Final Study Guide PDF

Preview

Summary

Study Guide for the Final - Summarizes second half of the course...

Description

Part I. Objective You need to be familiar with the historical context and significance of the following names and terms from your readings and lectures. Be sure you are able to address the appropriate “who?” “what?” “where?” and “when?’, and most importantly, “why?” issues associated with each one. Multiple choice (10%) and matching terms (20%) questions will be drawn from this guide. Key Names & Terms for Weeks Seven through Ten The Existentialist Solution Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) ● Atheist Existentialist View on God ● “God does not exist” is the premise of existentialism, not its purpose ○ “Existentialism isn’t so atheist that it wears itself out that god doesn’t exist” ○ Not obsessed with proving that god doesn’t exist Existence precedes essence ● Bottom line—existence precedes essence ○ Sartre: “Man is the future of man.” Individual accountability ● Existence without excuses ○ Nothing pre-determines our existence ■ Not God, not ideology, not society, not even human nature ■ Existentialism puts lot of focus on personal choices defining who were are ○ “We have no excuse behind us, or justification before us. We are alone, with no excuses” (315) ■ Denies individuals of the possibilities of finding excuses of rationalizing their way out of responsibility by blaming God, nature, society, families, etc ● Sartre’s defense of socialist critique: self-accountability translates into collective accountability Fromm’s view on overcoming separateness ● Ways we try to compensate for the anxiety of separation and aloneness ○ To try and connect with nature around us ○ For some, it’s through casual sex, getting high, etc ● “Pseudo-unity” through conformity ○ Fitting in with the herd to overcome aloneness ■ Following fads, becoming part of the trend ■ More we try to fit in, more alone we feel ○ Hitching ourselves to a fad, an ideology, a leader, a religion, or a clique ■ Ex: Eichmann Modes of transitory union ● Dependence on transitory union ○ Unity that does not last ○ That feeling fades as you come down from the high/having sex and you are left with deeper anxiety “Fusion without integrity” ● Risk losing the self in order to connect ● All have to give up something about who we are in order to connect ● One form of fusion without integrity after another ---> what builds up after time is alienation from our own selves

○ Don’t even remember who you are after trying to fit in all the time ○ Compromises leave us empty and hollow Notion of “standing in love” ● “Standing in love” vs. “Falling for love” ○ Falling for/in love - very familiar ○ Concept of “standing in love” ● “Standing in love” entails an existentialist approach to human connection ○ Each partner’s integrity and dignity is preserved and respected ○ “Falling in love” → lose your dignity by falling on your knees/begging ○ “Standing” → allows for possibility of more authentic/enduring relationship ○ Idea can be extended to how we relate to all things in this world ■ Idea of standing in love with God → don’t fall/succumb for God Masochistic vs. sadistic love ● Not masochistic love—forfeiting oneself for a loved one ○ Sacrificing for a loved one ○ Very unhealthy ○ Allowing love or passion to take over ● Not sadistic love—consuming a loved one’s individuality ○ Based more on control, exploitation, hurting & changing the other person Finding Meaning in the Absurd Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) ● Author of Waiting for Godot Waiting for Godot ● Problem of Time in Modernity ○ Fragmentation of time ■ Ex of Prufrock ○ Compression of time The dissolution of time ● Time understood as one endless, repetitive cycle ○ None of the characters can be sure when something happened ■ They didn’t know when they were supposed to meet Godot ■ “But what Saturday, is it Saturday or Monday…” (10) - inability to distinguish what day ■ Tree - only prop on stage ● They wonder when they last passed the tree; was it yesterday? How come there are already 4 leaves that have appeared over night? ○ When one can never definitively say: “Remember the time when we…” ■ Only way we can make sense of the past is through memory ■ Difficult for us to measure time when we forget events ● Unsettling sense of temporal disorientation ○ No clear distinction between past, present & future ○ Confusion about whether it’s dawn or dusk, sequence of days, etc ○ At one point they are so frustrated by question of time that Didi (Vladimir) says time has stopped ● Humanity suspended in a monotonous cycle of existence, devoid of history ○ Pozzo’s outburst against “accursed time” (103) ■ In response to Vlad & Estragon’s persistence to try to figure out when things happen

Rationalizing inaction ● Always rationalizing their paralysis by “waiting for Godot” ○ “Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer” ■ The safest thing is not to do anything ○ Always come back to need to wait for Godot ○ Pozzo & Lucky (master-slave relationship) ■ Lucky = human being taking on role of beast of burden ○ When Vlad & Estragon encounter, they want to do something to save Lucky but don’t do anything ● Contemplate killing themselves, but cannot ○ Can never free themselves from their situation; cannot move on Creating “the impression that we exist”’ ● Desperately creating “the impression that we exist” ○ Very rationale for living becomes existing ○ Waiting for Godot → becomes their very meaning of existence ● Existence sustained by language, by play, by shards of memory, by waiting ○ Sharing stories to pass the time ■ Never enough linear memory that can connect these things ● All just float in memory bank ○ Conversations go on in circles ■ Invariably end up with “waiting for Godot” ● Existence defined by perpetual paralysis ○ Blabbering about nothing in particular for half a century Complicit “role” of the audience ● Beckett’s brilliant sleight-of-hand in implicating the audience in the absurdity of the human condition itself ○ In watching this play, we are just as trapped in waiting to find out more about Godot as the characters are ○ Everyone wants to find out who is Godot and what he symbolizes ■ We are all “waiting for Godot” ○ Performing our own meaningless existence Significance of Godot ● Godot = Maybe a God figure ○ Didi & Gogo are just like those who are paralyzed by God and waiting for divine intervention to solve a problem, divine calling tell them what to do with their live, etc Significance of Pozzo and Lucky ● Bound together by mutual dependence and revulsion ● Abusive relationship ● Lucky as the slave figure is a masochistic one ○ He hands over rope/whip of his own oppression that Pozzo will use to strike him ● Pozzo - sadist figure ○ He is as enslaved in this relationship ○ Rope that leashes Lucky also leashes him

Civil Rights Movements of the ‘60s “The Affluent Society” in the 1950s ● Leisurely lifestyle of upwardly mobile, suburban middle-class ○ All houses, appliances, cars the same

●

Generation of veterans who benefited from the G.I. Bill (free college education) ○ Mostly white males ○ Fiercely anti-communist ○ Fully invested in the status quo ■ Weekend cookouts, baseball games ○ UCSD Prof. Marcuse called this an example of “democratic totalitarianism” ■ Conformist middle class culture was prime example of democratic totalitarianism ○ Complacency justified and reinforced by material comforts ■ General attitude was to defer the responsibility & democracy and governing fully to politicians Exclusions from the “American Dream” ● Global inequities ○ Spread of world hunger in all parts ○ Growing disparity in wealth between industrialized and developing countries widened ○ Depletion of natural resources worldwide ○ Rest of the world excluded from American Dream ● Disenfranchised domestic groups shut out of the “American Dream” ○ Other races, women, lgbt → none of them were part of the American Dream ● Three realities that galvanized and mobilized these groups in early 1960’s ○ (1) Relentless arms race & imminent threat of nuclear annihilation ○ (2) Increasing American involvement in Vietnam ■ Images of body bags of american servicemen coming back ○ (3) Racial discrimination and violence in the South that escalated in the 1950s Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka 1954 ● Birth of civil rights movement ● Supreme Court ordered immediate desegregation of schools ● Many Southern states still continued to resist the mandate ● 1957, Eisenhower sent in National Guard to Little Rock, Arkansas ○ Forced the schools to desegregate to enforce the ruling Civil Rights Act 1964 ● First law in America to ban segregation in all public areas ● Assure equal opportunity for all Americans Voting Rights Act 1965 ● Federal ban on local regulations in the South that made it very hard/inaccessible to blacks to vote ○ Local poll taxes targeted at impoverished black neighborhoods ○ Literacy requirements ○ KKK, police threats King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” ● For the oppressed, “wait” means “never” ○ All the ministers were asking of the blacks to be patient ○ Dr. King says, when you are the oppressed, wait = never ○ Time as an entity is never neutral ■ Can be used constructively to bring about change ■ But also can be used negatively to maintain an unjust system ○ Cannot let “time take care of everything” ○ “Patience is merely a luxury of the privileged” ■ Goes on to list all the injustices that exist in American society ○ Idea of “waiting for Godot” ■ Waiting for something that never occurs

■ Becomes the source of oppression itself Just vs. Unjust laws ● “Unjust laws degrade the human personality,” while just laws uplifts it ○ We cannot obey laws that are inherently unjust that are passed by biased majority ○ Similar to Gandhi → distinction of obedience of conscience vs obedience of convenience MLK’s view of white moderates ● “Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is sometimes even more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection” ○ KKK is bad, but at least we know where they stand and how to deal with them ○ But how do you deal with people who demonstrate superficial goodwill/shallow misunderstanding? ○ “It’s you, so called white moderates that represent more of a stumbling block than the KKK” ● “It’s your appalling silence of the so called good, respectable society that becomes the darkest road of complicity, allowing order to take precedence over justice” Four steps of non-violent civil protest ● Collection of facts concerning injustice ○ Important to expose racial inequality as an institutionalized, systemic problem ○ Not isolated, but all related ○ Show that by collecting facts and putting them together ● Negotiation ○ Working within system, not toppling it ○ Bring authorities to negotiate ● Self-purification ○ Satyagraha ○ Set up workshops on ethos of non-violence to withstand blows to retaliate ● Direct action ○ “Privileged groups seldom give up privileges voluntarily” ■ You have to make them act - civil protest Malcolm X ● Context of Malcolm X’s statement: “I don’t consider myself an American” ○ “What did blacks get in return for voting them into office? Camouflage, trickery, window dressing” ■ Cosmetic change, never real change ■ How can I call myself American when I am denied basic rights as a black man?? ○ This betrayal had him say he wasn’t American ■ People took it out of context to label him a Communist ○ Most misconstrued civil rights leader because of how he’s been depicted “Dixiecrats” (Southern Democrats) ● Had joined with republican counterparts to oppose passing of the bill ● 24 day filibuster to block Voting Rights Act ● Blacks had voted them into office to begin with → felt utmost betrayal “The ballot or the bullet” - Malcolm X ● Ballot is first option - democratic process of voting ○ When this fails and is taken away from you ○ Then there is no recourse them to choose the path of the bullet ○ Differentiates him from Dr. King

●

“Never be nonviolent unless you run into non-violence” ○ Protestors were beat up, tear gassed, etc “Human rights” not “civil rights” ● All of this is a struggle for human rights ● People are fighting for essential human rights of an individual ○ Not rights you have to beg Uncle Sam to give you ○ Rights you deserve because you are human Structural Iniquities Kozol’s critique of “Educational apartheid” ● Brown vs. Board of Education 1954 ○ Found that there has been very little change in desegregation ○ Ironic that the catalyst that started the civil rights movement still remains an unresolved problem ● Trends of RE-segregation post 1970s ○ Schools that segregated began to re-segregation Demographics of inner city schools ● LA - blacks & hispanics make up 85%+ of city’s public school system ● Chicago - they make up 87% of inner city school population ● DC - 94% ● Even in some racially mixed, gentrified urban communities ○ School systems STILL predominately black & history ○ MLK high school - Manhattan → 100% blacks ○ Mendez School - Santa Ana → 100% Hispanic & blacks Impact of “white flight” ● affluent white families abandon inner city schools → leaving certain communities to continue to populate the schools ● As white flight took place, they also took the arts and music programs ● Healthcare became reduced in schools Infrastructure and services in schools ● Buildings & facilities & classrooms had leaking ceilings, moldy walls, not enough bathrooms, crowded kids “Success for All” programs ● “Success For All”—SFA programs ○ Implemented specifically for inner city schools ○ Emphasizes how teachers can best manage their kids, not educate/inspire ○ Slogans taught to recite to remind the kids to be obedient ○ Ritualized salutes ○ Zero tolerance for spontaneity, personality, etc ○ Emphasis on conformity ○ “Rich get richer, the poor get SFA”

“No Child Left Behind” Act ● focus on standardized testing not as much independent thinking or critical system; created testing automatons ● Since the enactment of NCLB, the number of standardized exams children must take has more than doubled. ● Kozol is basically saying that things like standardized testing, Success For All, etc are sucking the

life out of disadvantaged students and not allowing them to grow independently, but rather to think systematically like robots. ● And bills like NCLB are holding funding hostage, so schools HAVE to implement the curricula in order to get funding “Vocational” curriculum ● Kids had minimal access to college prep electives ● Schools offered no AP courses ● You’re ghetto → learn how to sew, hairdressing instead The “garage syndrome” ● Children themselves understood it best ● Fozol talked directly to the kids ● Kids see themselves that people that don’t matter ● Compared her situation to the garage syndrome ○ “If they don't have room for something but aren’t sure if they should throw it out, they put it in the garage where they don’t need to think of it again They is society, garage is the school and the it that you don't know what to do with is the children themselves ○ Schools become dumping grounds for the youth you don’t know what to do with ○ Out of sight out of mind Networking within entrenched “dominant class” ● Domhoff: social rituals of this entrenched “dominant class” ○ Puts kids in high network that gives you access to lot of privileges ○ “America’s dominant class” → sends their kids to same types of schools/universities ○ Socializes among themselves ■ Debutante balls (puts certain families in these networks) ■ Fundraising organizations ■ Country/hunting/lunch clubs for men ○ Enclosed privileged circles of wealth, power, and privilege ■ Power is retained within those certain networks Feminism and Global Women’s Movements Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” ● Manifesto calling for complete “economic and social equality of women” ○ guided agenda and set the discourse for the 20th century ● Simone de Beauvoir = French existentialist philosopher ○ Publisher of social criticisms ○ Life long relationship with Jean Paul Sartre (existentialist) ■ Never chose to marry but had a loving relationship ● Distinction between narcissistic individualism and socially-responsible individualism ○ She argued that purpose of society is really to cultivate a more socially-responsible individual ○ “Individual freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others” ■ Freedom of one sex bound to freedom of other sex → central with her thinking Construction of “femininity” ● A woman’s “femininity” is “made not born” ○ No woman is born with femininity → Society assigns that role to her ○ “How can one possibly claim that woman's’ femininity is secreted by her own ovaries” ● “Femininity” as an ideological construction built on asymmetry

○ Man, gender of man, always presented as the natural/default gender ○ Women represent negative/incidental other Complicit role of women in patriarchy ● For men, she is just an amusement/pleasure/company ○ You can have it or do without Incongruous valuation of time ● For men, time defined by its positive, productive value ○ Time spent with lover is understand as excursion; interruption from all other things he could be doing (work, making money) ○ Extra time spent with women is understood as “time forfeited” ○ Cost-benefit analysis → what is minimum amount of time he needs to invest to garner maximum pleasure ● For idle women in the past, time defined by its negative, non-productive value ○ Time is a burden, something to exhaust/kill preferably with male lover ○ Women will not reveal her body unless partner has done hours of conversation/pampering, etc Gender disparity in mutual worth ● Both sides end up feeling exploited and used in this arrangement ○ Man well end up feeling he paid a little too much for this ○ Women will feel that the man had her at a bargain ○ When Simone advocates female autonomy → she ensures the freedom of all individuals The “Home” front 1945-1960 ● Average women marriage age had fallen to 20 ● Proportion of women enrolled in college in 1957 fallen to 35% (from 50-50 in the 1920s) ● Many women were in the college in the first place to find suitable husbands (not to further their education) ○ 60% drop out rate because they found husband/got pregnant ○ Classes offered to women were geared toward being a housewife Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” 1963 ● Question and challenge image in the media of healthy, beauty, utterly devoted women ● Went from home from home to get testimonials from women who were behind this perfect image of the ideal house-wife ○ Found through her honest conversations that most of them on a daily basis felt like daily zombies trapped in their suburban lives ■ Desperate, languishing in their soles ■ Profound degree of existentialist crisis ○ Pg 16 of original selection - interviewing mother of 4 who left college at 19 to get married ■ “I‘ve tried everything women are supposed to do. Hobbies, being social, joining committees I can do it all, and i like it, but it doesn't leave you anything to think about. Any feeling of who you are. Never had career ambitions. Server of food. Someone who can be called on when you want something. But who am I?”

“The Problem That Has No Name” ● popular media profile of the suburban, middle-class American housewife is envied by women around the world, but for some reason many of these housewives feel unfulfilled ● expected to make careers as housewife and were unable to live up to any fuller potential ● Reality in suburbia. Women felt trapped, and b/c of this, it was felt by the men and children too.

Men thought things/ideas they got or were taught in college were the issues. Curriculum should focus more on how to be a homemaker ● The angst they feel they can't really put a finger on. Strategies of “containment” ● Paternalistic view that “containment” of the female sex was for its own good ○ Deny them some certain kind of education ● No escape from this “domestic containment,” only deferral of the malaise ○ Putting it off; finding one distraction after another ○ Many women tried redecorating house, Move to another neighborhood ○ Some may resort to having another affair that can briefly convince them they have an identity of their own ○ Most common method of deferral = having another baby ○ Freidan - “after all, what kind of woman was she if she did not f...