HCJ PART 4 (REVISION NOTES)

1. Was Nietzche a Nazi?

- No, he was dead 30 years before the NSDAP was formed
- Christians and Jews say he was a Nazi. Neech said Judeo-Christianity is a religion of slave mentality
- "God is dead"
- Anti-semitism was the norm in the 19th Century
- Neech's big idea was individualism, so any group, religious or otherwise, is less important in his eyes
- Zarathustra: Idea of the 'superman' (Ubermensch)
- His ideas are compatible with Charles Darwin (Social Darwinism), as in 'Space Odyssey'. Darwin's ideas were used and moulded by Hitler
- 1960s: Artistic community clear Neech's name somewhat...

2. Was Mersault a bad man?

- Use Existentialism in your answer
- Mersault is bored, murders someone for no reason
[LINK TO EXI] - Life is pointless and has no meaning
- He killed a black man in a time of extreme racism towards them, even in the CJS
- White judges desperate to clear him as long as he apologises
BUT, he doesn't care about anything - whether he is convicted or not
- Reflected in cold, matter of fact writing style
- Subject verb format. Cold. Observational journalism
- "Existence proceeds essence"

3. To what extent does the 'New Journalism' reflect cultural and intellectual trends such as psychoanalysis and politics of the 'me generation'?

- Tom Wolfe's anthology of articles is called 'The New Journalism'
- He uses 19th Century realist narrative style (Dickens/Zola)
- BIG SHIFT...
News = Digetic (telling)
Features = Mimetic (seeing) - Objective role
- Everything is strange

- REFLECTED in PSYCHOANALYSIS
Stepping back and listening to people
- 'Century of the Self' looks at Freud's theories
- Wilhelm Reich: disagreements with Freud
- Psychoanalysis: Getting behind the subject (following them) = GONZO!

- 'ME' GENERATION
- Reich: the total individual [LINK BACK TO FREUD]
- Self-fulfilment = happiness
(If it feels good, do it!)
EXAMPLE: Sex - Sexual liberation
- New agenda in Journalism - the personal aspect...surrounds the individual
EXAMPLE: Agony aunts, horoscopes

4. Why might journalists find logical positivist ideas useful or appealing? What faults have been identified in the approach of logical positivists?

- Vienna Circle rejects Existentialism
- They rejects all philosophy
- They only like SCIENCE

- 'VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE'
Their epistemology (the theory about knowledge) is based on the Verification Principle
EXAMPLE: It could be true that there are people that can run three times faster than Usain Bolt on Mars, but can't be verified scientifically)
SO...Logical positivists don't bother with it as it can't be proved in this way)

- APPEALING TO JOURNALISTS because...
We are 90% into FACTS and 10% into COMMENT
Fact [Link back to Ver. Principle] CAN be checked (verified)
- Separating fact from comment is a big thing in journalism

- FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLE (Karl Popper)
Popper destroys 'Verification Principle'
Things can only be true if their opposite exists, and can be proved that it exists

- Wittgenstein - 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'
"That of which we cannot speak, we must stay silent"
- Destroyed Freud and Marx
Destroyed Id etc (asserted it is not verifiable)
- Freud = Another form of metaphysics

5. John Keynes has been hailed as both the saviour and destroyer of the capitalist system. Why?

- Adam Smith - free market
Market will go up and down continuously
Class economy is self-regulated

- Keynes: the more you cut, the more unemployment there will be
'Multiplier effect' - spend money, give money to others...then they can spend and so on

- OPPOSITION: Marx
To maintain profit, you need to pay people less than what they produce

LIMITATION OF KEYNES' 'Multiplier effect' (Marx)
1. Worker makes widget for £1
2. Sold for £2
3. Worker can't buy widget
4. Sales cut widget production
5. Worker unemployed

- Why not keep printing money?
You get inflation (Keynes)
Keynesians say: keep expanding

Click here to download Chris Horrie's HCJ Revision Webcast

HCJ PART 4 (WEEK 6)

Notes from the screening of the documentary 'Century of the Self'.

The documentary enforced a lot of points from last week's lecture.

"There is a policeman inside our heads - he must be destroyed."

Recap

- Sigmund Freud: Our subconscious thoughts should be controlled.

- WIlhelm Reich: Our subconscious thoughts should not be controlled. Our inner self should be embraced.

Screening

Edward Bernays brought in Freud's idea of the unconscious mind in advertising. These techniques involved subtly playing to the repressed desires of the masses.

It was observed that this form of consumerism kept the masses docile.

Wilhelm Reich's contrasting ideas about the mind were largely ignored at the time. Lore Reich blamed Freud's daughter Anna for this.

Former Student Activist Robert Pardun said: "advertising was manipulation, it was a way to get you to do something that didn't come out of you".

Herbert Markuse, another critic of Freud said: "People are reduced to expressing their feelings through manufactured objects".

Wilhelm Reich's contrasting ideas were largely ignored at the time. Lore Reich blamed Freud's daughter Anna for this.

Personal becomes political

The public turned to Reich from the 1960s - in advertising and politics.

"The whole system of government and economy is based on profit, on personal greed and selfishness

Politically, it was asserted that society couldn't be changed unless enough individuals changed themselves.

So, "the personal became the political".

An interviewee said that Reich's ideas could be summed up by "taking ownership of who you are".

Minority groups, designed to express marginal opinions, began to develop.

Black/white encounter groups were an example of these groups, in which intense racial arguments would take place. It was seen as healthier to air feelings publicly rather than keeping them inside or behind closed doors.

Another group, the Human Potential Movement (HPM), was designed to bring out the best in people. The idea was to transmit these human qualities to make positive changes to society.

HPM was rooted heavily in Existentialism as it encouraged individualism and having control of one's destiny.

Reich and American corporations

Reich had a massive effect on corporate America as his ideas became more prominent. (Marketing) values were now challenged more often.

Additionally, the consumer could be seen no longer as passive and one of a 'mass'. The consumer now wanted to feel like an individual, and wanted to be offered products to reflect that.

Advertisers had to monitor the habits of the consumer a lot more as a result.

However, to add a WINOL-like sting, self-expression was not unlimited. Individuals could be grouped into 'lifestyles,' which inevitably helped corporations.

HCJ PART 4 (WEEK 5)

Wilhelm Reich & Sigmund Freud

To sum up the lecture: it's all about the orgasm!

Freud said we are governed by primitive sexual and aggressive forces and they need to be controlled. Chaos would ensue if they were not.

The Austrian philosopher believed that, under the outer surface, we are always driven by these animal instincts. However, these urges are not always on show as our 'conscious mind' serves to surpress them.

Freud claimed the key to our true desires lies in our dreams: "Dreams are the royal road to the subconscious", he said.

He separated our mind into three parts:

1. Id - our instinctive drives. Leads to chaos if not controlled, according to Freud.
2. Ego - conscious mind.
3. Super Ego - works against Id to keep it in check, thus keeping our conscious mind more prominent.

Wilhelm Reich was a close follower of Freud's work, but then he came up with his own contrasting theory.

He said the repression of the Id caused bad thoughts, rather than the existence of the Id itself. Reich believed we actually had good urges.

Reich developed his own version of the three layers of the human mind:

1. Surface - polite, compasssionate
2. Cruel, selfish
3. Deepest layer - loving, pure

Unlike Freud, Reich said we should always bring out No. 3, instead of repressing it...but we had to get past No. 2 (the worst layer) before we got to the best side of human nature (No. 3).

In 'The Mass Psychology of Fascism', Reich - from a Jewish background - said the Nazis embodied the second layer.

He also claimed the Nazis focused most on the vote of the lower-middle class as they were most suseptible to Hitler's rhetoric.

According to Reich (pictured, right), they were most vulnerable for two reasons:

1. Most likely to have strong father figure - Particularly used to authority, as in a totalitarian regime.

2. Most likely to be sexually repressed - Mainly because of the father figure. This would cause a need for rebellion, an opposite but equally important attraction of the Nazis.

As a result of the failure/fear of other parties, the Nazis encouraged voters to 'rebel' against them. Therefore, many Germans voted for them out of disillusion with the opposition, without necessarily agreeing with Nazi policy. This is known as 'negative cohesion'.

ANYWAY, BACK TO THE ORGASM.

Remember, Reich said repression was bad. Repression would mean you could not have a proper orgasm. This was really bad in the eyes of Mr. Reich!

Reich believed one's happiness could be measured by their Orgiastic Potency - their ability to surrender to the orgasm.

Later, when he was going a bit crazy, Reich took his focus from the orgasm and found a new obsession - orgone energy. The more orgone energy we gained, the freer we would become.

Reich suggested orgone energy could be collected in 'orgone accumulators' or 'cloudbusters'. These cloudbusters could supposedly alter the atmosphere so much that they could create rain. Kate Bush tells us more!

Freud and Reich in Advertising

In 1950s America, Freud's idea of the 'unconscious mind' was used in advertising. Figures like Edward Bernays would constantly play to our unconscious desires, almost always involving sex, in adverts.

In the 1960s, Reich became more prominent and advertising started to surround the individual, and their need to express themselves in a way that separates them from the crowd. Modern adverts from Apple are a classic example.

Verdict

Essentially, followers of Wilhelm Reich would want to express their feelings as openly as possible and Sigmund Freud's followers would feel they should be kept under the surface at all costs.

The most interesting debate is whether society has the right balance between Freudian and Reichian ideas...

Should we be more open? Should we be more reserved? Or is it up to each individual?