Dystopia Lectures (1).docx

Dystopia (20.04.2016) 1984 – George Orwell

Communism and Fascism -

The work is not pure fiction, some things happened in the past Centralised State: Foucault – „Discipline and Punish“ (1976): The Renaissance coincides with the rise of centralised state (it is not about the rise of Man only) Jeremy Bentham's „Panopticon“ (1785) – a perfect prison

External Institutions of Discipline -

Military Police Prisons Hospitals (for physically & mentally sick)

Internalized Means of Control -

MORE effective Family Education Religion (politically tainted sermons) Confession (state demanding confession from its citizens): It came to exist in the Middle Ages; -they started issuing pardons People are expected to talk to authorities

Communism and Fascism -

Results of WW1 (it exposed the weaknesses of Enlightenment) Provide theoretical challenge to liberalism

Liberalism & Mass Politics -

The West created mass society but didn’t know how to organize it No success in organizing people into politics

Challenge of Post-WW1 Politics: -

How to organize masses without dissolving into chaos?

Group instead of Individual -

Groups of communities, classes or nations

-

Politics of individualism is dead

The Objective of New Politics -

To protect the group (class or nation) rather than the individual

New Objectives for the masses -

Working for a greater good  Ideology (presents losses as gains)

Mobilizing the masses -

A leadership cadre They know what the future of a class or a nation was To draw the masses into that project

One Party Leadership -

Mussolini: a dynamic minority Lenin: the vanguard party

The Sense of Belonging -

Liberal government failed to create the sense of belonging No common project

Secularization -

No religion to give the sense of belonging

Proletariat -

The importance of working class at the international level

Nation -

Belonging to a great nation E.g. fascist group identity

Reason and Emotion in Politics -

How to get people involved in politics? Appeal to their emotions Reason: the language for the communication of the individual Emotions: language of the masses  how to reach their hearts, not their minds

The Primacy of Will -

Human agency can make history through a heroic effort

Vitalism -

Instead of steady progress of reason both Communism and Fascism opt for higher drama  doing things quickly, Blitzkrieg style

THE POLITICS OF THE SPECTACLE -

Both partners used it and turned it to rituals The cult of Pavlik Morazov 1918-1932 A patron saint of “young Pioneers” Denounced his own father to Stalin’s Secret Police

Citizens as informers: a new ideal -

Loyalty to the leader vs. love & family ties

New Loyalties -

Communism – class loyalty

Tools of Mass Society -

Mass media Public rituals Spectacles

Pageantry -

Parades, uniforms, salutes, banners

The Visual Culture -

Militarist imagery (sense of uniformity) Symbolism

Populism -

movement of equals

Elitism Charismatic Leader – a symbol of nation …

a concrete object of mobilization the embodiment of national identity

(21.04.2016) A Clockwork Orange

Avant-Garde Art -

a new reality, a new society, a new man D.H. Lawrence: studies in classic American Literature “Whatever else you are, be masterless”

(paragraph from the book) Liberty is all very well, but men cannot live without masters. There is always a master. And men can either live in glad obedience to the master they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposition to the master they wish to undermine. In American this frictional opposition has been the vital factor. It has given the Yankee his kick. Only the continual influx of more servile Europeans has provided America with an obedient labouring class. The true obedience never outlasting the first generation. But there sits the old master, over in Europe. Like a parent. Somewhere deep in every American heart lies a rebellion against the old parenthood of Europe. Yet no American feels he has completely escaped its mastery. Hence the slow, smouldering patience of American opposition. The slow, smouldering, corrosive obedience to the old master Europe, the unwilling subject, the unremitting opposition. Whatever else you are, be masterless. -

. Name from Shakespeare’s “Tempest”: “Ca ca Caliban, / Get a new master, be a new man” (Caliban’s “freedom song”) DADAISM – 1918 – Tristan Tzara Dada = a nonsense word expressing the nonsensical nature of the world

To shock rational thought -

Only uninhibited irrational acts made sense in an insane world Nietzsche on Dadaism: “the desire to destroy the false order that exists in order to unleash other forces” Spontaneity & identity “everything that issues freely from ourselves, without the intervention of speculative ideas…represents us” [Tzara elevated spontaneity above reason For Dadaists, the world was nonsensical, and reality disordered; hence they offered no solutions to anything - - from book Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society By Marvin Perry, Myrna Chase] . Nietzsche – spontaneous actions, emotions, sensations are more representative of human beings than intellect

Futurism -

Music: cacophony of industrial noise Visual arts: objects in motion A desire to shock, to destroy the past, to build a new world, to exalt in irrational nature

F. T. Marinetti – denounced traditional art, including Dante & Michelangelo -

Campaigned for abolition of museums Manifesto 1909 – “Futurist Manifesto” “Let us leave good sense behind….let us enrich the unplumbable wells of Absurdity!” Flinging oneself into the void: o Not an act of honour – it is an act of joy o An act of passion o With sexual imagery

A revolt against the mundane bureaucratisation of present day society Worship of technology -

Driving shiny cars for inspiration Instead of rational progress technology stands for speed, brute force and danger

The will to power -

Erotic language when describing machines The beast – the image of the beastly nature Racing death: “And we pursued, alike to young lions, Death of the dark fur spotted with pale crosses that slipped ahead of us in the vast mauve sky, palpable and alive”

Futurism, the caffeine of Europe 1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of danger and of temerity. 2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, daring, and revolt. 3. Literature having up to now magnified thoughtful immobility, ecstasy, and sleep, we want to exalt the aggressive gesture, the feverish insomnia, the athletic step, the perilous leap, the box on the ear, and the fisticuff. 4. We declare that the world's wonder has been enriched by a fresh beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car with its trunk adorned by great exhaust pipes like snakes with an explosive breath ... a roaring car that seems to be driving under shrapnel, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. … 9. We want to glorify war -- the only hygiene of the world -militarism, patriotism, the anarchist's destructive gesture, the fine Ideas that kill, and the scorn of woman. 10. We want to demolish museums, libraries, fight against moralism, feminism, and all opportunistic and utilitarian cowardices.

Exam questions -

1984 – focus on politics of emotions & group identity Clockwork Orange – language used in the book (some words of Slavic origin, coin words etc.) Attitude towards: o Sports & music: what kinds are present o Sexuality and love o History and culture -

Dystopian languages (both living and dead, dictionaries…)

-

Reflections of mas society in dystopian worlds

-

Phenomenon of violence, the savage and the primitive o a savage = the person who doesn’t fit, an outcast

-

Different types of apparatuses the state uses