Existentialism.

This is the term applied to a school of philosophers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Despite the fact they all have different writings, they all share the view that philosophy should start with a human subject.

Unlike Decartes, and his theory of 'I think therefore I am' in order to prove existence, Existentialists believe that mere thinking cannot prove existence. Actually doing things, having emotions and producing actions are the way to test existence. They believe we can choose how/what to think.

This image shows both a rabbit and a duck. We can choose to see either the rabbit or duck but cannot see both at the same time. This helps prove existentialist theories.
Existentialists claim that as children we are all born with an 'Existentialist Attitude' where we experience a series of emotions including confusion and disorientation. This proves our existence, simply because we can feel these emotions. This marks the 'starting point' in life. Most Existentialists claim that previous philosophical theories are too abstract to be applied to human experience. Existentialism became popular during the post-war period as individuality was trying to be re-injected into society.

Kirkegaard is considered to be the father of Existentialism.

Kirkegaard believed that each individual was responsible for their own actions and how they lived their lives, they had the option to choose what their meaning of life was for them. He explained that during life, we are all faced with 'Existentialist Obstacles' and it is our choice how we overcome them. These obstacles are despair, anxiety, absurdity, boredom and alienation. He was a huge believer of Individualism.

 Fredrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche agreed with Kirkegaard and focused his work on human experience rather than mathematics and science. He claimed that these natural sciences are too observational to measure human experience. He was interested in the roll of making free choices and how that changes the nature of individuality. 

Nietzsche had created a character called 'Ubermensch'. This was meant to represent an idolized individual. An individual who created his own values and decided when and how he excelled them.  

Kafka

Kafka wrote a novel called 'The Trial'. In this an individual was sent to court for a crime they were not aware they did, they had no recollection of doing anything wrong. In the courtroom and outside, no one would tell him what crime he had committed. As a result, he drifted away from his family and friends and became alone. He experienced feelings of confusion. This is said to be 'Existentialist Attitude'. Kafka wanted to show how individuals can choose to overcome this. 

The key defining point of Existentialism is that existence comes before anything else. What we learn comes next. Even though an individual exists, nothing exists that marks their character. The individual chooses who their character is. Existentialists describe the feeling of abandonment that people feel when they realise they make this decision on their own and that there are no set values within society that we should follow. 

Heidegger 

Published 'Being and Time' which was another way of explaining human existence. He claimed that we shouldn't consider natural sciences as they absolute truth much like Nietzsche. He claimed that we if start considering sciences as the truth, then this will diminish our confidence in our own intellect. 

Husserl

Husserl believed that the meaning of life is subjective. He agreed with Kirkegaard that as humans we have the option to choose who we want to be and what values we follow. He was very much a believer of individualism. He disagreed with Moore's Utopia. 

Keynes & Economics

The General Theory of Employment, Money and Interest, written by John Keynes has been considered to be one of the most dangerous books of the eighteenth century.

Keynes was a British economist, he perfected the theory of Macro-Economics.  This is all about government expenditure. His writing on this matter, had a huge influence on modern government. He also refined earlier work that focused on business cycles and expenditure within the 'Private Sector.' He wrote at the time of The Great Depression, meaning unemployment rates were high as well as economic downfall.

Keynes created two methods to try and get the country out of the depression, he realised this would not happen completely as like Marx, he believed in the social class structure but he felt as though his methods would help the economic situation of the time. The movements were:

• Friscal - Government expenditure and involvement.

• Monetary - Bank and Private Sector's involvement. 

His ideas are the basis of economic thought which is now used today and known as the Keynesian School of Thought. Keynes believed that the government should have more involvement and control over spending and less control should be given to private businesses. Investment from the government into the economy would boost spending, creating more jobs and reducing unemployment levels. At the time of writing, Keynes felt that the government was producing below the potential growth rate. 

Keynes also mentions Ricardo's Theory of Value in his work. This basically questions the value of objects and we can actually measure this. He uses a Biro vs a piano. The piano costs £5000 and the Biro pen costs £1. How do we actually determine that the piano should cost £5000?

At the time that Keynes was writing, Keynes work was unthinkable. He said he wanted to try and make the unthinkable thinkable.

Totalitarianism/1984

Totalitarianism is a political system that seeks dictatorship . A successful totalitarian regime's perfect result would be world domination.

Nazism and Stalinism are two examples of previous successful totalitarian regimes. Terror is an infamous method of gaining power under these regimes. Forms of terror can vary from speeches right through to genocide.

Totalitarianism is a fictional ideology, or in other words, it it completely original and not based on a prior political system. It tries to eliminate individuality from human kind to leave a 'mass' of people all sharing the same thoughts. Fear is also key. Machiavellian theorists would argue that this a good regime to a certain extent.
However, as Machiavelli once said 'Be feared, but never hated.' There is a huge chance that a totalitarian dictator will be hated, Hitler for example, was hated by the Jewish community.

An example of propaganda used by the Nazi Party to eliminate individuality is shown below.  Hitler wanted to create a superior race known as the 'Aryan Race' leaving people with 'pure German blood.'

George Orwell wrote a book called '1984'. This demonstrated how a totalitarian regime can emerge and be successful. It was set in the future, 2050. Winston Smith was the main character.

The leader of Big Brother Party created a new language called 'Newspeak.' This banned anyone was speaking in a negative way about the Big Brother Party and in turn prevented any rebellious groups from forming. Smith was against the regime but due to the laws, he had to write his thoughts down in the form of a diary rather than saying them aloud. This highlights how successful this kind of terror can be in a totalitarian regime can be. People became scared to be against the Big Brother Party, this is similar to the way the Nazi Party frightened the German people.

'Thoughtcrime' became part of society. Smith believed in the formation of 'Brotherhood.' A group of people who all shared the same ideas as him, however, he was lured into a trap and the ever watching Big Brother Party made him think this Brotherhood party existed. He was then captured and tortured with rats until his spirit had been broken. He was then forced to believe in the regime set by the Big Brother Party.

The book highlights how successful a totalitarian regime can be once they have gained power and have used terror against the population.

Sigmund Freud

Freud was an Austrian Philosopher who always expressed an interest in psychology of the human mind.

He is famous for his work on Psycho-Analysis and his theory of Psycho-sexual Development.
He developed theories behind the existence of the unconscious mind. Freud believed that our unconscious mind was responsible for the decisions we make in day to day life. Freud was also interested in the mechanisms behind repression. He created three 'personalities' that he felt our minds were split into. They were:

• The ID - This part of our mind, we are completely unconscious of. It is a 'child-like' state and seeks immediate gratification and pleasure. 

• The Ego - This part of our mind tries to create balance between the impulsive, impatient nature of the ID and the impractical  morals of the Super Ego.

• The Super Ego - This is responsible for our morals and what we consider to be the right decision to make in certain situations. 

As well as this, Freud created the well know 'Oedipus Complex'. In this, Freud explained that every child is born with this desire for incest, but we are forced to repress this into our unconscious mind. For boys, they are born with a constant love for their mother and a desire to kill their father. This eventually subsides during the five Psycho sexual Stages of development. 

• Stage One - The Oral Stage - At this stage, children are pleasured by their mouths. E.g, breastfeeding and putting objects into their mouths to learn what objects are. 

• Stage Two - The Anal Stage - Children are pleasured by the need to empty their bowels. 

• Stage Three - The Phallic Stage - Children become aware of their genitalia. 

• Stage Four - The Latency Stage - This relates to the Oedipus Complex. Children realise that their sexual desire for their parent cannot be pursued so they seek love in another individual of the same gender as their parent.   

• Stage Five - The Genital Stage - This stage occurs just before the child hits puberty. They begin to realise they have sexual urges. 

An Iceberg model has been created to show how Freud thought the three 'personalties' in our minds were shown. 

Freud also discussed dreams. He said that having dreams fulfilled our wishes and desires. Without dreams, Freud claimed we would always be awake.  He published his work on dreams in 1899.

Yoga Show

Our first ever feature filmed in London! What an adventure!
One of the things that I am consistently learning each week working on Features, is how essential planning really is and this week was no different. I don't think I've ever sat looking at my email accounts so much in my life! I had arranged 'Press Passes' for Zoe and I this week and at this point, I definitely felt like a true member of the press (although carrying the camera to London was very heavy.)

Yoga is not really my forte, so I knew that walking into the National Hall at Kensington Olympia was going to be a whole new world for me. And yes, yes it was. We walked in with blue wristbands and were surrounded by women in tracksuits carrying  1-2 litre bottles of water. There were hundreds of stalls selling different health products including coconut water and barley grass juice, which Zoe and I happily tried. Yoga classes were being held throughout the day, with a variety of different teachers and teaching styles. Unfortunately, Zoe and I didn't get involved in these, which upon reflection is something we should have definitely done. Involvement in our feature would have improved the quality drastically, and would probably have helped the viewers feel more engaged. That's a lesson for next time!

Due to the fact, that I had never been to any sort of convention like this before, I was slightly unsure as to how to go about filming and what sort of content to include. In the end, we tried to approach it as if we were trying to lose some weight before Christmas. We spent most of our time there filming the many different health products that were available. We also spoke to a variety of different people all trying to tell us that their product was the very best and the one that we should invest in.

I am happy with our finished piece, although we could have improved it by participating in the yoga classes. This is something we will definitely do if we ever attend an event like this in the future.
When editing the footage, I wanted to use music that created a calming, tranquil effect however, I think this backfired slightly and makes the feature appear too slow, perhaps even too calming!

Our feature was used in WINOL Life, Winol's fortnightly chat show. There we met Elizabeth Barnett, Editor of Hampshire Life. This was really helpful and incredibly interesting as she offered valuable feedback. I also taught George a few moves. Take a look:

Restaurant Review at Giraffe.

I was really excited to create a Restaurant Review, (mainly because it was an excuse to go out for a lovely lunch!)

In reality, we were told that it might be a lot harder than we anticipated it to be. 

I would say that one of the more challenging area's of creating this feature had to be the organisation. As Giraffe, is a large restaurant chain, it was difficult to know who to contact but once we had found this information, everything fell into place. 

We arrived and were immediately greeted with a warm welcome and to our delight promised lots of free food and drinks. I felt like an absolute princess! Once we had set up our equipment and sat down, it dawned on us how stupid we looked. After all, it's not exactly the norm to go into a restaurant, eat bu sit there filming everything you do. At this point, we realised that packing content into our review was going to be difficult. In the end, we tried to be as natural as we could, we ordered food that we would have naturally chosen and generally we tried to have a nice time. One problem we discovered, was yet again the audio. Not only had our microphones let us down again, but the noise of the restaurant was making it much harder to speak at a level that could be recorded clearly. This resulted  in Zoe and I to sharing one microphone, although it worked, this definitely wasn't the sound quality we had hoped for. Note to self* ALWAYS, Always, Always check equipment that the Loan Counter give you before you set off.

The food and drinks we ordered came very fast and tasted lovely, we really had very little to fault on the whole experience so naturally, we made our review very positive and complimentary of Giraffe as a company but we also praised the staff members who served us.
When we had finished editing this feature and exported, we were very proud of our achievements and felt like the whole thing has overall, been very successful.

This is the moment we were then told by Chris, that due to the fact that we were so complimentary and included very few criticisms, this could be seen as a form of malice. Malice can cover a range of different areas in Journalism, one of them being that a Journalist should never promote one company over another and this is effectively what Zoe and I had done without realising. We quickly hit the drawing board a second time, and included voice overs of the areas of the meal we felt could have been included. We also used a text graphic to show the prices of the food so that viewers could then make up their own mind. This then made the whole feature much more fair and removed any malice that may have been found in our first attempt.

I will put up the newly edited version of the Restaurant Review at Giraffe soon. Watch this space.
Zoe and I are also hoping to create many more Restaurant Reviews so again watch this space!

Cooking in Comfort

I found making this feature challenging. However, I learnt a lot from doing so. I feel our concept was strong and one that would appeal to a lot of people. After all, restaurants can be expensive and cooking isn't always very easy especially if you want to tuck into luxury food. Despite this, Zoe and I felt we could prove that you can create exactly that, in the comfort of your own kitchen without much effort. We decided to give ourselves a budget of just £12. With this we wanted to create a three course meal that would feed four people. Now that works out at just £1 per course per person. Perfect!

Or so we thought...
We severely underestimated the time that would it would take to not only cook but prepare and film the food. On our first attempt we felt that one camera would be enough, but without a camera man it became extremely difficult to capture good, interesting shots whilst also being the ones doing the cooking. We spent the best part of four hours, trying to solve the problem and eventually we gave up. Disappointed and £12 lighter.
To top this all off, one of our microphones let us down meaning that not all of our audio was picked up and the parts that were picked up were not the best quality. We decided to do the whole thing again.

Attempt #2
THIS WENT SO WELL. It's amazing, what planning can achieve. Note to self* Always plan each feature in great detail before filming. We started the day nice and early, we also had our ingredients delivered meaning we didn't have to do the horrible uphill walk with five heavy shopping bags. So far, so good. We also changed location and I know this sounds silly but I really think it helped us have a much more positive attitude towards filming. It felt like a new start and unlike last time, I really thought we could do it. This time, we filmed using two tapes, we had back up headphones and microphones. The very definition of organisation. At last, everything was running smoothly. By the end of our third course, we were exhausted but we realised that benefits of re filming.

I learnt a lot from the experience, one actually being the point we were trying to prove. Our food was delicious (even if i do say so myself) and I've been asked by a few people if they can borrow our soup recipe!
It just goes to show that you can have nice food at home, you can stuff your faces for very little money and above all, do not give up. Just stop when things go wrong, take a break and come back to it. If you do this, things will improve. I have to say I think it was the most stressed I have felt so far, but strangely it was the feature I have most enjoyed filming.

Take a peek below at our work:

Bugger!

The brown stuff really has hit the fan this week. What a total nightmare. Filming was a complete disaster from start to finish. Re - filming tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

So this is what drowning feels like....

I've survived my first week working as part of the Feature Team for WINOL.  I feel amazing! Despite the fact, that on more than one occasion this week, I felt like I was drowning in my work load and seriously questioning the camera's safety when in my company.

My first feature is based all around fashion, with its main angle trying to capture what this year's Autumn trends are going to be and whether the general public (or Winchester locals) are interested. It was a challenging week with the con's definitely outweighing the pro's but as we've all been reminded, making the mistakes now will benefit us in the long run and even the very best make all kinds of errors.

Zoe and I worked together for this feature as Fashion is a mutual topic of interest and we were both excited to be going out there and film. I think we underestimated how much balls it would take to go up and actually ask people questions when it came down to it. The minor detail that technology was constantly failing on us and our giant camera attracting quite an audience didn't really help matters. Thursday was a very stressful day and despite the fact, we spent almost six hours on Winchester High Street, we did not come back with a single second of footage. A lesson everyone should learn is to ALWAYS check your equipment before you make the long trek to town. When we arrived and had set up the camera, we annoyingly found out that we only had one microphone when it was vital to our feature that we had two. So, we climbed back up the hill, back to uni and got the second microphone we needed. 2pm arrives, and we are finally back on the high street, but things weren't going our way. The audio was having a bad day too and nothing seemed to work. The audio levels on the camera were moving, the microphones were all set to exactly the same frequency but still nothing worked. Even the headphones were working fine, the reason why the audio failed remains a mystery. In the end, we packed up shop and went home feeling annoyed and irritated that we had nothing of any use and had mentally prepared ourselves to come back with tonnes of brilliant footage and could then spend the next couple of days editing. How wrong we were...


Monday morning comes and today was the day we made another attempt to go out onto the streets and film. Hooray - it was about a billion times more successful. I definitely wasn't prepared for the amount of rejections we would get when we asked people if they wanted to be filmed, but luckily there were a kind few, who didn't mind at all and actually really liked being in front of a camera lens. Girls were usually more than happy to participate once you mentioned 'fashion', whilst boys took a bit more convincing. We had another tough time with the microphones in places and eventually settled on using the gun mic. I was very pleased when six o'clock came and we had nearly a full tape worth of footage. At least that meant, we had plenty to play around with. We took a quick detour to KFC for dinner, and then it was straight back to uni for a long night of editing. I wasn't wrong, it was a long night and we got back home at  about 1.30am. Shattered would be an understatement. However, i'm so glad we put the time in to do it, it seemed to pay off although there were a few technical glitches that I will definitely learn from next time. An example was the fact that the radio mic wires were in shot, so much so that they couldn't be edited out. Definitely an error not to do next time!

So through the up's and down's, we did it. Zoe was good fun to work with and I think although far from perfect, i'm proud of our first feature. Maybe one day in the future we will look back and laugh at our mistakes. Take a peek at this year's Autumn Trends....

Karl Marx and Evil Capitalism...(Also, my Seminar Paper.)

The Communist Manifesto,

By Karl Marx and Frederich Engles.

Communism is defined in the dictionary as a ‘theory or system of social organisation based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.’ This essentially means that no one has private ownership and money is distributed in a fair way through taxes etc.

Communism was something Karl Marx and Frederich Engles supported and this is a key idea throughout the Communist Manifesto.

At the very start of the Manifesto, Communism is described as having the potential to be very powerful, Marx suggests that he believes that there are a lot of clear supporters of communism and links this to a theory he has in which he believes that the proletariat will or should come together to form a revolution and overthrow capitalism.

Marx recognises that throughout history, there have been several revolutionary actions and many have been a result of class conflicts. This is something that I do agree with and I think it can also be applied to modern day life too; perhaps not in terms of a ‘class conflict’ but there is definitely a division within society and this is mainly due to income and materialism.  For example, there are students like myself who are not exactly rolling in money and there are adults who possess a nice house, nice car and generally have more disposable income etc and then you have the multi millionaires like Lord Alan Sugar, for example and instantly there are three different types of people in three different situations. Naturally, there is more to social class than income but I’m just demonstrating that Marx is right in terms of recognising divisions within society.

Marx, however, differed in the sense that he believed that society was split into two main rivalry ‘camps’ as he described. One being the proletariat (working class) and the other being the bourgeoisie (ruling class). It was Marx’s idea that the proletariat were constantly being exploited by the bourgeoisie in the means of production.

              

Although Marx is very much against capitalism, I like the fact that during the manifesto he discusses in some detail how the bourgeoisie gained so much power and his explanation for this is the discovery of other countries resulting in the expansion of market and trade, ultimately meaning that manufacturing grew alongside this.

“The discovery of America, the rounding of the cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising of the bourgeoisie.”

“…Meanwhile, the markets kept ever-growing, the demand ever-rising.”

“Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America has paved the way.”

Marx claimed that while the expansion of the market continued, lower classes were being ‘pushed into the background’. Alongside the bourgeoisie’s power in terms of production they also had political movements and according to Marx, the modern state are supportive of this. This is where Marx, believed exploitation of the proletariat really begun. He refers to this ‘exploitation’ theory numerous times throughout the manifesto.

“The bourgeoisie has stripped the halo off of every occupation hitherto (up to now) …”

“…It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science into its paid labourers.”

I really like those quotes as I feel they demonstrate how strongly Marx feels about the destruction capitalism and the bourgeoisie can cause to society.

Marx goes as far to say that capitalism is simply all about profit and earning money and seems to adopt this idea that it does not have many cares for people. He does acknowledge that vast amount of production that has emerged, thanks to capitalism but this is not in a positive way. Marx suggested that there was too much civilisation and too many industries; society did not need as many. Capitalism has a thirst for profit.

Marx also suggests that ‘thanks to machinery and the division of labour the proletariat have lost all individual character and consequently all charm for the workman’. This I infer as meaning that the proletariat have no job satisfaction and are not treated well. They have little individuality and are simply there to serve a purpose for the bourgeoisie.  The division of labour is simply referring to further exploitation, longer working hours on a lower wage.

This I found really interesting and I tried to understand how awful it must be to be stuck in that vicious cycle. Due to mass increase in the market (as mentioned earlier) the bourgeoisie had full control, the proletariat on the other hand did not and needed the money, therefore the bourgeoisie could lower wages and still be assured that the proletariat would remain in their job, working longer hours to gain extra money without arguments as they had no other choice. This is the extreme form of exploitation, Marx is referring to throughout the whole of the manifesto and he is simply suggesting the proletariat are slaves to the bourgeoisie.

“Masses of labourers, crowded into a factory, are organised like soldiers.”

Marx discusses how skilled workmen are slowly shrinking into the proletariat as machinery is being added at an increasing rate to the means of production (again reinforcing the idea that there are two classes within society). Competition between small businesses and large factories meant more and more people were sinking into the proletariat.

Marx also explains how the proletariat were fragmented all over the country and in order to defeat capitalism, they needed to clump together and form larger bodies. They needed to form ‘trade unions’ as a way of doing this.

Ironically, Marx suggests how the very production of goods the bourgeoisie are using to make profit are also the weapons the proletariat are using against the bourgeoisie. An example, Marx offered was the telephone. This device allows the proletariat to communicate and gather in larger groups, adding even more potential for a revolution.

Marx claims that the bourgeoisie only have one true enemy and they are the proletariats, he claims that all the other classes just fade away.

“The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.”

He describes a difference between those that have ‘fallen’ into the proletariat and the actual proletariat. Marx explains that the shop keeper, the craftsman are all fighting against the bourgeoisie to save the extinction of their own profession rather than to create a revolution, they therefore were ‘conservative’, according to Marx.

Marx explains that throughout history, most revolutions have been for the benefit of minorities, however, Marx feels that the proletariat is the majority in this situation. He also suggests that the proletariat gaining victory of the bourgeoisie and ending capitalism is inevitable. According to Marx, capitalism is just incompatible with society.

During the manifesto, Marx also makes it clear how communism supports the proletariats.

Marx states communist aims in the manifesto:

1. The formation of the proletariat into a class
2. The proletariat to overthrow the bourgeoisie.
3. The proletariat will gain political power.

An overall aim being not to abolish private property altogether but simply to eradicate any bourgeois property.

“To eradicate property that allows the fruit of mans own labour.”

This I infer as meaning that no property is allowed that will ultimately put one man in a better financial position than the next.

Towards the end of the manifesto, it is explained that communism wants to change the idea that labourers are there to increase capital with no other purpose. Marx also suggests that the capitalism ‘family’ is based on profit and private gain.

“ Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this we plead guilty.”

The manifesto also surprisingly mentions gender as well as class when attacking the bourgeoisie, suggesting that the bourgeoisie have degraded women and have made them feel like they are a part of production rather than an actual being.

“ A legalised system of free love.”

This quote is how Marx described prostitution and naturally disagreed with this given his stance on women being a form of production themselves. Marx aimed to abolish both private and public prostitution.

The last part of the manifesto listed several targets that communism would hope to reach when they had overthrown capitalism.

These included a graduated income tax, abolish the right to inheritance and free education for children in public schools to prevent child labour from continuing.

It also discusses different types of communists across different countries but ends by saying that all communists no matter where they are located are fighting for the same thing and that is to defeat the bourgeoisie and end capitalism.

Just before the end of the manifesto, there is a quote that reads:

“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains, they have the world to win!”

Throughout the whole manifesto, the main theme is simply for capitalism to end and the bourgeoisie to get overthrown by the proletariat and this I think is show very clearly by the previous quote.

I think communism is a nice idea but I think in the long term, it could not work successfully. Everyone wants money for their own gain, people moan about taxes even though they are there to benefit society as a whole and I think it is just human nature that we want to succeed and earn and be the best we possible can and not be the same as everyone else.

J'Accuse - Emile Zola

The Drefus Affair was what originally inspired Emile Zola to write one of the most controversial pieces of writing in history, one that proved victorious to Journalism. The lecture was probably one of my favorites and I found it so interesting how miscarriages of justice can so easily be made. The whole way through, I was picturing myself in Drefus's position and I can't even begin to imagine how he must of felt being framed from a
crime, he never committed.

It all began back when Drefus was a member of the French Army. He had attended military school, he should have come second in his tests however, he was heavily discriminated against because he was from a Jewish family and as a result, he was marked with '0'. In 1894, a French spy, also a cleaning lady found secret documents in a German bin meaning somebody within the French Army had been supplying the Germans with secret documents. The French found this deeply embarrassing that within their army, they had a traitor. Not knowing who this was, and wanting to 'resolve the issue' quickly, the found a Jew and sentenced him to life time imprisonment on Devils Island. This innocent Jew, was Drefus. They sent Drefus onto the island and locked him in a cell with no windows, he was only fed rotten food and was no longer allowed human contact. As a horrifying result, Drefus lost the ability to speak and his teeth fell out.
Before being sentenced to imprisonment at Devils Island, Drefus had a trail, naturally he was innocent and he should have been found innocent at the trial, but evidence was not supplied due to 'the protection of National Security.' This meant Drefus was found guilty and there was no way of proving him innocent. He had been given a death sentence in many ways, and the French Army were keen to get him sent over to the island and believed that this would be the end of the case. However, they were wrong. Enter Emile Zola.

Emile Zola was a Journalist of the time and was present at Drefus's trial. He was outraged by the decision to send Drefus to Devil's Island despite there being no real evidence to suggest that he was guilty. His anger was further fueled in 1896, when the Chief of French Military Intelligence, LT Colonel Picquart, found evidence to suggest that Drefus was innocent after all, and actually Esterhazy, another man within the French Army was guilty. When he raised this with his seniors, they refused to listen and sent him to Tuinisa as a method of to try and silence him. The French Army had already suffered enough humiliation for having a traitor in the first place, without it then being revealed to the public that they had imprisoned the wrong man. As a result of this, when a trial was held with Esterhazy, the court found him innocent to cover up any further embarrassment for the French Army. Unfortunately, a Journalist was in the wings waiting to produce a piece of writing that would reveal the true errors of the French Army and hopefully release an innocent man from a terrible fate. 


The article known as J'Accuse did exactly what it promised and Zola wrote lists and lists of people within the French Army he accused of being corrupt, he named and shamed Esterhazy and declared Drefus's innocence. Being experience at his job, Zola knew the consequences of publishing this, as it was full to the brim of defamation meaning he could be imprisoned himself under libel laws. He published it anyway. Within hours of its release, there was complete anarchy and uproar and true to his suspicions, Zola was trialled and found guilty of libel, he was sentenced to imprisonment but he fled to London and escaped. There began a Civil War.
Under a new government, Drefus was offered a new trial, but during the trial Drefus's solicitor was shot from behind meaning that another almighty miscarriage of justice occured, when Drefus was found guilty for a second time under 'extenuating circumstances'. He was eventually pardoned in 1889.


Throughout J'Accuse, it is clear that Zola is very passionate about Drefus's innocence, not only because of the sacrifice he is making but by also referring to the whole affair as a 'stain' on the presidency, ultimately making the president think about how he would be remembered, and how as a Journalist it is his 'duty to speak' on behalf of the people and on behalf of Drefus. 


This whole lecture, I found incredibly interesting. It made me so angry and made me want to make a difference. I cannot wait to be part of the Innocence Project in Year Three, although it will probably be shocking as well as completely compelling. 

Rural Rides

William Cobbett, part farmer, part Journalist wrote Rural Rides during the early 19th Century as a method of documenting and taking note of agricultural conditions across England. He rode a horse across the land and noted down any of his findings. 

As a child, Cobbett grew up in rural surroundings so being in the countryside was something he was very familiar with and naturally, a topic that was very dear to him. And as you would expect, he was very opinionated on what a countryside should be, therefore any changes in this, Cobbett did not approve of. To some people, Cobbett was also thought of as a campaigner, and Rural Rides confirmed this, although far from being extreme, Cobbett does attack the industrial revolution for the 'damage' it caused to the countryside.

Throughout Rural Rides, Cobbett upholds a very negative attitude towards the changes he has witnessed in the countryside and complains on some occasions that it will never go back to 'the good old days' or the days in which he remembers it to be better than what he was experiencing at the time. Although somewhat of a cliche, that phrase reminds me of my grandad telling me about the 'good old days' when he was in the army. I always appreciated his stories and enjoyed them but I always found it difficult to appreciate what was meant by 'the good old days' as obviously I was not there, and the current time is probably what will become 'the good old days' for me in the distant future. I think that can be applied to this text, as although we can understand what is meant by the phrase, it is difficult for us to relate or make a connection with the text as obviously we were not there to experience it with him. He uses extremely negative adjectives to describe the countryside including 'dull' and 'ugly'. 

Now, whenever I travel through a countryside, I never find it ugly, I find it quite tranquil and peaceful and pretty. Clearly Cobbett would have something to say about this! It is quite saddening as a reader, to think that he felt the countryside had changed so negatively that it would cause him to say it was ugly. 

Cobbett also has concerns about farmers and the people of the market who benefit from farmed produce, by saying that due to new laws, the divide between rich and poor people will grow, meaning that those poorer people and farmers using the old system will eventually become bankrupted whilst the rich people who can afford the new systems will be engulfed in wealth. The laws Cobbett was referring too included the Corn Laws, which meant that British Corn was cheaper as exported corn would be taxed, all in all strengthening the power of land owners.

Cobbett felt that working class people were being exploited by the new systems and as a result, tried to make a link to Charles Dickens who was also writing at that time. However, on the contrary, Dickens was writing about the growth in poverty and crime in the towns due to a larger population and people coming from the countryside seeking employment. Well known books such as 'Oliver Twist' demonstrate this. 

Cobbett never really gained anything out of Rural Rides and he certainly didn't make much of a difference despite his efforts. I did enjoy reading it, and I can see how passionate he was about the changes that had happened in the countryside, and if we are honest he was correct. However, Rural Rides has never really been seen as a famous or well known piece of writing.

District Councils Vs County Councils

It is fair to say that if I were to be asked a few weeks ago what the differences between the District and the County Council were, I would probably look a little blank and then tell you I didn’t know.

But now I do….

The clue is really in the name in terms of the two council’s sizes, the County Council is naturally bigger as that Council governs over a larger area, i.e Hampshire County Council governs the whole of Hampshire. However, District Councils govern a small body within the county council’s domain. For example, Winchester City Council. The two have very different budgets for expenses, that being because of not the only size of the area they govern but also because of the difference in responsibilities, which I will come onto shortly.

Local government is run using a two-tier system and tasks are distributed between the County Council and the District Council.

The County Council has several members and the general public votes these in every four years. From these elected members, a Cabinet is drawn and this essentially acts as a group of people representing certain areas within the Council that come together when making decisions, it is then their task to choose a Council Leader. For example, Ken Thorber is the current leader for Hampshire County Council.

Although, the leader usually holds the ‘final say’ when making decisions, the Cabinet cast their opinion too. Having attended a Council Meeting, I saw members of the Cabinet for Hampshire County Council casting their opinions on potential changes to adult social care.

Unlike the District Council, the County Council has Civil Servants. These are important members of the Council but are not elected in; they are permanent figures. The general public as taxpayers, pay for the salary of the Civil Servants. In most cases, the Chief Executive is paid higher than the Prime Minister!

County Councils are usually responsible for tasks including Fire and Rescue services, education, waste disposal and other tasks that affect the county as a whole.

District Council as mentioned above will control a smaller area within a particular county. The members of the District Council will be elected but only by those living in that particular area. For example, residents of Winchester will vote for the members within Winchester City Council. The leader of the District Council is usually determined by which political party has the majority, in Winchester City Council’s case, Kelsie Learney is the current leader, as she is the representative for the Liberal Democrats and they hold the majority within Winchester.

The District Council’s responsibilities are more minor issues but ones that are just as important and may be overlooked by the County Council. For example, road/pavement repairs, tax collection, waste collection, council housing etc. I was interested to find out, having attended a talk held by Kelsie Learney, that there is actually a website called fixmystreet.com that allows residents to post their worries or complaints, and this acts as a form of communication between the residents of Winchester and Winchester City Council.

I’ll be the first to admit that I do still find Councils quite tricky to get head around, but I have learnt so much more knowledge now that I had originally. I think one of the most important things I learnt was that although both Councils have such different responsibilities, it is the way the work together that makes local government work successfully.

Word Count - 574

Radio Bulletin.

Finally, it's here. My radio bulletin.
Sit back, listen and hopefully enjoy.
Just follow the link below...

http://soundcloud.com/bdavies10/becky-final-best-bulletin

Radio Script #2

England will see a rise in prescription charges from April 1st, this year. The current fee stands at £7.20 per item but this will rise by 20 pence to £7.40.
Alongside this, The Department of Health have also announced that fees for dental care will also rise.
Prescription charges will remain free for those living in Wales or Northern Ireland and Scotland will follow suit from April 1st.

This is what Sue Champney, Dispenser for Lloyds Pharmacy,  had to say about the upcoming prescription fee rise...

*Audio cut here*

Kant and Hegal

Immanuel Kant was the philosophical founder of German Idealism, a school of thought which bared a very strong connection to Romanticism. He was a great believer in democracy and much of his earlier work was centralised around science rather than philosophy. He did not agree with empiricism and his belief in a priori knowledge demonstrated this, as this is something empiricists such as John Locke would have strongly disagreed with.

According to Kant, knowledge was split up into two main categories; Analytic and Synthetic knowledge.
The first meaning that an answer can be found within the subject. An example taken from Bertrand Russell is that 'a tall man is a man.' It follows the laws of contradiction as 'a tall man is not a man' would be contradictory of what is being said. This is an example of pure reason or deductive logic. Kant claimed that this type of knowledge was not very useful and if all our knowledge were to be Analytic, we would not know anything.

His second category of knowledge, Synthetic knowledge is one which Kant preferred. Synthetic knowledge is not analytic. An example would be to say that every rose is a flower, although this part is Analytic, when we say that the rose looks beautiful, the idea of beauty is Synthetic.

A priori knowledge is knowledge that is not taught through experience. An example would be a child who is learning maths. The child may use some marbles to understand mathematical concepts but once the knowledge is learnt, the child will no longer need to use the marbles to understand that same concept.
Synthetic A priori simply combines both synthetic knowledge with a priori knowledge and this is something Kant was a firm believer of. An example to demonstrate this would be geography. We know the country we live in exists, this is the a priori part, however, the idea that other countries also exist is the synthetic part of knowledge. When we put this together we create Synthetic A Priori knowledge.

Kant suggested that the outer world causes matters of sensation and our own human mental apparatus places these sensations into time and space. He claims that both space and time are a mental perception and do not actually exist, he called this 'Intuition.' He created twelve categories of a priori concepts:
1. Of Quantity - unity,plurality and totality
2. Of Quality - reality, limitation and negation
3. Of Relation - substance and accident, cause and effect and reciprocity
4. Of Modality - possibility, existence and necessity.

Kant believed that these categories could be applied to whatever we experience in life, but there is no reason to suppose that they can be applicable to things in themselves.

A big part of Kant's work involved proving the existence of God while dismissing any intellectual proofs. He suggested that there are three proofs of God's existence through pure reason. They are the ontological proof, the cosmological proof and the physiological proof.  The first defines God as the most real being, the second says that if anything exists then an absolute being must exist. Now I know I exist, an absolute being must exist and the third suggests that the universe exhibits an order which is evidence of purpose.

God, freedom and immortality, according to Kant are the three 'ideas of reason'.

....

Hegal was another philosopher whom Kant had been very influential on, although Hegal did at times disagree with Kant. Hegal much like Kant, did not agree with empiricism.
Hegal held a belief that nothing was true except the whole which he referred to as the 'absolute.' He believed the whole was made up of a complex system of the sort called an 'organism.' He claimed that separate things in life are not illusions but they each are lesser or greater in terms of reality, which are aspects of the whole.
Hegal used the term 'the absolute idea', this essentially means that we can all be driven on the mere force of logic from any suggested predicate of the absolute to the final conclusion of the dictate. Hegal's dialect method  begins with the idea that the absolute is an 'absolute being' and is 'pure'. He claims that it is impossible to reach the truth without going through all the steps of the dialect. According to Hegal, self consciousness is the highest form of knowledge. Hegal suggests that the best way to find freedom is to simply obey the law, without law he claims that there can never be freedom. An 'organic' society.

Hegal holds the view that the state is there for the purpose of the people, this is a direct disagreement to empiricists who would hold the view that the people are there for the purpose of the state.

Radio Script.

Winchester Cathedral has seen an extension for the first time in over 500 years. The grand opening of  the Fluery Building is set to go ahead on Saturday 5th March after having been recently under construction. It will provide extra storage space, a boiler room and new toilets.

The creation of the new Fluery building was made possible due to a generous donation of £819,000 from friends of the Cathedral. The extension was the work of Peter Bird, the Cathedral Architect who sadly passed away in its final days of construction.

Rousseau and the Romantic Period

The Romantic Period (Romanticism) occurred during the latter half of the 18th Century in Europe. It was time that saw great changes in literature, the roles of women and the development in neo-gothic architecture. In many ways, it was also a time in which the previous emphasis on empirical and technological advancements during the Enlightenment was beginning to subside. The Romantic Period instead saw a shift from empiricism and finding answers to questions about how the world worked and instead focused more on the human race and emotions and how human emotions can be altered or changed. This period, true to its name held a much more 'warm' and 'rosy' outlook on life and took a leap away from some of the more robotic and cold elements of science.

Rousseau was pretty much the main guy in philosophy at the time of Romanticism. He held the view that anything that had been written down or recorded prior to then was either a complete lie or full of errors and he felt that the only true way to capture truth and honesty was through nature. He was often known as 'The Lone Walker' for his love of mountains and long walks which he believed helped to clear his mind. He felt that in order to understand the universe, all an individual should do is walk. I find this view very interesting, I mean it is true to some extent. People can tell you all sorts of things about the world you live in and you are then presented with the option to believe it or dismiss it but if you walk and explore and find out for yourself you will know and understand completely.

Painting by Casper David Friedrich, 'The Wanderer above the sea of fog'.

                                            

Although, upon first glance Rousseau's ideas seem quite harmonious, he was somewhat of an extremist within his view. One of the most notable views he held was that civilisation  had damaged and corrupted the human race. He believed that there was too much emphasis with appearances and self - esteem. Due to this, he felt that people living without civilisation, the few that were 'natural' were virtuous and pure. To him, they were beautiful. He wanted the human race to be completely free, without any laws or 'chains'. Rousseau thought that humans should be more animal like. To him, animals were completely free and at one with nature, this is how he thought the perfect human should be.  To most of us, including me, this idea seems completely impractical, however, Rousseau claims that humans were once like this and the day it went wrong was the day that individuals started to claim land as their own resulting in a divide between mankind.

This is a direct contrast to John Locke, who favored the idea of  an individual  possessing land and property. The key to happiness, so Locke thought, is the right to 'life, liberty and property.'

Rousseau once said:

"Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains."

This I infer as meaning that we all are born with potential and encouraged to live life making decisions of our own, but Rousseau is saying that this is impossible because of laws and ownership etc that  ultimately block our path. Rousseau held the radical view that the entire world is wrong, he believed that we should return to complete nature - the noble savage.

South African Tribe. 

An example of what Rousseau would have considered as 'virtuous', 'pure' people.

This way of living is vastly different from the culture and civilisation I have been brought up within but the African Tribe shown above would be the freedom, I imagine Rousseau is trying to achieve.
He constantly argues that civilisation is defecting the human race and to explain his point further he describes human nature as a statue. He explains how when a statue is first erected, it will look beautiful, it will have precise markings and will stand out clearly as something to admire. However, as time goes by the statue will decay, the markings will become less clear and people will eventually stop admiring its former beauty. This is same way, Rousseau felt civilsation decayed human nature. Rousseau does except that despite (in his opinion) modern life is full of flaws, we can never return to the point within history, when mankind did have complete freedom and so he acknowledges that a government is needed incase of disputes, but he felt that they should never have the right to interfere if nothing is wrong. Rousseau thought that a government should be in place to protect us but should allow us to be completely free. He felt that even with a government in place, freedom has no limit.


Rousseau explains his ideas on law in 'The General Will'. He believed that laws do not prevent freedom so long as every individual agrees with them and so creates a form of consensus.  I however, do not agree that this idea could ever work. We are all individuals, although fairly similar, I really do not believe it would ever be possible to get every single individual to agree on one particular rule. There would be someone, somewhere who has a problem or would like to tweak the rule just a little bit. Even if it was a minor discrepancy, this would completely shatter any idea of consensus.
He believed that within society there should be a 'direct democracy', meaning that every single individual has a direct say in how their country is being run and this should be the case for every decision made within government. The danger of this idea, is that it carries the potential for dictatorship. If somebody disagreed (which I am almost certain would happen on every instance) they would not be free, and would then be forced to be free, meaning that they are no longer free. Complicated, I know. I would suggest to take a few minutes to get that concept round your head, it certainly took me that long!

Oh by the way, this is the guy that came up with the whole thing:

It was definitely not until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, that Rousseau's ideas began to have any kind of impact on society at the time. Bear in mind, that was almost ten years after Rousseau had died.
The French Revolution started due to King Louis XVI being in huge amounts of debt and the country rapidly facing bankruptcy. The king needed to find an answer to this growing problem and did so by assembling together the three estates of France. They were the monarchy, the clergy and the remaining civilians. It was at this point that the civilians decided that they no longer agreed to the king having all the power and wanted a fairer democracy that reflected everyone. The civilians formed a constituency which reflected the views of Rousseau and created his legacy. It focused on the rights of man and the freedom they should receive. This thirst for change led slowly into the beginning of the French Revolution.
The first real stepping stone being 'The Storming of the Bastille.'

The Storming of the Bastille.

During this time, The Guillotine was invented which created massive changes. Firstly, the civilians had Kind Louis XVI beheaded but it also meant that from then on in, everyone was killed in exactly the same way including royalty meaning that men shared equality, even in death!
The Revolution created massive changes, to the point when many people thought the world had changed after it was over. People changed the months, and one week became extended to ten days.

I have to say, on a very loose level, I like Rousseau's theories and ideas and on very minor levels, I understand why he dislikes civilisation, i.e obsession with beauty and self esteem etc. Society is very much image obsessed, however, I think there would need to be some middle ground for any idea like this to work. Rousseau's idea of the noble savage, it just wouldn't work. I appreciate fully, that in some instances, very rare instances, it does such as African Tribes but for the majority of us who have been raised in such modern times, the idea of taking away civilisation would be like taking away the ground we walk on. Although some of us would perhaps not like to admit it, I think especially younger generations rely on modern civilisation.

Rousseau has a nice idea, granted but plausible? I think not.

Work Experience at S Magazine, The Sunday Express.

This was quite possibly the most tiring, amazing and fascinating week ever!
I completed a full five days in London working for S Magazine (the supplement inside The Sunday Express), I would leave my house by at least 7.45am and would return around 19.30 everyday. They were very long days and boarding the train amongst lots of other people dressed in smart suits or formal dresses just added to the experience and made me feel like a very little fish in a very big pond.

The building I worked in is called the Northern and Shell building and is situated just a few minutes away from London Bridge and the Gherkin, in fact both of which I could see from the office! The building has 10 different floors excluding lower ground levels and each is occupied by a different newspaper or magazine. For example, the building is also the home of Star, OK and New magazine as well as The Daily Star and The Daily/Sunday Express newspapers.

One of the main components of a working for a magazine is not only the text but also photographs. It just so happened that the week I was there was a week in which everyone working across all the magazines were getting frantic over the amount of photo shoots that needed to be organised for a Valentines feature(s). Working for S Magazine meant that this was particularly important and much of the work I was asked to do came from The Lifestyle Editor, Victoria Gray. One of the first tasks, I was asked to do was to research and organise lots of different props and materials that could be included in the Valentines feature photo shoot. For example, stylish flowers and candles, large mirrors etc, anything that would add a glamorous and romantic feel. I then had to ring around some of the and companies and ask whether they would be suitable and try to arrange advertising details. I found this really interesting to do, it was amazing to see how much preparation was needed to commence with one photoshoot, never mind the fact that probably 2 or 3 are featured in the magazine every week. Also, from then on in, deliveries for so many props continuously came in with flowers and chocolates everywhere.

Staff working for S Magazine, were always one or maybe two weeks ahead of themselves to ensure that the magazine was always ready for the publishing deadline. Another feature I assisted with, was a Bathroom feature in which several companies such as B&Q, Marks and Spencer, Bathworld etc were advertising different en suites from a photoshoot that had already been taken. My job was to write the captions for the photographs. Now, it was probably a maximum of 4-5 sentences for each photograph. The hardest part for me was to condense down my flow of writing to include just the fancy and sophisticated adjectives and to include each item accurately.

Whilst on my work experience, I also observed a photo shoot for Star Magazine. It was a fashion shoot advertising different types of wide leg trousers that are availiable to purchase across the high street. The fashion editors were really friendly and the photographer was someone only a couple of years older than myself which I found surprising. I always had this connotation of a fashion photo shoot being very structured as though the model would have firm directions on how to pose but actually, I discovered it was nothing like that. It was a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere with people behind the scenes drinking tea and music playing and the model just posed as and how she felt right at the time. Some of the photographs produced as a final result were beautiful. It was odd, having brought Star Magazine the following week to see the photographs I had witnessed being taken.

Throughout the rest of the week, I continued to write small pieces of work, adding captions, writing small feature pieces. My jobs were constantly being varied which I loved and it was so interesting to branch off to other magazines as I had done with Star Magazine and just get a general feel for the pressure and deadlines magazine editors must reach but yet how relaxed and friendly the whole team of staff were.

For those who do not regularly read S Magazine, every week includes a few recipes written by Anthony Worrall Thompson. He frequently meets with the Lifestyle Editor, and from there a photo shoot is arranged where a chef joined by a specialist photographer will cook the food using the recipes and then take photographs to appear in the food feature. I was lucky enough to be invited to this process on the last day of my work experience. I went to the Lifestyle Editor's house and for that particular photo shoot the theme was 'Healthy Living, Healthy Breakfasts.' Not only did I get to try all the fantastic food that was made including asparagus and chive omelette (something I would never even consider having for breakfast, and actually turned out to be amazing), raspberry and kiwi smoothie and so many other delights but I was also able to witness the photo shoot happening and was also asked for suggestions at certain points. It was really was sucha brilliant experience to be invited along and I was made to feel like an important member of the team.

If you haven't already had work experience in the media industry, I would recommend it. Long hours are pretty much guaranteed but the experience and knowledge I gained from it was just so worth it. I'm hoping to go back again in summer and work for a longer period of time. I also found that working for a magazine offered more emphasis on the importance of imagery and photographs and that is something I had never really considered before. I throughly enjoyed the whole week and I am so glad it happened.