Marge Playboy?

Wow. Can't help but laughing when seeing this on BBC's homepage http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8300463.stm ... First time ever a cartoon character is gracing Playboy's cover. Marge Simpson posing on her playboy chair, seducing the camera in a way that only ... cartoon characters can do? Anyone turned on?

Philosophy- the Individual and the Church

Many great philosophers have managed to make themselves a name thanks to theories or innovations etc, and these are usually the people that we may think of when someone mentions the term 'philosophy'. It is definitely the way my mind works anyway. Ancient Greeks. Italian masterpieces from the Renaissance. Roman emperors. Danish and Polish astronoms. People. Individuals.

What I haven't really thought of before reading the book 'History of Western Philosophy' by Bertrand Russell is the influence philosophy had on the Church, both the Catholic and the Christian. I do know that philosophy has a huge influence on everything, whether we like it or not. It's there and exists around us all the time. It's as normal as breathing or sleeping. Philosophising.

But it's not only philosophical reasons that has formed, and still do influence the Church. Factors such as the political and economical climate, as well as the new multi cultural society we live in have always played a big part. I would say that one of the biggest sources for changes both to the better and the worse is the multi cultural society, a term more relevant to this discussion now than ever before. This thanks to - or maybe because of - the many possibilities the world is offering us today with for example the EU.

Let's look back in time. We don't need to look far. Say 100 years. A time before mass media were developed to the enormous proportions they exist in today. When people didn't have the chance to update themselves on what was going on in the world or in their country. Maybe all they could do was keeping an eye (or ear) on what was going on in their closest surroundings, and maybe, if they were lucky, they could manage to listen to a radio somewhere in the village. The church was usually the place to gather. To meet people. To communicate. To gossip. To feel safe. To have a social life outside your family and your own home. Of course it was also a place to practice your religion.

Today, due to the open doors all around the world, religion has in one way moved on. People still believe, and will probably always keep believing. But today we're familiar with many more different types of religion. We know of Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Hindus.. and the list could go on forever. But from a philosophical perspective, we all believe. Whether we believe in a god, many gods, God, Allah, Vishnu or maybe we believe in nothing at all - we are all still human beings inhabitating this planet called Earth. Whether we decide to go to church on Sundays or stay at home in bed (where we actually can watch church services live from somewhere in the country we are in at the moment!), we are all equally valued in today's society (and thank God for that).

Society and its habitants have developed new ways of living, their traditions have changed and so on. Church doesn't play as big a part today as it did 100 years ago. I'm not to judge whether this is for the better or worse, but I do think religion today is not as powerful as it once was, both for state and individual.

I'm not quite sure what I wanted to say with this blog post.. Society changes, both for individuals and institutions over time - it would be well weird otherwise. It will be very interesting to see where we are in another 100 years time and what kind of role the Church plays then and how the relation between State, Church and Individual will have changed.

Cheerios
Mads

10 of 60 mins commercial break. Sigh.

On Thursday's "How to produce for radio" lecture we were given some preparations to do before the next lecture coming up this Thursday. Among other things we're supposed to listen to a radio station for at least 30 minutes and think of what we hear, what happens, how does the presenter make you feel special enough so that you don't turn him off and leave him alone out there in media space? Also, we were told to preferably listen to a radio station which we normally don't listen to but since I haven't really been listening to radio since I moved to the UK I just decided to pick a random radio channel on my Sky box and go for it..

0107

Absolute

So an hour and a bit ago this the channel I got tuned on to. A commercial station that seems to survive on nothing else than commercial breaks and competitions every frigging second for people to pay a pound to enter with a 1 in a million chance to win a laptop.. Fair enough. After all, this is a commercial station and I do expect commercial breaks when listening to it, I would be sort of silly if not - but I was not expecting one sixth of the broadcasted time I listened to, to be commercial commercial bloody commercial breaks.

I ended up listening an hour because it feels like I would be able to give a fairer picture of the station the longer I would listen to it. So, 60 minutes ended up containing 10 minutes commercial breaks together and 9 minutes of win this fab prize if entering this contest. 19 minutes out of 60. That's a lot!

I have actually never thought about commercial radio like this before. And with this hour session I have realised that I do like the TV licence more than I thought I did an hour ago - because there is no silly commercial breaks. Long live the TV licence!! Hurray!!

Or would media work just as well without it..?

Hmm...
Mads

Thesis+Antithesis=Clashy Synthesis?

Let's start with part three instead. Just throw ourselves into the middle of history, cuddle up with a cup of tea, a penguin classic written by Emile Zola and wroom - here goes History and Context of Journalism - part three.. I guess first parts are over rated? Or just time consuming? ...both?

Anyway, start of part three it is. As class went on, I found myself most interested and inspired by the idealistic philosopher Hegel. His thoughts and ideas were complicated, mainly based on life, society and how the world all evolves around changes. His main idea suggests that there are no objects, all there is is change. Change seems to develop from two opposites (thesis and antithesis) clashing and erupting into something new, some kind of 'togetherness', or as Hegel would say, synthesis. This could easily be described, as Chris pointed out in the lecture, as two football teams, a home team (thesis) and an away team (antithesis). When these two teams meet up it results in a football game - the clash (synthesis). As we can see here, out of two opposites, the final result is change.

To take this theory to a higher level we can instead of the football terms refer to the ancient times and the Greek state (thesis) and the Roman fall (antithesis). When these two nations clashed history resulted in war (synthesis). 

But even after this change, there is according to Hegel additional changes that will build the future. So, with war there will be peace which will lead to victory and so on in all eternally...

When I started reading the Emile Zola book, Germinal a week or so ago, I found this similar way of thinking reflected in the story about the coal mine worker in France. Here we get the opportunity to follow the citizens daily work and life in a very violent and emotion filled society. As poverty and famine like conditions hit the society, the miners decide to strike in hopes to get their employer to once again rise their wages in order to support their families and themselves. But the tactics do not quite go according to plan as mayhem breaks lose and people will have to fight even harder to survive...

So; mining society vs powers ruling above the miners clashing together and gives us strike. It might not be exactly what Hegel gave us with his theory of how everything changes, but traces can definitely be found in how society do change according to people, the interest in surviving and having a worthy life even though there is a higher power ruling them in society. I think this still in some ways occur in our society with strikes, demonstrations and such, and it will probably exist as long as the humankind is alive and ready to defend themselves and their human rights...

To make a long story short; nothing stays the same as everything changes all the time... Like I said, well confusing..

Weyoo

Mads

Greek, Romans, Hellenistic worlds.. pfffffew!

Ancient philosophy after Aristotle.. As exciting as it sounds. I was starting to get my hopes up because the book has actually been quite interesting so far and I’ve definetely opened my eyes and my mind for a different kind of thinking and analysing (philosophical maybe..?). But this chapter killed my interest – totally. It started off alright, describing how the Greek speaking world was divided into three different periods; the free city states (freedom and disorder), the Maledonian domination (subjection and disorder) and finally the Roman Empire (subjection and order). It also gave a brief summary of the Hellenistic age and gave examples of how the Greeks changed during the ages as they came to learn about new cultures and superstitious ideas – with other words, they developed their own theories and religion towards a new modern version.

Even though the book mostly talks about one or two dominant philosophers from a certain point in time, I do think there must have been more ideas out and about that never got as much attention as for example Plato and Aristotle’s ideas did. Maybe even more interesting and developed ideas were circulating in the ancient Greek, ideas that might have changed something else or developed a new perspective on life etc., but maybe due to the extreme publicity that previous mentioned philosophers had during and especially after their lifetime, we lost out on bits that could have changed for example society and the government to the better because someone else was in the lime light at that point. Who knows? Who will ever know..?

With the Roman Empire we can see roles and positions that can still be found in present governments etc, and it definitely shows that both the Greek and the Roman age are to be considered as very important mile stones for Western societies philosophy, politics and development as a whole. I do think that even without these two groups we would have a government in today’s society, somewhat similar to what we have, but not as well developed as it is said to be ( -if we can call today’s government well developed... This is definitely a later question which is very debatable...)

Ah well, got a bit side tracked from the book – but if I wouldn’t have read the book the thoughts and ideas mentioned here would probably not ever occur to me... And since I found the part (no 3, book 1) not very exciting, I’d rather bore you all people with something I do find exciting instead of something I don’t even care about... Anyway... Long story short – there is still much to read in my book – better get going again.

Cheerios

Mads

Here we go again!

Well if I found the first part of the book a tad confusing and over informating, God knows what to call the hundred pages following.. Here, the author discusses Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, their views on life, on human kind, on society and everything else there is to mention about them and their role in the Greek society, and their role in history. The biggest influence on these, and other, Greek philosophers seem to be the influence of Sparta – both through the reality and through the myth. Basically, the sole purpose of Sparta and its citizens was war, and this was all that matters. Due to this fact, society and the way it was built up, did not mean as much to a citizen because all he, or she (!), was trained to do, was fight. Therefore, the constitution of Sparta was much more complex than the more structured forms of constitutions we started to see at this point in Greece. For example, two kings were ruling the country at the same time (who both belonged to two completely different families), alongside with an assembly, a council of elders and a few more bodies, all struggling, trying to share the reigning power. The Spartans seemed to be invincible for a long time, but eventually, 371 B.C. , their supremacy fell.

Plato was Socrates pupil, and these two philosophers turned out to be two of the most influential philosophers in Greek, and Western societies, philosophy. They wanted to find out whether wisdom really exist, if justice can be defined in an appropriate way, how citizens in a society can or cannot control power in a ‘healthy’ way, what, if there is one, the distinction between reality and appearance is.. the questions and thoughts keep trailing through their years alive on this planet, and some of them still keep present philosophers awake at night.

The Greeks turned out to be an important mile stone in the history of Western civilization and in mankind evolving into what it has turned out to be today. But, what would have happened if for example Sparta had managed to take Greece over and maybe destroyed the entire Greek civilization? How would for example a plague or a fatigue affect the ways the Greek society got shaped, and still is shaping the Western society today with governments and constitutions? Would we be somewhere completely different in history and would we have developed an entirely new form of ruling and reigning a country and its citizens, or is democracy, with its con’s and pro’s, the idea of a fair society that we would have ended up with – because it is the most natural way for mankind to develop into?

But, what about today’s society in another two million years time? Will the human being of that time look back at our society and thing ‘God how stupid, why didn’t they realise this and that?’, ‘Why didn’t they see that global warming was just this, and not that?’ and ‘Why on earth bother with this or that, it’s just so completely wrong!’.. We feel, with the Internet and moon landing etc., that we are at the peak of evolution, both political, technical and so on – but are we really? Is that just the same thoughts that Greek society lived in, and societies after. It must have been exactly what they felt like when they ‘discovered’ that the Earth is flat..

Cheerios
Mads

Back in action!

So after what feels like a decade long summer holiday – with still three weeks to go – I felt as if I’ve been lazying around way too much now, and as if the time has finally come to get back in action and do some proper studying. The pile with the philosophy books that are supposed to be read over the summer break have been lying there on my table for quite a while staring at me. Now I’m finally staring back at them, opening them and realising that my choice is wise, this is probably going to take up all my time I’ve still got left before Uni once again kicks off. History of Western Philosophy (Bertrand Russell) and Plato to Nato (Brian Redhead). Not what I would choose to read in my spare time, but quite interesting since I don’t know very much about the history of philosophy at all, and I love to learn new things – that’s what life is all about.. Right?

The book I decide to start with happens to be the heavy brick book about western philosophers from years and years before Christ, leaping through time and eventually ending up with modern times and the present ideas and theories presented by the philosophers active in today’s society. But not to rush things, first thing first. Let’s begin with the rise of the Greek civilisation.

The Greeks are known to have invented mathematics, science, philosophy and they are also getting the credit for being the first to write history . The Greek society was divided into many small independent provinces, and therefore the social systems differed depending on if you were living on the country side or in a city. Kings ruling the country were not absolute and their power were not inhereditary. Democracy included all citizens, except from slaves and women who weren’t considered citizens.

Philosophy is said to have begun with Thales about 585 B.C. He said that everything is made out of water and he also had a great part in evolving the first steps of the geometry we still use in Western societies today. Throughout the years, many ideas were built upon Thales first philosophical ground stones, such as water being one of the four elements that create everything, as well as his ideas getting scrapped by others who couldn’t understand how something liquid and a subject that were always moving could be a corner stone for something bigger.

To think that someone made a discovery that water is probably a part of everything, more than two milleniums ago without the equipment we use in today’s society, is fascinating. Especially when science men and philosophers still agree that water is a part of life and death, heaven and earth and everything in between.

During the early years of Western philosophy Greece was definitely the country were the action took place. Philosphers like Anaximanes (everything is made of air), Pythagoras (mathematics), Heraclitus (everything is made of fire) lived and worked along side less famous philosphers. Their ideas were eventually brought together as Empedocles stated that everything is made of a mix of fire, water, air and earth and due to this nothing ever stays the same, everything flows. For example, you cannot step into the same river twice, because the water will not be the same as new fresh water is always flowing upon you.

I must admit from reading about all these genious men – becuase unfortunately it was only men who were allowed to ‘think’ and act – I get a bit dizzy. So many thoughts and ideas circulating around, how to be able to seperate right from wrong, the truth from the lies and the visible from the invisible and still believe in it.. It is just amazing.. And, realising these guys were actually doing it two thousand years ago.. Wow.. If it wasn’t for them, maybe the earth would still be flat..

Tomorrow a short review of the second part of the first book, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, will be up on the blog accompanied with a few of my own ideas and thoughts. Hopefully you will be here taking part of it as well!

Cheerios
Mads x