Dr Goebbels’ Total war conference of 1944 is a prime example of nationalism at its worst. Goebbels was mobilising what remained of the German nation, the elderly, children, unfit, to commit what was effectively mass suicide as a last effort to win the war, putting up thousands of innocent people to fight against strong armies. The fact that they mindlessly followed this propaganda in one last push is what is so scary about nationalism.
As Arendt points out, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were prime examples of problematic totalitarianism; the population was no longer made up of individuals, but were a mass there to be manipulated by the state as puppeteer.
Chris Horrie’s theory of nationalism as he put forward in today’s lecture is that the more over the top and superficial the nationalist attitude, the more it will be a problem. He put forward that Great Britain has a pretty balanced idea of nationalism, whereas other attitudes such as in the US where the flag is sacred, they seem to be trying to gloss over the fact that their country is made up of immigrants, from the time of settlement to today. He also said that German nationalism is so strong because their nation has been constantly changing throughout history; the borders of Germany were constantly in flux throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, it can be argued that if you go far enough back through history, everyone is a migrant.
Nationalism has been argued to be a product of the 19th century literary movement of Romanticism, for example built up by the ‘legends’ of Robin Hood and King Arthur, products of nineteenth century literature. It was designed to justify territorial demands at times of war and supported by both popular culture (newspapers, music halls and patriotic songs) and state directed education systems. This development of Our Island Story, as Chris puts it, is not unique to Britain. Every nation has its own nation history which portrays that country as uniquely civilised among a world of barbarians who must be tamed and transformed into images of the home country. In this way, the major nations of Europe are highly artificial and mythological. Great Britain, for example , is made up of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, all of which are in turn made up of many different ‘nationalities’ and authority groups. Take England; originally made up of Anglo-Saxons (themselves a mix of national identities), Scandinavians, Celts and other mixed origins. Another example would be the Romany group which can be found throughout Europe.
However, Chris points out that there is no such obsession with nationality in the Muslim world. Instead, they are divided into theological loyalties and allegiances, with each city having its own tendencies. In contrast, China has a very diverse ‘ethnic polity’ meaning that rather than national or theological allegiances, it is based on politics, which can even be seen in the origins of the name, China, which comes from the Chin dynasty. China therefore has a very non-nationalist ideology, despite its imitation of many customs of the Western world. Also, in the Roman Empire there were few very nationalist people and many sovereign authorities all competing for jurisdiction. It has been argued that the wars of the 17th Century increased sovereignty.
One very prominent artefact of European culture is that modern nation states present themselves as servants of the nation, however it is pointed out that this is likely to be a passing phase in human development. In the middle ages, sovereignty was divided, which marks a point of contrast with what it is today: total command. In the middle ages, politics was a matter of negotiation between land owners and the church, meaning that political power was limited and therefore wars were limited in scope and inconclusive and could often carry on for generations. Kings had to beg for money from other Kings, which is how the first state was accidentally come across: in an attempt to combat this.
Max Weber said that “The state is a monopoly of legitimate violence”, which is supported by the fact that we pay taxes and obey laws in return for the state’s protection from external enemies and for things such as education and health care. Thus the concept of ‘civil society’ was introduced; the idea that an activity is completely voluntary and not effected or controlled in any way by the state; doing something simply because you want to. However, this is not possible in the totalitarian state.
The French Revolution marked a turning point in nationalism, sweeping away all forms of traditional feudal links to the state. The state as a system is all that remained, so that the King is the only thing, really, that was swept away. Therefore the state keeps reasserting itself, showing that ‘artificial man’ (as Hobbes put it) will always remain. Louis xvi created the absolute state, but when he was taken away there was a crisis of legitimacy, as well as the inevitable economic crisis, as the people of France did not know who to obey. The formerly coerced regions tried to break free and rule themselves, including both those within ‘France’ and the colonies. However, the first act of the new republic was to attack the regional autonomy, very violently, which was seen as a monarchist counter-revolution. Through this, centralisation began to be associated with progress, liberty, equality and fraternity. However, it turned out that the idea that the nation is One and Indivisible turned out to be largely fictional. This clearly shows that the collapse of monarchy leaves huge problems as to the legitimacy of state.
Key philosophers and their views on nationalism:
Hobbes
Author of ‘The Leviathan’ (a symbol of the force of nature which humans cannot control and simply have to live with), in which he outlines his theory of power: that our state of nature means living in fear because if left to our own devices we will be barbarians. His solution was to alienate our rights to supreme sovereignty in order to live in peace. The ‘artificial man’ that is the state would be a ‘war machine’, organised for war against subjects who resist and against rival states. He argues that the emerging state is already so vast and artificial that opposition would be folly. Hobbes’ logic is ‘impeccable’ but false at the level of reducto ad absurdum, according to Chris, because once you have submitted to the state, rational man wants that state to be as powerful as possible. Hobbes argued that the greatest good arises when the whim of state is automatically law, no matter how cruel or irrational it may be. Chris emphasises the importance of Hobbes’ stance by saying that how you think about Hobbes defines your social view; you are either a realist or a dreamer. However, I think that this is too black and white.
Rousseau
Wrote the Social Contract and believed in a rational ethno-linguistic homeland where regional differences would be eliminated, creating a state that is a single voice. However, his arguments create the problem of who is a man, who counts in the state, and who decides who counts? Rousseau’s view is quite prominent in the 20th Century state in that the state will take care of everything from education to housing to emotional support for its citizens.
Hegel
Said that “the state is God on earth” and believed that the Prussian state was the German homeland and that the state does the work of God. However, he did acknowledge that the state and the nation are not natural.
Hume
Said that “authority is based on nothing but opinion”.
Charles Darwin
Wrote the Origin of the Species and came up with the theory of evolution through natural selection and the survival of the fittest. This led to ‘social darwinism’, the adoption of these ideas by the state to argue that if you do not triumph over the rival claimants of power, they will destroy you. This idea suggests that there is no negotiation, especially if they have the potential to outbreed you. Here we can see the justification for European racism and the origin of many of the worst atrocities ever carried out by humanity, such as the holocaust. It suggests that the state exists to protect the race, promoting violence against minorities or people who may potentially ‘infect’ or hurt the race.
John Carey
Argued that England has become weak because of the masses. This originates from the Crimean War of the 1860s, after which a survey of the nation was carried out which found poor health and education which were blamed for the failures of the English army, the creation, it was argued, of cramped, unsanitary, city conditions. In Darwinian terms, the nation was dying. This revelation led to the development of the welfare state.
Totalitarianism is therefore present in every society and shown in the ability to implement wards. War is argued to impel totalitarianism as nation myths are seen as the source of consolation and solidarity in the face of external threats. However, in philosophy, the belief is that all that the state has control of is the law.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Seminar 4: John Carey's The Intellectuals and the Masses
Today’s seminar was about John Carey. As a follow up to my seminar paper, here are the key points that we discussed today:
The worst part about the divide between the intellectuals and the masses, in my opinion, is the fact that society has simply accepted the self-proclamation of superiority by the intellectuals, as Stefano pointed out in his seminar paper. Another idea that interested me was the way that he brought in our current education system in relation to the educational hierarchy which Carey discusses. Are we really receiving a quality education? Are we rivaling the intellectuals in terms of our knowledge of the world?
It was also pointed out that Hitler’s use of propaganda to control the mass, and his targeting of the Germans as a mass, are hypocritical of his populist ideas as outlined in Mein Kampf. Also, the root of the word mass comes from a Roman idea of the masses being incarcerated in hell, and Hitler’s actions can be seen as physically reenacting this idea.
There are many links between the work of Hannah Arendt and John Carey; they both discuss Hitler and Stalin and what should be done about the masses. However, Arendt is far more extreme and is not afraid to say that she thinks there are too many uneducated people and that the intellectual hierarchy must be maintained.
We all agreed that Carey’s mention that the growth of the European population between 1800 and 1914 rose from 180 million to about 460 million was a shock and an eye-opener, showing why the intellectuals may have been so fearful. However, it is definitely not grounds for genocide and we were all very clear on this point; there are other ways to sustain society without killing off the lower levels.
What is also shocking is how normal Hannah Arendt finds the idea of killing people. She talks about it in a way that takes away the idea that the masses are human, which is very distressing as we are all human, we all have thoughts and feelings and should be treated accordingly. Not simply numbered and thrown in a mass grave.
The modernist idea of putting literature out of the reach of the masses can be seen reflected in our education system. Now that more people than ever are getting higher grades in GCSEs and A levels and with more university students, outcries that the educations system is too easy are resounding through our lecture rooms. This is being tackled by raising fees and entrance qualifications, and the job market is joining in by expecting, not only a degree, but a 2:1, and experience, and connections, and references. It is getting harder and harder to get anywhere without an education.
Another interesting point that came up was the fact that in the last chapter of The Intellectuals and the Masses, it seems that there is a huge conspiracy, with all of the great writers, artists and intellectuals teamed up against the rest of humanity. This chapter also makes it seem that many people were interested in mass extermination and that, while we thought that Hitler was an evil man and now a dead evil man and so we could sleep at night safe and sound from any evil genius that may start a mass genocide, in fact there are many people who were thinking along similar lines to him. He was simply the one that tried to put it into action. This brings up ideas of will the holocaust ever happen again? In countries like China where the communist government stifles any kind of outside influence, the chances are higher.
Finally, we discussed Lord Northcliffe and Tabloid Nation with regard to the intellectuals/mass divide. It is pretty clear that Lord Northcliffe was not among the greatest thinkers of our time, but neither was he part of the mass. However, he made a conscious decision to target the masses and write for a mass audience, and even target women when they were condemned by society to be idle housewives. But was this a purely financial concern? Or did he actually care that the masses were informed?
The worst part about the divide between the intellectuals and the masses, in my opinion, is the fact that society has simply accepted the self-proclamation of superiority by the intellectuals, as Stefano pointed out in his seminar paper. Another idea that interested me was the way that he brought in our current education system in relation to the educational hierarchy which Carey discusses. Are we really receiving a quality education? Are we rivaling the intellectuals in terms of our knowledge of the world?
It was also pointed out that Hitler’s use of propaganda to control the mass, and his targeting of the Germans as a mass, are hypocritical of his populist ideas as outlined in Mein Kampf. Also, the root of the word mass comes from a Roman idea of the masses being incarcerated in hell, and Hitler’s actions can be seen as physically reenacting this idea.
There are many links between the work of Hannah Arendt and John Carey; they both discuss Hitler and Stalin and what should be done about the masses. However, Arendt is far more extreme and is not afraid to say that she thinks there are too many uneducated people and that the intellectual hierarchy must be maintained.
We all agreed that Carey’s mention that the growth of the European population between 1800 and 1914 rose from 180 million to about 460 million was a shock and an eye-opener, showing why the intellectuals may have been so fearful. However, it is definitely not grounds for genocide and we were all very clear on this point; there are other ways to sustain society without killing off the lower levels.
What is also shocking is how normal Hannah Arendt finds the idea of killing people. She talks about it in a way that takes away the idea that the masses are human, which is very distressing as we are all human, we all have thoughts and feelings and should be treated accordingly. Not simply numbered and thrown in a mass grave.
The modernist idea of putting literature out of the reach of the masses can be seen reflected in our education system. Now that more people than ever are getting higher grades in GCSEs and A levels and with more university students, outcries that the educations system is too easy are resounding through our lecture rooms. This is being tackled by raising fees and entrance qualifications, and the job market is joining in by expecting, not only a degree, but a 2:1, and experience, and connections, and references. It is getting harder and harder to get anywhere without an education.
Another interesting point that came up was the fact that in the last chapter of The Intellectuals and the Masses, it seems that there is a huge conspiracy, with all of the great writers, artists and intellectuals teamed up against the rest of humanity. This chapter also makes it seem that many people were interested in mass extermination and that, while we thought that Hitler was an evil man and now a dead evil man and so we could sleep at night safe and sound from any evil genius that may start a mass genocide, in fact there are many people who were thinking along similar lines to him. He was simply the one that tried to put it into action. This brings up ideas of will the holocaust ever happen again? In countries like China where the communist government stifles any kind of outside influence, the chances are higher.
Finally, we discussed Lord Northcliffe and Tabloid Nation with regard to the intellectuals/mass divide. It is pretty clear that Lord Northcliffe was not among the greatest thinkers of our time, but neither was he part of the mass. However, he made a conscious decision to target the masses and write for a mass audience, and even target women when they were condemned by society to be idle housewives. But was this a purely financial concern? Or did he actually care that the masses were informed?
Seminar Paper on John Carey's "The Intellectuals and the Masses"
John Carey, born in 1934 in the midst of the Modernist movement, is a British literary critic and Professor at the University of Oxford, a renowned anti-elitist and is known for attacking many well-respected beliefs and institutions. He wrote Intellectuals and the Masses in 1992 and he discusses many writers and literary theorists throughout the book regarding the rise of the middle class and universal education, such as Virginia Wolff, Friedrich Neitzsche and E.M. Forster.
In The Intellectuals and the Masses he examines the attitudes of the ‘intellectuals’ towards the masses and women, and the way in which the social structure has changed. A common theme is the loss of the intellectual’s hold over ‘avante garde’. This is defined as seeking “to take literacy and culture away from the masses, and so to counteract the progressive intentions of democratic educational reform”. This definition’s inclusion of the phrase “progressive intentions” suggests that Carey is trying to show intellectuals as not progressing, but being stuck in the past. This can also be seen in the way that the ‘masses’ are referred to as resembling “children and savages” which are “unambitious and common” and Carey’s constant referral to peasants and their place in history.
Thomas Hardy, for example, felt afraid and threatened by the mass and referred to “a monster whose body had four million” which held too close a proximity to him once London began to grow and the suburbs swallowed the villages such as Upper Tooting, where Hardy lived. This is a common theme in E M Forster’s Howard’s End where the “creeping” “red rust” is foreboding of the collapse of the established social order which intellectuals so cherish. This was also a major pre-occupation with Neitzsche who created images to show “the modern intellectual’s effort to limit and dominate the mass”. He continually used metaphors such as a herd of animals, swarms of poisonous flies, raindrops, and weeds ruining proud structures, in order to suggest that the mass gaining knowledge would result in the downfall of ancient traditions. This instability above all else seems to have terrified intellectuals, so much so for Neitzsche that the basic function of his writing was “to deprive the mass of human status”. This is dangerous, as James Carey points out, it can clearly be linked to what made Hitler and the Nazis think it acceptable to try to exterminate any race other than their own.
This denial of humanity became an important project among the intellectuals of the early twentieth century, as T S Eliot pointed out. The scientific approach included referring to the masses as seething, unclean “bacteria”, acting like microbes to “hasten the dissolution of dead bodies” (a clear comparison to the dissolution of social boundaries). These ideas were exploited by those that wanted to purge the mass, such as Stalin and Hitler, and used as a justification for huge crimes against humanity. This prejudicial divide between the less educated and the over-educated can therefore be seen as the catalyst for mass genocide. Gustav Le Bon had a large role to play in this, suggesting that “crowds are mentally inferior and intent on destruction”, an argument which has been and still is a frequently used get-out clause for those who are not respecting humanity. He describes the rabble as “suggestible, impulsive, irrational, exaggeratedly emotional, inconstant, irritable and capable of thinking only in images”, fostering a deep disdain in the intellectuals and accentuating the divide. Along this same line of discussion, he is derogatory to women saying that all these qualities are “in short, just like women” and saying that “like women”, the mass only respond to force, not kindness.
A woman’s place in society is much discussed by Carey in Intellectuals and the Masses. Women were seen by intellectuals at the modernist time as purely decorative, without any real opinion or skill. They therefore thought that the “emancipation and education of women were signs of modern shallowness” because it would do no good. For example, in Thus Spake Zarathustra, he says “Are you visiting women? Don’t forget your whip”, showing that he sees a need to control them, for their own good and thinks that their independence could only be a negative. This is because if women’s opinions could be heard, the male superiority and aristocracy, and therefore the whole social structure, would have to change and the intellectuals did not want this. However, Lord Northcliffe had a totally different attitude, “considering women readers worthy of attention” and even establishing the first magazine read and published by women (even if it was a flop). Since the women’s liberation, the latter view has become widespread and women are finally being seen as just as much human and capable of intellect as men. However, although, like women, the intellectuals dismissed “the rabble” as uneducable and a waste of time, unlike women, this has so far not been universally overturned.
The ambition to acquire culture is shown to be “ill-advised and unsuccessful” in much literature including E.M.Forster’s Howard’s End in which Leonard Bast, used as an example of the newly-educated and struggling masses, is eventually killed by what he is striving for. He tries in vain but never really acquires “true culture”. Forster seems to be giving a cautionary warning and declaring the masses to share Leonard’s “cramped little mind”. Virginia Wolff is also unsympathetic to those trying to acquire culture in Mrs Dalloway, suggesting that they never quite get it right; “she seeks comfort in Christianity, forfeiting her intellectual integrity in return” and therefore negating the whole process. James Joyce’s Ulysses is also a prime example in which Leopold Bloom, as a representative of the masses, is “distinctly not a literary intellectual”. However, this novel is sort of a contradiction of itself in that it both “embraces mass man but also rejects him”. The focus of the novel is on a nobody, and yet because we are getting to know him so intimately it seems that he is somehow important, however the way that it is written in modernist form excludes those that are not intellectual through “the complexity of the novel, its avante garde technique, its obscurity”.
This technique shows the principle behind modernist literature which was “the exclusion of the masses” however, “what this intellectual effort failed to acknowledge was that the masses did not exist... [they are] a metaphor for the unknowable and invisible.” The use of “masses” to describe most of the population is used specifically because it “denies them the individuality which we ascribe to ourselves and to people we know”. It makes it easier for intellectuals to forget that they are talking about the majority of humanity and their essential selfishness and narrow-mindedness for wanting to keep knowledge and literacy skills for themselves.
Freud said that the mass represents the “primal horde” and the most primitive form of human society, “it is impossible, Freud stresses, to conceive of civilization without the control of the mass by a minority, and that control will inevitably involve coercion”. However, as difficult as it is for us to conceive of this society, that does not mean that it isn’t possible. It was thought that “schooling transforms people into ‘enemies of society’, makes young people dissatisfied with honest toil, and recruits numerous disciples for ‘the worst forms of socialism’ ”, which in a way can be said to be true because it does encourage people to aim higher, but only because everyone one deserves the chance. The intellectuals could not stop the masses from gaining literacy skills, but “could prevent them reading literature by making it too difficult for them to understand”. Therefore the realism that the masses were assumed to appreciate was abandoned, as was logical coherence and “Irrationality and obscurity were cultivated”. By placing art beyond the reach of the masses, they were deliberately trying to “divide the public into two classes - those who can understand it and those who cannot”. Therefore, Ortega y Gasset suggests, modern art is not so much unpopular but more like “anti-popular”.
Neitzsche’s opinion of journalism as put forward by Carey was not very high, to say the least. The famous quotation: “the rabble ‘vomit their bile and call it a newspaper’” and that readers are “a complacent, prejudiced and unthinking mass” shows him looking down on the masses and those who provide for the masses. Carey sees the principles of new journalism as “ ‘giving the public what it wants’ but most of the book is arguing over whether the public deserves to get what it wants. If we assume that the masses are in fact human beings, then what is so wrong with giving them what they want? The quote from Intellectuals and the Masses “Sherlock Holmes’ adoption of the newspaper as an ally, when contrasted with the intellectuals’ horror of newsprint, makes a fault line along which English culture was dividing” just goes to show that there really is no way to please both camps, a theme that often comes up in discussion of modern day journalism, such as, how much privacy should celebrities have, given that they have chosen to live their lives in the public eye? Are they public property? F.R. Leavis said that “the mass media have brought about ‘an overthrow of standards’ ” which can be clearly seen in the modern landscape where journalism has changed immensely since its birth.
In the latter part of the book, George Gissing, H.G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, and Wyndham Lewis are all examined as case studies to show the bad practice of separating the intellectuals from the public and ‘high’ culture from ‘low’ culture. However, many of the concerns that Carey has with these writers are a simple as their personal preferences and their own social distance from the ‘real world’. This intellectual hierarchy, while terrible, does not really effect everyday life.
Chapter 1 explores how the ‘masses’ are perceived and treated by the intellectuals, and their rejection on the grounds that they let down the idea of the individual, however it is the term “mass” which took away individuality - a term ascribed to them by intellectuals- and the mass is in fact made up of many individuals. The intellectuals are shown to look down on ordinary people, for example they are referred to as “vulgar, trivial working millions”. I would argue that it has to be remembered that it is the individuals doing their nine-to-five, un-rewarding jobs who keep the country running. The work of intellectuals is no more important than analyzing what other people do. (On the other hand it could be said that this improves society overall as we can learn from our mistakes, although who actually reads the works of intellectuals in their spare time?) As Carey said, intellectuals are “functionless and ignored” and we are quickly “dispensing with the need for novelists” to re-hash all these philosophical ideas about the world. Therefore, all of this is completely pointless.
John Carey, while celebrated as a literary critic, says “I write to stimulate and involve the reader”, something which this book definitely achieves, whether you want it to or not. Many of the issues covered are so universal that no-one can come away without some kind of opinion. For example, the idea of two sides pitted against each other; the intellectuals and the masses, is intriguing because you are either one or the other. Carey sees himself as part of the masses and is opposed to the effort of the intellectuals to take knowledge from the masses; “The idea that there are absolute, eternal values in art and literature, to which experts have access, is not one that I find convincing”. As Robert Sandall of the Sunday Times states, Carey “questions the origins of our strong and often unexamined ideas about cultural hierarchies and anybody who manages to do that with such wit and humanity deserves to be heard”. However, my final point is that i don’t believe that people who publish intellectual books are actually heard, or at least not by many and not necessarily in the way that they would like. The only people that will read it are intellectuals, and we all know that they aren’t going to pass the knowledge and insight on to the masses. Therefore, it is a waste of time, energy and paper.
In The Intellectuals and the Masses he examines the attitudes of the ‘intellectuals’ towards the masses and women, and the way in which the social structure has changed. A common theme is the loss of the intellectual’s hold over ‘avante garde’. This is defined as seeking “to take literacy and culture away from the masses, and so to counteract the progressive intentions of democratic educational reform”. This definition’s inclusion of the phrase “progressive intentions” suggests that Carey is trying to show intellectuals as not progressing, but being stuck in the past. This can also be seen in the way that the ‘masses’ are referred to as resembling “children and savages” which are “unambitious and common” and Carey’s constant referral to peasants and their place in history.
Thomas Hardy, for example, felt afraid and threatened by the mass and referred to “a monster whose body had four million” which held too close a proximity to him once London began to grow and the suburbs swallowed the villages such as Upper Tooting, where Hardy lived. This is a common theme in E M Forster’s Howard’s End where the “creeping” “red rust” is foreboding of the collapse of the established social order which intellectuals so cherish. This was also a major pre-occupation with Neitzsche who created images to show “the modern intellectual’s effort to limit and dominate the mass”. He continually used metaphors such as a herd of animals, swarms of poisonous flies, raindrops, and weeds ruining proud structures, in order to suggest that the mass gaining knowledge would result in the downfall of ancient traditions. This instability above all else seems to have terrified intellectuals, so much so for Neitzsche that the basic function of his writing was “to deprive the mass of human status”. This is dangerous, as James Carey points out, it can clearly be linked to what made Hitler and the Nazis think it acceptable to try to exterminate any race other than their own.
This denial of humanity became an important project among the intellectuals of the early twentieth century, as T S Eliot pointed out. The scientific approach included referring to the masses as seething, unclean “bacteria”, acting like microbes to “hasten the dissolution of dead bodies” (a clear comparison to the dissolution of social boundaries). These ideas were exploited by those that wanted to purge the mass, such as Stalin and Hitler, and used as a justification for huge crimes against humanity. This prejudicial divide between the less educated and the over-educated can therefore be seen as the catalyst for mass genocide. Gustav Le Bon had a large role to play in this, suggesting that “crowds are mentally inferior and intent on destruction”, an argument which has been and still is a frequently used get-out clause for those who are not respecting humanity. He describes the rabble as “suggestible, impulsive, irrational, exaggeratedly emotional, inconstant, irritable and capable of thinking only in images”, fostering a deep disdain in the intellectuals and accentuating the divide. Along this same line of discussion, he is derogatory to women saying that all these qualities are “in short, just like women” and saying that “like women”, the mass only respond to force, not kindness.
A woman’s place in society is much discussed by Carey in Intellectuals and the Masses. Women were seen by intellectuals at the modernist time as purely decorative, without any real opinion or skill. They therefore thought that the “emancipation and education of women were signs of modern shallowness” because it would do no good. For example, in Thus Spake Zarathustra, he says “Are you visiting women? Don’t forget your whip”, showing that he sees a need to control them, for their own good and thinks that their independence could only be a negative. This is because if women’s opinions could be heard, the male superiority and aristocracy, and therefore the whole social structure, would have to change and the intellectuals did not want this. However, Lord Northcliffe had a totally different attitude, “considering women readers worthy of attention” and even establishing the first magazine read and published by women (even if it was a flop). Since the women’s liberation, the latter view has become widespread and women are finally being seen as just as much human and capable of intellect as men. However, although, like women, the intellectuals dismissed “the rabble” as uneducable and a waste of time, unlike women, this has so far not been universally overturned.
The ambition to acquire culture is shown to be “ill-advised and unsuccessful” in much literature including E.M.Forster’s Howard’s End in which Leonard Bast, used as an example of the newly-educated and struggling masses, is eventually killed by what he is striving for. He tries in vain but never really acquires “true culture”. Forster seems to be giving a cautionary warning and declaring the masses to share Leonard’s “cramped little mind”. Virginia Wolff is also unsympathetic to those trying to acquire culture in Mrs Dalloway, suggesting that they never quite get it right; “she seeks comfort in Christianity, forfeiting her intellectual integrity in return” and therefore negating the whole process. James Joyce’s Ulysses is also a prime example in which Leopold Bloom, as a representative of the masses, is “distinctly not a literary intellectual”. However, this novel is sort of a contradiction of itself in that it both “embraces mass man but also rejects him”. The focus of the novel is on a nobody, and yet because we are getting to know him so intimately it seems that he is somehow important, however the way that it is written in modernist form excludes those that are not intellectual through “the complexity of the novel, its avante garde technique, its obscurity”.
This technique shows the principle behind modernist literature which was “the exclusion of the masses” however, “what this intellectual effort failed to acknowledge was that the masses did not exist... [they are] a metaphor for the unknowable and invisible.” The use of “masses” to describe most of the population is used specifically because it “denies them the individuality which we ascribe to ourselves and to people we know”. It makes it easier for intellectuals to forget that they are talking about the majority of humanity and their essential selfishness and narrow-mindedness for wanting to keep knowledge and literacy skills for themselves.
Freud said that the mass represents the “primal horde” and the most primitive form of human society, “it is impossible, Freud stresses, to conceive of civilization without the control of the mass by a minority, and that control will inevitably involve coercion”. However, as difficult as it is for us to conceive of this society, that does not mean that it isn’t possible. It was thought that “schooling transforms people into ‘enemies of society’, makes young people dissatisfied with honest toil, and recruits numerous disciples for ‘the worst forms of socialism’ ”, which in a way can be said to be true because it does encourage people to aim higher, but only because everyone one deserves the chance. The intellectuals could not stop the masses from gaining literacy skills, but “could prevent them reading literature by making it too difficult for them to understand”. Therefore the realism that the masses were assumed to appreciate was abandoned, as was logical coherence and “Irrationality and obscurity were cultivated”. By placing art beyond the reach of the masses, they were deliberately trying to “divide the public into two classes - those who can understand it and those who cannot”. Therefore, Ortega y Gasset suggests, modern art is not so much unpopular but more like “anti-popular”.
Neitzsche’s opinion of journalism as put forward by Carey was not very high, to say the least. The famous quotation: “the rabble ‘vomit their bile and call it a newspaper’” and that readers are “a complacent, prejudiced and unthinking mass” shows him looking down on the masses and those who provide for the masses. Carey sees the principles of new journalism as “ ‘giving the public what it wants’ but most of the book is arguing over whether the public deserves to get what it wants. If we assume that the masses are in fact human beings, then what is so wrong with giving them what they want? The quote from Intellectuals and the Masses “Sherlock Holmes’ adoption of the newspaper as an ally, when contrasted with the intellectuals’ horror of newsprint, makes a fault line along which English culture was dividing” just goes to show that there really is no way to please both camps, a theme that often comes up in discussion of modern day journalism, such as, how much privacy should celebrities have, given that they have chosen to live their lives in the public eye? Are they public property? F.R. Leavis said that “the mass media have brought about ‘an overthrow of standards’ ” which can be clearly seen in the modern landscape where journalism has changed immensely since its birth.
In the latter part of the book, George Gissing, H.G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, and Wyndham Lewis are all examined as case studies to show the bad practice of separating the intellectuals from the public and ‘high’ culture from ‘low’ culture. However, many of the concerns that Carey has with these writers are a simple as their personal preferences and their own social distance from the ‘real world’. This intellectual hierarchy, while terrible, does not really effect everyday life.
Chapter 1 explores how the ‘masses’ are perceived and treated by the intellectuals, and their rejection on the grounds that they let down the idea of the individual, however it is the term “mass” which took away individuality - a term ascribed to them by intellectuals- and the mass is in fact made up of many individuals. The intellectuals are shown to look down on ordinary people, for example they are referred to as “vulgar, trivial working millions”. I would argue that it has to be remembered that it is the individuals doing their nine-to-five, un-rewarding jobs who keep the country running. The work of intellectuals is no more important than analyzing what other people do. (On the other hand it could be said that this improves society overall as we can learn from our mistakes, although who actually reads the works of intellectuals in their spare time?) As Carey said, intellectuals are “functionless and ignored” and we are quickly “dispensing with the need for novelists” to re-hash all these philosophical ideas about the world. Therefore, all of this is completely pointless.
John Carey, while celebrated as a literary critic, says “I write to stimulate and involve the reader”, something which this book definitely achieves, whether you want it to or not. Many of the issues covered are so universal that no-one can come away without some kind of opinion. For example, the idea of two sides pitted against each other; the intellectuals and the masses, is intriguing because you are either one or the other. Carey sees himself as part of the masses and is opposed to the effort of the intellectuals to take knowledge from the masses; “The idea that there are absolute, eternal values in art and literature, to which experts have access, is not one that I find convincing”. As Robert Sandall of the Sunday Times states, Carey “questions the origins of our strong and often unexamined ideas about cultural hierarchies and anybody who manages to do that with such wit and humanity deserves to be heard”. However, my final point is that i don’t believe that people who publish intellectual books are actually heard, or at least not by many and not necessarily in the way that they would like. The only people that will read it are intellectuals, and we all know that they aren’t going to pass the knowledge and insight on to the masses. Therefore, it is a waste of time, energy and paper.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Lecture 4: Totalitarianism and Hannah Arendt
This week’s lecture was not, as I expected, about fascism and scientific racism, but instead it was about phenomology in relation to totalitarianism and the Holocaust. Although I suppose it was quite fitting to remember the atrocities of the holocaust and those that have fought for democracy/freedom on November 11th.
To start, a definition of phenomology:
An objective analysis of subjective phenomena that can only be known at that moment in time. In plain English this means, before we can think about a set of ideas about, for example, philosophy, we have to think about what philosophy is and why it is a thing. There are also the basic questions; ‘why is there something rather than nothing’, ‘why am I here’, ‘why am I me and not you’? It is a technical philosophy on thinking in the modernist school of phenomology, supported by the work of Jasper and Hediegger as well as Hannah Arendt. Heidegger was married to Arendt and was a Nazi. He wrote ‘Being and Time’ which would have been much more powerful had he not been a Nazi. His aim was to get rid of the enlightenment by asking why things are as they are, for everything. Phenomology also has a connection to Hegel, however the events of the early 20th Century discredited the phenomology movement.
Hannah Arendt; a mid 20th Century academic, writer and philosopher associated with the communist movement and writing in the wake of the holocaust which was a huge shock and setback for the communist movement.
The history behind Hannah Arendt’s ideas:
The Final Solution, for the Nazis, was to use sophisticated systems to murder over 6 million people over the course of just 2 and a half years. If they hadn’t been stopped, they would have aimed to kill every ‘inferior race’ world-wide. There were 4 main stages in the systematic genocide; 1) lock them in a building and set it on fire so that they burnt to death. 2) deport them, firstly to Madagascar, then Uganda, then Siberia (to go in with Stalin’s unwanted peasants), then to holding camps and ghettos. 3) to shoot them in the street (however bullets were valuable and they quickly ran out so more efficient methods were needed). 4) Either work them to death in labour camps or if they weren’t dying quick enough, round them up into gas chambers.
The whole system worked as a commercial exploitation of ‘sub-human’ races such as the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals…. This went so far as using the hair that was shaved from their heads in the production of fabric, the gold from their teeth as currency and the calcium from their bones. Films such as ‘Shoah’ (1973) show that people in Germany knew. Ordinary people were part of these atrocities, whether it be by organising the trains for transportation of the people to camps, or making tea for the people that organised the trains, even just by not standing up to this genocide, people were compliant and therefore involved in the atrocities. For instance; the Channel Islands were 100% co-operative, showing no resistance whatsoever, does this mean that they are partly to blame?
Hannah Arendt argues that the holocaust is the fault of everyone involved, that it was normal and that Hitler must not be used as a scapegoat simply because he was the ‘ hypnotist’ leadership figure who is now dead and therefore easy to blame. She said that there is no superhero, no scapegoat, for something that they were all complicit in. By doing their jobs, people were involved and therefore partly to blame.
This is linked to her belief in the ‘banality of evil’; it starts with discrimination because they are different, then it becomes them being a problem, then you have to do something about the problem, then you have to be more efficient in solving the problem. It is similar to the phrase ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. Even by meaning well you may, in fact, be doing harm. This can be clearly seen in the development of the genocide to the Final Solution. Hannah Arendt argued that compared to Fascists, Communists are liberal in an enlightened sense; instead of prison they try to reform criminals; by sending Kulaks to Siberia, Stalin intended to reform them so that they could eventually return to society.
The actual events which emerged in Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ in 1956 suggest that this was not the case. It revealed the crimes of Joseph Stalin, meaning that the world no longer saw him as a ‘nice’ dictator. The mass genocide of the Kulaks amongst other peasant or farmer minorities was revealed. They were either shot on the spot or deported to death camps in Siberia. They were welcomed to leave if they did not like it in the prison, but all that faced them outside was thousands of miles of snow and ice, with the occasional tree, so their choice was death or death. Again, it was a case of economic gains from keeping them for labour. Thousands of Kulaks died in a 5 year battle to dig the White Sea Canal with their bare hands, faced with machine guns if they stopped. The speech also revealed that Stalin had gone insane by the outbreak of war with Germany; just a couple of weeks before the Germans invaded, he ordered a meeting of his commanding officers where, in a paranoid rage, he shot them all. It also came out that the Russian economy was dependent on slave labour; they became addicted to it and when they ran out of Kulaks to deport and use for labour they would arrest and frame innocent people whose jail time would be spent in a labour camp. All of this caused an outcry and came as a shock to the communist movement whose moral force lost integrity and it led to a re-evaluation of Marxism.
In the 1960s this re-evaluation could be seen in the New Left which Hannah Arendt was a part of. They were trying to come to terms with ‘the God that failed’ and the atrocities carried out under communist rule that had come to light. This new group’s leader was Ralph Milliband who set up the Institute for Workers Control. The group was mainly made up of Trotskyites who said that Stalin was not communist enough and did not stick to Communist ideals which is why his dictatorship went wrong.
The 1930s and 1940s showed communist heroics and led to a worship of Stalin, which was later blown apart by Khrushchev’s revelations, for instance the Battle of Stalingrad showed communism beating fascism.
The 1950s saw leftist heroism with Sartre and Camus being very influential. The French Revolution and emergence of existentialism meant that people finally confronted the reality of collaboration; the reality that it was not all Hitler, but also the people that carried out his orders. This period also saw the Cold War and much Anti-Communism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The 1960s saw the New Left take off, for example in America with the sexual politics of the women’s liberation, gay liberation, black liberation, disability rights and ‘PC’ language, (although this owed more to Nietzschean individualism than to socialism). The ‘60s also saw the Liberal Elite who were detached and avante garde, regarding individuality as having no connection to the organised working class. This was seen as a phenomenon of the Western world. Maoist type communist also evolved into something strange and violent, further smudging the name of Communism, with atrocities in countries such as Nepal, Cambodia, Peru and Zimbabwe.
Hannah Arendt’s Ideas:
Arendt said that World War 2 was too horrific to talk about, bringing in Freudian ideas of repression and coping mechanisms such as scape-goating. She said that this was because, deep down, they all knew that everyone was complicit. She argued that people need to think for themselves and never submit irrationally to authority; if it goes against your morals to do something, don’t do it just because you are told. Don’t just follow the herd; THINK.
Another of her ideas was the ‘banality of evil’ which came from the trial of Eichmann, the man known as the architect of the holocaust, who stood there as a normal man, not a raving lunatic, and said he was just doing his job. He wrongly argued that Kantean philosophy taught him to obey the boss no matter what, to always please and do his duty. Arendt argued that ‘collaboration is death’ meaning that by collaborating, he murdered. This links to Neo-Kantianism and its ideas about the moral law and the categorical imperative.
She emphasises that we must THINK rather than simply obeying. She said ‘no thinking person could have done what Eichmann did’, which is true. But the question is, when do we draw the line between the moral good for humanity and the good of ourselves? After all, we live in a world where it is survival of the fittest.
To start, a definition of phenomology:
An objective analysis of subjective phenomena that can only be known at that moment in time. In plain English this means, before we can think about a set of ideas about, for example, philosophy, we have to think about what philosophy is and why it is a thing. There are also the basic questions; ‘why is there something rather than nothing’, ‘why am I here’, ‘why am I me and not you’? It is a technical philosophy on thinking in the modernist school of phenomology, supported by the work of Jasper and Hediegger as well as Hannah Arendt. Heidegger was married to Arendt and was a Nazi. He wrote ‘Being and Time’ which would have been much more powerful had he not been a Nazi. His aim was to get rid of the enlightenment by asking why things are as they are, for everything. Phenomology also has a connection to Hegel, however the events of the early 20th Century discredited the phenomology movement.
Hannah Arendt; a mid 20th Century academic, writer and philosopher associated with the communist movement and writing in the wake of the holocaust which was a huge shock and setback for the communist movement.
The history behind Hannah Arendt’s ideas:
The Final Solution, for the Nazis, was to use sophisticated systems to murder over 6 million people over the course of just 2 and a half years. If they hadn’t been stopped, they would have aimed to kill every ‘inferior race’ world-wide. There were 4 main stages in the systematic genocide; 1) lock them in a building and set it on fire so that they burnt to death. 2) deport them, firstly to Madagascar, then Uganda, then Siberia (to go in with Stalin’s unwanted peasants), then to holding camps and ghettos. 3) to shoot them in the street (however bullets were valuable and they quickly ran out so more efficient methods were needed). 4) Either work them to death in labour camps or if they weren’t dying quick enough, round them up into gas chambers.
The whole system worked as a commercial exploitation of ‘sub-human’ races such as the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals…. This went so far as using the hair that was shaved from their heads in the production of fabric, the gold from their teeth as currency and the calcium from their bones. Films such as ‘Shoah’ (1973) show that people in Germany knew. Ordinary people were part of these atrocities, whether it be by organising the trains for transportation of the people to camps, or making tea for the people that organised the trains, even just by not standing up to this genocide, people were compliant and therefore involved in the atrocities. For instance; the Channel Islands were 100% co-operative, showing no resistance whatsoever, does this mean that they are partly to blame?
Hannah Arendt argues that the holocaust is the fault of everyone involved, that it was normal and that Hitler must not be used as a scapegoat simply because he was the ‘ hypnotist’ leadership figure who is now dead and therefore easy to blame. She said that there is no superhero, no scapegoat, for something that they were all complicit in. By doing their jobs, people were involved and therefore partly to blame.
This is linked to her belief in the ‘banality of evil’; it starts with discrimination because they are different, then it becomes them being a problem, then you have to do something about the problem, then you have to be more efficient in solving the problem. It is similar to the phrase ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. Even by meaning well you may, in fact, be doing harm. This can be clearly seen in the development of the genocide to the Final Solution. Hannah Arendt argued that compared to Fascists, Communists are liberal in an enlightened sense; instead of prison they try to reform criminals; by sending Kulaks to Siberia, Stalin intended to reform them so that they could eventually return to society.
The actual events which emerged in Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ in 1956 suggest that this was not the case. It revealed the crimes of Joseph Stalin, meaning that the world no longer saw him as a ‘nice’ dictator. The mass genocide of the Kulaks amongst other peasant or farmer minorities was revealed. They were either shot on the spot or deported to death camps in Siberia. They were welcomed to leave if they did not like it in the prison, but all that faced them outside was thousands of miles of snow and ice, with the occasional tree, so their choice was death or death. Again, it was a case of economic gains from keeping them for labour. Thousands of Kulaks died in a 5 year battle to dig the White Sea Canal with their bare hands, faced with machine guns if they stopped. The speech also revealed that Stalin had gone insane by the outbreak of war with Germany; just a couple of weeks before the Germans invaded, he ordered a meeting of his commanding officers where, in a paranoid rage, he shot them all. It also came out that the Russian economy was dependent on slave labour; they became addicted to it and when they ran out of Kulaks to deport and use for labour they would arrest and frame innocent people whose jail time would be spent in a labour camp. All of this caused an outcry and came as a shock to the communist movement whose moral force lost integrity and it led to a re-evaluation of Marxism.
In the 1960s this re-evaluation could be seen in the New Left which Hannah Arendt was a part of. They were trying to come to terms with ‘the God that failed’ and the atrocities carried out under communist rule that had come to light. This new group’s leader was Ralph Milliband who set up the Institute for Workers Control. The group was mainly made up of Trotskyites who said that Stalin was not communist enough and did not stick to Communist ideals which is why his dictatorship went wrong.
The 1930s and 1940s showed communist heroics and led to a worship of Stalin, which was later blown apart by Khrushchev’s revelations, for instance the Battle of Stalingrad showed communism beating fascism.
The 1950s saw leftist heroism with Sartre and Camus being very influential. The French Revolution and emergence of existentialism meant that people finally confronted the reality of collaboration; the reality that it was not all Hitler, but also the people that carried out his orders. This period also saw the Cold War and much Anti-Communism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The 1960s saw the New Left take off, for example in America with the sexual politics of the women’s liberation, gay liberation, black liberation, disability rights and ‘PC’ language, (although this owed more to Nietzschean individualism than to socialism). The ‘60s also saw the Liberal Elite who were detached and avante garde, regarding individuality as having no connection to the organised working class. This was seen as a phenomenon of the Western world. Maoist type communist also evolved into something strange and violent, further smudging the name of Communism, with atrocities in countries such as Nepal, Cambodia, Peru and Zimbabwe.
Hannah Arendt’s Ideas:
Arendt said that World War 2 was too horrific to talk about, bringing in Freudian ideas of repression and coping mechanisms such as scape-goating. She said that this was because, deep down, they all knew that everyone was complicit. She argued that people need to think for themselves and never submit irrationally to authority; if it goes against your morals to do something, don’t do it just because you are told. Don’t just follow the herd; THINK.
Another of her ideas was the ‘banality of evil’ which came from the trial of Eichmann, the man known as the architect of the holocaust, who stood there as a normal man, not a raving lunatic, and said he was just doing his job. He wrongly argued that Kantean philosophy taught him to obey the boss no matter what, to always please and do his duty. Arendt argued that ‘collaboration is death’ meaning that by collaborating, he murdered. This links to Neo-Kantianism and its ideas about the moral law and the categorical imperative.
She emphasises that we must THINK rather than simply obeying. She said ‘no thinking person could have done what Eichmann did’, which is true. But the question is, when do we draw the line between the moral good for humanity and the good of ourselves? After all, we live in a world where it is survival of the fittest.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Seminar 3: James Joyce's Ulysses
In discussing Ulysses, Chapter 15 (Circe) in particular, we came up these main points:
James Joyce uses lots of description and imagery as well as a stream of consciousness approach to depict the everyday life of Leonard Bloom
the novel is often dream-like and jumps between the real world and Bloom’s thoughts a lot, which we all found very confusing. Often it is hallucinations that are being described, but this is not obvious because of the Modernist style that it has been written in.
The whole book is about what happened in one day of Leonard’s life in Ireland.
There are a lot of different languages, such as English, Irish and Greek, mixed in together and lots of Irish idioms which make the book even more difficult to follow.
Joyce also liked to play with words a lot.
Many parts of it pick up on Freudian ideas of the unconscious, the Id the Ego and the Superego as well as defense mechanisms and the importance of both mother and father figures in a person’s mental state.
The root of Leonard’s problems is suggested to be the lack of sex in his marriage.
It depicts a normal person on a normal day, which is partly what makes it difficult to understand because we all think in different patters, but which also can be applied to everyone. This is very much in keeping with modernist work at the time in thinking about how the human mind works.
It has been suggested that Stephen is trying to find a paternal role model in his life and that his issues stem from his lack of a father figure, reflecting Freud’s emphasis on parent-child relationships.
In one part, Bloom is shown to have 8 babies, which are all perfect, with clothes and positions of high authority in society from birth, which can be seen as reflecting the ideals in life at the time and the expectations the different parts of society. It could also be interpreted as Bloom striving for perfection. This few paragraphs is a good example of how Joyce blurred lines, in this case between the midwife delivering his babies and the suggestion of a sexual encounter.
Leonard often tries to behave like a normal member of the public, for example in the way that he acts with the prostitutes (pretending to be setting up a hostel for them as an excuse to be there?). This can be seen as showing his ego at work, and social expectations as well because he doesn’t want people to know that he has been there. This is reflective of the ideas of public and private lives that are picked up in much other literature such as Howard’s End by E.M. Forster and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by R.L. Stevenson.
Throughout the book, the Roman Catholic Church is attacked. Especially in the delusion in which Leonard is celebrated and inaugurated in which the pomp and ceremony is described with a mocking hyperbole. Also, accusations are hurled at priests at one point.
At many points Joyce mixes between talking about Jews and Roman Catholics, which can be quite confusing.
There is also much criticism of Ireland itself and it must be remembered that when Joyce was writing Ulysses, he had not been living in Ireland for 20 or so years and so was quite detached. Ireland is portrayed as seedy and many of the court hallucinations show it to be corrupt and fickle. It is not an overly positive view, therefore, and only really shows a snapshot; we only see what Leonard sees.
Finally, we concluded that Ulysses set the style for other Modernist literature and tackles many issues which makes it a “classic” and a very important book.
James Joyce uses lots of description and imagery as well as a stream of consciousness approach to depict the everyday life of Leonard Bloom
the novel is often dream-like and jumps between the real world and Bloom’s thoughts a lot, which we all found very confusing. Often it is hallucinations that are being described, but this is not obvious because of the Modernist style that it has been written in.
The whole book is about what happened in one day of Leonard’s life in Ireland.
There are a lot of different languages, such as English, Irish and Greek, mixed in together and lots of Irish idioms which make the book even more difficult to follow.
Joyce also liked to play with words a lot.
Many parts of it pick up on Freudian ideas of the unconscious, the Id the Ego and the Superego as well as defense mechanisms and the importance of both mother and father figures in a person’s mental state.
The root of Leonard’s problems is suggested to be the lack of sex in his marriage.
It depicts a normal person on a normal day, which is partly what makes it difficult to understand because we all think in different patters, but which also can be applied to everyone. This is very much in keeping with modernist work at the time in thinking about how the human mind works.
It has been suggested that Stephen is trying to find a paternal role model in his life and that his issues stem from his lack of a father figure, reflecting Freud’s emphasis on parent-child relationships.
In one part, Bloom is shown to have 8 babies, which are all perfect, with clothes and positions of high authority in society from birth, which can be seen as reflecting the ideals in life at the time and the expectations the different parts of society. It could also be interpreted as Bloom striving for perfection. This few paragraphs is a good example of how Joyce blurred lines, in this case between the midwife delivering his babies and the suggestion of a sexual encounter.
Leonard often tries to behave like a normal member of the public, for example in the way that he acts with the prostitutes (pretending to be setting up a hostel for them as an excuse to be there?). This can be seen as showing his ego at work, and social expectations as well because he doesn’t want people to know that he has been there. This is reflective of the ideas of public and private lives that are picked up in much other literature such as Howard’s End by E.M. Forster and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by R.L. Stevenson.
Throughout the book, the Roman Catholic Church is attacked. Especially in the delusion in which Leonard is celebrated and inaugurated in which the pomp and ceremony is described with a mocking hyperbole. Also, accusations are hurled at priests at one point.
At many points Joyce mixes between talking about Jews and Roman Catholics, which can be quite confusing.
There is also much criticism of Ireland itself and it must be remembered that when Joyce was writing Ulysses, he had not been living in Ireland for 20 or so years and so was quite detached. Ireland is portrayed as seedy and many of the court hallucinations show it to be corrupt and fickle. It is not an overly positive view, therefore, and only really shows a snapshot; we only see what Leonard sees.
Finally, we concluded that Ulysses set the style for other Modernist literature and tackles many issues which makes it a “classic” and a very important book.
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