Thursday, 7 April 2016
popular culture
Name- Vyas Nupur Hiteshbhai
Roll number- 39
Batch year- 2015-2017
Subject - paper- 8 cultural studies
Topic- popular culture
Submitted to Department of English, MKBU, India, Gujarat
(Bhavnagar).
Email id- nupurvyas1995@gmail. com
What do you mean by culture?
Culture derives from 'cultura' and colere, meaning 'to cultivate'. It also meant 'to
honour' and 'protect'. By the nineteenth century in Europe it meant the habits
, customs and tastes of the upper classes (also known as the elite).
What 'culture' means now in Cultural Studies:
'Culture' is the mode of generating meanings and ideas. This
mode is a negotiation over which meanings are valid.Meanings are governed by
power relations.Elite culture controls meanings because it control the terms of
the debate. Non- elite views on life and art are rejected as 'tasteless,' 'useless'
or even stupid by the elite.
Popular culture
Cultural Studies
looks at mass or popular culture and every day life. Popular culture is the
culture of the masses.It is graffiti, comic books, mass cinema (as opposed to 'art
cinema'),popular music (as opposed to classical music), the open spaces of the
city( as opposed to art galleries), sports.... it is the culture of the every
daylife of the larger number of people.
For a very long
time such forms of art were dismissed as 'inferior'. The term 'mass culture'
was used pejoratively. The only 'true' culture was that of the elite members of
society. The culture of the wealthy minority selction of the population
was projected as the ' 'standard' or ' 'true' culture was that of the elite member
of society. The culture of the wealthy minority section of the population was
projected as the 'standard' or 'true' culture.so academic studies would look at
'great work of art' or 'classical authors', ignoring the fact that the greater
number of people never viewed these are forms or read these classical authors.
Standards of judgment and ideas of taste were framed using these elite forms as
examples. Certain authors, forms and genres were given repeatability as 'culture'.
That is, the very term 'culture' came to be associated with a smaller section of
the population and their tastes.
What this means is
that the upper classes in a society legitimize certain artefacts as 'culture'.
Some objects - a painting by M.F.Hussain, the writings of ravindranath Tagore
and William Shakespeare, the films of satyajit Ray- acquired an aura of respectability as 'culture'. Most
critics did not discuss Sidney Sheldon or the films of Manmohan Desai as' art',
relegating them to the realm of 'popular culture'.
In the 1950s and
1960s a change in focus came about in cultural analysis. Scholars started
taking popular culture seriously. In 1969 the Department of popular culture at
Bowling Green University (USA) launched the journal of popular culture. The
journal carried essay on Spiderman comics, rock music, amusement Park, the
detective film and other such forms of popular culture. It is in popular
culture studies that Cultural studies finds its first moments.
Cultural studies argues that culture
is about the meanings a community /society generates. This process is not easy,
as those in power seek to control meanings. For this purpose certain forms of
art and their meanings are treated as inferior. Cultural studies argued that
the objects and artefacts that are used- made sense of - by the masses must be
taken seriously. Such forms of art as comic strips or the detective novel are
made by the people for themselves, as Raymond Williams pointed out (1983).
Popular culture is, for cultural studies , the set of beliefs, values and
practices that are widely shared. Popular culture is the set of practices , aartefacts
and beliefs shared by the masses , and is constituted by the every day life of
the masses; the food habits, fashion, forms of transport, the music, the
reading habits, the spaces they occupy and traverse.
Popular culture studies is the academic discipline studying
popular culture from a critical theory perspective. It is generally considered
as a combination of communication studies and cultural studies. The first
department to offer Popular Culture bachelor and master degrees is the Bowling
Green State University Department of Popular Culture which was founded by Ray
B. Browne.
Following the work of the Frankfurt School, popular culture
has come to be taken more seriously as a terrain of academic inquiry and has
also helped to change the outlooks of more established disciplines. Conceptual
barriers between so-called high and low culture have broken down, accompanying
an explosion in scholarly interest in popular culture, which encompasses such
diverse media as comic books, television, and the Internet. Reevaluation of
mass culture in the 1970s and 1980s has revealed significant problems with the traditional
view of mass culture as degraded and elite culture as uplifting. Divisions
between high and low culture have been increasingly seen as political
distinctions rather than defensible aesthetic or intellectual ones.
Mass society formed during the 19th-century
industrialization process through the division of labor, the large-scale
industrial organization, the concentration of urban populations, the growing
centralization of decision making, the development of a complex and
international communication system and the growth of mass political movements.
The term "mass society", therefore, was introduced by anticapitalist,
aristocratic ideologists and used against the values and practices of
industrialized society.
As Alan Swingewood points out in The Myth of Mass Culture,
the aristocratic theory of mass society is to be linked to the moral crisis
caused by the weakening of traditional centers of authority such as family and
religion. The society predicted by José Ortega y Gasset, T. S. Eliot and others
would be dominated by philistine masses, without centers or hierarchies of
moral or cultural authority. In such a society, art can only survive by cutting
its links with the masses, by withdrawing as an asylum for threatened values.
Throughout the 20th century, this type of theory has modulated on the
opposition between disinterested, pure autonomous art and commercialized mass
culture.
Diametrically opposed to the aristocratic view would be the
theory of culture industry developed by Frankfurt School critical theorists
such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse. In their view,
the masses are precisely dominated by an all-encompassing culture industry
obeying only to the logic of consumer capitalism.[citation needed] Antonio
Gramsci's concept of hegemony (see: cultural hegemony), that is, the domination
of society by a specific group which stays in power by partially taking care of
and partially repressing the claims of other groups, does not work here
anymore. The principle of hegemony as a goal to achieve for an oppressed social
class loses its meaning. The system has taken over; only the state apparatus
dominates.
Aside from precursors such as Umberto Eco and Roland
Barthes, popular culture studies as we know them today were developed in the
late seventies and the eighties. The first influential works were generally
politically left-wing and rejected the "aristocratic" view. However,
they also criticized the pessimism of the Frankfurt School: contemporary
studies on mass culture accept that, apparently, popular culture forms do
respond to widespread needs of the public. They also emphasized the capacity of
the consumers to resist indoctrination and passive reception. Finally, they
avoided any monolithic concept of mass culture. Instead they tried to describe
culture as a whole as a complex formation of discourses which correspond to
particular interests, and which can be dominated by specific groups, but which
also always are dialectically related to their producers and consumers.
An example of this tendency is Andrew Ross's No Respect.
Intellectuals and Popular Culture (1989). His chapter on the history of jazz,
blues and rock does not present a linear narrative opposing the authentic
popular music to the commercial record industry, but shows how popular music in
the U.S., from the twenties until today, evolved out of complex interactions
between popular, avant-garde and commercial circuits, between lower- and
middle-class youth, between blacks and whites.
The question whether popular culture or mass culture is
inherently conservative, or whether it can be used in a subversive strategy as
well, is equally hotly debated. It seems widely accepted that popular culture
forms can function at any moment as anti-cultures. "Bad taste"
products such as pornography and horror fiction, says for instance Andrew Ross,draw
their popular appeal precisely from their expressions of disrespect for the
imposed lessons of educated taste. They are expressions of social resentment on
the part of groups which have been subordinated and excluded by today's
"civilized society".
The question whether popular culture can actually resist
dominant ideology, or even contribute to social change, is much more difficult
to answer. Many critics easily read popular fiction and film as "attacks
against the system", neglecting both the exact ways in which the so-called
revolutionary message is enacted, and the capacities of dominant doctrines to
recuperate critical messages. Tania Modleski in "The Terror of Pleasure",
for instance, presents exploitation horror films as attacks on the basic
aspects of bourgeois culture. Thus a loving father cannibalizes his child, and
priests turn into servants of the devil. Other scholars claim that, by
presenting their perversion as supernatural, or at least pathological, horror
films precisely contribute to perpetuating those institutions.
Similarly, many critics exalt stories which feature a lone
hero fighting for his ideals against an inert and amoral system. Thus Jim
Collins in Uncommon Culturessees crime fiction opposing a smart private
detective and an inefficient police force as a critique of state justice. On
the other hand, Thomas Roberts demonstrates in An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction,a
study of the historical background of the private detective model, how the
detective story came into existence in the middle of the 19th century, at the
time the institution of state police was developed. This force consisted mainly
of lower-class people, but nevertheless disposed of a certain authority over
the upper class. The fears among the upper classes for this uncontrolled force
were eased by domesticating the police in stories explicitly devoted to them.
Their inability to pass on correct judgment was amply demonstrated, and forced
them to bow for the individual intellect of the detective, who always belonged
to the threatened upper class.
Finally, Umberto Eco's studies on Superman and James Bond as
myths of a static good-and-evil world view should be mentioned as very early
and lucid examples of a combination of semiotic and political analysis.
Still, there may be ways to wage revolt in an age of mass
media. One way could be to introduce small gradual changes in products
otherwise conforming to the requirements of a dominant ideology. The problem here,
of course, is that isolated messages get drowned in the discourse as a whole,
and that they can be used to avoid real changes. Some scholars, however,
describe how opposition forces use the logic of the media to subvert them. In
No Respect,Andrew Ross mentions the late sixties Yippie movement. Yippies would
stage media events, such as the public burning of dollar bills in Wall Street,
thereby drawing heavy media coverage. This politics of the spectacle brought
the counterculture right into the conservative media and filled their forms
with subversive content.
Whether this strategy is effective or not, it points to an
important fact: the mass media are not above, but dependent on the public. As
Alan Swingewood states in The Myth of Mass Culture, the ideological messages
the mass media receive are already mediated by a complex network of
institutions and discourses. The media, themselves divided over innumerable
specific discourses, transform them again. And finally the public meaningfully
relates those messages to individual existences through the mediation of social
groups, family networks.
The Romantic Literature
Name- Vyas Nupur Hiteshbhai
Roll number- 39
Batch year- 2015-2017
Email id- nupurvyas1995@gmail.com
Assignment topiccom- A criticle note on gender stereotypes
in sense and sensibility
Subject- paper-5 The Romantic Literature
Submitted to Department of English, MKBU, india , gujarat
(Bhavnagar)
Introduction
Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, and was her
first published work when it appeared in 1811 under the pseudonym "A
Lady". A work of romantic fiction, better known as a comedy of manners, Sense
and Sensibility is set in southwest England, London and Kent between 1792 and
1797, and portrays the life and loves of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and
Marianne. The novel follows the young ladies to their new home, a meagre
cottage on a distant relative's property, where they experience love, romance
and heartbreak.
When Mr. Henry Dashwood dies, leaving all his money to his
first wife's son John Dashwood, his second wife and her three daughters are
left with no permanent home and very little income. Mrs. Dashwood and her
daughters (Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret) are invited to stay with their
distant relations, the Middletons, at Barton Park. Elinor is sad to leave their
home at Norland because she has become closely attached to Edward Ferrars, the
brother-in-law of her half-brother John. However, once at Barton Park, Elinor
and Marianne discover many new acquaintances, including the retired officer and
bachelor Colonel Brandon, and the gallant and impetuous John Willoughby, who
rescues Marianne after she twists her ankle running down the hills of Barton in
the rain. Willoughby openly and unabashedly courts Marianne, and together the
two flaunt their attachment to one another, until Willoughby suddenly announces
that he must depart for London on business, leaving Marianne lovesick and
miserable. Meanwhile, Anne and Lucy Steele, two recently discovered relations
of Lady Middleton's mother, Mrs. Jennings, arrive at Barton Park as guests of
the Middletons. Lucy ingratiates herself to Elinor and informs her that she
(Lucy) has been secretly engaged to Mr. Ferrars for a whole year. Elinor
initially assumes that Lucy is referring to Edward's younger brother, Robert,
but is shocked and pained to learn that Lucy is actually referring to her own
beloved Edward.
In Volume II of the novel, Elinor and Marianne travel to
London with Mrs. Jennings. Colonel Brandon informs Elinor that everyone in
London is talking of an engagement between Willoughby and Marianne, though
Marianne has not told her family of any such attachment. Marianne is anxious to
be reunited with her beloved Willoughby, but when she sees him at a party in
town, he cruelly rebuffs her and then sends her a letter denying that he ever
had feelings for her. Colonel Brandon tells Elinor of Willoughby's history of
callousness and debauchery, and Mrs. Jennings confirms that Willoughby, having
squandered his fortune, has become engaged to the wealthy heiress Miss Grey.
In Volume III, Lucy's older sister inadvertently reveals the
news of Lucy's secret engagement to Edward Ferrars. Edward's mother is outraged
at the information and disinherits him, promising his fortune to Robert
instead. Meanwhile, the Dashwood sisters visit family friends at Cleveland on
their way home from London. At Cleveland, Marianne develops a severe cold while
taking long walks in the rain, and she falls deathly ill. Upon hearing of her
illness, Willoughby comes to visit, attempting to explain his misconduct and
seek forgiveness. Elinor pities him and ultimately shares his story with
Marianne, who finally realizes that she behaved imprudently with Willoughby and
could never have been happy with him anyway. Mrs. Dashwood and Colonel Brandon
arrive at Cleveland and are relieved to learn that Marianne has begun to
recover.
When the Dashwoods return to Barton, they learn from their
manservant that Lucy Steele and Mr. Ferrars are engaged. They assume that he
means Edward Ferrars, and are thus unsurprised, but Edward himself soon arrives
and corrects their misconception: it was Robert, not himself, whom the
money-grubbing Lucy ultimately decided to marry. Thus,x Edward is finally free
to propose to his beloved Elinor, and not long after, Marianne and Colonel
Brandon become engaged as well. The couples live together at Delaford and
remain in close touch with their mother and younger sister at Barton Cottage.
Gender Stereotypes
Gender stereotypes are simplistic generalizations about the
gender attributes, differences, and roles of individuals and/or groups.
Stereotypes can be positive or negative, but they rarely communicate accurate
information about others. When people automatically apply gender assumptions to
others regardless of evidence to the contrary, they are perpetuating gender
stereotyping. Many people recognize the dangers of gender stereotyping, yet
continue to make these types of generalizations.
Traditionally, the female stereotypic role is to marry and
have children. She is also to put her family's welfare before her own; be
loving, compassionate, caring, nurturing, and sympathetic; and find time to be
sexy and feel beautiful. The male stereotypic role is to be the financial
provider.
Elinor Dashwood — the sensible and reserved eldest daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood. She is 19 years old at the beginning of the
book. She becomes attached to Edward Ferrars, the brother-in-law of her elder
half-brother, John. Always feeling a keen sense of responsibility to her family
and friends, she places their welfare and interests above her own, and
suppresses her own strong emotions in a way that leads others to think she is
indifferent or cold-hearted.
Marianne Dashwood — the romantically inclined and eagerly
expressive second daughter of Mr and Mrs Henry Dashwood. She is 16 years old at
the beginning of the book. She is the object of the attentions of Colonel
Brandon and Mr. Willoughby. She is attracted to young, handsome, romantically
spirited Willoughby and does not think much of the older, more reserved Colonel
Brandon. Marianne undergoes the most development within the book, learning her
sensibilities have been selfish. She decides her conduct should be more like
that of her elder sister, Elinor.
John Willoughby — a philandering nephew of a neighbour of
the Middletons, a dashing figure who charms Marianne and shares her artistic and
cultural sensibilities. It is generally presumed by many of their mutual
acquaintances that he is engaged to marry Marianne (partly due to her own
overly familiar actions, i.e., addressing personal letters directly to him).
Mrs Jennings – mother to Lady Middleton and Charlotte
Palmer. A widow who has married off all her children, she spends most of her
time visiting her daughters and their families, especially the Middletons. She
and her son-in-law, Sir John Middleton, take an active interest in the romantic
affairs of the young people around them and seek to encourage suitable matches,
often to the particular chagrin of Elinor and Marianne.
Henry Dashwood – a wealthy gentleman who dies at the
beginning of the story. The terms of his estate — entailment to a male heir —
preven
t him from leaving
anything to his second wife and their children. He asks John, his son by his
first wife, to look after (meaning ensure the financial security of) his second
wife and their three daughters.
t him from leaving
anything to his second wife and their children. He asks John, his son by his
first wife, to look after (meaning ensure the financial security of) his second
wife and their three daughters.
Lucy Steele – a young, distant relation of Mrs. Jennings,
who has for some time been secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars. She assiduously
cultivates the friendship with Elinor Dashwood and Mrs John Dashwood. Limited
in formal education and financial means, she is nonetheless attractive, clever,
manipulative, cunning and scheming.
paper-7 literary theory and criticism
Name - Vyas Nupur Hiteshbhai.
Roll number- 39
Subject- paper- 7 Literary theory and criticism
Aassignment Topic- Deconstruction
Batch year- 2015-2017
Submitted to Department of English, MKBU, india, gujarat
(Bhavnagar).
Email id- nupurvyas1995@gmail.com
Deconstruction
Derrida, Jacques form of philosophical and literary
analysis, derived mainly from work begun in the 1960s by the French philosopher
Jacques Derrida, that questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or
“oppositions,” in Western philosophy through a close examination of the
language and logic of philosophical and literary texts. In the 1970s the term
was applied to work by Derrida, Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller, and Barbara
Johnson, among other scholars. In the 1980s it designated more loosely a range
of radical theoretical enterprises in diverse areas of the humanities and
social sciences, including—in addition to philosophy and literature—law,
psychoanalysis, architecture, anthropology, theology, feminism, gay and lesbian
studies, political theory, historiography, and film theory. In polemical
discussions about intellectual trends of the late 20th-century, deconstruction
was sometimes used pejoratively to suggest nihilism and frivolous skepticism.
In popular usage the term has come to mean a critical dismantling of tradition
and traditional modes of thought.
Deconstruction is a critical outlook concerned with the
relationship between text and meaning. Jacques Derrida's 1967 work Of
Grammatology introduced the majority of ideas influential within
deconstruction. According to Derrida and taking inspiration from the work of
Ferdinand de Saussure, language as a system of signs and words only has meaning
because of the contrast between these signs. As Rorty contends "words have
meaning only because of contrast-effects with other words...no word can acquire
meaning in the way in which philosophers from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell
have hoped it might—by being the unmediated expression of something
non-linguistic (e.g., an emotion, a sense-datum, a physical object, an idea, a
Platonic Form)".As a consequence meaning is never present, but rather is
deferred to other signs. Derrida refers to the - in this view, mistaken -
belief that there is a self-sufficient, non-deferred meaning as metaphysics of
presence. A concept then must be understood in the context of its opposite,
such as being/nothingness, normal/abnormal, speech/writing, etc.
Finally, Derrida argues that it is not enough to expose and
deconstruct the way oppositions work and then stop there in a nihilistic or
cynical position, "thereby preventing any means of intervening in the
field effectively".To be effective, deconstruction needs to create new
terms, not to synthesize the concepts in opposition, but to mark their
difference and eternal interplay. This explains why Derrida always proposes new
terms in his deconstruction, not as a free play but as a pure necessity of
analysis, to better mark the intervals. Derrida called undecidables, that is,
unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or
semantic) that can no longer be included within philosophical (binary)
opposition: but which, however, inhabit philosophical oppositions, resisting
and organizing it, without ever constituting a third term, without ever leaving
room for a solution in the form of Hegelian dialectics (e.g. différance,
archi-writing, pharmakon, supplement, hymen, gram, spacing).
In the 1980s, the Postmodernism era, deconstruction was
being put to use in a range of theoretical enterprises in the humanities and
social sciences, including law anthropology, historiography, linguistics, sociolinguistics,
psychoanalysis, feminism, and LGBT studies. In the continental philosophy
tradition, debates surrounding ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics,
hermeneutics, and philosophy of language still refer to it today. Within
architecture it has inspired deconstructivism, and it remains important in
general within art, music, and literary criticism.
Derrida's original use of the word
"deconstruction" was a translation of Destruktion, a concept from the
work of Martin Heidegger that Derrida sought to apply to textual reading.
Heidegger's term referred to a process of exploring the categories and concepts
that tradition has imposed on a word, and the history behind them. Derrida
opted for deconstruction over the literal translation destruction to suggest
precision rather than violence.
Basic philosophical concerns
Derrida's concerns flow from a consideration of several
issues:
A desire to contribute to the re-valuation of all western
values, built on the 18th century Kantian critique of reason, and carried
forward to the 19th century, in its more radical implications, by Kierkegaard
and Nietzsche.
An assertion that texts outlive their authors, and become
part of a set of cultural habits equal to, if not surpassing, the importance of
authorial intent.
A re-valuation of certain classic western dialectics: poetry
vs. philosophy, reason vs. revelation, structure vs. creativity, episteme vs.
techne, etc.
To this end, Derrida follows a long line of modern
philosophers, who look backwards to Plato and his influence on the western
metaphysical tradition.[23] Like Nietzsche, Derrida suspects Plato of
dissimulation in the service of a political project, namely the education,
through critical reflections, of a class of citizens more strategically
positioned to influence the polis. However, like Nietzsche, Derrida is not
satisfied merely with such a political interpretation of Plato, because of the
particular dilemma modern humans find themselves stuck in. His Platonic
reflections are inseparably part of his critique of modernity, hence the
attempt to be something beyond the modern, because of this Nietzschian sense
that the modern has lost its way and become mired in nihilism.
Différance
Différance is an important idea within deconstruction, it is
the observation that the meanings of words come from their synchronity with
other words within the language and their diachrony between contemporary and
historical definitions of a word. Understanding language according Derrida
required an understanding of both viewpoints of linguistic analysis. The focus
on diachronity has led to accusations against Derrida of engaging in the
Etymological fallacy.
There is one statement by Derrida which has been of great
interest to his opponents, and which appeared in an essay on Rousseau (part of
the highly influential Of Grammatology, 1967), It is the assertion that
"there is no outside-text" (il n'y a pas de hors-texte),which is
often mistranslated as "there is nothing outside of the text". The
mistranslation is often used to suggest Derrida believes that nothing exists
but words. Michel Foucault, for instance, famously misattributed to Derrida the
very different phrase "Il n'y a rien en dehors du text" for this
purpose. According to Derrida, his statement simply refers to the
unavoidability of context that is at the heart of différance.
For example, the word "house" derives its meaning
more as a function of how it differs from "shed",
"mansion", "hotel", "building", etc. (Form of
Content, that Louis Hjelmslev distinguished from Form of Expression) than how
the word "house" may be tied to a certain image of a traditional
house (i.e. the relationship between signifier and signified) with each term
being established in reciprocal determination with the other terms than by an
ostensive description or definition: when can we talk about a "house"
or a "mansion" or a "shed"? The same can be said about
verbs, in all the languages in the world: when should we stop saying
"walk" and start saying "run"? The same happens, of course,
with adjectives: when must we stop saying "yellow" and start saying
"orange", or exchange "past" for "present? Not only
are the topological differences between the words relevant here, but the
differentials between what is signified is also covered by différance.
Thus, complete meaning is always "differential"
and postponed in language; there is never a moment when meaning is complete and
total. A simple example would consist of looking up a given word in a
dictionary, then proceeding to look up the words found in that word's
definition, etc., also comparing with older dictionaries from different periods
in time, and such a process would never end.
Metaphysics of presence-
Derrida describes the task of deconstruction as the
identification of metaphysics of presence or logocentrism in western
philosophy. Metaphysics of presence is the desire for immediate access to
meaning, the privileging of presence over absence. This means that there is an assumed
bias in certain binary oppositions where one side is placed in a position of
one over another, such as good over bad, speech over the written word, male
over female among other oppositions. Derrida writes, "Without a doubt,
Aristotle thinks of time on the basis of ousia as parousia, on the basis of the
now, the point, etc. And yet an entire reading could be organized that would
repeat in Aristotle's text both this limitation and its opposite." To
Derrida the central bias of logocentrism was the now being placed as more
important than the future or past. This argument is largely based on the
earlier work of Heidegger, who, in Being and Time, claimed that the theoretical
attitude of pure presence is parasitical upon a more originary involvement with
the world in concepts such as the ready-to-hand and being-with.
Logocentricism-
French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) in his book
Of Grammatology responds in depth to what he believes is Saussure’s logocentric
argument. Derrida deconstructs the apparent inner, phonological system of
language, stating in Chapter 2, Linguistics and Grammatology, that in fact and
for reasons of essence Saussure’s representative determination is ‘...an ideal
explicitly directing a functioning which...is never completely phonetic’.The
idea that writing might function other than phonetically and also as more than
merely a representative delineation of speech allows an absolute concept of
logos to end in what Derrida describes as infinitist metaphysics.[9] The
difference in presence can never actually be reduced, as was the logocentric
project; instead, the chain of signification becomes the trace of
presence-absence’.
'That the signified is originarily and essentially (and not
only for a finite and created spirit) trace, that it is always already in the
position of the signifier, is the apparently innocent proposition within which
the metaphysics of the logos, of presence and consciousness, must reflect upon
writing as its death and its resource.'
"Logocentrism" is a term coined by the German
philosopher Ludwig Klages in the 1920s. It refers to the tradition of
"Western" science and philosophy that situates the logos, "the
word" or the "act of speech", as epistemologically superior in a
system, or structure, in which we may only know, or be present in, the world by
way of a logocentric metaphysics. For this structure to hold true it must be
assumed that there is an original, irreducible object which the logos
represents, and therefore, that our presence in the world is necessarily
mediated. If there is a Platonic Ideal Form then there must be an ideal
representation of such a form. According to logocentrism, this ideal
representation is the logos.
Phonocentrism-
Phonocentrism is the belief that sounds and speech are
inherently superior to, or more primary than, written language. Those who
espouse phonocentric views maintain that spoken language is the primary and
most fundamental method of communication whereas writing is merely a derived
method of capturing speech. Many also believe that spoken language is
inherently richer and more intuitive than written language. These views also
impact perceptions of sign languages - especially in the United States. Oralism
is the belief that deaf students should use sounds, speech reading, and
primarily English instead of signs in their education. Alexander Graham Bell is
a well known proponent for oralism of the deaf - such phonocentristic views are
rejected by the Deaf community. Phonocentrisim in the context of deafness is
referred to as audism.
Some writers have argued that philosophers such as Plato,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Ferdinand de Saussure have promoted phonocentric
views. Walter Ong, who has also expressed support for the idea of
phonocentrism, has argued that the culture of the United States is particularly
non-phonocentric.
Some philosophers and linguists, notably including the
philosopher Jacques Derrida, have used the term "phonocentrism" to
criticize what they see as a disdain for written language. Derrida has argued
that phonocentrism developed because the immediacy of speech has been regarded
as closer to the presence of subjects than writing. He believed that the binary
opposition between speech and writing is a form of logocentrism.
Paper 6 Victorian literature
Name- Vyas Nupur Hiteshbhai.
Roll number- 39
Subject- The Victorian literature
Batch- 2015-2017
Submitted to Department of English, MKBU, India, Gujarat( Bhvnagar).
Email id- nupurvyas1995@gmail.com
Assingnment topic- Doing as one likes : Matthew Arnold
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Introduction-
Matthew Arnold, in the first chapter of "culture and Anarchy "-'Sweetness and Light'- has tried to show that culture is the study and pursuit of perfection ; and sweetness and light, are the main characters. But hitherto he has been insisting chiefly on beauty , or sweetness , as a character of perfection . To complete rightly his design , it evidently remains to speak also of intelligence, or light, as a character of perfection. In this chapter to bring home his point of Anarchy, he speaks of light as one of the characters of perfection , and of culture as giving us light.
Dangers of 'Doing As One Likes' in Society : Personal Liberty : Freedom :
It is said that a man with the theories of sweetness and light is full of antipathy against the roughter or coarser movements going on around him , that he will not lend a hand to the humble opration of uprooting evil by their means , and that therefore the believers in action grow impatient with him . But what if rough and coarse , ill-calculated action, action with insufficient light, is bane (curse) on society? What if society's urgent want now is, not to act at any price,but rather to lay in a stock of light for its difficulties? In that case, to refuse to lend a hand to the rougher and coarser movements going on round, is surely the best and in real truth the most practical line.
Freedom of doing as one likes, according to Arnold, was one of those things which english thus worshipped in itself, without enough regarding the ends for which freedom is to be desired. He agrees with the prevalent notion that it is a most happy and important thing for man merely to be able to do as he likes. But the problem is "on what he is to do when he is thus free to do as he likes , we do not lay so much strees ". Even though the British Constitution and liberal practitioners like Mr.bright forcibly say that - "British Constitition is a system which stops and paralyses any power in interfering with the free action of individuals that the central idea of English life and politics is the assertion of personal liberty", yet Arnold fears this very right and happiness of an Englishman to do what he likes may drif the entire society towards ANARCHY.
Its outcome on Middle & Working Class:
Again, Arnold gives an example of Middle class and working class, to prove how 'doing as one likes' may bring chaos and anarchy in society : He writes in this essay.
Our middle class , the great representative of trade and Dissent , with its maxims of everyman for himself in business , every man for himself in religion, dreads a powerful administration which might some how interfere with it; and besides, it has its own decorative inutilities of vertrymanship and guardianship and a stringent administration might either take these functions out of its hands, or prevent its exercising them in its own comfortable , independent manner ,as at present.
Then as to our working class. This class, pressed constantly by the hard daily compulsion of material wants, is naturally the very centre and stronghold of our national idea , that it is man's ideal right and felicity to do, as he likes".
In short, Arnold strongy believed that Our masses are quite as raw and uncultivated as the French; and so far from their having the idea of public duty and of discipline". And that if this concept of freedom is rampant in the nation ,it will soon be the need of the hour to civilized the nation of barbarians by the conscription (compulsory enrollment).
Its Consequences on Hyde Park Protesters / Dissenters:
Arnold gives yet another example of Hyde Park protesters and dissenters to prove how chaotic the world becomes as a consequences of doing as one likes :let us put it in Arnold 's own ironic style
"But with the Hyde Park rioter how different! They are our own flesh and blood ; they are a Protesters ; they are framed by nature to do as we do, hate what we hate , love what we love ; the question of questions , for them , is a wages question".
How, indeed, should their overwhelming strength act, when the man who gives an inflammatory lecture , or breaks down the park railings, or invades a Secretary of State's office, is only ffollowing an Englishman's impulse to do as he likes ; and our own conscience tells us that we ourselves have always regarded this impulse as something primary and sacred ? Mr. Murphy lectures at Birmingham , and showers on the Catholic population of that town 'words', says the Home Secretary , 'only fit to be addressed to thieves or murderers'.
Arnold, in his crystal clear style , blames the strong belief in Freedom for such anarchy in society. He says that English are so obsessed with the notion of freedom in doing as one likes that they became careless of right reason- intelligence.
A principle of authority to counteract the tendency to ANARCHY:
Now, if culture , which simply means trying to perfect oneself, and one's mind , brings us light, and if light shows us that there is nothing so very blessed in merely doing as one likes, that the worship of the mere freedom to do as one likes is worship of machinery, that the really blessed thing is to like what right reason order, and to follow her authority , then one has got a practical benefit out of culture. The urgent need of society is much- wanted principle , a principle of authority , to counteract the tendency to anarchy , which seems to be threatening society.
But again the big problem , according to Arnold is "who should be entrusted with this authority?" According to Carlyle it is the Aristocratic class, for Mr.Lowe ,it is the middle class and for the Reform League, it is the working class to whom the authority to judge the right by light - reason should be given. But, at the end of a very long disquisition ( A formal discourse on a subject , often in writing), Arnold says ...." that we can as little find in the working class as in the aristocratic or in the middle class our much-wanted sourse of authority , as culture suggests it to us ". He is of the view that all these three classes are honest, they have got the 'sweetness' essential for 'Culture' ; but what they lack in different proportions is 'LIGHT'. People of the aristocratic class want to affirm their ordinary selves , their likings and disliking ; people of the middle class the same , people of the working class the same.
As a result , Arnold verbalize that: By our every-day selves, however , we are separate , personal, at war, we are only safe from one another's tyranny when no one has any power; and this safety , in its turn , cannot save us from anarchy. And when, therefore, anarchy presents itself as a danger to us , we know not where to turn.
OUR BEST SELF: the ultimate guardian of principle of authority:
As all the classes fails to pass Arnold's standard to hold the guardianship of the principle of authority to counteract Anarchy, Arnold suggests our best selves- to whom the authority must be given "because it is the truest friend we all of us can have ;and when anarchy is a danger to us, to this authority we may turn with sure trust" Arnold says firmly that " we want an authority , and we find nothing but jealous classes, cheks, and a deadlock; culture suggests the idea of the state. We find no basis for a firm State-power in our ordinary selves; culture suggests one to us in "OUR BEST SELF".
Conclusion
Thus to conclude we may say that for Arnold , OUR BEST SELF which culture, or the study of perfection , seeks to develop in us is the eventual remedy for anarchy is society. In his concluding paragraph Arnold quotes Bishop Wilson to prove himself in asserting , how important is intelligence and reason to judge right, in doing as one likes :
Firstly never go against the best light you have ;
Secondly take care that your light be not darkss,
"English have followed," writes Arnold to conclude second chapter, with praiseworthy zeal the first rule but we have not given so much heed to the second. We have done according to the best light we have; but we have not taken enough care that this should be really the best light possible for us . That is should not be darkness. And our honesty being very great, conscience has whispered to us that the light we were following, our ordinary self, was, perhaps, only darkness.
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Roll number- 39
Subject- The Victorian literature
Batch- 2015-2017
Submitted to Department of English, MKBU, India, Gujarat( Bhvnagar).
Email id- nupurvyas1995@gmail.com
Assingnment topic- Doing as one likes : Matthew Arnold
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Introduction-
Matthew Arnold, in the first chapter of "culture and Anarchy "-'Sweetness and Light'- has tried to show that culture is the study and pursuit of perfection ; and sweetness and light, are the main characters. But hitherto he has been insisting chiefly on beauty , or sweetness , as a character of perfection . To complete rightly his design , it evidently remains to speak also of intelligence, or light, as a character of perfection. In this chapter to bring home his point of Anarchy, he speaks of light as one of the characters of perfection , and of culture as giving us light.
Dangers of 'Doing As One Likes' in Society : Personal Liberty : Freedom :
It is said that a man with the theories of sweetness and light is full of antipathy against the roughter or coarser movements going on around him , that he will not lend a hand to the humble opration of uprooting evil by their means , and that therefore the believers in action grow impatient with him . But what if rough and coarse , ill-calculated action, action with insufficient light, is bane (curse) on society? What if society's urgent want now is, not to act at any price,but rather to lay in a stock of light for its difficulties? In that case, to refuse to lend a hand to the rougher and coarser movements going on round, is surely the best and in real truth the most practical line.
Freedom of doing as one likes, according to Arnold, was one of those things which english thus worshipped in itself, without enough regarding the ends for which freedom is to be desired. He agrees with the prevalent notion that it is a most happy and important thing for man merely to be able to do as he likes. But the problem is "on what he is to do when he is thus free to do as he likes , we do not lay so much strees ". Even though the British Constitution and liberal practitioners like Mr.bright forcibly say that - "British Constitition is a system which stops and paralyses any power in interfering with the free action of individuals that the central idea of English life and politics is the assertion of personal liberty", yet Arnold fears this very right and happiness of an Englishman to do what he likes may drif the entire society towards ANARCHY.
Its outcome on Middle & Working Class:
Again, Arnold gives an example of Middle class and working class, to prove how 'doing as one likes' may bring chaos and anarchy in society : He writes in this essay.
Our middle class , the great representative of trade and Dissent , with its maxims of everyman for himself in business , every man for himself in religion, dreads a powerful administration which might some how interfere with it; and besides, it has its own decorative inutilities of vertrymanship and guardianship and a stringent administration might either take these functions out of its hands, or prevent its exercising them in its own comfortable , independent manner ,as at present.
Then as to our working class. This class, pressed constantly by the hard daily compulsion of material wants, is naturally the very centre and stronghold of our national idea , that it is man's ideal right and felicity to do, as he likes".
In short, Arnold strongy believed that Our masses are quite as raw and uncultivated as the French; and so far from their having the idea of public duty and of discipline". And that if this concept of freedom is rampant in the nation ,it will soon be the need of the hour to civilized the nation of barbarians by the conscription (compulsory enrollment).
Its Consequences on Hyde Park Protesters / Dissenters:
Arnold gives yet another example of Hyde Park protesters and dissenters to prove how chaotic the world becomes as a consequences of doing as one likes :let us put it in Arnold 's own ironic style
"But with the Hyde Park rioter how different! They are our own flesh and blood ; they are a Protesters ; they are framed by nature to do as we do, hate what we hate , love what we love ; the question of questions , for them , is a wages question".
How, indeed, should their overwhelming strength act, when the man who gives an inflammatory lecture , or breaks down the park railings, or invades a Secretary of State's office, is only ffollowing an Englishman's impulse to do as he likes ; and our own conscience tells us that we ourselves have always regarded this impulse as something primary and sacred ? Mr. Murphy lectures at Birmingham , and showers on the Catholic population of that town 'words', says the Home Secretary , 'only fit to be addressed to thieves or murderers'.
Arnold, in his crystal clear style , blames the strong belief in Freedom for such anarchy in society. He says that English are so obsessed with the notion of freedom in doing as one likes that they became careless of right reason- intelligence.
A principle of authority to counteract the tendency to ANARCHY:
Now, if culture , which simply means trying to perfect oneself, and one's mind , brings us light, and if light shows us that there is nothing so very blessed in merely doing as one likes, that the worship of the mere freedom to do as one likes is worship of machinery, that the really blessed thing is to like what right reason order, and to follow her authority , then one has got a practical benefit out of culture. The urgent need of society is much- wanted principle , a principle of authority , to counteract the tendency to anarchy , which seems to be threatening society.
But again the big problem , according to Arnold is "who should be entrusted with this authority?" According to Carlyle it is the Aristocratic class, for Mr.Lowe ,it is the middle class and for the Reform League, it is the working class to whom the authority to judge the right by light - reason should be given. But, at the end of a very long disquisition ( A formal discourse on a subject , often in writing), Arnold says ...." that we can as little find in the working class as in the aristocratic or in the middle class our much-wanted sourse of authority , as culture suggests it to us ". He is of the view that all these three classes are honest, they have got the 'sweetness' essential for 'Culture' ; but what they lack in different proportions is 'LIGHT'. People of the aristocratic class want to affirm their ordinary selves , their likings and disliking ; people of the middle class the same , people of the working class the same.
As a result , Arnold verbalize that: By our every-day selves, however , we are separate , personal, at war, we are only safe from one another's tyranny when no one has any power; and this safety , in its turn , cannot save us from anarchy. And when, therefore, anarchy presents itself as a danger to us , we know not where to turn.
OUR BEST SELF: the ultimate guardian of principle of authority:
As all the classes fails to pass Arnold's standard to hold the guardianship of the principle of authority to counteract Anarchy, Arnold suggests our best selves- to whom the authority must be given "because it is the truest friend we all of us can have ;and when anarchy is a danger to us, to this authority we may turn with sure trust" Arnold says firmly that " we want an authority , and we find nothing but jealous classes, cheks, and a deadlock; culture suggests the idea of the state. We find no basis for a firm State-power in our ordinary selves; culture suggests one to us in "OUR BEST SELF".
Conclusion
Thus to conclude we may say that for Arnold , OUR BEST SELF which culture, or the study of perfection , seeks to develop in us is the eventual remedy for anarchy is society. In his concluding paragraph Arnold quotes Bishop Wilson to prove himself in asserting , how important is intelligence and reason to judge right, in doing as one likes :
Firstly never go against the best light you have ;
Secondly take care that your light be not darkss,
"English have followed," writes Arnold to conclude second chapter, with praiseworthy zeal the first rule but we have not given so much heed to the second. We have done according to the best light we have; but we have not taken enough care that this should be really the best light possible for us . That is should not be darkness. And our honesty being very great, conscience has whispered to us that the light we were following, our ordinary self, was, perhaps, only darkness.
TO EVALUATE MY ASSIGNMENT CLICK HERE
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