"In contrast to German philosophy, which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men imagine, but from real active men. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. When empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge takes its place philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence" (Marx 656). Marx is trying to say that all of mens cognitive abilities, their consciousness, derives from need and from history, history and need are not derived from it. In "German Ideology" he details how societies arose in their four steps into feudalism and the class system that he further outlines and calls into action in "The Communist Manifesto". In his manifesto, Marx tells how the Bourgeoisie were able to over throw the aristocratic elite and become the new dominant class, and that this evolution was lead by capitalism. He says that capitalism and the merchant zeal lead to the bourgeoisie to enslave the world with capitalism and destroyed the family and society with industrialization. He goes on to state that the proletariat is being ruled by the Bourgeoisie, and that the workers are selling their labor to the ruling class individuals. The Communist Manifesto is a warning and a call to arms saying that the working class can destroy the ruling class much the way that the bourgeoisie overcame the aristocrats.
In "Capital" he states that commodities can only truly be compared in the time it takes to make the commodity (labor time) and that the only value it can then be weighed in is money. He also argues that by putting a monetary value on an object it loses the labor-value and is only seen in the aspect of monetary worth which then makes the public lose touch with the amount of labor put into the product. this means that capitalism is focusing more on the money and less on the labor price which allows for the company to pay workers less and still charge more money for the object, and allows workers who produce nothing that can be consumed (marketeers) to make more than the laborers.
Yet he fails to take into account that after the proletariate takes over they will become the ruling class. His essays focus on how society is born from class struggle, and this class struggle pushes society on to the next evolution (evolution through revolution). In a society with out any monetary value, only labor value will rule, so unless their is a system with no skilled workers only a shared rotation of work (i.e. one individual farms one day, then smiths the next) there will exist another class struggle. That would be a struggle between the desirable jobs and the undesirable. A farmer would be more desirable than a stable hand, and a smith would be more desirable than the trash collector, a doctor most desirable of all. The credit would not be weight in money, but in labor time and reluctance to do the job. If every one were to share and get equal shares of everything, it would soon become evident that the individual making clothes had to do less back breaking labor than the individual making buildings so the division in labor would still be evident. The class system would not be devised by money, but by desirable position. Marx is only calling for the evolution of the next class system, for their is no true way to break from class. If all individuals shared and rotated jobs, then their would be no doctor or no truly skilled farmers, crops would succeed or houses would be erected one day, only to be placed in the hand of a less skilled individual. this could lead to instances of shoddy houses, ruined harvests, or poisonous medicines. It is seen in history that humanity started living longer and became more productive with the idea of specialized jobs and skills. So either humanity would have to resort to a more primitive time, or their would be a class division among trades. _____________________________________________________________________________ Marx, Karl. "Capital". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print. Marx, Karl. "The Communist Manifesto". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.
Marx, Karl. "The German Ideology". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.
In the essay "Death of the Author" Barthes calls for the importance of the text above the author or of the biography and history of the text. He stresses the importance of the text itself, that it must be approached with a clear mind, not weighed down by the knowledge of the authors struggles or the political mind set of the time period. He also says that any story is trapped in the context of the medium, and that all narratives and language are quilts of what has already been seen, written, or said already. He stresses that language in itself is a prison, but working inside that prison one can still develop something original. Iser's essay "Interaction Between Text and Reader" suggests that during the reading of any text the reader most play the part of an active participant. That the characters, what is shown, what is said, and what is unsaid, all come together on the focus of the reader and it is this process of actively reading and constructing the story that creates the interaction. He says that the text tells the reader through a process of showing the reader and allowing the reader to infer which allows the reader to be an active component and allows each reading of the text to change. He says that the text is polysemantic and can have many meanings, and with out the reader each meaning less is pointless and the text is pointless. Together the two authors create an understanding of the reader-response theory, in which the reader defines the work. That being said i am choosing to preform a reader response analysis of the ending of the show "Lost". I know nothing about the show, have never seen any episodes, and no nothing about the actors or directors. I am simply going to conduct a reading of the text and with a combination of reader response and semiotics try and define or come to an understanding of what is transpiring.
The only line of dialogue is spoken by a bald male upon what appears to be the main character entering a church "We have been waiting for you". This is then a pivotal part in understanding the text, while the scene changes between a dying man in a jungle, and a group gathered in a church, the only line is "we have been waiting for you". This implies that the group in what appears to be a church had arrived before him and had been waiting for him to start what ever they have gathered together to do. Through a semiotic read, and by understanding the blank (that which is left unsaid), the audience can infer that this is the afterlife or heaven based on the credits showing a wrecked plane and the man dying in the forest. That as well as the white wash when a man (who is possibly a pastor) leaves the church and enters a white celestial void. While these things are not explained to the reader, it is inferred by illusions to other pop-culture t.v. shows and movies that show a white wash as the presence of heaven or death. The fact that one of the final scenes of the stumbling man is him closing his eyes, then the switch back to the church further stresses that the church symbolizes the after life, and it being a church must then be heaven. The love interest and a room of friends are clearly gathered do to the familial way the group accepts the new comer and interacts almost as if they had all been through some trying event (possibly death on the airplane). So the scene then seems to be the passing of the man in the jungle and the acceptance of his ghost in the afterlife by his friends in heaven after a struggle (hinted at by his injured stumbling through the woods), and that he is the final member of the group before they can enter heaven.
That was a small semiotic reading of pheminology and the reader response theory.
Barthes, Roland. "Death of the Author". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print. Iser, Wolfgang. "Interaction Between Text and Reader". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.
Marxist thought (the Communist Manifesto) calls for a new state in which the class system is torn down, when the workers, the people, are equal. Many say that the military is an example of this, they see that privates across the branches, regardless of their job, make the same pay. Yet they fail to take into account the extremely structured system that exists inside the military. Each soldier makes the same pay based off of rank and time in the military, but does not take into account the training or job they hold. On top of that the officer and enlisted ranks are taught different, they are handled differently, and their pay is vastly different because they want to breed to separate cultures. The military functions off of the existence of "the workers" and the "wealthy", and they use the non-commisioned officers to function as the burgess. The military is the exact opposite of what communists are trying to embody, the military is feudalism. The workers owe the military their life for the duration of their contract, they are paid and housed by owned by the government. Every officer signs for the equipment and enlisted under his command.
There is no "equality" the class structure has not been broken down. Even a "communist" military goes against the ideas of Marx. The only truly communist culture would be found in nature, the hive mind, the ability to work for the whole and not just for the singular individual.
This week in class we covered a concept, well mainly the comparison of, the mythic and romantic hero. We established an idea that the Mythic hero was better by better in form, and the romantic hero was better in degree. Our definition of the idea was that we are told the Mythic hero is better, where as we must establish that the romantic hero is better through perception. Another idea was that the Mythic hero is better than us physically, while the Romantic hero is better than us emotionally.
I had brought up the the fact that we are living in a time of the "nerd god", and that the greeks believed that the Gods were an embodiment of our vices. Like how Zeus was an adulator, Iron Man's an alcoholic, and Batman is a self righteous violent vigilante. Yet they are physically better than us and all the stories tell us so.
Then the idea sprang to mind; God is the mythic hero, and Jesus is the romantic. For this i am talking strictly in a sense of "myth" and not in a sense of "religion". In the old testament God constantly shows man he is his superior, and demands they worship him. He even goes so far as to smite cities and flood the world out of rage. On the opposite side of that coin, Jesus is the compassionate embodiment of God. It is never stated that he is better than man, but we perceive that he is better than man because he does not sin. He becomes a compassionate God and the paradigm shifts. It goes from the concept of the psuedo-greek gods (the Jewish God) to a "human" and compassionate Jesus (the Christian God). Its a shift from the Mythic to the Romantic, from the wrathful to the compassionate. A "real life" embodiment of the concept.
A young man flies under the sun on failing wings. He is only clad in a cloth wrapped around his waist and the fabricated wings. His body is arranged in the classic crucifix position with his head cocked back hinting at the fact that the painting is done from a perspective under the model instead of in front of it. This would mean that the artist would be "on the ground looking up" to capture the angle on the model. Yet the way the body is arranged, the shadows cast on his body, and the lack of depth applied to anything other than the body gives the illusion that we are facing the body as it flies in front of the sun. This gives both an implied angle, and a perceived angle on the model in the painting. Regardless of the angle, the painting is an interpretation of the Icarus myth. The sun is painted with a brass and gold feel, where the wings have more of an egyptian style, the body is painted in a more modern or renaissance style, and the cloth looks like it might be real. Each aspect feels like it is done in a slightly different style, like different images layered on top of each other, like a combination of pre-existing art compiled.
To take a semiotic reading of the painting, one must first define the over all signifier. The painting is that of the greek myth Icarus; a boy who, in the attempt to escape the labyrinth, flew to close to the sun on wax wings. Icarus being the signifier signifies the story of the labyrinth simply by trying to explain the image and its significance. Yet he also symbolizes two major ideals of the west, freedom and science (or at least the courage to invent and explore). The two concepts are semiotically linked with Icarus because it is his lust for freedom and his curiosity that inevitably leads to his end. His father was the one to craft the wings, but it was the boy that took off in the glory of flight and died do to his inability to head his father's warning. So now Icarus has another signified meaning, he is a tale of caution. The phrase "flew to close to the sun" is a warning, it signifies those that in their haste, curiosity, pride, or irrelevance to the law chose to defy the natural order and paid for the cause. Those trying to play "God" are seen as flying to close to the sun, are seen as modern day Icarus. The painting can signify both the need to be cautious, and the want to fly and explore. Flight itself signifies freedom in the American conscious, the painting can then serve as a warning to America; beware of your freedoms because they can be used to destroy you.
" . . . His eyes seem so glazed, as he flies on the wings of a dream. Now he knows, his father betrayed, now his wings turn to ashes, to ashes his grave." Iron Maiden- Flight of Icarus
Saussure. "Course in General Linguistics." ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.
Aristotle's Poetics was used as the measuring stick to define both a tragedy and the tragic hero. He defines the Tragedy as taking place not in the story or narrative but in the action of the play. The action must be able to inspire emotions in the audience like fear, pity, or sorrow, not just recite the events. It is the line between a preformed tragedy and simple history, the action and emotion must be carried out on the stage, not told in back story. He also defines that it must be a whole plot, a concise beginning middle and end must be evident for it to be a tragedy. The plot must also encompass more than a few instances of tragedy, but portray a "great magnitude" (wether complex of simple). One can see examples in the tragedies of the Greek times, Hercules, and Oedipus Rex, as well as tragedies from the Shakespearian era, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. All four stories containing a clear three act structure the incentive, climax, and resolution. But the tragedy can not just happen to any one, it must fall on the shoulders of the tragic hero. The tragic hero must be a person of noble stature and greatness (Hercules was the son of a god, Oedipus a prince/king, Romeo and Juliet Florentine nobles, and Macbeth a scottish lord), but the character can not be perfect he must be relatable. Commonly they have a vice or tragic flaw(most commonly hubris or pride) a personally trait that leads to their downfall. This downfall can not be a pure loss, the hero must learn or be able to gain insight or grow from the fall, but the fall must be great, it must exceed what is deserved of the hero. Like Hercules' bought of insane rage that lead to him slaughtering his family, or Oedipus' incest and exile, the punishment far out weighed the crime, but did not disallow the character to rise or learn. Finally their fate must not leave the audience depressed or distraught, but allow for the actions and resolution to cleanse the audience of the fear and pity.
Many perceive the Star Wars series as an epic because of the grand sweeping battles, struggle between light and dark forces, and the perseverance of good over evil. Yet with the release of the first three episodes, the audience got a look at the whole new side of the series, the tragedy of Darth Vader. Using Aristotle's rules he defined in the Poetics one can truly appreciate Star Wars as a tragedy.
Enter the young Anakin Skywalker, soon to be Darth Vader, a young slave on the planet Tatooine. Though not high born or descendent from a noble family, he is gifted with a record setting "metachlorine count" which gave him the ability to use the force and be trained by the Jedi. This does not exactly meet the requirements to be a tragic hero, but later the it is learned that the child is the child of prophecy who will end the Sith and bring balance to the force. So enters the high birth that Aristotle required of the tragic hero. In the above clip we watch as Anakin grows from being a boy, we watch his pride (or hubris) grow into a lost for power and mastery of the force. We slowly watch that hubris drag him deeper and deeper into the road of the dark side. He loses his mother, slaughters the sand people, separates himself from his master, kills a fellow Jedi, slaughters yuenglings, kills his love, and then falls to his own masters sword (light saber). From his fall he grows into Darth Vader, he tries to seduce his son to join the dark side and nearly kills him in the process, he spreads the imperial rule, and destroys a planet. Though he falls far into the dark side he is able to pull himself back out by killing the Emperor, saving his son, and becoming a martyr for the rebellion and the light side of the force which provides the catharsis for the tragedy.. All of which takes place over the course of six movies and is pushed by his prophecy. That is simply reciting the events though, the story truly takes place in the actions.
The action starts off with Anakin as a boy, and the first movie takes the role of developing as a morally high borne and gifted young man. He is shown to be gifted in robotics, has a skill for mechanics and space flight, above normal reflexes, and to be completely kind hearted. He falls in love with Princess Padame, and becomes the deciding factor in the space battle with the separatists, where upon he is made a hero and also must lay to rest his master. It is the beginning or the rise, and works in conjuncture with the first half of the second film to depict his acts of heroics (like in Oedipus Rex). That audience is introduced to and shown the ethos of young Anakin, untainted by his tragic flaw. Yet in the second film we can start to see it grow, his pride comes into place and he is shown to be impatient and hunger to constantly be better, to be stronger, and throw caution aside. His new master Obi-wan acts as a foil to try and control the powerful young man.
From around the midpoint of the second movie threw the final minutes of the third, we watch as Anakin slowly falls to the dark side. His pride feeds into his love for Padame, his rage, and his fear of being caught in his forbidden love, which we see first develop when we learn his mother is enslaved and killed by the sand people. Here Anakin rushes to the camp and night and slaughters the entire tribe, men women and children, and later breaks down and confesses it to his master. Slowly he is corrupted by Palpatine (an evil sith), and helps desolve the democratic order in favor of a Galactic Empire, as well as makes the Jedi an enemy to the Empire's existence and helps decimate their ranks. Here he faces off with his master and his fall is complete, he kills his wife and severs all ties with his former master in a final saber battle. A fight that ends with his hubris leading to Anakin's loss and disfigurement.
The stories resolution is carried out in the last three films as Luke Skywalker and his father Vader battle over good and evil. The movies see the death of the last two remaining Jedi, Yoda and Obi-wan, as well as the birth of the new order in Luke and Leia. Vader's children lead the rebel alliance to take down the Empire, and destroy the ultimate tool of oppression "The Death Star". In the climax of the three films Luke faces off against Vader and Palpatine, and is saved on the verge of death by Vader (Anakin Skywalker) which leads to the tragic heroes death as a martyr for the republic. Vader's death serves as his retribution and the moment of clarity that washes away the tragedy of his life.
It is evident with out much explantation the tragic qualities of the story of Anakin, but there is an over all sublime quality to the movies. Longinus defined the sublime as something that both "tears everything up like a whirlwind, and exhibit’s the orator’s whole power at a single blow” and to have the power to convey deep thoughts inspired by emotion with out being overly grand. Star Wars carries this out with a simple statement "you can not avoid your destiny". It is a very Greek thought that pushed many of the ancient tragedies, but still rings true for these movies. Anakin's destiny was to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the force, a task that he accomplishes through his actions wether perceived good or evil.
First a little explanation is needed in order to understand the "balance". In episode one, the counsel tells the audience that at any given time their is only ever two Sith in existence, a master and an apprentice. Now the Sith embody the dark side of the force (the mythic connection of all life in the universe), while the Jedi embody the good side of the force, a type of yin and yang. While their are only ever two avatars of evil, the Jedi have an academy where they have trained hundreds of Jedi that spread across the Galaxy. So the imbalance in the force is not due to the Sith, but to the Jedi that originally recruit the young Anakin and try to destroy the Sith. So do to the prophecy, and logic of the Star Wars universe, when Anakin became a Sith and killed all the Jedi (save for Obi Wan and master Yoda) he brings balance to the force fulfilling half of his fate. This fate drives the actions of the last three films as well, when two new gifted force users ally themselves with the forces of good (Anakin's kids Luke and Leia) the force must again be balanced. This is accomplished the deaths of Yoda and Obi Wan (Yoda died of natural causes where as Obi-Wan died by Vader's hands). So even though the young and brash Jedi turned evil, he still accomplished one half of the prophecy.
The second half he accomplished when he destroyed the Sith by killing his master (Emperor Palpatine) and died in his sons arm. An act that seems to upset the balance of the force once again, but which was resolved in a planned last three films (which portray Lukes fall to the dark side and Leia's adherence to the light side), but is also seen in the character of Luke himself. He is a Jedi who is able to use his emotions, who combines the dark and light side into a balanced neutral. Completing his fathers inescapable fate to destroy the Sith and balance the force. The series is also filled with smaller sublime scenes, like when Obi Wan states that the Sith are evil and Anakin retorts from his perspective the Jedi are evil. It's a sublime statement confessing that both sides of a war feel justified and right by their actions and beliefs. Also the Death of Anakin begins the birth of Vader (Obi-Wan tells Luke that Vader killed his father), yet the death of Obi-Wan is the beginning of Vader's redemption. Also Lord Vader is born in the pits of fire and magma after his defeat to Obi-Wan, but is cleansed and cleaned in the fire of a pyre that sets him free. The series speaks of a duality of good and evil, that one can not exist with out the other, and that the lines of evil depend on the viewers personal perception.
The movies are a testament to the sublime tragedy that is Darth Vader, the boy who could not escape his own fate (even though he is promised so and lured by the dark side), and the savior to the Galaxy that he doomed to oppression.
On that note enjoy the final battle of episode III set to the music of disturbed.
Think back, if you will, to a simpler time. A time of words shared between men to decide the fate of an empire, a time when oration took precedence when the might of ones tongue stood paramount above all else in matters of politic. Before DNA tests, before finger printing, before CSI and computer technology. A time when cases where won and lost by the power of persuasion. A time were Gorgias would defend the honor and innocence of Helen of Troy through the power of rhetoric. When Ethos, Pathos, and Logos were the defining factors. The Ethos, the speakers credibility, Pathos, his connection with the audience, and Logos, his logic, the three tools the speaker would have to implement to win. Notice how their is no truth in the three pillars of speech, the sophists, like Gorgias, believed that their was no over all truth and that the winning argument was the right argument.
Now allow the clips to sink in, both clips are examples of rhetoric in the Roman consul (thanks to the HBO series Rome). While the first clip contains many ad hominem ("to the man" or attacks against the opponent/target of the speech) attacks, it uses these fallacies to paint a picture of what Mark Antony has let rome become under his rule. It even compares Mark Antony to Helen of Troy, (defended by Gorgias in Encomium) saying that he was always more suited to the work of a woman. Notice how the speech incites Mark Antony to violence, he is being compared to the roman equivalent of Eve and painted with the crimes of bringing war to Rome. Cicero's speech attacks Antony's Ethos and Pathos by declaring him a horrible leader and a pestilence on Rome, it was a speech that was able to clear the senate building and leave Antony fuming.
The second clip shows the power of Octavian's rhetoric in establishing is rule over the senate and accusing men of his father's murder. He entires the senate and reminds the audience of his Ethos, the son of the assassinated Caesar, his Pathos, seeking to unify and strengthen Rome as a republic, and finally his Logos in the declaration of his father's murderers. His argument is only strengthened when he announces "his legions" who "love my father as i do" and challenges the senate to oppose him. It is a fine example of rhetoric because it presents who he is, and his argument, in a way that is hard to oppose. He is not necessarily right, but his argument holds valid and is "true" because it was not refuted by the senate. He is the rightful heir, and his father's killers will be apprehended. Why, because his father was betrayed and stabbed to death twenty seven times by his "friends" and died on the senate floor. It is murder, and there will be a punishment. It is a final and concise point driven home with force (both figuratively and the threat of literal force).
