Is The Enlightenment At Fault For Our Lack Of Social Cohesion Today?

The enlightenment was a time when reason and rationality began to be used in all aspects of human lives. Science had progressed, observations and theories were used to explain nature and in a similar way such techniques were carried into human nature, to explain how we should behave amongst other things (hence we get the emergence of thinkers such as Kant and Hume).

Over the course of this module (It Shouldn’t Be Allowed) I have been swayed to believe that tradition i.e. rituals, inherited values etc is what binds individuals together, a common ground which helps to unite people. Often these traditions are to do with the supernatural though, the unexplainable (such as following and praising God in Christianity – there is no proof that God exists but the traditions, values and faith passed down through religion help unite individuals).

The enlightenment was the time for individuality; Kant in particular was a strong advocate for liberalist views. Also during this period supernatural theories were refuted, they were not rationally explainable so the theories and traditions linked with the supernatural were untrustworthy.

My argument is that consequently people turned away from the values they once held dear in search of rational explanations and laws. Of course though one cannot observe a single human being and generalise their values and characteristics to all others, we are all different. So we have lost the traditions that once united us and there are no grounds on which differing individuals can bond. By regarding ourselves as the highest beings possible (rejecting a supernatural leader) we create conflict between each other by each striving to be the supreme being with values over riding all others. Conflict becomes common and in a sense we are desensitised to conflict, it becomes acceptable and ordinary.

Would we relinquish our rationality, our ability to question everything though in order to blindly follow traditions linked to the supernatural to gain social cohesion? I think that the majority of us would not. Ironically the argument is similar to the predicament in the story of Adam and Eve. Would we choose a state of utter happy, blissful ignorance over our knowledge and ability to question all even with all the good and bad feelings this state entails? Perhaps the violence and hatred are by products of a gift (reason) we all have as human beings. Maybe conflict is something we are just going to have to deal with.

Presentation

After a discussion at length with Paul in the Hog's Head, I came to realization that the presentation went alot better than I thought. I frist thought that the presentation was professional, well put together and showed a variety of well balenced arguements, but I thought that maybe there were flaws, as a few members of the audience seemed to disagree, maybe implying we had not covered certin aspects, making our presentation biased. It didnt help either when the projector cut out and missed half our presentation!

However I have come around somewhat, and now I am very pleased with what we acomplished. Instead of a complete purging of multiculturalsim, I think we covered many of the bases well, and actually left the presentation with a definate outcome. Multiculturalism in my opinion is far beyond being pushed aside, and no matter how it is relabelled, it is something that morally should be given the chance to flourish

I really enjoyed the other presentations, especially the idle/lazy one, although I had my differences in opinion on the majority of it. All in all I left the room feeling happy that I understood better many different concepts

A tired and stressed observation on society...

That might be a slightly misleading title, because my observations are not only about society (and whatever that means) but also on personal habits.

I’m really stressed. And tired. And fed-up. And grumpy. And blah, blah, blah. Work stressed, relationship stressed, money stressed, you name it. In my case this is down to not getting a job, leaving all of my bloody essays until this week and generally being useless. 'Society' also seems to generate a lot of stick for the stresses it places upon us - our health, our wallet, our sanity, in it's pursuit of an ill-defined goal at break-neck speed. So... what's my point on violence and hatred?

Well... I'm basically ready to kill someone. I have a friend who works at JP Morgan in the 'city' (London for those lucky enough not to have to care), and with half the work-force being sacked, 70-80 hour weeks, and a general frantic pace of life, even he (who is a remarkably tolerant, objective and calm person) betrays an impatience of life in his voice when I talk to him.

So maybe one of the root causes of violence and hatred in our society is the fact that, whether for personal or societal reasons, we are lacking in tolerance for everything, that stress at work causes us to snap at people in the street, or that a week's worth of stress manifests itself in a pub brawl on a Friday night. If we took (or were allowed to take, depending on your situation) more time to do things, then I think there is an argument that we could see a marked decrease in violence and hatred. Just through eliminating stress. Brilliant eh?

Back to the grind children...

A Right Turn At Gritty Realism

"A Right Turn At Gritty Realism" -Matt Guy

After all the blogs (and I will mention our presentation in another blog), there was one in particular that stuck out for me. It was the presentation on violence in sport/media and computer games.

As a self confessed computer geek, I found the computer game section of the presentation the most interesting and informative. I have often gave my opinion on the arguement that violent games/films/music etc cause violence in children/teenagers.

The presentation highlighted Grand Theft Auto as a game that has recieved huge amounts of negative press and accusations on its influence of violence and hatred. I remember commenting on how the newest installment of the game has taken out the fun factor, and replaced it with 'gritty realism', possibly as a means of unglamourizing the violent and destructive acts. I also remember the group mentioning the idea of remorse systems in games. The idea of a game giving you choice, between what is essentially right or wrong, is an exciting and intriguing prospect.

One aspect of gaming I have trouble defending, but think is very important, is that the whole purpose of gaming is to give an experience without having to be in it yourself. With this in mind, the content of games are often just virtual representations of what happens in real life, so what makes them different from when the news or papers show violence?

Presentation Feedback.

Our presentation on "Does multiculturalism cause more harm than good?" wen alot better than I first anticipated. I was nervous before hand but once diong the presentation felt alot more relaxed. I enjoyed the debates that me and my group members had whilst putting the presentation together and the broaded knowledge that I myself picked up whilst studying multiculturalism in more detail.
The question and answer section of our presentation I thought was the most interesting as it gave some insight to what people thought about our chosen subject and how the presentation was presented. A statement that we focused mainly on the negative point of multiculturalism was answered well by Matt I believe as it true that we were focusing on whether multiculturalism does more HARM than good. I also think we did highlight positive points to multlculturalism such as the quote I used from The Guardian about the british muslim man who felt there was no part of him that was swayed towards one that the other showing that multiculturalism has been successful in parts.

All in all I enjoyed the task of the presentation and learnt alot myself about the policy and moral of multiculturalism and have made a stronger opinion on the subject myself now I have explored all aspects of the topic.

I'd also like to thank the other members of my group for offering support on the presentation and working together so well and helping me to learn and discuss more on the topic. Thanks guys!

Culture Clashing - a different take.

During the presentations that we saw on Thursday, it struck me that there is one area of clashing culture that really isn't mentioned so often, and that is of Britain and the USA. It might be a British tradition to sit around at dinner parties and bemoan the undermining of the British language by 'Americanisms', but you don't really hear public outcry that British culture is seriously being affected by the intrusion of those across the Atlantic.

The reason, I think, is because U.S and British culture share so much, and that therefore we fail to acknowledge significant cultural differences - after all, all we really have to consume is their media and their fashions and their food - so we can draw the line, if we want to, at the rather wide body of water that separates us.

The American constitution enshrines the right to bear Arms. It is a county many times the size of our own, and therefore its people have a naturally different view of the world than we do in our small, condense country. It is, in many ways, a vastly different place. Can foreign fashion, taste and media really influence culture? Well, many opponents to multiculturalism would clearly say that not only is the answer yes, but that that is a 'bad thing'. The cultural difference present in the shaping of 'foreign' ideas will filter down through our consumption of them and slowly alter our own culture.

The debate surrounding whether this is a good thing or not has been discussed, and I think I’ve made it clear in my previous posts that people who reject any 'foreign' influence on whatever it is they see British culture to be can quite frankly bugger off and live on the moon for all I care.
But it does interest me why these people seem to fail to pick up on U.S cultural 'intrusion', if they're happy to pick up others.

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but it does strike me that U.S culture is considered, on the whole, a 'white' culture, but just as importantly, vaguely 'English' (in the sense that they speak the language. Australia seems to be viewed in the same way). All of the cultures that are demonized in Britain, as far as I can see, are almost all 'non-white' cultures, and those that are, certainly not English speaking. For why?

That whole ramble is not a fully formed thought, I’ll admit that. It doesn’t hold together completely. But it does pose questions that almost certainly need answering by the people of Britain. What is it that we really have a problem with?

Post Presentation

I felt really good about how our presentation Does Multiculturalism Cause More Harm Than Good? went. I took a real interest in all the discussions we had when researching and putting our presentation together. I must say as well that through all of our work i have definitley been persuaded toward a more optimistic view on the subject. I have never been against multiculturalism but i was pessimistic as to whether it would ever really work without conflict.

What i found very interesting was our discussions on subjects like the MOBO awards. I was more of the view that an award ceremony like the MOBO's was divisive and not really suitable in a society striving for cohesive multiculturalism. But I was definitley won round by Pauls argument that its not really our place to judge that such events (created when minorities didn't have a mainstream voice) should be abolished now that what they represent has moved into the mainstream and has become part of popular culture. I do still think that it can be seen as divisive, but it is not our place to say such events need to be shut down.

As Paul said on The Progression of Society and Multiculturalism, multiculturalism is a young idea and we are not in a position yet to condemn it. I think that because of society today, progress and technological advancements amongst other things mean we can get things done much quicker, for example travelling is so much easier now and we can cross land so much faster. This has led i think to a feeling that everything should happen almost instantaneously, this is then carried into ideoligies like multiculturalism. Meena mentioned that they are already thinking of changing the term multiculturalism possibly to cosmopolitanism. We are in too much of a hurry to demonise things without giving them chance to grow. I am very optimistic about multiculturalism, we maybe creating our own traditions right now and they need time to be cemented before we really can see multiculturalism as a whole culture on its own.