First of all I think it was a pity that the monday lecture had to quit 15 min early. The last slide that Åhman showed was perhaps the hardest one to understand and it had to be quickly explained, which resulted in that I didn’t understand much of it. At the seminar we were 6 people but I think it went quite well anyway.
Once again I thought the papers that we were suppose to read was difficult to understand. Unfortunately I read it like three days before I started to answer the questions which made it even harder. During the seminar I realised that I might be wrong on most answers, but I made a “good” attempt anyway.
I think the essence of this theme is in enlightenment and nominalism. The "battle" between the idea world (the conceptual world) and the world of the senses. If we are suppose to just make ourselves an opinion from what we can see and can measure or if we should accept a conceptualized world.
The author of the text went from believing that the enlightenment was a good thing, that we become masters over our own existence, that we just believe in what we see and create knowledge from that instead of myths and concepts, to a bad thing. We don't get forward with our thoughts and knowledge if we only believe in world of the senses.
I thought it was interesting when Åhman made a parallel to the political world, and the thoughts of nazi vs communism. The nazi believed very much in the world of the senses, that some people are better than others, just because they are stronger/faster. They didn't accept the concept human and that we are mostly all the same. The communism believed in the conceptualized world, and believed in the concept human, which is necessary to discuss human rights and a world of equality.
I am also interested about the relationship between politics and aesthetics.
SvaraRaderaBefore seminar I have no idea about what is aestheticizing politics, but now I find a from internet which is Utopia. It is a good example of seek the road of social liberation from the aesthetic way. But actually it is called Utopian Socialism which is impossible to implement. So I think I can answer the question in the seminar now.The potential problems of aestheticizing politics is that aesthetic way might not be a correct way, just like fascist aesthetics.
Hi!
SvaraRaderaI also liked the parallell between to the political world. We talked a lot about communism, nazism and capitalism and also how they are characterised in media. Media had a really big impact when providing propaganda to make people believe in the different ideals, e.g the Nazis and their famous propaganda about the Jewish. This made me wonder to what extent this is used today, and how much can media affect people today?
Maybe it is difficult with ideals but I still believe that media and marketing has a big impact on people's decision especially for purchasing goods. The commercials make us believe that we need their products, for example all the hype about the latest iPhone 6. How do you think the situation is today?
And you also discuss a bit about the "world of the senses" and the "conceptualised world". Which one do you think is most accepted today? And which one should be the most accepted? Or should it be a mix of both?
Nice reflection by the way! :)