History and context of journalism - Revision notes 2

Karl Marx;

-          Sensation or perception is an interaction between subject and object; the bare object, apart from the activity of the percipient, is a mere raw material, which is transformed in the process of becoming known.

-          Both subject and object, the knower and thing known, are in the continual process of mutual adaptation. He calls this the dialectical because it is never fully complete.

-          He denies ‘sensation’ – we only notice things as part of the process is acting with reference to them and any theory which leaves this out is a misleading abstraction.

Philosophy of history;

-          Believes un the dialectical process.

-          But differs from Hegel; Hegel believed the motive force call the spirit, which causes human history to develop accordingly to stages of the dialectic set forth in the ‘Logic.’

-          Marx believed it is not a spirit driving history, instead it is just inevitiable – it is man’s reaction to matter, of which the most important part is the mode of production.

-          His idea of materialism, here, becomes economics.

-          Politics, religion, philosophy and art of any epoch in human history are outcomes of its methods of production and, lesser extent, of distribution.

-          Marx substituted class, for Hegels idea of nations, to be the driving force of the dialectical.

-          This is outlined to its greatest extent in the Communist Manifesto.

-          Marx’s revolutionary ideas are identifiable in his similarities with Rousseau, in that property is the cause of class struggle and is what caused us to be civilized. The fact the proletariat are unable to possess property,

Communist manifesto;

-          Suggests that class struggle 'sprouted' from the 'ruins' of a feudal society.

-          He believed there to be a hostile divide in society, one in which the bourgeois were in possession of the proletarian; forming a new kind of oppression and struggle. These two classes were seen by Marx to be directly against each other.

-          Historical materialism for Marx shows that class struggle and desire for high exchange value have given power to the bourgeoisie, gradually, over time and that he believes this to be the reason for historical and social progression to its current state of capitalism.

-          The bourgeois ' has resolved personal worth into exchange value,' and have created a false consciousness of the proletariat through politics and religion, undermining and exploiting them further.  He believed that he bourgeoisie could not exist 'without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production,’

-          He says the bourgeois have ‘succeeded in gathering masses within the population, centralizing the means of production and concentrating property in few hands.’ Creating the Proletariat.

-          The drive for the bourgeois to create capital through the exploitation of the proletariat means the proletariat lose character; they are seen as machines to produce profitable commodities, even though they could be considered commodities themselves. 

-          He believed that the development of industry and the growing need for capital would lead the proletariat into becoming class conscious and, in doing so, will go through many changes during the progression to revolution and gaining the means of production through the overthrowing of bourgeois

-          For Marx, capitalism was inevitably doomed to collapse because it held flaws within it that would ultimately destroy itself; the proletariat will only speed up the process.

Weber – Bureaucracy;

-          Is rule from a desk or office by written documentation, and a servant of government.

-          Weber disregards bureaucracy being neutral and suggests every bureaucracy has its own interests. It is merely a means to give policy direction.

-          The modern bureaucracy came from the middle ages; kings riding on horseback with clergy men recording the journey and sending it to correspondents.

-          Weber believes armies have become bureaucratized.

-          He points out, educational institutions, churches and other institutions have a bureaucracy. They all have staff for keeping records and communications.

-          It is a pervasive feature of modern society.

-          Weber sets out an ‘ideal type’ for bureaucracies; characterised by divisions of labour trough rules, impersonally applied, and staffing by full time professionals who have no ownership to the means of administration; jobs, funds, and a salary aren’t based on labour value.

-          Bureaucrats are even further removed from property because there are no longer ‘prebends’; instead there is a salary.

-          The highest value of a bureaucracy is reliable rule following.

-          Modern bureaucrats do no own their jobs – Weber suggests a parallel with capitalist productive enterprise. Which he then compares to soldiers formally owning their weapons, now they don’t, much like workers being separated from their means of production.

-          Division of labour requires stability of staff; so the bureaucracy want educated recruits. This where Weber points out credentialism and that formal educational qualifications are an obsession of the bureaucracy.

Types of legitimate authority;

-          Weber treats bureaucracy under this heading, of which there are three types of authority.

-          Charismatic; it is regarded as legitimate because followers are personally devoted to the gifted leader.

-          Traditional authority; regarded legitimate because everyone has always obeyed the person in position of leader – no one thinks of disrupting them.

-          Rational authority; is the rule of law. It exists in a community where there is respect for the law or where the law is constituted legitimate.

-          The bureaucracy exists as this form of authority. It is seen as the most efficient way of implementing the rule of law, rules are recorded, studied and applied in a reliable way to individual cases.

-          Weber see rule of law to be rational because he believes expediency and rational values are the main forms of rationality and it employs both to gain obedience.

-          Though he views it as efficient he seen bureaucracy as a ‘distasteful triumph’ and identified negative impacts bureaucracy may have on society.

-          He believed that there will be cultural exhaustion through the rationalisation of religion, that the principle of formal equality will eventually rob each individual of nobility and any artistic genius,

-          Weber views bureaucracy in a similar way that Marx views Capitalism. Its spread is inevitable and will affect all areas of life. Though Marx insists capitalism can be overthrown for the good of the people, Weber believes and accepts bureaucracy is inescapable.

Ideal types of sociological organisation;

-          Socialism, nationalism, liberalism etc. and that behind them is a method and hypothesis and successive approximation of truth. He then compared this to social reality and came to the conclusion that there is no absolute knowledge but it is possible to be honest and have reason to able the belief.

-          This is known as agnosticism.

-          He furthered his ideas of sociological ideals with his analysis of what he what he believed to be four types of fundamental social action;

1.          Instrumental – the belief that our actions are rational in order to achieve goodness; going to university will generally get you a good job.

2.          Value – the idea of doing something because it is accepted to be good practice, and is again an example of rationalisation.

3.          Affectual – Something we do for emotional reasons.

4.          Traditional – this is something we do because society has always done it.

History and context of journalism lecture/reading six;

Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy;

The Birth of Tragedy outlines Nietzsche’s biases on what he believes to be true forms of art. He held great faith in the soul and, throughout, urges us to stop with Socratic pretences and accept Dionysus. He attacks the Greek state and suggests that it is naïve without the presence of Dionysus, and that the observer is never truly united with art because there is too much contemplation of the object, suggesting art should be accepted for what it is rather than thought about.

Apollo (essentially rationality) was there to shield men from the suffering of the world, providing relief and comfort. But this redemption of suffering is only achievable through Dionysus.

Nietzsche shows Dionysus to be and uplifting alternative to Christianity, which demands that man should focus not on life, instead accept it and immerse ourselves in the idea of heaven; to achieve Dionysus we must immerse ourselves in life. Though, Apollo is needed to reveal Dionysus through appearance.

The Birth of Tragedy outlines the progression of tragedy, emphasising the chorus and actors of a tragedy to be real, tragic art because Apollo and Dionysus are intrinsically entwined, mostly through music which he says is the life of tragic art. It allows us to rise beyond consciousness and experience a connection with Dionysus. Nietzsche believes music is superior to all art because it represents the ‘world will’ itself not phenomenon.

He sees Euripides as the murderer of art as he introduced Socratic obsession with knowledge and trust in human thought in theatre – he eliminated the musical element crucial to Dionysus destroying the balance of Dionysus and Apollo which he believes to be fundamental to art. Nietzsche outlines how original tragedy only consisted of Dionysus, it then transformed into an equal balance with the addition of music, then only to Apollo.

History and context of journalism lecture/reading five:

Seminar Paper - Bureaucracy; Max Weber

Marx, Nietzsche, Weber and Freud were described as the ‘big four’ skeptics of the 19^th century who based their thinking around Kantian ideas. They were great skeptics and strongly rejected the idea that things exist as we see them; instead we are under false consciousness. Emphasising the Kantian idea of ‘mind over matter.'

Though all similar in that thought, all approach the idea of ‘no absolute or absolute truth’ differently; Marx insists that class interest is the reason for what each person believes to be the truth. Nietzsche believed that we should never be obedient and what with think is true should be based on instinct; obedience is to keep us in place. Weber believes that truth is simply rationalisation which creates ease of bureaucratic agenda. 

The enlightenment of the 18^th century clouded faith in culture and caused pessimism among the people. Nietzsche believed that God was dead and the future will be filled with violence. Marx believed the people were adamant for Bonapartism which caused stagnation of society. Weber believed society was disillusioned and Freud believed we are in pursuit of our desires.

The Paris commune was seen as evidence of an uprising of a dictatorship of the proletariat, but after its sudden fall, a conservative approach was taken on by society, emphasising traditions and religion but most importantly for the French and Germans, the military grew strong, causing heightened racism, imperialism, social stagnation and anti-Semitism up until the First World War. It was at this time Prussia evolved into the German, bureaucratic state. 

Prussian bureaucracy (government by many administrators or officials) had many great benefits at the time. New jobs were created which improved social status and formed a new class; the middle class, dismissing Marx’s’ ideas of polarisation and showing there were many things he did not consider, such as loaning money to the proletariat so that they became part of the middle class and owning shares in large companies similar to his ideas of common ownership and ownership of capitalism. This form of government pushed imperialism to its peak with Africa being possessed. It also meant state intervention in economics, leading to strict regulation which outlined a ruling class ideology; values of the bourgeoisie were spread downwards by passing on culture - the opera was adapted to attract the middle class in the form of theatre. Though German social democracy was at its peak and introduced the foundations of a welfare state. At this time Max Weber began his analysis of bureaucracy.

Max Weber was a German socialist who believed in Kantian philosophy; that objects in themselves have no absolute reality, and held a non-teleological view of existence; that things happen at random and we are not headed toward a final purpose.

His analysis suggests that bureaucracy is characterised by a hierarchical division of labour directed by explicit rules, impersonally applied, staffed by professionals, who do not in any sense own the 'means of administration' and live off a salary, not from income directly from the performance of their job. He attacked Prussian bureaucracy to be an objective and neutral servant of society, and emphasized that every bureaucracy has interests of its own, feeding off of 'Credentialism'(the preoccupation evident in modern societies with formal educational qualifications). He believed that credentials, a fixed salary and stability of staffing are required “for the efficient functioning of an administrative machine.”

For weber, there are ideal types of sociological organisation; socialism, nationalism, liberalism etc. and that behind them is a method and hypothesis and successive approximation of truth. He then compared this to social reality and came to the conclusion that there is no absolute knowledge but it is possible to be honest and have reason to able the belief. This is known as agnosticism.

He furthered his ideas of sociological ideals with his analysis of what he what he believed to be four types of fundamental social action;

1.      Instrumental – the belief that our actions are rational in order to achieve goodness; going to university will generally get you a good job.

2.      Value – the idea of doing something because it is accepted to be good practice, and is again an example of rationalisation.

3.      Affectual – Something we do for emotional reasons.

4.      Traditional – this is something we do because society has always done it.

He also outlined that bureaucracy manifests impersonal application of general rules; to Weber this is the most important feature of bureaucracy. It underlies the fact that bureaucrats do not own their equipment or their job, and receive a salary because these things ensure reliable rule-following. And so categorises legitimate authority into three types of domination; 

1.      Tradition Authority - Figures who have always commanded respect over the ages so we continue the tradition, also linked to patriarchy.

2.      Charismatic - These are figures we follow or obey because they have a dynamic way of presenting their arguments and opinions. Although on many occasions, this type of authority merges with the traditional kind. (Weber emphasises the rationality of bureaucracy in charisma and traditional authority. Charismatic behaviour is whichever method is well-adapted as a means to one's ends and can be irrational and rational. But value rationality is used to rationalise those goals. Weber usually sees rationality as a form of efficiency).

3.      Legal Rational/Bureaucratic - Figures who are above us in rank and only command respect if they themselves follow the rules they preach.

Weber sees bureaucracy as a supremely efficient way of conducting administration, hence why it is used within capitalism and in institutions. It allows institutions to out-perform competitors and continues to spread because of its survival value for social institutions. But views it as a ‘distasteful triumph’ and identified negative impacts bureaucracy may have on society. 

He believed that there will be cultural exhaustion through the rationalisation of religion, that the principle of formal equality will eventually rob each individual of nobility and any artistic genius, the prevalence of the central principles of the renaissance and enlightenment would be destroyed; Nobody would be able to live outside of the state and we will eventually lose sense of creativity. There would be a sense of de-skilling and rationalisation of the production line.

Weber views bureaucracy in a similar way that Marx views Capitalism. Its spread is inevitable and will affect all areas of life. Though Marx insists capitalism can be overthrown for the good of the people, Weber believes and accepts bureaucracy is inescapable.

History and Context of Journalism Lecture/Reading Four;

The Dreyfus Affair and J'accuse;

The Dreyfus affair played an important part in establishing the powers of journalism - keeping tabs on the powerful. 
The events that lead up to the affair were the defeat of Sedan 1874 and the Paris commune.
The defeat of Sedan 1871was the result of the Franco-Prussian war; Napoleon was dragged into the war without any allies. He was defeated and captured at Sedan. The French army failed the country, despite how proud of the army they were. Those in Paris chose to keep faith in the french and defy the Prussians, instead of backing down like the rest of France and paying them compensation for a war they were tricked into. They were also forced to give up the key industrial provinces', Alsace and Corrine.
The Prussians became the Germans in 1871 and had Paris surrounded throwing more problems at the french; lack of food and a humiliated army.
The Paris Commune;
As landlords returned, rent was demanded with interest. The new government were demanding a monarchy, but the people feared that this would spur on another war and so this lead to a revolt. The people fought back between March 18th and May 28th 1871. in a way that would be described as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, dropping the government and working together for the masses. Though, the formation was essentially a council, but gave a lot of power to women at the time meaning new reforms for women's suffrage scaring the monarchies greatly. Leading to the destruction of the commune- 20 to 30,000 people were executed and highlighted the significance of the power of the people, and women were targeted because of their new powers, people were found guilty for being in Paris; the monarchies fought back. It changed European politics dramatically; what Marx had written years before was shown to be almost achievable, yet at the same time showed the consequences of ignoring the monarchy.
The Dreyfus affair;
The army was in a fragile state because of the overseas empires of 1874. The Jews were beginning to be blamed for undermining French greatness and the Parma council bribe from them absent money; sparking anti-antisemitism. The french were still paranoid about another war and so their military gathered spies for all European countries.
The affair itself pit the right against the left; Army and Catholics were against (anti Dreyfusards), the republicans and the Jews were for (Dreyfusards).
 The secret information of the French was found in the German embassy, passed on to the military and found by French spies and were determined to find out who had betrayed them - the army implicated Capitain Dreyfus - he was a Jew, intelligent  and from Alsace (almost foreign). He was found guilty of treason, then banished to Devils Island in 1894.
After Dreyfus' conviction, an officers declares that the defence is wrong, but the supervisors do not care because Dreyfus is a Jew. The court took the case to trial officer called Esterhazy he was tried but then acquitted.
A journalist Emile Zola wrote the famous article J'accuse, which named the men who wrongly convicted Dreyfus. But was then convicted of libel. He fled then fled to London after anti Jew riots were popping up all over France, right wing news papers called for the removal of all Jews citizenship.  The army being to see weaknesses in documents of the case and saw it was weak. An officer called Henry was praised for patriot forgery and described as a martyr to the Jewish syndicate. A change of government brings Dreyfus back to France, but he is found guilty once again with "extenuating circumstances".
 

Lazare; Anti-Semitism and Nationalism

-          A nation is described as an agglomeration of individuals who have shared language, religion territory , law, customs, manners, spirit and historic mission.Though many question this and argue that a nation is purely a concept not of reality.

-          The nation continues as long as this self-consciousness and the consciousness of the community of thought and interest have not disappeared. This is important for the Jews because they do not have a father land. Instead they are integrated into other nations. This is where anti-Semitism can spring from.

-          The Jew does not exist as a race, rather a nation with various elements possessing unity.

-          The Jewish nation stays strong because of religion, social condition and the external conditions forced upon them.

-          To be part if this nation one has to accept that god and the laws emanating from him.

-          Torah; outlines laws of God. Then became the laws of Israel.

-          The Jews have lived like a people who had a fatherland of its own.

-          Their education preserved their traditions, as well as their language and lived in similar conditions sharing their religion which all constitutes a nation.

-          Though, they have ever considered themselves exiles and have deluded themselves with a dream of restoration if Israel’s kingdom on earth.

-          They have preserved ancient patriotism, even their chauvinism, despite disasters and misfortunes, and have religiously kept the idea of their supremacy. Looking with disdain upon all who are strangers to this law.

-          Talmud taught them to be this way (considered antisocial and the most abominable code of law and ethics).

-          This law is very different from those of the countries they live and they follow their own codes, before those of that country.

-           Anti-Semitism was one of the ways the peoples would try to reduce these strange individualities.

-          Jews appeared a danger they were a people whose mentality did not agree with the national mentality, whose concepts were opposed to that ensemble of social and intellectual conceptions which constitutes nationality.

History and context of journalism lecture/reading three;

Karl Marx and the communist manifesto;

Karl Marx believed in the utopia of communism. He said that until his time ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point however is to change it.’

He believed everything you could explain about society by analysing the way economic forces shape social, religious, legal and political processes and that man is a productive animal, creating the environment he inhibits, dominating because of the ability to create tools and co-operate, shaping society and culture as these abilities and technologies develop (technological determinism).

The idea of technological determinism leads onto Marx’s teleological view of history, believing that history is headed somewhere and developing forwards, which was influenced by Darwinism and the theory of evolution.

Through these beliefs, Marx is said to have created an ideal which fuses Hegelian philosophy, British empiricism, revolutionary politics and scientific method. Hegelian in terms of the process of history in the form of the dialectic; the spirit of history seeks self-understanding. History ends when the spirit achieves full self-knowledge. Marx’s is seen again to be influenced by Hegel in his ideas of class struggle being the battle between good and evil (dialectical; the bourgeois = thesis, Proletariat = antithesis and the synthesis of the process being communism). Marx’s revolutionary ideas are identifiable in his similarities with Rousseau, in that property is the cause of class struggle and is what caused us to be civilized. The fact the proletariat are unable to possess property, Marx believed they were ideal for a revolutionary class because they ‘have nothing to lose, but everything to gain.’

And highlights Marx’s concept of alienation of the proletariat; belief of a reality as it has been conditioned, not as it truly is. Class consciousness is the way for the proletariat to truly know themselves and what they are capable of and what Marx believed was the only way to begin the end of bourgeois exploitation through capitalism. 

Communist manifesto;
The first section of the manifesto 'Bourgeois and Proletarian' suggests that class struggle 'sprouted' from the 'ruins' of a feudal society.
He believed there to be a hostile divide in society, one in which the bourgeois were in possession of the proletarian; forming a new kind of oppression and struggle. These two classes were seen by Marx to be directly against each other.

The dialectic of historical materialism;

1. Primitive communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
2. Slave Society: a development of tribal progression to city-state; Aristocracy is born.
3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, and through proletariat revolution depose the capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, replacing it in turn with dictatorship of the proletariat* through which the socialization of the means of production can be realized, wealth is distributed evenly, the people work together slowly causing the state to 'wither away'.
6. Commuism: a classless and stateless society. 

Historical materialism for Marx shows that class struggle and desire for high exchange value have given power to the bourgeoisie, gradually, over time and that he believes this to be the reason for historical and social progression to its current state of capitalim. '[The bourgeois]torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left no other nexus between people than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment".
The ideal state of society is communism and would be the end of the Hegelian idea of a dialectical progression of history.

Marx says the bourgeois ' has resolved personal worth into exchange value,' and have created a false consciousness of the proletariat through politics and religion, undermining and exploiting them further.  He believed that he bourgeoisie could not exist 'without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.' And in doing this, they have succeeded in gathering masses within the population, centralizing the means of production and concentrating property in few hands (of the bourgeois). Creating the Proletariat- 'a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital.'- who are then exploited and alienated.


Marx believes that drive for the bourgeois to create capital through the exploitation of the proletariat means that the proletariat lose personality and character; they are seen as machines to produce profitable commodities, even though they could be considered commodities themselves. 
'Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers.....Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state'

Proletariat - a revolutionary class:
Marx believed that the development of industry and the growing need for capital would lead the proletariat into becoming class conscious and, in doing so, will go through many changes during the progression to revolution and gaining the means of production through the overthrowing of bourgeois. 'the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more.'
Though, for Marx, capitalism was inevitably doomed to collapse because it held flaws within it that would ultimately destroy itself; the proletariat will only speed up the process. Here is a summary of his ideas of the process (drummed into my head at A-level);

- Capitalism becomes highly productive and the surplus produced would be reinvested into strengthening capitalism and making it even more productive. 
- The working class grows and polarisation between the bourgeois and proletarian occurs. 
- Capitalism gradually leads to overproduction and slumps in need for products happens regularly meaning lower wages and mass unemployment. 
- Thus leading to inequality and alienation; class consciousness grows among the working class. 
- Because capitalism is a world wide ideal, countries will being to compete resulting in wars and imperial competition. 
- The class conscious will then begin to revolt because of class consciousness and will eventually bring down the mechanisms of capitalism from within.

History and context of journalism lecture/reading two:

A paradigm of change; German Idealism 

Kant:
Believes we have an intrinsic knowledge of whats right and what is wrong - a moral law. His ideas are contemporary with romanticism and can be seen through Keats idea that 'beauty is truth'. Ideas of Kant conflict with those of Hume; he believes that Hume dismisses the existence of science when he disregards metaphysics.
Kant aimed to safe guard knowledge from previous doctrines; he emphasised the importance of mind over matter which lead to his belief that the mind only truly exists; everything else is questionable.
His most important book is 'The Critique of Pure Reason' which aims to prove knowledge to be partly a priori and not entirely from experience.  
He separates analytic and synthetic propositions  then distinguished between empirical and a priori propositions.
Analytical propositions: is a predicate (conclusion of the proposition) which is part of a subject.
Synthetic propositions: knowledge through experience only; influences categorical imperatives.
Empirical knowledge: things aren't known without sense perception and comes from observational data; are true.
A priori knowledge: established through experience but has a basis other than our experiences.

His ideas of knowledge lead him to the conclusion that the following proofs of God aren't true.
Ontological - 'god is the most real thing therefore subject of all predicate that belong to absolute, and God is absolute.'
Cosmological - 'If anything exists then an absolute necessary being must exist.'
Physio-theological - 'the universe exhibits an order which is evidence of purpose and proves someone designed it.'

For Kant existence is most important; the existence of the universe is simply a necessary precondition of space and time. Existence just is, it is not a result of anything and is why he disregards the existence of god being absolute.
Kant is agnostic and believes in synthetic a priori knowledge, which is reasoning; we dont know for a fact but strongly believe it to be true and relies on intuition. He believes everyone to have the intuition of what is right and what is wrong, despite not stopping us doing the wring thing. This is the idea of de-ontological moral system, one which is rule based. 
Synthetic a priori relies on nuomenal; the object in itself and cannot be know by definition, and phenomena; the object as it is perceived.

Hegel:
Hegel believes in the unreality of separateness; that the world is not a collection of hard units, each self subsistent. Instead he believes this to be an illusion and that nothing is completely real unless it is part of a whole. Though his idea of the whole being reality differs from Parmenides and Spinoza in conceiving the whole, not as a simple substance, but a complex system.
For Hegel separate things are of less or greater degrees of reality and its reality consists in an aspect of a whole which is seen when it is viewed truly.
He says 'real is rational, and the rational is real', but real is this sense is not what an empiricist would could consider. Instead he means that after the apparent character has been transformed by viewing them as aspects of a whole are they rational.
DIALECTIC;
Hegel takes a teleological approach to history, believing that history has a set goal and is headed somewhere. Everything happens for a reason and so history must be understood as a thing in itself. This is said to be influenced by Darwin in his theory of evolution with the idea that things will keep improving to suit the environment.
The idea of the dialect is to decipher what is absolute by finding the thesis, antithesis (both can be described as conflicting forces), and synthesis (a new 'whole' produced from the thesis and antithesis). Any suggested predicate of the absolute to the final conclusion of the dialectic, which is the absolute idea, and the dialectical process is based on the assumption that nothing can be true unless it is about reality as a whole. There is a universal soul, Hegel describes as the 'Geist' (the nature if the thing in itself)  but alienation stops something from truly knowing itself, hence the dialectic.

History and context of journalism lecture/reading one:

Free trade, Industrial state and the growth of cities:


Act of Union 1707- was the first British empire. But there was a possibility of a Scottish empire. Instead, Britain and Scotland together creating the UK.
Darien:
New Caledonia; cost one fifth of Scotland wealth but was a disaster. People fell ill and starving, so fled. Scotland never recovered and surrendered sovereignty in the act of union 1707. defeat of Prince Charles Stuart at Culloden 1746 established the UK. In 1801 An act of union involving Ireland took place after famine and revolution. 

As a result of the French revolution,  despite taxes created for to pay for Napoleonic war efforts, Britain were able to thrive on the rising levels of exports because the french were 'cut' out of trade. British naval power was absolute and were able to create a new empire. The trans Atlantic triangle of trade (slave trade) was also very profitable for Britain. 16^th century one million slaves transported from Africa to America - 17^th century 3 million - 18^th century 7 million. 

After the war ended, an industrial slump occurred creating unemployment and low wages.  The corn law was created and meant tariffs on imported grain as a government effort to save the British farming industry. 

The industrial revolution - 1760 to 1830:

Manchester was seen as the center of the revolution and was described as 'hell on earth' it was polluted, diseased and poverty stricken, with people living in slums. During this time Marx and Engels began working toward the communist manifesto, published in 1848. 

Politics:

The idea of 'class consciousness' was developed and in doing so people became aware of the unfair workings of parliament in that industrial towns were not able to elect MP's.  Peterloo Massacre, 1819 Manchester: cavalry charged a crowd of 60,000 demanding parliamentary reform. From this unions were began as a method of rejecting the government. 

Farming:

The industry changed dramatically; farming enclosure had ended the idea of landholding peasantry, and huge farming enterprises were created, the 'Enclosures Act' sent peasants who had lived on their farms to the city.

People became much poorer; New Poor Law Act 1834 stated that no able bodied person was to receive money or help from poor law unless they were in a workhouse.This is considered utilitarianism, a view of Bentham: 'Happiness as a pleasure with the absence of pain.'



The romantic movement;

In its most basic form is described as a revolt against ethical and aesthetic standards, with Rousseau as its leading philosopher. the above demonstrates how prominent industrialism and this movement was a revolt against it because it was seen by romanticists to the aesthetically unpleasing and interfering in individualism (aesthetics refers to beauty and value in something usefulness). They were against utilitarianism, which was accepted by others and is based on the idea that virtue is based on utility, and that actions should be directed toward gaining the greatest happiness of the greatest number of persons.

Rousseau;

 Believed in the ethic of sensibility, which took the place of ordinary virtues. He believed in the 'Noble savage'; the stage of human development in which humankind was most happy, as well as that least subject to violent upheavals and the period best for humankind before we became civilized. His ideal state of nature is one of natural law and doesn't object to natural inequality. Though the main cause is believed by him to be the ownership of private property. He believed that 'man is naturally good and only by institutions is he made bad.'