ5wtGxpQ345fIMAemiXUwinAI4xvvOwMfssLOkQhsz0OHE/s1600/georgegrosz+barroom.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647885469428102290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicS_p0JlzZ7JYC21cMy9pdXIpvWGgzHyAXeYWL6LqpmgWUiv71y054uav3mcguQTQu5Db_1PtxFnWZJvxWTwQZn9X_xB7XeZ5wtGxpQ345fIMAemiXUwinAI4xvvOwMfssLOkQhsz0OHE/s400/georgegrosz+barroom.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 335px;" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuoSXzRsjxi4k5uwO_vIV9vG2LVGrMg22f-gtveDW3wJpZ6o_b_4C-B52tRvNLGByKc5_s4sGq6uEoUeeh04RJywYGla05EtlyCzrtKfzE6hz04bxPbt2AsUxYXpTIqRI5IfkZvVV4KFc/s1600/George+Grosz.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647885468483759794" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuoSXzRsjxi4k5uwO_vIV9vG2LVGrMg22f-gtveDW3wJpZ6o_b_4C-B52tRvNLGByKc5_s4sGq6uEoUeeh04RJywYGla05EtlyCzrtKfzE6hz04bxPbt2AsUxYXpTIqRI5IfkZvVV4KFc/s400/George+Grosz.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 281px;" /></a>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0TMVlYs0WXMufsgMi0Xn-tYrmsnnRjIz-8VuHD8c0sLuqoRcNMyPE3SdKNECaEb9uGHLHpvc-cDoA48bc9CvoQsi8MSews7YMKczvP-0usor9v4S7KzvGcp4x8LaBxxzrkXeFhlSHkgI/s1600/groszthecity.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647884766399108018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0TMVlYs0WXMufsgMi0Xn-tYrmsnnRjIz-8VuHD8c0sLuqoRcNMyPE3SdKNECaEb9uGHLHpvc-cDoA48bc9CvoQsi8MSews7YMKczvP-0usor9v4S7KzvGcp4x8LaBxxzrkXeFhlSHkgI/s400/groszthecity.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 384px;" /></a>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioPczMLsWHvmo7yHZgSZAqQQztUsPjT_T4bWgHloodMgaFwO_ZeWznZkjsY-9iwvebJAsYOPWErpzKu4B1hV4n_oUCnq1HZGAxlI4T_UIbZNytVRvdsEHqGJ3xVJWotELUuhQx0MMNADk/s1600/groszawinterstale10.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647884666767791474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioPczMLsWHvmo7yHZgSZAqQQztUsPjT_T4bWgHloodMgaFwO_ZeWznZkjsY-9iwvebJAsYOPWErpzKu4B1hV4n_oUCnq1HZGAxlI4T_UIbZNytVRvdsEHqGJ3xVJWotELUuhQx0MMNADk/s400/groszawinterstale10.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 242px;" /></a>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Pwdi_YXqDrGhKze3GVAb6giPwwtKDhEjNFQyqEo3u7yjCKObw8-nkmIJNLn9Q5yZon6Ja9pRPFKTx9UriBJQwVds-XkpGFgyYUbkygbNQX1NDbprKT44wlQgQcAE0tfKca02aVO_3GE/s1600/george-grosz-lovesick.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647884555310897442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Pwdi_YXqDrGhKze3GVAb6giPwwtKDhEjNFQyqEo3u7yjCKObw8-nkmIJNLn9Q5yZon6Ja9pRPFKTx9UriBJQwVds-XkpGFgyYUbkygbNQX1NDbprKT44wlQgQcAE0tfKca02aVO_3GE/s400/george-grosz-lovesick.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 311px;" /></a>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7877397428416684635.post-60408773907225793342011-10-04T17:28:00.000-04:002012-01-30T09:19:57.064-05:003/12 Dream Story<br />
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCFjRA1BQFFCxvi5J0sVbDdc7Qb8P_msDxduEuDxgMc4cVzpnpxCxqoLoceohDlgiSgHCKBkfz5iC6vrwNcz-yh6FvLOIyCrjsChLMWSOcRUxtMnAU_3EhsECQzsYdtrkk0GbF6Lvg1Rc/s1600/Venetian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCFjRA1BQFFCxvi5J0sVbDdc7Qb8P_msDxduEuDxgMc4cVzpnpxCxqoLoceohDlgiSgHCKBkfz5iC6vrwNcz-yh6FvLOIyCrjsChLMWSOcRUxtMnAU_3EhsECQzsYdtrkk0GbF6Lvg1Rc/s1600/Venetian.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Dream Story was published in 1926. This work is actually not German but Austrian, however Austrians see themselves as being a part of German culture and ethnicity. One of the major "achievements" of Hitler's regime was the union of Germany and Austria, known as the <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWanschluss.htm"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Anschluss</span></a>. Austria, or more specifically its capital Vienna, is also the birthplace of modern psychology as embodied by such icons as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Sigmund Freud</span></a>. Psychology is something that we have already discussed in this class, and there are very strong psychological themes in this work as well, particularly with sexuality, a favorite topic of Freud and many other psychologists and psychiatrists. Nietzsche is credited with anticipating many of the central themes and concerns of psychologists in his work: aggression, sex, domination, self-expression, depression, alienation, and ecstasy are some of the psychological themes he explores. Freud is supposedly said to have become upset when reading Nietzsche because he feared he would have nothing original to contribute. </span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This work deals primarily with sexuality. The main characters Dr. Fridolin and Albertina are two young and fairly attractive people that deal with numerous sexual encounters throughout the book especially Fridolin. Like many psychological works, the book probes the secret, inner lives of its characters set apart from their public persona. For example the book begins by showing the couple doing fairly normal things a young couple would do--reading a bedtime story to their young daughter. However, the story really begins when we begin to see through their fairly normal exterior and enter into the more mysterious world of sexuality when the characters attend a dinner ball. Again attending a ball, is on its surface, a fairly mundane social activity but you quickly learn there is more going on beneath the surface: Fridolin is apparently tempted and flirted with by young women, and his wife Albertina is approached by a seemingly distinguished older man who tries to seduce her. The couple both pass on these offers, but it prompts them to begin discussing or even confessing past sexual experiences or even thoughts of sexual experiences as Albertina details an episode where she fantasized about a young officer she saw once on vacation.</span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Psychology, especially back then before the development of pharmaceutical drugs, was known as "the talking cure". This was the means Freud devised to get to the "unconscious" which he is largely credited with discovering. Fridolin and Albertina engage in a kind of therapeutic discussion in this manner by revealing their own past sexual experiences and thoughts to each other. However, there are mixed results, despite also confessing to fantasizing about other women, Fridolin is shocked to hear of his wife also having sexual thoughts and fantasies of her own and this plants the seeds of his own attempts to have a sexual affair which drives most of the story line in the book. This is interrupted by news that one of his patients has died and Fridolin is forced to leave and attend to the family. </span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Once there, Fridolin encounters the deceased patent's daughter Marianne. Fridolin acts professional, but secretly enjoys the thought that the daughter is in love with him and always has been. This is actually confirmed when Marianne breaks down and confesses her love for him. It seems strange and may suggest something that this entire scene plays out: Fridolin thinking about Marianne's love for him and her actual confession of her love for him--with her dead father laying on the bed the entire time! You would think that the doctor would be more focused on his patient, and the daughter is either suffering from hysterical trauma or so overwhelmed with passion that even the death of her father is not enough to stop her from throwing herself at Fridolin. Before there is time to process what has happened, Marianne's fiance shows up (who Fridolin cannot help but feel superior to even though he also acts professional) and Fridolin leaves.</span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The major conflict in this story stems from Fridolin's jealousy over his wife's fantasy about other men. What seems puzzling right away about his actions is that while his wife confesses to fantasizing about another man, Fridolin is seeking to do the real thing, to actually have an affair on his wife and in his quest to do so comes across several women who he<i> almost</i> sleeps with but never does or fails in the end which culminates in the scene at the mansion.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br />
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">
</span><br />
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
Is anyone to blame here in this story? Is Fridolin wrong to attempt to pursue these kinds of affairs or is he reacting to his wife? His wife has confessed to fantasizing about another man, but later on tells him about a dream she said where she watched with delight as her husband is beaten and crucified! <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
All of Fridolin's encounters with women in the story seem like more of a fantasy than reality. Like Marianne who confesses to always being in love with him from a distance. Then afterwards he encounters the young prostitute Mizzi who almost immediately entices him into her apartment despite just meeting. Then he encounters the costume shop owner's daughter who he calls Pierette, also a very young girl. Finally, in the orgy scene at the end he encounters the mysterious woman who "saves" him. This only happening after he "heroically" refuses to leave her. As reality begins to creep in however the fantasy is ruined. Marianne is engaged and is probably acting out over the death of her father. When he goes to find the young girl Mizzi again, her roommate tells her she is in the hospital and seems to hint that she has a sexually transmitted disease. When he returns to the costume shop he realizes that the owner is pimping out his own daughter. The mysterious woman may or may not be dead from poisoning or form suicide<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<b>Nihilism and Sex</b><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
As the story relates to nihilism it calls into question one of the oldest and most traditional values--monogamy, and the institution of marriage. Fridolin and Albertina seem bored with each other and both fantasize and are drawn to other partners, although Fridolin is the one who actually acts or attempts to act on his desires (he never actually succeeds in sleeping with any of these women). The orgy scene towards the end has the guests dresses like monks and nuns until the orgy begins. This story also like the Blue Angel features supposedly respectable citizens being drawn into a world of sex and desire. Rath was a professor, Fridolin is a doctor, and presumably the guests at the orgy are respectable and influential people as well. There is a sense that the morality of the monks and nuns (Christianity) regarding sex is just a surface appearance or something for the lower classes to follow, while the elites who outwardly approve of and sanction these values freely ignore them in their private lives. Also sex may seem like the only thing worth doing in a nihilistic world. Some interpret nihilism to be a kind of hedonism: the endless pursuit of pleasure. This could make sense if one doubts the existence of any values like a nihilist would. Since there are no higher values in the world--including marriage--or moral restrictions on your action then a life pursuing only sex or money might make sense. The masks and the costumes become an elaborate game to compensate for the absence of the mysterious or supernatural.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<b>Assignment:</b><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
Please choose a quote from <i>Dream Story </i>write out the quote. Then interpret the quote and explain why you chose this passage.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
I would suggest watching the film "Eyes Wide Shut" which is a film version of this novel and the final film by director Stanley Kubrick. The film is almost an exact recreation of the novel, and aside from different locations and different names, the film follows the book almost exactly.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/SNO04ynszhc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>Prof. Murdacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01634695514577120457noreply@blogger.com0