What I have been especially interested in this week is the functionalist versus intentionalist debate in terms of Hitler and WWII. Every brain cell in this ADHD challenged head wants to dispute the legitimacy of this debate in and of itself: is there really anything to debate? Hitler was the twentieth century’s fiend; of course he knew what he was doing all along.
I think, however, that it would be too easy for me to argue this point. In fact, I don’t even think it would be an argument at all, given that I, like 99.99% of the rest of the world, think that there is no excusing Hitler’s actions on any grounds. Instead, I want to work through the logic of the other side.
The way that I understand it, the functionalist argument is that Hitler’s attempt at cultural genocide of the Jewish population was not premeditated. He did not have everything planned out from the get-go. Rather, a string of chance circumstances and decisions led to the concentration camps and the Holocaust. The original plan was perhaps the relocation of Jews to Madagascar. The fact that there is a real and concrete prejudice there is indisputable. Nothing that happened in the early 1930s could have happened had Hitler not had some sort of bias against these people. But the question of whether he planned on doing what he did takes things deeper to a level of entanglement that is difficult to navigate.
As I said, the prejudice is there either way. And although I nor anyone else could probe his brain on the subject, I would be inclined to say that he most likely did harbor fantasies of doing away with the Jewish population. If he didn’t, I don’t think he would have been capable of what he did. The question is whether or not he intended to act on such fantasies. Perhaps he was realistic in some sense (as much as a psychopath can be) at first; maybe he believed that such fantasies could come to no fruition, so why not go for the next best bet: just get rid of them, ship all the Jews off to Madagascar and be quit of them.
Maybe the practicality of a psychopath envisioned this at first, and then when other unexpected doors opened he took his chance…
I really am trying. I have spent the better part of forty-five minutes just looking over what I have written thus far and trying to manipulate my thoughts in such a way that I could approach this from a totally new perspective, but I can’t. I really do think what I have said for the fundamentalist side is the best I can do. Were I to slip through a wormhole and go back to the early 1940s (or earlier), I think Hitler would definitely live up to the reputation that shrouds him today. I think he knew what he wanted from the start and set out to do it, but I suppose if I am interested in really pushing my intellect I might could understand the fundamentalist view--but only the way that I have portrayed it already. Had he not the cultural genocide of the Jewish population in mind from the start, he had the prejudice and the will, simply not the concrete proof of the viability of such a thing. If this were the case, as soon as he had the chance after multiple forks in the road, he took it without looking back, and really this is no better than the intentionalist argument.
I do not even feel like I’ve gone in a circle right now. I feel like I’ve pushed forward a few feet only to backtrack immediately over the ground I’ve already covered. It’s a tough subject and hard to really see through anything other than the lens we’ve been raised to see Hitler and WWII through, but maybe someone else could shed some light on my confusion.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Modern Holy Grail and My Problems With Freud [July 16]
I’ll be honest: I’m not entirely sure how what I want to talk about ties in with what we are covering in class right now, but this week I was particularly interested in the article, “Sigmund Freud and die Weltanschauung.” In this article, “Weltanschauung” is defined as “an intellectual construction which gives a unified solution of all the problems of our existence in virtue of a comprehensive hypothesis, a construction, therefore, in which no question is left open and in which everything in which we are interested finds a place”. I may have been reading this the wrong way, but I took it that Freud considered science, religion, art, and philosophy to be different types of Weltanschauung. He eventually goes on to say that science is the only viable option, that religion, art, and philosophy fall short where science excels.
It is interesting that in the given definition, Freud is talking about a sort of cohesion of disparate parts into a unified whole that explains everything while taking every internal and external factor into account. In a way I can see how religion and science might be seen as two different approaches to such a construction, but this is problematic for me. If Freud is talking about a means of smoothing out the intellectual wrinkles with various systems in relation to one another, I think that the religion/science dichotomy is the ultimate problem to be solved.
For a long time now I have held the belief that there is without a doubt an interconnection in and between all things that we can’t begin to fathom. Science, religion, art, and philosophy might seem to have different properties that could never be reconciled, but I like the idea that such dissimilar systems and ideas really fit together with the elegance and precision of a complex molecular compound. Basically what I’m getting at is that I don’t understand why Freud’s model (or really just definition) doesn’t take this into account. He was a psychoanalyst; surely he could see that everything fits together without science taking the trophy. Science might offer answers, but you can’t discount the way religion in the aboriginal tribes of Australia took people to dimensions science has not yet charted, or the way an M.C. Escher piece can give visual life to mathematic qualities, the simplicity and harmony of geometric symmetry. I could list off a number of other examples, but you see what I’m saying.
I realize I’ve gone off on a tangent, but I found that at least this portion of this article irritated me. The Weltanschauung sounds to me like a modern holy grail, but I don’t understand why the world’s most famous psychoanalyst would deem science above religion or art or philosophy, when clearly these things play a role in human psychology that cannot be denied or ignored.
It is interesting that in the given definition, Freud is talking about a sort of cohesion of disparate parts into a unified whole that explains everything while taking every internal and external factor into account. In a way I can see how religion and science might be seen as two different approaches to such a construction, but this is problematic for me. If Freud is talking about a means of smoothing out the intellectual wrinkles with various systems in relation to one another, I think that the religion/science dichotomy is the ultimate problem to be solved.
For a long time now I have held the belief that there is without a doubt an interconnection in and between all things that we can’t begin to fathom. Science, religion, art, and philosophy might seem to have different properties that could never be reconciled, but I like the idea that such dissimilar systems and ideas really fit together with the elegance and precision of a complex molecular compound. Basically what I’m getting at is that I don’t understand why Freud’s model (or really just definition) doesn’t take this into account. He was a psychoanalyst; surely he could see that everything fits together without science taking the trophy. Science might offer answers, but you can’t discount the way religion in the aboriginal tribes of Australia took people to dimensions science has not yet charted, or the way an M.C. Escher piece can give visual life to mathematic qualities, the simplicity and harmony of geometric symmetry. I could list off a number of other examples, but you see what I’m saying.
I realize I’ve gone off on a tangent, but I found that at least this portion of this article irritated me. The Weltanschauung sounds to me like a modern holy grail, but I don’t understand why the world’s most famous psychoanalyst would deem science above religion or art or philosophy, when clearly these things play a role in human psychology that cannot be denied or ignored.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
On the Romanticism of War [for 9 July]
Although I hardly think anyone would venture to deem war “glamorous,” I found myself rather surprised at the portrayal of certain factions in support of war in Eric Leed’s article, “The Escape From Modernity.” The majority of the people he focuses on are youth, but he does point out that other groups, such as Jews, Marxists, and intellectuals in general, were dissatisfied with the bourgeois society they were forced to operate within.
The general consensus from these people in support of war seems to be that war will bring about the destruction of an economic order, that it will end materialism and open the door for a direct and authentic brand of experience. The introduction of modernity has rendered society an unnatural, alienated, and immoral place. War represents a means for escaping these things.
The sheer frustration that would bring about such hopes is understandable, but in my opinion, wholly unrealistic. At one point in the article there is the mention of war representing a “second world” (67). As rife with suffering and frequently boring as this life can be, it is still reality. Reality can be reshaped over time for the better, but an escape into war is not necessarily the best answer that would initially come to my mind. War might harken back to those notions of the pastoral and simple ways of life, but in reality it is destructive, and perpetual violence and destruction is impossible; it has to end somewhere, and then one is still left with a pile of debris that has to be reshaped into some semblance of life once again.
Thus war cannot offer a definite escape in and of itself. Putting aside the whole “second world” notion, it does remain that sometimes war can be a workable option that might in fact be the best option depending on the circumstances. Even if war is entered in the best interest of society and people, I still don’t understand some of what I consider to be delusions on the part of the youth that seem so idealistic. I would associate war with destruction and the economic order, flawed as it may have been, with productivity. It seems counterintuitive to me that war is preferable. Class division and simultaneous alienation and confinement may have sprung from modern society, and these things may not be the most appealing, but I don’t see how so many people could see war as the best bet at liberation from this. It seems to me that the same problems would crop up again eventually; war may erase all signs of symptoms in its capacity for annihilation, but the root of the problem is still there and will continue to creep up as societies evolve. I think I may be rambling now, but in short, in reading this article I found the attitudes toward war to be romantic and idealized, and not very close to the reality of it.
The general consensus from these people in support of war seems to be that war will bring about the destruction of an economic order, that it will end materialism and open the door for a direct and authentic brand of experience. The introduction of modernity has rendered society an unnatural, alienated, and immoral place. War represents a means for escaping these things.
The sheer frustration that would bring about such hopes is understandable, but in my opinion, wholly unrealistic. At one point in the article there is the mention of war representing a “second world” (67). As rife with suffering and frequently boring as this life can be, it is still reality. Reality can be reshaped over time for the better, but an escape into war is not necessarily the best answer that would initially come to my mind. War might harken back to those notions of the pastoral and simple ways of life, but in reality it is destructive, and perpetual violence and destruction is impossible; it has to end somewhere, and then one is still left with a pile of debris that has to be reshaped into some semblance of life once again.
Thus war cannot offer a definite escape in and of itself. Putting aside the whole “second world” notion, it does remain that sometimes war can be a workable option that might in fact be the best option depending on the circumstances. Even if war is entered in the best interest of society and people, I still don’t understand some of what I consider to be delusions on the part of the youth that seem so idealistic. I would associate war with destruction and the economic order, flawed as it may have been, with productivity. It seems counterintuitive to me that war is preferable. Class division and simultaneous alienation and confinement may have sprung from modern society, and these things may not be the most appealing, but I don’t see how so many people could see war as the best bet at liberation from this. It seems to me that the same problems would crop up again eventually; war may erase all signs of symptoms in its capacity for annihilation, but the root of the problem is still there and will continue to creep up as societies evolve. I think I may be rambling now, but in short, in reading this article I found the attitudes toward war to be romantic and idealized, and not very close to the reality of it.
Monday, July 5, 2010
The Whole Wide World and the Second Industrial Revolution
This week we talked at length about the second industrial revolution and how it differed and went beyond the initial effects felt from the first industrial revolution (which was for the most part centered around the textile industry). We talked about numerous things, but what interested me most were the ramifications of a growing railway system. When you really think about it, it is almost impossible to really change your perspective in weighty matters. Through the lens of sympathy one might overcome past prejudices, I suppose, but this is not really what I am talking about.
By way of clarifying, an example might help. Right now I am taking a class on religion in Native American cultures, and one thing we have discussed in there is the fact that it is futile for an individual from a Euro-Christian background to try to really grasp the fact that for Native Americans religion is tied into everyday modes of existence--it does not revolve around one supreme being, it does not involve a church, or what we might deem “worship.” Having had the doctrine of Christianity engrained in our minds over centuries, it is a difficult obstacle to overcome in trying to see religion from the natives’ point of view.
This may be an extreme example, but this is the type of difficulty in perception-shifting I am trying to get at in regards to the railroads of the second industrial revolution. The world is so big, and yet so small to us. We can read books by foreign authors translated to our own English. We have almost immediate access to world news as it is occurring. We can watch films that depict other lands. Indeed, on a whim and with a little cash, one can up and go to another country whenever.
This was not the case until breakthroughs like the railway system. We mentioned in class the fact that many people would never leave the town they were born in. I can’t even begin to imagine it. Not only to be confined to one region of your country your entire life, but to really know nothing of other ways of existing, other cultures, histories, and approaches to the world.
Overall, I would narrow it down to two things I think railroads introduced to the world: knowledge and connectivity. Knowledge was to be found in traveling to other places, in purchasing items from different types of people, in encountering new ideas, if nothing else. Connectivity was also a result, but not simply in the sense that travel was simplified. If we want to use the metaphor of Einstein’s theory, distance and time contracted. People could get farther in less time. There also emerged an opening for different classes to engage in travel and exposure to new things and ideas, as the railway allowed for cheaper travel. A last thing of significance in terms of connectivity arises in terms of capitalist ventures: producers were given an entirely new, broader audience to target with their products, and buyers were introduced to a whole new array of products to pick and choose from.
Some of this, whether we talked about it in class or not, may seem like common sense. Of course new modes of travel will introduce new things like these enumerated. The thing that is on my mind is just how different and unfathomable it is for me trying to imagine life before this. We have also talked in class about how the capitalist system that slowly grew along with industrial leaps had negative ramifications. Perhaps this is so, but, at least with this one example, I think the industrial revolution managed to completely change the way human beings lived, and I would say for the better.
By way of clarifying, an example might help. Right now I am taking a class on religion in Native American cultures, and one thing we have discussed in there is the fact that it is futile for an individual from a Euro-Christian background to try to really grasp the fact that for Native Americans religion is tied into everyday modes of existence--it does not revolve around one supreme being, it does not involve a church, or what we might deem “worship.” Having had the doctrine of Christianity engrained in our minds over centuries, it is a difficult obstacle to overcome in trying to see religion from the natives’ point of view.
This may be an extreme example, but this is the type of difficulty in perception-shifting I am trying to get at in regards to the railroads of the second industrial revolution. The world is so big, and yet so small to us. We can read books by foreign authors translated to our own English. We have almost immediate access to world news as it is occurring. We can watch films that depict other lands. Indeed, on a whim and with a little cash, one can up and go to another country whenever.
This was not the case until breakthroughs like the railway system. We mentioned in class the fact that many people would never leave the town they were born in. I can’t even begin to imagine it. Not only to be confined to one region of your country your entire life, but to really know nothing of other ways of existing, other cultures, histories, and approaches to the world.
Overall, I would narrow it down to two things I think railroads introduced to the world: knowledge and connectivity. Knowledge was to be found in traveling to other places, in purchasing items from different types of people, in encountering new ideas, if nothing else. Connectivity was also a result, but not simply in the sense that travel was simplified. If we want to use the metaphor of Einstein’s theory, distance and time contracted. People could get farther in less time. There also emerged an opening for different classes to engage in travel and exposure to new things and ideas, as the railway allowed for cheaper travel. A last thing of significance in terms of connectivity arises in terms of capitalist ventures: producers were given an entirely new, broader audience to target with their products, and buyers were introduced to a whole new array of products to pick and choose from.
Some of this, whether we talked about it in class or not, may seem like common sense. Of course new modes of travel will introduce new things like these enumerated. The thing that is on my mind is just how different and unfathomable it is for me trying to imagine life before this. We have also talked in class about how the capitalist system that slowly grew along with industrial leaps had negative ramifications. Perhaps this is so, but, at least with this one example, I think the industrial revolution managed to completely change the way human beings lived, and I would say for the better.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thoughts on the Manifesto
This is the third time I have read The Communist Manifesto, and each time I have read it I’ve taken something new. The first time I read it, it was a struggle just to figure out what Marx was talking about. The second time I began to pick apart the properties of communism as presented by Marx and Engels, but still I didn’t see the applicability of it. This time around I was interested in what I found to be a dichotomy between the positivity of the outlook in the Manifesto verses the complete hell communism has proven to be in practice.
At times they write in philosophical jargon that I think could be phrased more succinctly and clearly, but behind this veil of academia the book almost seems like a fairy tale. When I think communism, I can’t help but think of Nazi concentration camps. I suppose I could see an abuse of this structure if it was completely used as an end to power and control, but in its intentions, the Manifesto presents a progressive and hopeful scenario. The abolishment of the class system, and thus equality among the masses, the stripping of the social class character from property, such that everyone has a right to their own land, public education for children: these sound like good ideas on paper. In fact, most everything in the Manifesto sounds good in theory, except maybe the new connotations surrounding the family, which while in a way I get, I still don’t care for it.
So if communism sounds so good on paper, why hasn’t it worked? Could it ever work? I know I couldn’t answer those questions here, but at least in dealing with the problem of this rift between what communism should be in theory and what it has been in execution, I think the answer is not too hard to find. Humans are fallible. Some tend to crave power, and even if communism as put forth by Marx and Engels is a benevolent idea, there are always individuals and groups willing to misconstrue something that was originally intended for the betterment of mankind as a whole in favor of bettering their individual existences (as they perhaps see it) with money, power, reputation, and so on. I like the ideas presented by Marx and Engels for the most part, I just don’t see how the system could ever get around power-hungry would be emperors.
At times they write in philosophical jargon that I think could be phrased more succinctly and clearly, but behind this veil of academia the book almost seems like a fairy tale. When I think communism, I can’t help but think of Nazi concentration camps. I suppose I could see an abuse of this structure if it was completely used as an end to power and control, but in its intentions, the Manifesto presents a progressive and hopeful scenario. The abolishment of the class system, and thus equality among the masses, the stripping of the social class character from property, such that everyone has a right to their own land, public education for children: these sound like good ideas on paper. In fact, most everything in the Manifesto sounds good in theory, except maybe the new connotations surrounding the family, which while in a way I get, I still don’t care for it.
So if communism sounds so good on paper, why hasn’t it worked? Could it ever work? I know I couldn’t answer those questions here, but at least in dealing with the problem of this rift between what communism should be in theory and what it has been in execution, I think the answer is not too hard to find. Humans are fallible. Some tend to crave power, and even if communism as put forth by Marx and Engels is a benevolent idea, there are always individuals and groups willing to misconstrue something that was originally intended for the betterment of mankind as a whole in favor of bettering their individual existences (as they perhaps see it) with money, power, reputation, and so on. I like the ideas presented by Marx and Engels for the most part, I just don’t see how the system could ever get around power-hungry would be emperors.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Napoleon and Popular Opinion
Although I realize we exhausted much of the Anti-Napoleon material in class Thursday, in reviewing the points covered in the past week, these pictures still especially stood out to me. However redundant it might be, I have to go back to this stuff. The easiest observation one might make is that the caricatures offer a glimpse into the mental landscape of the time--the opinions, fears, and complaints of the common people.
In looking through these little windows into the thoughts of general people at the time, I find myself wondering how these caricatures change my opinion of Napoleon, how they alter my preconceptions I might have brought with me from previous contact with him and the time period in other classes. I think this question might have been posed in class Thursday, actually.
What I find interesting is that for the most part, the caricatures really do not change my thoughts. Through lecture and discussion in class, I know more than I did before about Napoleon now, but the general ideas I had about the guy still hold--they are reinforced by the caricatures even. This is a little disappointing for me. It makes me feel as though I am not digging deep enough, that I am only on the surface. But then I think of the span of time that separates us and Revolutionary France. There has been plenty of time for the world to get a good idea of what a terrible person Napoleon was. So at least to that extent, it makes sense that the caricatures would not alter my opinions, only reinforce them.
I am more interested in how common people during this time would have reacted to seeing such pictures. There is probably a good chance that the images were representative of a large chunk of people’s silenced opinions, and that when they saw them they had to suppress a smile. But surely there were also people that completely ate up the façade Napoleon put up. Surely there were people that did think him a grand military leader, a potential savior for a country in trouble everywhere one turned.
Public opinion today is such a different beast. Newspapers, broadcasts on television, radio news programs, the INTERNET--it is almost impossible for us to hear of anything in popular or political culture without quickly having dozens of different things telling us how we should process what’s going on, where we should align our opinions. In revolutionary France, I am genuinely curious as to what kind of effect these caricatures (and obviously there were many) had collectively on the people. Time has magnified Napoleon’s reputation as a “bad guy,” but in his particular time period, did such caricatures make any difference? If so how and to what end? Or were they beside the point, taken in and then disregarded by the populace with little thought of any implications? Maybe I am asking questions that do not especially matter at the end of the day, but curiosity compels me to wonder.
In looking through these little windows into the thoughts of general people at the time, I find myself wondering how these caricatures change my opinion of Napoleon, how they alter my preconceptions I might have brought with me from previous contact with him and the time period in other classes. I think this question might have been posed in class Thursday, actually.
What I find interesting is that for the most part, the caricatures really do not change my thoughts. Through lecture and discussion in class, I know more than I did before about Napoleon now, but the general ideas I had about the guy still hold--they are reinforced by the caricatures even. This is a little disappointing for me. It makes me feel as though I am not digging deep enough, that I am only on the surface. But then I think of the span of time that separates us and Revolutionary France. There has been plenty of time for the world to get a good idea of what a terrible person Napoleon was. So at least to that extent, it makes sense that the caricatures would not alter my opinions, only reinforce them.
I am more interested in how common people during this time would have reacted to seeing such pictures. There is probably a good chance that the images were representative of a large chunk of people’s silenced opinions, and that when they saw them they had to suppress a smile. But surely there were also people that completely ate up the façade Napoleon put up. Surely there were people that did think him a grand military leader, a potential savior for a country in trouble everywhere one turned.
Public opinion today is such a different beast. Newspapers, broadcasts on television, radio news programs, the INTERNET--it is almost impossible for us to hear of anything in popular or political culture without quickly having dozens of different things telling us how we should process what’s going on, where we should align our opinions. In revolutionary France, I am genuinely curious as to what kind of effect these caricatures (and obviously there were many) had collectively on the people. Time has magnified Napoleon’s reputation as a “bad guy,” but in his particular time period, did such caricatures make any difference? If so how and to what end? Or were they beside the point, taken in and then disregarded by the populace with little thought of any implications? Maybe I am asking questions that do not especially matter at the end of the day, but curiosity compels me to wonder.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
11 June 2010
The Nobility and the Grand Jours: Some Questions
In reading “Reforming the Provinces: The Grand Jours d’Auvergne,” two things plague me: historical credibility and modern perspective. I have neither the time nor desire to go into these things in any kind of broad sense that could be applied to any area of academia. Rather, I would like to point to why this is a problem for me with this particular area of history we are studying.When I speak of historical credibility, I mean just that. I became aware that Flechier’s excerpts could have had a biased bent from the start when he mocked the people of the countryside and suggested the women found in these parts were homely at best. I knew from the outset I was reading at least semi-subjective material. The framing argument around the Flechier pieces, however is the main thing that perturbs me. Specifically, I am interested in the statistics that while 87 members of the nobility were tried, 574 commoners were tried as well. I would not have assumed such a ratio while reading Flechier. His focus is specifically on nobles and gives the impression that they alone were the focal point of the Grand Jours. Clearly this was not the case. Primary and secondary sources are always of vital use in researching a particular event, but in this case I find Flechier’s input to be more confusing than beneficial to my understanding of this court. I understand that the point was to make tangible again the hand of Louis XIV that was not being felt in the countryside and remoter areas. I also understand that class distinction aside, commoner or noble, all people are fallible and capable of criminal activities and should suffer the consequences of such activities. The main problem for me arises when historical sources such as Flechier skew things in such a way that it is difficult to make out the big picture, which leads to my question of modern perspective.
From the vantage point of several centuries into the future, historical sources are all one has to go on in many cases. While there are many questions that are of interest from a scholarly stand point, the most basic so far as the Grand Jours goes, is ascertaining exactly what the point of it was. If Louis XIV was interested in making his power felt where it was dwindling in the conscious of the people, it makes sense that he would go for the nobility: they were the powerhouses of such areas, exerted the most influence, and had the best leverage for misconduct. A source such as Flechier backs this up, but the statistics that follow bring his pieces into question for me. Objectively, I want to know how the nobility fit into Louis XIV’s plans for the Grand Jours and why the statistics for the commoners was so much higher (regular criminality aside, that is still a significantly higher number of common people than nobles). From a modern perspective, at least from these pages, I find myself unable to piece these numbers with a motive that satisfactorily matches them.
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