Following on from Dee's comment, I certainly feel that our presentation was a success, especially being the first group up was a bit nerve racking to say the least!
However, i did think we got our message across about media manipulation quite well. From the philosopher's points of view to the BBC3 documentary video we used. I think this video illustrated our point of argument well because the audience could witness first hand how the media do air brush and stretch and tuck people's figures, into their so called perfection!
I think as a society we should take this message onboard- that no one can ever achieve the media's so called perfection and philosopher's such as Baudrillard and Sartre have got it right all along- we should be individuals and not let the media manipulate us...

Lucy Stephenson-Airey

Relief is a Beautiful Feeling

I'm so glad the presentation's done. I was getting a bit worried that we wouldn't have everything ready in time, but it all seemed to fall in to place quite well in the end. Being the first group to do the presentation had it's positives and negatives. It meant that we could relax knowing that everyone else had still got to do theirs, but it also meant that we had no idea of what other groups' presentations were like until after we'd done ours.

Researching Baudrillard made me realise what an interesting guy he is. One thing I didn't mention in the presentation because I got it from Wikapaedia, was that the film trilogy 'The Matrix' was allegedly based on Baudrillards ideas regarding 'new media' and the computer age. This, of course, was denied by Baudrillard - but who knows?

Manipulation by the media in its various formats is something very close to my heart, and I do have a keen interest in the way it affects people's lives (or should that be, how people let it affect their lives?). With me personally it was the weight loss phenomenon of the 80s onwards that started my interest in the way that you're bombarded with images that you're told you should aspire to, and which are impossible to achieve because the images have been 'enhanced' (or airbrushed).

Currently I feel that the internet is potentially a dangerous place to look for information, unless you're careful and use reputable sites. Someone very close to me has spent the last four years searching out conspiracy theories on numerous issues (mobile phone masts and the FDA to name just two). If you take them on face value, you would believe the world could end at any minute - look at them through the eyes of a sceptic and they look totally ridiculous. My point in mentioning these things is that it shows that anybody can be so easily manipulated and buy into the things they see on websites. Baudrillard certainly has a very good point.

An Idea for an Extra Bit to the Handout?

I've got a book called 'The Pig that Wants to be Eaten' (and 99 other thought experiments). I wondered if it would be worth adding one to the handout for the class. The one I picked out is called 'Bigger Brother' and it goes like this:-

For the seventy-third series of Big Brother, the producers had introduced a fiendish new toy: Pierre. The show's consultant psychologist explained how it would work.
"As you know, the brain is the engine of thought and action, and the brain is entirely physical. Our understanding of the laws of physics is such that we can now accurately predict how people's brains will react - and thus how people will think - in response to events in their environment.
"On entering the Big Brother space station, a brain scanner maps the brain states of all the participants. Our supercomputer, Pierre, monitors the various stimuli the contestants are exposed to and is able then to predict what there future behaviour will be.
"Of course, all this so so fiendishly complicated that there are severe limits. That is why the technology works best in a controlled, enclosed environment such as the Big Brother space station, and also why predictions can only be made for a few moments ahead, since tiny errors in predictions soon compound themselves into large ones. But viewers will enjoy seeing the computer predict how the contestants are about to react. In a sense, we will know their minds better than they do themselves."

This comes from the deterministic thesis of the French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace.

What do you think? There is a discussion after that goes into the free will and making autonomous choices.

A Bit More Media Stuff?

I know this is a bit late in the day to suggest - but maybe just a line to let the guys know that they don't escape the beauty industry's attempted manipulation. Seeing Pierce Brosnan advertising moisturisers for men reminded me that they are now in the grips of a 'grooming epidemic' in the profit maximising regime.... I wondered whether it would be worth Lucy just mentioning it in her section on the media or not? I know we've got plenty of material for the presentation, but I thought it might remind a few of the fellas that when they're poking fun at females for falling for the hype of the latest trend, that they are gullable too.

I know this has nothing to do with the presentation, but it just struck me as comical (ish). The way things have been going this semester, what with my little problem you all know about, then having to have a wisdom tooth out, followed by having my ID stolen (bank account), then losing my uni ID card, and finally(hopefully?!) slipping over this morning and hurting my back and wrist - I'm thinking of inventing a new philosophical theory, and calling it "catastrophism"!

Anyway, good luck rehearsing.

Alesha Dixon BBC Documentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgjOqNGR0yY

I have found another 'youtube' video about identity and how the media can change you and make society believe that this is how people should look, when people don't and will never achieve this so called 'perfection'.

Lucy Stephenson-Airey

Baudrillard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdgAVE7zzYs

This is a link to a presenation read by Jean Baudrillard regarding Violence and image. It contains some interesting points about image, but it is abit long.

Lucy

Following our discussion earlier; I have found some important quotes to include in the presentation supporting 'freewill' the quotes are from Jean-Paul Sartre and will relate to our argument regarding whether the media do have control over us, or are we able to say 'no' to the media altogether.

These quotes were sourced from
http://www.egs.edu/resources/sartre.html

Sartre shifted his beliefs to 'Marxist Social determinisim arguing that the influence of modern society was so strong it produced a serialization or loss of self' and 'To regain individual freedom from such forces in society, one must seek for group revolutionary action?' I believe this to mean that everything and everyone is becoming too repetitive therefore, people are lossing their unique identities. Sartre also emphasises his need for people to fight for independence.

Lucy Stephenson-Airey

The Importance of Common Good

Bearing in mind the general Christian belief that ‘by requirement everyone should be answerable for every aspect of their lives’ (Baudrillard, J); this is simply because in order to be autonomous we ought to have control over our own will.

Ideally for us to be responsible for our own actions we ought to be in control of oneself. On the other hand for a being to be in control of one’s actions and responsibilities one can become a slave to ones own identity.

The Utopian notion that everyone is to be responsible for their own life does not work in modern society. There is a need of feeling of unity and control in order for the masses to be protected. In this there needs to be recognition of a common good for all. Many people control positively as it places a safety net of protection for the most vulnerable in society. Within this controlled and civilized society there is freedom of thought, expression and speech therefore protecting liberty; hence creating a common good. Baudrillard referred to this as ‘regression’

Society Overlooked Strategy Of Will

By using the example that we are a slave to a higher being Baudrillard would respond that in the pursuit of emancipation one should consider unburdening oneself of accountability. In doing this one becomes a guided being; rather than a being with a constant upheaval to be a moral individual: This is a strategy for living as Baudrillard puts it: ‘Placing oneself in the hands of another with respect to will, belief, love or choice is not an abdication but a strategy…’ (Baudrillard, J).

The politics of universalism suggests that beings have privileges to feelings and of will; in that it is required that we have equal worth. Devoid of the same worth, will and belief are reduced in value and meaning. An example of this is state perfectionalism, where the state set principles and laws for the wider society.

Nietzsche !!!

This clip is excellent in summing up Nietzsche, so for those of us who are utterly fed up of reading which I definately am, just sit back and listen.
I think bringing in his argument within our debate is very important, as it will not only bring in another philosopher but also bring in another perspective, as we need to be cautious that we do not go off topic and stick to answering, and critically debating the statement “It is better to be controlled by someone else rather than by oneself” hope you guys think so too.

Nietzsche and the Slave theory

I touched briefly on the subject of Nietzsche’s slave theory, which I think is very important in answering the question of being controlled by oneself, or being controlled by another.

The slave concept which Nietzsche puts forward is that of people feeling they need to conform to laws and beliefs as a method of being part of society He claims that awareness one is able to put morality into question, and thus is able to define our own morals there by breaking that instinctive nature of conforming.

He also expresses stops a person from taking action against those in political power is their conscience, and guilt of doing bad or evil. Due to not having the ability to freely express feelings, one directs them inwardly, resulting in bad conscience. Nietzsche, also argues, that this denial of life due to bad conscience is down to Christian based theology. This sense of guilt and bad conscience is very apparent within society today, we coin the term of being ‘politically correct’ when we talk to someone, to ensure that we do not say something that may offend them, although it may be true, but due to our conscience we refrain ourselves from truth in order to give other people the perception of happiness. What is deemed as good and evil has been pre determined by our laws today, though what Nietzsche seems to express is that conforming to these laws blindly due to conscience being a slave of the system, a slave to those who have no personal link to you however control your every thought and step.

So as far as Nietzsche is concerned at this point, it would be better to be controlled by someone than by oneself.

Taking the Marxist viewpoint Nietzsche believed that one is essentially influenced in some way by culture and ancestry, thus incurring that one is not totally free of exterior influences. Yet instead of taking the route of hierarchical class system as Marx did, he proposed that one should revere in that they are radically individualistic and significant and thus detached from the ‘herd’, which in turn frees them from the need to conform.

When realisation of this conformist mentality becomes apparent, one can become critical of societal norms to the extent that they dismiss everything, and become cynical of everything and everyone. Nietzsche, on the other hand although criticised the herd mentality, he also did not agree with what he called the ‘nihilists’ as he held the belief that to live as an nihilist is not to live a human life. Although this kind of living is an understandable contradiction to that of the herd life, it is not in reality a way of living. As you would become a recluse so could not really justify being a moral being when there is no interaction with others within society who may challenge your point of view.

The importance of having our own values and morals is that they are our own realities something that asserts our individuality and that we use to judge others. So although these are also fictitious moral values but on a personal level we still need them as we do the agreed moral laws of society, to enable us to live within society, while at the same time having the knowledge that these moral values have no real validity. Which would again give us the assertion that according to Nietzsche it would be better to be controlled by someone, while still being able to hold on to an individual identity.

It is seems that although Nietzsche applies his ideas to society as a whole, these ideas are also applicable to us as individuals, as we all take on different personas depending on our situation at the time and with it even have to adapt our personal moral laws, so we all have the potential to be a slave as well as a master.
It seems that to fill our potential as human beings using Nietzsche’s naturalist rationale we can create our own identities comfortably in the awareness of having to conform to some extent to moral laws and values that are apparent within society, to enable our own freedom to become what we want to become and do what we want to do, thus allowing us to reaching our own full potential. So using this argument it is better to be controlled by someone than by oneself.

For more info on Nietzsche refer to the link : http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/

End Of The World?- Are We To Blame.

The Christian tradition of moral responsibility is somewhat an illusion in today’s society. For example: When someone gives to charity, are they giving donations to help someone/something or are they trying to lighten their conscience. If the latter is true the notion of charity has been taking up wrongly. The idea that ‘everyone should be answerable for every aspect of their lives’ is almost an impossibility to look upon in the 21st Century (Baudrillard, J).
One must bear in mind that our thoughts and beliefs are impressions of the wider beliefs set by higher authorities, such as; government and media. So, do we have moral responsibility? Or must we carry out responsibilities for rule sake? Arguably if citizens didn’t carry out laws there would be uproar of crime and if citizens did not live a certain style of life the society would collapse.

In the recent news of the ‘credit crunch’ all classes are being affected by the inability of society to live a certain way. People cannot work enough hours and merely cannot afford luxuries; and with this downturn on society shops are closing and people are finding themselves without homes. But as this is the first recession I’ve witnessed, why is it that I feel the world is about to end? The answer of course is the media. Seeing as all citizens rely on the media for information, surely it’s completely immoral that they’re allowed to oversensationalise the truth?

Orwell & Boudrillard

I was reading The Transparency of Evil on the bus on the way home last night and came across a chapter called Xerox and Infinity. It refers to the 'new media', communication of data via things like the web, and how information is becoming virtual information rather than the genuine thing. The amount of information circulating is tantamount to catastrophe, because man his investing so much of his own intelligence into this artificial intellegence that there is virtually nothing left for man but to become reliant (or enslaved) to the machines he has created. The only thing left for machines to be able to do is feel emotion, although they are pretty good at influencing ours!

That got me to thinking that the computer age has introduced a new infrastructure within the 'normal' heirarchy of humans. The master/slave heirarchy is now being dominated by technology in all walks of life. If you think about it, there is virtually nothing that you can't do using a computer, mobile phone, etc. I saw a video clip ages ago that showed how, by placing a microchip under the skin, the actions of a person can be controlled by computer. Scary!!

This reminded me of Orwell's 1984 where everyone is controlled by computers. And the way video serveillance is escalating currently, how long will it be before the 'powers that be' make the final step to controlling the population in this way? There is a certain amount of control exercised regarding human behaviour with such things as (dare I mention them) speed cameras and also the ones they use in and around city centres.

At the moment, we still have the freedom to choose how much control we allow technology to have over us in the choices we make. Although at times it may look like societal constraints limit our choices, but the fundamental thing is how we respond to these constraints. One pretty basic example is the mobile phone - everyone has one; but some people just seem to be incapable of putting it down - to a point where you think maybe it's really a part of their hand and that they'd need it surgically removed to part them from it (but that's just my opinion).

I have just looked at really good website, which contains lots of different articles, especially concerning how newspapers are circulated, facts and figures about their readership and how they are used to influence consumers.

The website is
http://www.nmauk.co.uk/nma/do/live/haveYouSeen?haveYouSeenModel.

I looked at one of the most recent articles about London Fashion Week. 'Spotlight on London Fashion Week'

The article comments 'national newspapers become the most must- have accessory for fashion advertisers keen to make an impression on consumers'
This quotation proves that newspapers main aims are to captivate as many consumers as possible to follow their article and will always want to purchase a daily newspapers because it looks cool.

Many of the images we see today in newspapers and magazines are fake because they are air brushed and changed in size. The article went onto comment;
'The quality reproduction standards of today's modern printing methods ensures fashion ads look stunning in newspapers'
This is becoming a problem in today's society because people feel that they do should look like 'perfection' and these fashion images make consumers feel that if they don't look like the picture then they are different.

On the same website i found an article on advertising to consumers the article was called
'What Consumers Cracked Easter?' Here I found a figure from research conducted by the NRS 'Research has shown that the immediacy of newspapers is second-to-none; an ad placed on a particular day of sale will reach 96% of the daily audience' and this is alot of consumers.
Our daily lives revolve around images of perfection and advertisement therefore this can be linked to our topic 'Is it better to be controlled by someone else rather than by oneself' these quotations prove that newspapers do hold a domination over society.

Power in a Utopian Society?

Money, politics, sex, greed, and organizations are all subjects to society. Society is all around us; on the television, the radio, in conversations and in the newspapers. Its even reflected in the clothes that we wear.

In my opinion such authority as the government are largely behind setting the standards for what is expected of certain individuals and the media publicise this in magazines, film and radio. Although to a certain extent this is unknown to many.

An example of publicism through popular culture; in the House of Commons Culture Secretary Andy Burnham explained X-Factor’s choice to eliminate Laura White from the programme was an outrage. Bearing in mind the popularity of the programme X-Factor, could this conversation in the House of Commons have been a publicity stunt for exposure on the matters in the House? <http://tv.sky.com/x-factor-laura-to-go-back>

Those that are highly influential such as teenagers who read magazines may well be unaware that the pictures they see in magazines are placing beliefs, that a certain way to look is ‘normal’ and even 'compulsary'. Which is why on the front of magazines, companies will go to extremes to grab attention for their particular interest.

Take George Orwell’s book ‘Animal farm’ for instance; he represents how ideology can be manipulated by those in the position of power and even in a utopian society it is impossible to avoid such an influence even from the people who initially created the society. What this suggests is that even in a utopian society a leader is still present, who has either been elected or founded the ‘group’; to influence others and to control both their behaviour and their way of thinking.

Recommended Reading:

Orwell, G. (1945). Animal Farm. London: Secker & Warburg

Genosko, G. (2001). Uncollected Baudrillard. London, GBR: Sage Publications Ltd. p39. <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/wolverhampton/Doc?id=10076764&ppg=46>

Coming to a Street Near You.......

Following on from Taranjit's mention of 'google' - a few weeks ago I was reading a piece that was telling of their proposal to photograph every property in the country and use them like 'Google Mapping', only in more explicit detail. Any member of the public could be photographed along with the properties and would then end up on the website for the world to view. 'Google' say it's for tourism - to help people make choices about where they want to visit. I think it's a little more insidious than that and people of ill intent have got a data base of addresses worth investigating for criminal activity. With this in mind, a new breed of paranoia could be born, more security conscious and even more wary of strangers on their street.

Anyway, that was just a slight diversion from more important matters. I thought of something which may have bearing on the question of free will. If someone takes up some form of discipline, i.e. religion, uni, or even sport, they (usually) make the decision to do so of their own free will, but by doing so then relinquish a certain amount to be controlled by the constraints of the discipline they have chosen. But they still own the right of exercising their free will and changing the path they have chosen.

This leads on to the idea of Sartre and his concept of the 'being for itself'. His concept is that everything we do (or don't do) is a decision we make for ourselves and are fully responsible for both the decision and the consequences. Where the control of someone else fits into this is in the seduction of things like the media, where their rhetoric is designed to draw you in and buy into their ideas.

I have also put together the basic template for a PowerPoint. I'll print off the 'story so far' and bring it with me on Thursday so that we can scribble all over it. By that I mean that we can write on each slide what we want on the end product, so that over the weekend I can put it all on the computer and bring it in on Monday for any final adjustments. We also need to finalise the actual talk by doing a script of sorts and then each can do cue cards to use on the day.

A theory of the media!

I believe that we are governed by the media to the extent that we rationalise ourselves through it, in a sense we become a person whose characteristics and mannerisms reflect what is shown through the media. Baudrillard also mentions something similar to this and contends that the media should not be seen as isolating but what he calls ‘the gift of the self’ (Pawlett, 2007, pg24)



Where I firmly agree with Baudrillard is his awareness of the link between consumerism and the media, as I believe the consumer society drives the media, which is another important point to bring up within our debate.

While doing the Nietzsche essay recently I explored the previously explored slave theory, in the slave concept which Nietzsche puts forward is that of people feeling they need to conform to these laws and beliefs as a method of being part of society. Nietzsche therefore sets out to almost publicise this slave ethic.
I will explore more of Nietzsche’s thoughts further in my next post.

Does Responsibility Presuppose Free Will?

In my opinion responsibility does presuppose free will. If a person whose will was completely random and their actions were irrespective of their reason; the individual’s will would be as ‘free’ as a puppet controlled by a puppeteer.
Further more I think it is almost an impossibility for one to be responsible for an action when they have had their free will taken from them (depending on the given circumstance).

How are we to understand the connection between the will of a person, and what influences it?
We can go as far to say that psychologically a person interprets influences as one wishes to, but what about the subliminal messages that seem to be in our subconscious? We are influenced by the media, society, culture, religion etc, but are we truly aware of the amount of influence others have on our moral responsibility?

If our thoughts and actions are influenced by others, are we entirely responsible for our actions? Should people of authority be allowed to have such an influence on lives?

Would it be fair to say that people’s actions can only be judged right or wrong based on their ability to act morally upon determined reason?

Recommended Reading:

Honderich, T. (no date). Free Will, Determinism and Moral Responsibility: The whole thing in brief. <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/ted12.htm>

More Baudrillard !!!!

Sorry I missed you guys today really wasn’t very well; however I have still managed to do some work

So from my understanding we are concentrating specifically on media and control, but I think it’s important that we also include general thought on the control of society, even if it’s just a mention.

From William Pawlett’s book Jean Baudrillard, I have found some very interesting and what seems to me to be relevant statements in relation to control whether of the self or society I think this can be applied.

To take the point of social control, in Pawlett’s book he states that ‘we are expected to produce and reproduce ourselves as value, we must maximise ourselves exploit our potential, and this, for Baudrillard, is the most fundamental, insidious and developed form of social control

(Pawlett, 2007, Pg 31)

So in a sense what we can take from this is that we feel the ‘need’ to do the above mentioned in order to feel value, so it is here that may be we can take this further by concentrating on media manipulation and control, and how this is a form of ‘social control’

A major thing to note from my reading is that Baudrillard’s school of thought although arguably develops on the Marxist school of thought he opposes it he claims that Marx was not able to see the fundamental relationship between political economy and the systems of representations, Baudrillard’s believes they are so interlinked to the extent that ‘it becomes impossible to think outside the form of production and the form of representation’ (Pawlett, 2007, Pg 34)

Also what may be a crucial point in our debate is the master slave relation within the feudal system, which Baudrillard explains it as a unique relationship. Within his book William Pawlett on page 35 explains further about the nature of this relationship and suggests that what is exchanged is ‘status and role’. The relationship is bound by a sense of reciprocity; he delves deeper into this relationship stating that it is not a relationship based on alienation or exploitation although one is still dominating over the other.

“The slave is obligated to fulfil a role but so too is the master”

(Pawlett, 2007, Pg 35)

What is interesting is the belief that even when we get out of this master slave reality in terms of our influences on work or life in general, we through what Baudrillard believes to be ‘interiorisation’ become our own master and our own slave!! From this we could develop perhaps on the point of ruling the self?

Another key point is that of symbolic exchange as it basically tells us that only through a form of symbolic exchange can we be actually be free of the control of some exterior authority. Below is a quotation from the book explaining the essence of symbolic exchange:

“For Baudrillard everything that is symbolically exchanged is a ‘mortal threat’ to the dominant order because the dominant order in all its dimensions- linguistic, economic and political-is built upon the expulsion, barring or denial of symbolic exchange. Systems of representation and meaning, systems of political economy and finance, systems of communication and mediation can only function as commodity-signs if symbolic exchanges are barred”

On a lighter note we may want to entertain the audience with a video clip such as the one added below, just a suggestion the one below I just the results of a quick YouTube search, but if we decide to show a video clip then we can do some research around the net। I would suggest a shorter clip but I think this guy definitely got something to say LOL!!! Very good watch I think in relation the kind of thing we are trying to raise।

CLICK ME

The book I was referring to in the above post is: Pawlett,W.(2007)Jean Baudrillard. Abingdon, Oxon:Routledge

The Freedom and Prison of Words

Where do views come from?

How did we arrive at our own beliefs?

Words through media, particularly from a person of authority can immediately place doubt in our independent thought and leave us vulnerable to any ‘irrational' thought, which may seem logical at the time. Such media of authority is ‘Google’.

I thought that this article on "Is Google making us stupid?" (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google) was an interesting read and take on the control side of society. The affect Google has on people is largely subconscious.
Given a task, it's highly likely that the individual in question would immediately search on Google of any unknown aspects to a topic. Google controls the articles according to what it thinks is relevant to what we would like to read.
Controversially China's government have chosen to censor or block certain websites to their populace. Their choice to do so has an apparent affect on its people and their free will to do as they please. On the other hand; are they doing a favour for their citizens? Surely there's a valid reason as to why they censor websites?

Here is further aritcle that may be of interest, on; 'Our lives controlled from some Guy's couch'

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html

Recommended Reading List:
Singer, P. (1995). How Are We To Live: Ethics in an age of self-interest. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Collier, A. (1999). Being and Worth. London: Routledge.
Spaemann, R. (1991). Basic Moral Concepts. London: Routledge.
Hare, R. M. (1965). Freedom and Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Meeting

Hi guys,

We are meeting on Monday in the library room MD131 1-3PM

See you there!

Lucy

Presentation Ideas

First off, I agree that Taranjit's ideas about what we should look at for the presentation are sound. The media part of it is important, I think, because they misrepresent so much information about a lot of things. It's all about ratings and sales and they'll sensationalise things in order to achieve this - regardless of how much damage they could do to impressionable people (and those that they're "sensationalising").

When things are reported in the press about government issues, they're always done with a political bias, which begs the question; Do we ever get a true picture? The media seem to have more influence on everyday life; in an insidious way in a lot of cases - but that's just my opinion.

I think we should think about meeting up as often as we can so we can get properly organised and know exactly what we're doing for the presentation - we only have just over a week to do it in. I'm going to spend some time searching for relevant info before we meet up on Monday - so hopefully I'll have something useful to contribute.

The Topic at Hand

Hi everyone, from the departure of Gabriel which came as a bit of a surprise, I think it would be good to make sure everyone is in full consensus with the topic at hand.
If not please raise any issues here, so all group members can help tackle the situation.

The Title we chose from the class on Thursday was Presentation title suggestion 7:

It is better to be controlled by someone else rather than by oneself

From my understanding of this statement I think it’s important that we focus on Jean Baudrillard’s thought on the topic of control over the self. I think within our presentation if we actually focus on a set of key points, and elaborate on them. So the key points I believe are quite relevant are the following:

• The ways in which an individual is controlled - By this I’m referring to media, government, and other social institutes such as uni।
• Connected to Budrillard’s thought, from the awareness of those that control you, why it is important to accept them – For example accepting the limits of our own power and not being disillusioned by our own ego!
• Why taking this approach is not a demeaning thing and allowing the notion that giving into someone else with authority, is not giving up responsibility as that action of giving in is your responsibility!!!! If you get what I mean LOL
  
  These are just some suggestions and in no way what we have to do but the stance I would personally take on assessing this statement, I was also thinking of may be from this point of view someone could take a more liberal point of view in which we could then debate it out for the presentation. I think this would be good as the debate will include both our own views and also course content.
  So I’m going to stop rambling now, but just my initial ideas for what we could talk about, let me know what you guys think.
  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/baudrillard/#5
  I have included a link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it sreally good and gives a very good background on Baudrillard, if you go to about the 9th paragrath on the link the text is very relevant to our presentation topic, ummm so try give it a read it is an academic source too so we are safe in knowing that it is ligit!!

Change of group

I am going to change of group. The reason is only the topic you have chose, I don´t like too much Baudrillard and his supects of power domination. Like the group is big enough, Meena has allowed me to make the presentation with an smaller one which has decided to work on multiculturalims.
I hope nobody find any inconvinient in my sudden treachery. Anyway I save you the work of creating the blog.

That´s all. Good luck with your presentation.

Gabriel Carpintero Román

Blog Topic Election

Dear fellow blogers:

We must chose a topic to our blog. The suggestions are the 10 presentation titles in the "Deviant Philosophy Workbook". To follow a democratic method, each member will propose between 1 and 3 presentation titles. The preffered topic will be the one discussed in the blog.
Given that we will have to do a presentation of the topic, I suggest also to attach to the proposal some ideas to perform the presentation. Each topic have suitable ways to be exposed so start thinking in one to the topic you like most.

There should be a deadline to select topic, so try to vote the topic as soon as possible to start working. Maybe a good deadline would be Monday 24th of this month. So do not feel ignored if your vote is not taken in account after this date. Anyway I´ll sent that entry by email to the member to avoid oversights.

Gabriel Carpintero Román

Presentation Ideas...

Hi,

I have an idea to put to the group, regarding our presentation. I thought the week 7, lecture on 'Idleness' was really interesting and I feel that this would be a good idea for our presentation topic. The 'Idleness' lecture touched on ideas about people needing to share the work load in our society and if people did this then there would be less unemployment. At present the UK, is one of the most hard working countries in Europe, regarding the amount of time the nation actually spends at work on a weekly basis. However, it has recently come to our attentions, mainly via the media, about dangers of the credit crunch and this therefore, making people redundant. I propose that we do our presentation as a news bulletin e.g. telling the audience what is happening regarding the credit crunch at that specific moment in time but also incorporating the issues raised by the philosopher Bertrand Russell and any other philosopher's views we can find....

Lucy Stephenson-Airey