History and context of journalism; lecture/seminar 4

Ethics and aesthetics;

In most systems of morality happiness is important; philosophers thought saw happiness as a supreme good. Though Kant challenged this and said that duty is the supreme ethical motive.

But those who believe in happiness having supremacy in ethics differ from the thoughts of Bentham, despite his idea of the greatest good for the greatest number. Bentham believed happiness (a sensation) and pleasure are equivalent and that maximising either one maximises the other.

Aristotle made a distinction and refused to identify happiness with the pleasures of the senses. He identified pleasure with the activity, whereas Bentham saw it as cause and effect and that all pleasure has the same value; Aristotle believed the value of pleasure was the same as the activity.

This brings us to the ‘qualification of pleasure and pain.’ It is an important concept for utilitarian authority as it establishes an estimation of the pleasure or plain a policy or action may cause to the people.  Bentham believed that A is more pleasurable than B if it is more intense or lasts longer. Judging actions must consider fecundity and purity; fecund pleasure is likely to produce pleasure in subsequent senses. Pure pleasure is unlikely to produce a subsequent series of pains. Also when considering public policy ‘extension’ must be considered – how widely the pleasure/pain will be spread across the population and brings up a questioning of utilitarianism ‘the greatest number of what?’ in Bentham’s thinking it is likely that he was talking about humans. 

Modifications of utilitarianism;

 John Stewart Mill toned down Bentham’s utilitarianism, in his treatises of utilitarianism recognises that people had always thought that life has no higher end than pleasure. He believed this to be a doctrine of a dirty swine.

By distinguishing between different types and qualities of pleasure utilitarianism can out distance between himself and of a swine – happiness involves a sense of dignity and contentment. Though there are some objections to utilitarianism as it can be considered to be too strict because it asks that a single action should take into account universal happiness. It’s also thought to be too lax – there could be times when the abolition of banning actions causes moral representatives to think they can do outrageous things in justification.

Mill offers a defence for both by distinguishing between moral standard and a motive of action. Utilitarianism may offer universal happiness as a moral standard, but it does not feature it to be the aim of every action.

He also suggests a preference for practical over justice – it’s important to make a connection between justice and moral rights. He emphasises that there can be legal rights which are unjust and just claims conflict with laws.

Schopenhauer on renunciation;

Schopenhauer’s ethics are related to metaphysics and the theses that the world of experience is illusory and that the true reality, the thing in itself, is the universal will.

Life is just a gift and the loss of that gift is death – to find the will we need to consider life philosophically. The thing in itself in all phenomena, is unaffected by life or death and death should not trouble us. It is just a sleep in which we forget our individuality. It’s only as phenomenon individuals are distinct.

 Schopenhauer believed that morality is a matter of training character, but this can only be understood if Kant’s reconciliation of freedom with necessity is accepted. The will is free from eternity to eternity. Everything in nature is determined by necessity.

We would be able to predict a person’s future like and eclipse if we had knowledge of a person’s character and motives that are presented to them.  We believe that we have a choice between alternatives because we have no knowledge of how the Will is going to decide.

Schopenhauer rejects the idea that there is only one character by distinguishing several kinds of character;

-          Intelligible character; underlying reality, determines response to situations in the world.

-          Empirical character; what we learn in experience of nature of our intelligible character.  

-          Acquired character; achieved by those who have learnt the nature and limitations of their own individual character. 

Our will can never change but there are many degrees of awareness of will. We are all creatures of will and will of it. Nature is insatiable.

He believes that the basis of all willing is need and pain; we suffer until our needs are satisfied, but once the will lacks the object of desire, once it is satisfied, life becomes boredom – all happiness is essentially negative, never positive. 

Nietzsche;

Nietzsche believes that history shows two kinds of morality, that of the rich and of the poor. This lead to a system called ‘A Tansvaluation of Values’ which he blamed on the Jews.

He believed Christianity had led to the degeneration of the human race because it is rooted in weakness, fear and malice. Christians exalt compassion as a value – when they assist the affected it is because they enjoy exercising power over them. Pity is a poison that infects a compassionate person with suffering of others.

Nietzsche suggested a reversal of the values of Christianity to save the human race by creating a second tranvalutation of values.

He believed that humans fell into two types – ascending and descending; people who represented the upward and downward track of human evolution.

Nietzsche thought that it wasn’t only Christianity that needed to be overturned. We must go beyond the opposition between good and evil. We shouldn’t object to judgement because they are false.  We must affirm life and bring it to a new level – the ubermensch – humanity is only a stage before reaching it. It will not come about through evolution but through the exercise of will. Its arrival will be the perfection of the world and give it meaning.

 Aesthetics;

The point of beauty is to give pleasure and arouse desire – the finest beauty is to be found in nature and therefore the highest aim of art is to imitate nature.

Burke introduced sublimity alongside the concept of beauty. The sublime can be the aim of art. To feel something as sublime is to feel astonishment without fear. He sought to explain what qualities inspire these feelings.

-          Sublime; the fears and horrors implicit in the original instinct for self preservation.

-          Beauty; appreciation for female perfection, derives from the need for social contract and from instinct to continue the race.

Kant’s ideas in his treatise dominated aesthetics. Human beings possess a third faculty- the capacity for judgement, the judgement of taste which is the basis of aesthetic experience.

He suggested two kinds of satisfaction; gratification – sensual delight. And pleasingness – the notion, disinterested enjoyment of beauty.

Judgements of taste are singular in term. Judgements of value are related to purpose. Similarly are judgements of perfection of perfections. However, judgements of beauty are not like either because they do not bring objects under concept. This becomes clearer with Kant’s different types of beauty.

-          Free beauty; no concept of what the object ought to be.

-          Derivative beauty; supposes a concept and perfection with the object. It is ascribed to objects with a particular purpose.

‘Analytic of Sublime’ the sublime is large, overwhelming and mathematical. It is too great to be taken in by our senses and our perceptions become overwhelmed. Resisting it would be in vain but allow us to remain without fear in a state of security.

Nature can be both beautiful and sublime, but only art can be beautiful and we must be conscious that art is artificial not natural. Production of beauty is the purpose of art, but is only a representation of beauty. Three kinds of art are outlined; speech, namely rhetoric and poetry. These are formative arts. There is a third class of art which are sensations. The most important in this class is music, though poetry is most important of all. 

Schopenhauer;

Aesthetic pleasure consists in the disinterested contemplation of nature or of artefacts. When we view something and admire its beauty without thought of our desires and needs that we are treating it as a work of art and enjoying aesthetic experience. Disinterested contemplation, liberates us of tyranny of the will and may take one of two forms.

1.       If the scene I am contemplating absorbs my attention without effort then it is my sense of beauty that is aroused.

2.       If the scene is a threatening one and I have to struggle to escape from fear and achieve contemplation- then what I am encounter is something that is sublime rather than beautiful.

The sublime impression produced in an awareness of two fold consciousness (individual and eternal) is called the ‘dynamical sublime,’ though the same impression may be produced by meditation. This impression of sublimity can be produced also by closed spaces and monument of age.the sense arises from the a contrast of our smallness and insignificance as individuals and vastness of creation of ourselves as pure knowing subjects.

The charming;

The charming is a lower bound of beauty; it turns upon the object of contemplation into something which attracts the will. They nullify the aesthetic purposes and are altogether to be condensed.

In every encounter of beauty has two elements; a will-less knowing subject and an object which is the idea known. The purpose if art is to represent not a particular individual, nor an abstract concept, but a platonic end. 

Nietzsche on tragedy;

He sees the origin of art in human need to mask life’s misery from themselves. There are two escapes from reality – intoxication and dreaming. These illusions are personified as Apollo and Dionysus.

Music is the supreme expression of the Dionysiac spirit, and epic of Apolline. Tragedy is the offspring of Apollo and Dionysus combining poetry and music, though Euripides killed tragedy by injecting it with rationality; the fault of Socrates as he rejected Dionysus and destroyed tragedians’ synthesis.

WINOL Bulletins;

The production team for WINOL are expected to produce the live bulletin at three o’clock on the dot. Our first week was most challenging as everything in the gallery was completely new to us, as was the set up and routine of news day.

I think we all felt slightly relieved when we realised how demanding being part of the news tem was at the beginning of the first week; it was only on the Wednesday that we realised that we hadn’t drawn the short straw.  We began the day by recording the headlines so they could be run as a VT in the live bulletin; once they were done the team could focus on pestering the news team for their packages and links – we follow this routine every week.

Everything seemed to from bad to worse with equipment and time management – VT’s didn’t reach the gallery until the last minute, nor the script to the autocue, leaving the production team and presenter with very little time to rehearse the bulletin and get used to using the equipment; this lead to the bulletin going out after three o’clock, which after a day of hard-work and stress took its toll on the team. It was then I realised how important our roles were and we weren’t just relying on the news team for stories.

My first role on the production team was vision mixer – this meant that I was in charge of live editing the headlines and the live bulletin. The vision mixer relies on the director’s cue, which indicated when to cut to a different camera or to a VT. I also became familiar with how to use the green screen, making sure that the background was at the best possible quality.

After the hullabaloo of the first week, Graham created a plan to make sure that all went much smoother than the first week – all of the problems were to do with planning and preparation. The resolution involved checking the equipment early on the Wednesday morning, which meant that we could identify the problems early, rather than shortly before the bulletin. Though, unfortunately like the week before we didn’t manage to get the bulletin out at three and there were also some problems in post-production.

For the second WINOL I was in charge of the sound desk where I had to change make sure the sound levels didn’t peak throughout the bulletin, but I also had the job of adjusting the sound levels in the headlines and OOVs so that the VTs weren’t cutting out the presenters dialogue. This role was quite challenging, but just as enjoyable as the vision mixing I had done the week before.

The third week bought a more confident team, we knew what was expected of us and were determined to get the bulletin out at three – which would have happened but we forgot to record on tape!!  I was in charge of the VT machine, which meant that I had to line up the pre-recorded headlines and the news teams packages and play them when the director cued. This is one of the easier jobs, but it was quite nerve racking because I was expecting to mess up something to simple.

Week four was the most organised week by far, we had headlines, packages and a script all ready for the three o’clock bulletin with very plenty of rehearsal time and little stress in the gallery. I was on the vision mixer again and felt more confident using it, though we had an in studio discussion, which I found difficult because, at times, I had to judge when to cut without the directors cue.

History and context of journalism; Lecture 3/Seminar Paper.

In 1789 a revolutionary book was published which changed moral and political thinking – an introduction to the principles of morals and legislation, written by Bentham which founded utilitarianism.

Bentham had strong views on the English legal system and thought it to be ‘cumbrous, artificial and incoherent’ and that should be recreated from the ground up in the light of sound principles of jurisprudence.

He based his own ideas on utility on Hume’s ‘treatise of human nature’ – utility was the test and measure of all virtue and the sole origin of justice. After reading an essay of John Priestley’s, he interpreted utility to mean the happiness of the greatest number of citizens and was the standard by which the affairs of a state should be judges –the true goal of legislation was the greatest happiness to the greatest number. Bentham’s book outlines the purposes and limits of punishment, along with the principle of utility.

Economics is considered a science which analyses the production, consumption and distribution of products and services, and could be considered to be biased around the ideas of utilitarianism in that economic theories and systems aim to give the greatest happiness to the greatest number.

Adam smith was one of the first economists, during the enlightenment and wrote the book ‘The Wealth of Nations’ this questioned why one country was richer than another.  He believed that a wealthy nation needs to be free – free trade and individuals. Our morality leads us to be pleasure seeking and selfish individuals, but our free will adds to the wealth of a nation. Our will drives the hidden hand of the market which drives production through competition. Smith’s views on morality link to Bentham’s idea of utilitarianism and our constant drive for pleasure, even if it means causing someone else pain.

David Ricardo believed in the spirit of values of things and believed that raw materials have no real value. It’s once we apply conscious effort to it then becomes valuable. This is a rejection of Smith’s ideas as he believes value is created through trade – hence his emphasis on the hidden hand of the market.

Thomas Malthus like Smith and Ricardo, Malthus believed that we are selfish beings and that this caused an economic problem of its own;  our recourses are limited and eventually we will all starve to death because of our wants, as well as our constant fear of poverty and starvation.

Karl Marx believes that the only source of value comes from labour and that wages will keep decreasing because of the constant growth in population. For Marx the idea of profit and capitalism had fundamental flaws; eventually we won’t be able to afford to buy what is being produced because the labour force will not be earning enough money – they will be exploited - which would lead to an economic bust. In some ways, Marx’s theory came true in the great depression and as wages dropped, unemployment did also and the price of products rose.

A solution to this, though it has its downfalls, was suggested by John Keynes who used his criticisms of classic economics to form his modern principles.

‘The General Theory of Employment’ was written by Keynes to find a solution to the problem of mass unemployment during depression; it was clear from the slump in the economy that capitalism was failing and he believed that the only way to correct mistakes of previous economists was to make institutional changes to restore the economy. Keynes strongly believed that the faults which lead to such dramatic depressions had ‘narrow’ and ‘technical’ causes, arguing that the solution would also be narrow and technical and emphasised that there was no need for state socialism – despite many at the time believing this was the answer. But a shock to many economists who believed strongly in a self-regulating free market, Keynes suggested that a range of less intrusive government policies could revive the market.

Paul Krugman highlighted four main conclusions of Keynes’ ‘The General Theory of Employment.’

-          The first, economies can and often suffer from an overall lack of demand, which leads to involuntary unemployment.

-          The second, the economy’s automatic tendency to correct shortfalls in demand, if it exists at all, operates slowly and painfully.

-          The third, government policies to increase demand, by contrast, can reduce unemployment quickly.

-          And the fourth, sometimes increasing the money supply won’t be enough to persuade the private sector to spend more, and government spending must step into breach.

The purpose of Keynes theory was to make the above points thinkable, but this proved difficult because they stepped away from the previous theory of the economy and involved the intervention of the state.

The first book of The General Theory of employment outlines Keynes’ manifesto, taking conventional views of the relationship of wages and employment and outlines the mistakes in its structure. This led him to the conclusion that cutting wages made no sense as a method of reducing unemployment – book five emphasises this idea; his theory suggested that solving the problem was easy.

Keynes had a huge struggle in turning people’s thoughts away from classical economics, in this case Say’s law, which suggest that products pay for products because income must be spent and that booms and busts are natural and inevitable. Controversially, Keynes called the ‘law’ a tautology because people can save the money rather than spend it on goods and service.

Many economists before Keynes chose to explain the workings of the economy, when discussing business cycle, rather than provide answers the important questions like how to increase employment – Gottfried Haberler’s book is an example of this, as it explains why booms are followed by busts. Keynes analyses the reasons for the economy staying depressed, rather than explaining how it got there.

Among modern macroeconomists there is a divide in opinion of whether or not the ideas of Keynes have been left behind for better or for worse.  Krugman argues that this is because they have misunderstood or have not read The General Theory of Employment and because of John Hick’s review of the book, suggesting Keynes failed to give monetary policy. The theory doesn’t dismiss it, it is discussed and is similar to modern theory.

Keynes’ skepticism about adding money to restore full employment was not a demonstration of his own ignorance – instead it was an observation determined by the state of the economy at the time; that interest rates were so low that little that could be done by increasing the money.

The biggest criticism of Keynes’ theory of employment is that he mistook the episode of the depression in the 1930’s to be part of a trend and would be the norm from then onwards. Keynes’ theory is considered wrong because his idea of ‘euthanasia of the rentier’ was based on a presumption and didn’t take into account the possibility of persistent inflation which lead to his pessimism in monetary policy.

In some ways Keynes system can be linked to the ideas of John Stuart Mill in terms of government intervention; Keynes saw the government as a method of increasing employment, aiming to maximise happiness to the greatest number of people and Mill believed that the government could give individuals a stepping stone to improve their happiness, by reducing the gap between those more well off.  Though, he did emphasised limits to social systems which appeared to cause threat to individual independence.

Mill also believed that to safeguard individual rights the monarchy must remain in place because democracy alone holds the potential of tyranny of the majority and government authority should not be limited because society is capable of exercising other means of coercion. But this should only be acted on when the issue involves a group – not the individual.  This relies on liberty of thought, speech and writing, Mill believes that no level of authority has the right to suppress freedom of expression. This relies massively on the concept of toleration, which is dependent on the individual. Someone may feel that what another expresses effects their liberty. 

Though Mill is out to make sure the greatest number of individuals are happy, Bentham’s views around utilitarianism disregard the individual. He concerned himself with offering guidance to rulers and legislators on the management of community. But there is an issue with the principle - whether or not the aim is to maximise happiness or maximise the number of happy people – it needs limits for example, cutting the gap of inequality in-between the worst and well off or limiting the misery those worse off.

US politics;

In my attempt to know what's going on in the preparation for Ali's big project for US election WINOL, I have done a little research on American politics.

I found it easiest to distinguish the major differences between UK and US governments because they work completely differently.
The most obvious difference is that we have a parliamentary democracy (we have a prime minister) and the US have a presidential democracy, giving them a president.
A prime minster is not the head of state (the monarchy is) but supervises government power, putting the laws the government decides on into practice. However, a president is the head of state, meaning they have control of government, as well control of the military, and is able to call upon the legislature as any time.

With Romney and Obama battling for the title of US president I figured it was best to outline how the president is determined. .
In the US the executive, legislature (Congress - The senate and House of Representatives) and judiciary separated, unlike our parliamentary government who have elected (House of Commons) and unelected (House of Lords) members standing in more than one branch of government. The US cabinet cannot stand in the legislature like ours do.
The separation of the branches of government in the US' federal system is one of the main reasons why their electoral system is different from our unitary government. A federal government power is split between the executive and the constituencies, which are the different states. This means that the elected authority in each state has the power to make constitutional changes - but when these congress offices are elected they do not effect who is president. Our unitary government only uses local government as a means of representation of executive power- a middle man - serving as the 'administrative arms' of central government.

In the US the president is elected by the electoral college, made up of elected 'electors' who are chose by each state. Before the elector is chosen, they make a pledge as to which of the president and vice president candidates they will vote for if they are elected. The electors pledges aren't binding and they are able to change their minds once elected, but it is their pledges which constituents vote for. Once all of the electors have voted, whichever party has the overall majority becomes president.
Our prime minister is elected by the number of seats their party gains in parliament through local government elections (this does not necessarily reflect the majority of votes, instead is determined by the party who is first past the post in terms of seats in parliament) - the local government candidate represents a political party and a seat in parliament.