Schopenhauer: Schopenhauer
was a German philosopher and one of the great pessimists and he was known for
his philosophical clarity. Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World
as Will and Representation, claimed that the world is fundamentally what
humans recognize in themselves as their will. His analysis of will led him to
the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fully
satisfied. He became a student at a University in 1809. There he studied metaphysics
and he studied under a man who advised him to concentrate on Plato and Immanuel
Kant, which is where he draws some of his influence from - Schopenhauer
accepted Kant's double-aspect of the universe — the phenomenal (world of
experience) and the noumenal (the true world, independent of experience).
Nietzsche: Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher. He wrote critical
texts on religion, philosophy and science. Nietzsche's influence comes notably from
existentialism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity
of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental
tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, perspectivism, the Ubermensch,
and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of
"life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all ideas
that drain life's expansive energies.
Nietzsche is renowned for saying that “god is dead” and
that all that will follow this is violence – which in turn will lead to the end
of mankind, Nietzsche also tries to find a “super-man” person. Nietzsche now
shows his true pessimism about life, he says that there won’t be humans
forever, so he believes that we will all die and that nothing we do matters at
all, but he says this as a good thing... crazy right? In 1872 Nietzsche
published his first book, The Birth of
Tragedy. However, his colleagues expressed little enthusiasm for the
work. He renamed his book “Hellenism and Pessimism”. Nietzsche criticises Schopenhauer
and calls him a Nihilist – he believes that Christians are the worst, they
merely wait for death when we have just one life, we must live it to the fullest
and ensure we die with no regrets, he believes that the Ubermensch does not
apologise for its actions and therefore has no regrets.
Well that’s all for now, just for my revision purposes
really, plus my notes are sort of bare for these two which isn’t good! Anyway, more
to come sometime soon, so...
So I thought that it’s about time my onyx-cceptable blog
has its much needed makeover, with that in mind I think im going to post more about
stuff that isn’t just my work (paha let’s see how long this will last), but
yeah thats happening. Anyway! As you can see, my blog is now completely
(somewhat) different, I initially thought that I needed lasers but before I married
myself to the idea of it I stumbled across robots and rocket ships, two of the
coolest things in the world, and they just seem like a perfect fit for my
completely academic blog *cough*
Now that I’ve said I want to blog more for fun and not
because I need to I can’t actually think of much to say, managed to get media essay
done...? Revision makes me want to die? Just the usual really, but yeah I guess
if anything I’m getting more into the swing of uni life again, especially after
a whole month off of doing literally nothing around the house in sleepy little
Kenilworth. I am pleased to note that things felt far more normal today as it marked
our traditional trip to maccies, even though we didn’t even plan on going
there, we weren’t even hungry... so good at this life business. So yeah,
planning on getting my revision started and continued tomorrow up until the
exam. Then its money saving mode im afraid, gotta make sure I
don’t need to dip into my savings too much to afford going to Japan, though I’ll
obvs be hitting up Bop, the greatest night out ever – which is a common known
fact, just like how the park swings in Kenilworth are the best in the county,
true story.
All I can think of right now, truth is im just so bored
and I really can’t sleep so instead of reading Arbok (yeah thats right, Ekans-ee
this going on for a long time) I thought hey why not get back into blogging? It’s
a sad time when I need to be hideously bored to want to blog, but this’ll
change in no time! Now I know you’ve loved reading this so im sorry it has to
end, yeah I know devastating, but I’d like to announce that you’re all gonna
be seeing a lot more of my blog nowadays, might be a bit Slowbro so deal with
it.
Karl Marx: Marx was a German philosopher who had a profound
impact upon the world, he was born 1818 in Germany, studied law, philosophy and
then revolution, and he met his best friend, wingman and bro Friedrich Engels
1844 in Paris. Marxism came from Karl Marx and it is renowned as a conflict
theory, which is the conflict between the social classes A conflict theory such
as Marxism is somewhat useful to our understanding of society, however it tends
to be too deterministic.
Marxists see society as divided solely by class – how the
ruling class exploit the working class, Marxism is a structural perspective, so
it analyses society as a whole system made up of different parts that all blend
together. In opposition to functionalists, Marxists do not see the state and
its policies as benefitting all of society. Marxists instead say the state
represents the ruling class, and its social policies serve the interests of
capitalism, not those of society as a whole. The state provides ideological
legislation to mask capitalist exploitation. For example, the welfare state
makes it seem that the system cares about the poor people in society. Moreover,
a Marxist would say the state maintains the labour force for further
exploitation, an example of this is the NHS – it serves capitalism by keeping
people healthy enough to work. Most importantly, the state is a means of
preventing revolution. Marxists say that to stop a revolution the state will
introduce policies that only have the intention to keep the working class happy
with their situation and position in society.
According to Marx, man is a productive animal; mankind
creates the environment it inhabits, for example we all make our own clothes
and so on. Marx believes in technological determinism, which is a teleological
view (history has a purpose, it is going somewhere), his process comes from the
Hegelian philosophy (history and dialectics), British empiricism (economics of
Adam Smith) and the French Revolution (revolution is the very best way to
achieve the overall goal of equality). Marx followed the scientific method, he
believed that he was using the same methods as Darwin – researching every
aspect of society in order to understand it, he did countless hours of
research. He highly valued the idea of achieving change through violence and
conflict – which is an idea from Hegel that he actually liked – and Marx believed
wholeheartedly that is was always a case of poor (proletariat) vs. the rich
(bourgeoisie).
Marx sought the explanation of the historical process
between man and the physical world (material) and its existence, so therefore
Marx’s theory is called dialectic materialism. In terms of alienation, Marx
believed that capitalism alienates man from themselves and each other; this is
very much akin of Rousseau because they both talk about capitalism placing too
much emphasis on material things which in turn leads to avarice – money is seen
as the most important thing.
Marx talks about the inevitable fall of capitalism,
however I believe that the Marxist theory of capitalism’s inevitable collapse
is not very realistic; only to some extent though. Marx himself, in his later
work, looked into capitalism but this was more in terms of class conflict,
division and exploitation. Marx defined class in accordance to economic power,
with emphasis on where people stand in relation to the ownership of the ‘means
of production’.
Marx believed that capitalism was creating a very
noticeable gap between two large powers of people; the affluent Bourgeoisie and
the exploited Proletariat. For Marx, the analysis of the class system provides
a deep insight into historical understanding and it enables predictions to be
made about the future of capitalism. This encouraged Marx insofar as it helped
him feel he could comfortably predict that the fall of capitalism is inevitable
and that heralding that we will revert into a classless and equal system of
government, otherwise known as Communism, and prior to this the brief period
called the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Marx believes that this is to be
achieved by a full scale revolution conducted by the proletariat against the
bourgeoisie, this was because Marx believed that the proletariat would no
longer accept being exploited; they would overthrow capitalism.
Marx feels that this revolution is inevitable; he
portrays this certainty of revolution through explaining ‘surplus value’.
Surplus value is a Marxist term that explains how the ruling class, in their
striving for improvement in a capitalist society, will always have to make a
profit at the expense of the proletariat; it is the value that is extracted
from the labour of workers by the mechanism of capitalist exploitation.
Capitalism’s quest for profit can only be achieved through paying the workers a
lot less than the value of their labour. This overall makes capitalism very
unstable, though it is still debated whether or not the subordinate class would
ever rise up as the working class are more than alright with continuing with
their routines.
I think it’s about time I start blogging again, I
cannot believe it’s taken me this long to blog up these notes, I suppose
it will help towards revision, however, the Dreyfus affair will be my big
(mediocre) return to the stage... It’s kind of a stage alright, jeeze way to
rub that one in. Enjoy!
Background information: Picture it, The Franco-Prussian war and the growing
influence of Prussia under Bismarck who tried to unify Germany, they tempted
Napoleon III into war by using media propaganda and by provoking them – they
essentially humiliated the French into war, without any allies.
1871 – France suffered a savage defeat and their leader,
Napoleon was captured this was a very humiliating for the French as they were
very proud of their army. While all other places in France fell, Paris is the
only one to resist and would not surrender. Paris eventually fell in the siege
of Paris to the Germans/Prussians. There were roughly two million odd people in
Paris at this time and they were surrounded by German forces, they had a
massive problem feeding people and so if it wasn’t enough already the French
people left had to live off scraps from the trash and they even broke into the
Zoo and eat any animals they could find, the Germans really wanted to prove
their dominance it would seem and they definitely succeeded. Furthermore, the
people in Paris tried to reach out to other places but to no avail.
The Paris Commune: The people of Paris eventually gave in and the land lords
started to return to Paris and began to charge the poor people rent and
interest – the new government had a majority of royalists who wanted to restore
the monarchy. The people didn't want to have a monarchy because they didn’t
want a repeat of Napoleon III’s actions or to be charged while they had to
suffer and so they rose up and this is what is known as the Paris commune, it
was essentially what Marx spoke about – the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The commune was established March 18th – May
28th 1871 – Lenin called it the ‘festival of the oppressed’, the
people who joined the commune were radicals, they were highly socialist,
Marxist and anarchists, furthermore, women played an important role in the
commune and they were highly influential. The Commune introduced social reform,
nurseries so women could work and so on and they also improved working
conditions (so no night shifts). However, this was short lived because the
commune was pretty much obliterated in a cruelest way possible, thousands of
people were executed, women, children and men all killed for being part of the
commune.
The Dreyfus Affair: Even thought the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian
war in 1871 was still lingering, France managed to rebuild and consolidate its
safety but when this happened they randomly started hating bad on Jewish people
in France - blaming them for all the problems that France had encountered as
they were seen as the "money people" (good job France) this all flourished
from politicians being bribed to stay quiet about company's financial problems,
these bribes were organised by two Jewish people and this is believed to be
what sparked off anti-Semitism in France.
The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal that divided
France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason
in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of
Jewish descent. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly having
communicated French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus on
trail for a Court Martial and they found him guilty of treason and sent him to
Devil's Island for almost 5 years. They looked into the evidence of this case
some time down the road and found it to be wrong, the real culprit who leaked
military secrets was a man called Esterhazy - however the superiors decided to
leave it alone, they would better to blame it on a Jew (just cause everyone was
now doing it... followers) than have the French military be hilariously
humiliated yet again. However, they put Esterhazy on trial in a military court
but he was found innocent, this lead to the famous French Journalist, Emile
Zola to write his article "J'accuse". This article accused the
government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus. He pointed
out errors and lack of evidence. The letter was printed on the front page of
the newspaper, and was very controversial. Zola was prosecuted and found guilty
of libel so he fled to England.
That's all for now friends, however I have many more blog
posts to catch up on, just as well its before my exam as well cause lord knows I
could do with the revision :)
Stay classy, Winchester x (I've missed saying that)
Here are today’s headlines, a man has gone missing
from his home in Aspen Grove... a Jewelers in Winchester has doubled the size
of its store... and finally the Winchester Real Ale and Cider Festival is to
return this month
First Story:
Trevor Downes, a 47-year-old man, has gone missing
after leaving his home in Aspen Grove, Aldershot
It is assumed that he was on his way to work in
Guildford in a White Vauxhall; however he has not been seen since
The Police are urging people to come forward with any
information of his whereabouts.
Second Story:
A Jeweler in Winchester is celebrating after doubling
the size of its shop. Designer jewelers, Justice in Parchment Street, have
doubled the floor size in a bid to gain more customers and to free up space.
I spoke to employee Davina and it would appear that
the staff is excited for this as they like the freedom to not only display
their more high-end jewelry but to enable more discussion with customers which
was previously unavailable due to the space [Play Interview]
The local community will be happy to hear that the
Winchester Real Ale and Cider Festival is returning for another year at the
Winchester Guild Hall as it was highly successful last year.
I spoke to Sarah Webber in the William Walker pub see
if they are anticipating the return of this festival, [play interview]
The verdict seems to be that since the tickets are
being sold in certain pubs, it is increasing their sales and the local
community finds it very appealing
The case of Mr. Warner: I think that the CCRC was right to decline Mr. Warner’s appeal and this is because the trail itself was deemed safe, this is important as it means that there was nothing wrong with the way the case was treated, furthermore they can place Mr. Warner inside Mr. And Mrs. Pools home, which is mighty incriminating in itself, especially since he lied about going into the house at all. It is also important to note that Warner had been at the pub the night of the murder and was therefore drunk, he claims that the only reason he went to try and rob them is because the front door was already open, then when he tried to leave he saw someone outside so he decided to use something from a draw to force open the back window in order to escape, which further incriminates him as it puts his fingerprints on the draw where the murder weapon was taken from. His own actions seemed to have condemned him insofar as the day after the Pools were found dead he had washed his clothes and left Easthampton wearing the same boots that he wore previously, which seem to suggest some amount of guilt.
However, it is important to note that there are many loose ends in this case, which are enough to cast at least some doubt. For example, a man who was said to be covered in blood called a taxi the night which was never really developed into anything more, no interviews of this man were conducted, you could just assume that he had been in a fight with someone. Furthermore, it is suspicious that the front door was open before Warner got there because this suggests that Warner wasn’t the only person to go into their home that night and the person who did previously could well have been the murderer, but then on the other hand you could just say that Warner was lying about this. Moreover, there is no incriminating evidence that Warner was even upstairs, which is important because this is where they were found dead and it is apparent that they were also murdered upstairs, the only evidence that had that he could have been upstairs is that the jumper Warner left had fibres from upstairs on it, but this could just be passed off as a piece of contaminated evidence, insofar as someone could have touched something upstairs and then touched the jumper. Furthermore, from the number of times that the Pools had been stabbed, you would assume that would leave a lot of blood on his clothing but his clothes had no blood stains on them at all, however you could argue that he merely kept washing his clothes. So I believe that there is doubt there but not really enough to merit the CCRC getting further involved, they were right to dismiss the appeal.
This video is an assignment that I have been set for my Journalism course, basically we were told to write a short feature for Radio, and it could be based on any topic that we like, so naturally I chose Pokemon... Below is the audio track that i have recorded and script.
Just Be T Dubs, the audio's not really that great, I got a few words wrong but I just strode through, enjoy.
After being asked to write about something for people to actually listen to me talking about and not just read it, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about one of the things I’m fairly certain I know a lot about – this happens to be Pokémon, shocking right?
When I mention Pokémon, I assume all of you listening will instantly think about making the toughest decision of your life as a child, in the old game boy games at least – do you pick Charmander, Bulbasaur or Squirtle? It does take a long time to figure out which Pokémon you want because it’ll be with you for the whole game. For me however, this always ends the same way – picking Charmander. Then you’re enthralled with starting off your very own Pokémon adventure, ranging from beating up your rival, doing chores for Professor Oak and then eventually getting down to catching all the Pokémon and on the road to be a Pokémon master.
So the idea is to catch them all, this has been drilled into the heads of children who had what I like to call, a “complete” childhood as it is the theme song to the season one of Pokémon. Sounds simple enough right? Just go round beating up wild Pokémon and throwing balls at them to catch them. You’d think this would be an easy job when there are only 151 Pokémon, right? Wrong. The producers thought it would be great to add a million more Pokémon to the equation, making it pretty much impossible to keep track of the number of Pokémon, I personally get confused after 151. I mean, why change it? My best memories of playing the Pokémon games and watching the TV series were of starting out in Pallet town, seeing our hero who we all know and love, Ash Ketchum getting his first ever Pokémon, his famous Pikachu.
So yeah, from this there are many adventures – everyone has to remember the emotional rollercoaster episode of Ash first obtaining his Charmander. There Charmander is, abandoned out in a storm with his tail, once proud and aflame, slowly dimming because of the treacherous storm. That is until Ash hears of an abandoned Charmander in the rain and instantly takes it upon himself to save this lost and afraid Pokémon, people around the world will remember this episode and it really embodies the love that our hero has for Pokémon and what they mean to him, in turn this Charmander wholeheartedly trusts Ash and agrees to go with him – rejecting his old trainer who left him in the storm. It’s episodes like these that I recall when I talk about Pokémon, not the newest episodes that have all kinds of different Pokémon involved in them - they just tend to sound silly to me.
As the years have progressed, Pokémon progressed with them leaving behind the old and, in my opinion, favourable “generation I” Pokémon and replaced them, essentially, with new kinds of Pokémon which I feel don’t measure up to the original. This process has been going on for many years now – the new Pokémon that are brought in are known as different generations, so it goes from Generation I to Generation V so far. I tried to watch one of the new Pokémon seasons and after seeing the starter Pokémon are called things like “Oshawatt”, I don’t even know what this is, but it’s blue and like the size of a small rock, I was disgusted that it was not the amazing Pokémon that we all know and love such as Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur, im fairly certain that the producers must be running out of ideas of new Pokémon until they eventually bring it all back to the amazing days of generation I.
One thing that hasn’t changed through the years is, of course, the endeavours of the evil Team Rocket and their constant ingenious, but ultimately futile, attempts to try and steal Pokémon to appease their malevolent boss and leader of Team Rocket. Team Rocket is in every single episode as far as I know and they managed to sing their official theme tune to, foolishly, alert our heroes of their presence and even their intent in every single episode! These guys are a classic signature of Pokémon that I hope will never change, I mean who doesn't want to see Jessie, James and Meowth blast off again? Anyway, I believe that I’ve rambled sufficiently to bore you all, sorry about that! Anyway I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s broadcast.
