Last Ditch Attempt Help. 3000-2500 words on 1. Is postmodernity a political concept? 2. To what extent is John Gray correct when he argues that all schools of contemporary political thought are not only variations on the Enlightenment project but also exhausted? 3. Critically examine Manuel Castells’ concept of the ‘new informational global economy’ 4. Can Zygmunt Bauman’s postmodern theory help us to understand what he calls our ‘individualized society’? 5. ‘The status of knowledge is altered as our societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age’ – J-F Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition. Discuss. 6. Can Fredric Jameson’s conception of postmodernism help us appreciate what he labels ‘the cultural logic of late capitalism’? 7. Where previously modern cultural and political theorists viewed revolutionaries as seeking to conduct a struggle between real forces in the context of ideology and politics, postmodern thinkers such as Jean Baudrillard view the new terrorist as mounting a powerful symbolic challenge which, when combined with high-tech resources, constitutes an unprecedented assault on an over-sophisticated and vulnerable West. Discuss. 8. Is Paul Virilio right to claim that accidents are inherent in all technological systems? 9. Are Gilles Deleuzes’ ‘societies of control’ in the process of replacing Michel Foucault’s ‘disciplinary societies’?
Re: Last Ditch Attempt No, Deleuzes' "societies of control" are the process of remediating Foucault's "disciplinary societies" - in that they are adding new layers on top of Foucault's original thoughts, making them more relevant to the society of today. Example being it used to be that if you used to be caught shoplifting you would be thrown in prison (or if you want to go a lot further back, you'd be tortured, etc.) but nowadays you get an electronic tag around your ankle. This is the idea of remediation - old ways of doing things just evolve into new forms as technology and society evolves too. Torture, to imprisonment, to Deleuzes' idea of control - electronic tagging, surveillance, RFID tags to track people and products, etc. Might help a bit, I just made all that up from what I know
Re: Re: Last Ditch Attempt mint. cheers I might be doing number 2 now though. Come on you seem more 'cleverer' than I had at first percieved you as being!
Re: Last Ditch Attempt As he came up with both, you would hope it would, yes. Right, along with MOS's answer were down to 2987.
lol helen I have no IDea. This is what I have so far and before anyone says anything I REALISE IM TALKING ABSOLUTE SHIT. To what extent is John Gray correct when he argues that all schools of contemporary political thought are not only variations on the Enlightenment project, but also exhausted? “I argue that all schools of contemporary political thought are variations on the Enlightenment project, and that that project, though irreversible in its cultural effects, was self undermining and now exhausted.” (Gray, J. 1995, p. viii) Professor John Gray, a prominent political theorist and to some degree a philosopher, is a revered author whose work has influenced many writers in this field. Formerly an Oxford Professor, he now holds the position of Professor of European Thought at London School of Economics. To understand his perspective when he argues that contemporary political thought is very much regurgitated from pieces of Enlightenment thinking, we must look at his ever changing political viewpoint, and swapping think-tanks throughout his career. This shift which was ultimately from Left to Right (new right) in the political spectrum went through many phases, after initially voting Labour, then becoming an apathetic Labour voter. He became increasingly disillusioned by the Labour government and saw the Labour Party as lost and somewhat directionless, and a move to the right was apparent. His doctorate was a defence of John Stuart Mill, a 19thCentury liberal thinker who interestingly also had a few changes of tradition throughout his career. “He has moved and moved again, each time keeping faith with certain justificatory strands in his last argument and, by so doing, redefining the meaning of ‘the right’ to match new circumstances” (Colls, R. 1998, p60) He is not a liked character in Left-wing politics, as he is considered to be traitorous, after changing his views so radically. His is a standpoint which is completely unique insofar as his politics are concerned, which serves well to fuel him through the numerous articles and books which have been written in the midst of the apparent multiple ideologies. This is why Colls describes Gray as redefining the meaning of the right. He is not simply following another ideology; he actively restructures it to fit his belief system. Contemporary political thought relies on the belief systems in place which have shaped Western civilisation, and crucially for Gray, the Enlightenment project. “…Liberal political philosophy resembles nothing so much as the Christian apologetic theology of a generation or so ago, when it was already apparent that Christianity had ceased to be the prime animating force in the culture of most Western societies but when fear still inhibited clear thought about the nature and possibilities of a post-Christian culture.” (Gray, J. 1995, p144-5) Gray goes on to describe that there is an understanding that science and technology as an absolute, is inherent in our post-modern society. So we now live with the after effects of the Enlightenment and it seems as though Gray believes that the Enlightenment project has ceased to be the primary driving force behind modern and Westernised society, just as Christianity ceased to be. The religion we extinguished with Enlightenment thinking has come back in the form of this post-modern thinking that people are the new religion, and for Gray, people are being extinguished. “In truth, neither a return to a pre-modern world view nor the post-modern affirmation of a distinctively modernist project are viable historical options for us.” (Gray, J. 1995, p146) We should not attempt to embrace the enlightenment view we have had previously , and we should also not embrace post-modernism, therefore implicitly, another solution must be suitably employed. In today’s Westernised society, we have not only become somehow disenchanted by religion, but profoundly also by the enlightenment itself. The modern person does not wish to be caught up in the mystery of religion, political thought or enlightenment, but wishes to solve these quandaries using science and technology for themselves. Considering the Enlightenment is the age of reason, it obviously has the illusion of mystery when put into historical context for Gray. Gray also talks about ‘living amongst the dim ruins’ of the Enlightenment project (p145) and makes it clear we are to “make the best of the opportunities this cultural mutation affords us” and that we have “run aground in nihilism” (p152). But isn’t nihilism a belief in itself? He views the dissolution of the Enlightenment project as a metamorphosis of traditions (liberalism and humanism) into a sludge of leftovers, scraps of tradition, rationality, culture and spirit. He does not view the Western world as being in a state of Post-Modernity, he see’s nothing, a quickly dissolving one, without fundamentalism as a backbone. “The political forms which arise from a renunciation of liberalism and humanism, in our historical context of trailing in Enlightenment’s wake…” (Gray, J. 1995, p153) Gray believes we need to enter into what Heidegger calls “Gelassenheit’ or ‘releasement’ which is simply a way of letting things be rather than trying to constantly employ change and aiming for continual fluidity. He believes we need to stop trying to make ideologies fit into this post-modernity. “The post-modern condition of plural and provisional perspectives, lacking any rational or transcendental ground or unifying world-view, is our own, given to us as an historical fate, and it is idle to pretend otherwise” (Gray, J. 1995, p153) Once we have entered this state of releasement, we need to embrace the natural world in which we live and find pluralist forms of diversity within the context of this new type of Liberalism “…the best way forward lies in the wake of the new liberalism” (Gray, J. 1995, p.130) When Gray dismisses post-modernity, he runs against the grain of the 1990’s in which many leading social thinkers started to dismiss modernity, and claim that we were more advanced than modernity had accounted for. Eager to cut off modern life as being far more technologically and culturally advanced than simple modernity and its dismissal of religion and mysticism, social theorists in this period were consumed with the idea that we now live in a post-modern world, we are past mere reason. Are Gray’s ideas not simply the superciliousness of the west? We are not even post-modernity, and are now simply floundering in the wake of modernity. How can we discount modernity with such ease when there are still people in parts of the world who have not yet reached modernity? Post-modernity can be argued to be inherently linked to globalization, as in they are somewhat interdependent, and although both of these concepts have far reaching consequences for Western civilisation, it is still a heavily contested one. There is no clear defining moment in which modernity suddenly became post-modernity, and this is half the problem. When Enlightenment thinking was introduced there was a clear time period in which a definite shift occurred. It was accompanied by a realisation almost universally that rather than depend on tradition, religion and mystification, then science, technology and reason could be utilised to explain the world. With post-modernity as a concept, this distinction is hard to make with so may differing and fractured opinions put forward by leading thinkers, philosophers and political figures, all pushing for separate views to explain the phenomenon they feel part of. Gray believes that the enlightenment projects is in effect, a “contemporary intellectual failure” (p.66) and we have been left in a state of limbo somewhat. He not only calls it a failure, but says that the Enlightenment Project “…has irreversibly transformed Westen cultures, and that it’s failures – or, as I prefer to say, its self undermining – carries with it the rupture of the central intellectual tradition of the West, and marks for that reason a major discontinuity in Western cultural history” (p147).
La la la im the queen of bullshit, tra la la la la la la, I dont know what im taking about, but like to give the impression I do., somehow I dont think ill fool my lecturer, who has written multiple books on the subject. FUCKsticks
ive just bet with my uni mates that if I get below a 57 for this, I have to do a forfeit. MY god i need help lol
Re: Re: Re: Last Ditch Attempt I have no idea about number 2 - I'm doing Geography at Durham and one of the modules I'm doing at the moment is "Philosophy and Geography" - in which I'm concentrating on Deleuze and Foucault, ha! But that exam is not for another 3 weeks so I haven't started revising it yet....and considering I have one on Tuesday which I'm fucked for ("Cyberspace Geographies"? wtf?!) I can't really help you anymore than that! Good luck though
Fukuyama (pinched from Wikipedia, don't have time to summarise it myself): "Fukuyama is best known as the author of The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War and when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Fukuyama's prophecy declares the eventual triumph of political and economic liberalism." Not quite the same thing, but might be worth chucking a bit in.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Last Ditch Attempt It's pretty simple stuff actually - all about surveillance, internet, time-space compression, etc etc. Easier than fucking philosophy anyway!
