My thoughts
The first lecture this year was an introduction to modernism and a glimpse into what we will be studying in HCJ over this year. The following are notes from the lecture, although as it was an introduction lecture these notes will not be as detailed as my future HCJ blog posts will be.
Chris explained that the paradigm of modernism is relativity; in the sense that there is no centre of anything, including that there is no centre of the self.
This year we will be studying the work of Sigmund Freud who was a psychoanalyst. Freud believed that there is more to our being than just our conscious minds. He thought that we also have a subconscious that we have no control over, but that causes us to behave in a certain way. He also thought it was through the subconscious that our dreams reveal our wishes and anxieties that our conscious mind has not recognised.
The belief in a subconscious goes beyond the belief that humans act on our animal instincts. For example, the desire to eat when we are hungry is an instinct, where as the desire to act in a way that makes us happy is a subconscious act. The Utilitarian theory of Bentham and Mill is based solely on the belief that the subconscious mind will result in all humans naturally doing good and avoiding evil. I am writing the seminar paper on Freud so will add much more detailed notes on his work and also the issues of free will and determinism that are raised.
Nietzsche was also discussed in the lecture, in particular his post-Darwinian belief that we have to overcome humanity. Developments in medicine and technology has meant that humans are not evolving in the way that they should because we are keeping people with defective genes and hereditary illnesses, disabilities, etc alive and so are keeping them in the gene pool. Nietzsche made the point that we know where are from but we do not know where we are going; how are humans going to evolve? There are two proposed ways for humans to evolve:
- We could evolve in the way that nature intended by not making efforts to keep those with defective genes alive, and thus removing them from the gene pool so that only the strongest of our species are able to procreate.
- We could evolve through technology. For example by becoming cyborg-type creatures, creating the very best versions of ourselves that we possibly can.
As Rousseau believed, we are living in a technologically advancing world that could not be further from living in a natural way, and I do not believe that it would ever be possible for us to move back to a state of nature. Therefore, we might as well develop technology in the best way we possibly can because we have lost any chance of being able to survive in a purely natural state.
Another topic covered in the lecture was modern particle physics; that everything in the world, when stripped down, is essentially absolutely nothing - we do not have centres and neither does the earth or the universe. This is not something that human mind is able to conceive because we can only perceive things in 3D, and as such there is always a centre.
Once Chris had said this I instantly started trying to imagine something with no centre, much in the same way that if someone says you are not able to lick your own elbow - you always try. Not only can I not even imagine something with no centre, I am not confused as to how the human minds of scientists were able to discover something that they are not able to perceive themselves? To me, this would be the same as me discovering a new colour but not actually being able to see the colour myself - it seems like a logical absurdity.
Modernist music was also a key point of the lecture, in particular the work of Wagner, whose music reflects the modernist paradigm of angst and terror of existence, as well as sex. Admittedly this kind of music does not appeal to me at all but I am interested to learn what impact the music of Wagner and other composers at the time had on society.
Ultimately I think that this year of HCJ is set to be as challenging, but at the same time as interesting as it was last year.
good - you have grasped some of teh key things - on the 'social darwinism' and post human, I would say that it we are not going to evolve through the law of the jungle, etc, or eugenics, then it is necessary to have social evolution - mostly through education and I would say social reform so that the ability of billions of people currently condemn to poverty, illiteracy and early death (many women for example) are not lost to the human project.
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