Walter Benjamin "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Assignment

Compare Benjamin and Jünger's views on photography. Why does Jünger refer to the camera as the "evil eye". How does Benjamin's views compare?       

            The view points of Junger and Benjamin are similar and different in others. In the terms of photography they are amazed at what can be caught in a camera. However the back ground on each author makes them somewhat apart. For example Junger mainly takes about photography via looking at pain, and Benjamin look at photography as a new technology and methods that the technology can be used.

            I think junger refers to the camera as a “evil eye” because his background. As I mentioned before that junger wrote about pain because he was in pain and saw how the new technology killed a lot more people more quickly and brutally. This is why junger refers to the camera as an “evil eye” however Benjamin’s view are different. I feel as if Benjamin feel that the camera is a more advantages was, but does not mean as much as picture did in the old days. He also see’s technology as a good things.        

           

Final

1)      B Friedrich Nietzsche

2)      D All of the above

3)      B The Reichstag fire

4)      C Max Weber

5)      C The leader of a slave revolt against the Romans

6)      A The voting of war credits by the Social Democratic Party in 1914

7)      C Ernst Jünger

8)      B Rosa Luxemburg

9)      A Rath

10)  B Francis is a patient at a mental institution

11)  A Walter Benjamin

12)  A Walter Benjamin

13)  B 1924-1929

14)  A Herman Hesse

15)  D KPD

16)  C November 11^th, 1918

17)  D On the Genealogy of Morality

18)  C A nonsense word with no meaning

19)  D  Ernst Jünger

20)  B doctor

21)  B Munich

22)  C To increase the power of soldier’s and worker’s councils over military bases and factories

23)  A Max Weber

24)  D All of the above

25)  C air planes

26)  D Walter Benjamin

Final

Max Weber: Politics as a Vocation

Quote

“Above all, the Catholic Center party was enthusiastically for this draft. In Badenia, the party, as part of the party platform, made the distribution of offices proportional to confessions and hence without regard to achievement. This tendency becomes stronger for all parties when the number of offices increase as a result of general bureaucratization and when the demand for offices increases because they represent specifically secure livelihoods. For their followings, the parties become more and more a means to the end of being provided for in this manner.”

Meaning

This passage is talking about bureaucratization. What he is trying to say is that the specialization of a particular task within a government system is bureaucrat. For example as time goes on the world get more developed and new cabinets are formed to take care of the growing problem. One example of this In the united states is the creation of FIMA, Before hurricane Katrina there was no FIMA. After the hurricane and the effects of the ill prepared gulf created FIMA so the federal government can take care of the problem in a more specialized way.

I picked this quote because I think that speciation can be look at increase in technology because a new system is in place and this time of technology also relate to Junger’s thought regarding technology and how it can protect the human’s to resist pain.              

Quiz 2

1.       Which critical event happened in January 1919 in Germany?

D. All of the above

2.  What article in the Weimar constitution gave the legal pretext to suspend liberty?

A. Article 48

3. Which political party was the most dominant after the German Revolution in 1918-1919?

C. Social Democratic Party (SPD)

4. What does Volk mean?

C. People

5. What are the three forms of domination (authority) that Weber Speaks of and describe what they are?’

A. Traditional Domination- rule by traditional elite: kings, feudalism, and sultanism

B. Charismatic Domination- rule by ‘gift of grace’ or heroic attributes: prophets and demagogues

C. Rational-Legal Domination- rule by legal statues and administrative procedure.

6. Weber Defines the State as …

D. an organization that monopolizes the use of force in a territory

7. What year did Hitler assume power in Germany?

C. 1933

Nazism

Nazism

Assignment 10

Assignment: Choose either a passage from this blog and write out the way in which we have done all the assignment 1) Quote; 2) Interpretation; 3) why you chose the quote. Or choose a scene from the movie, describe it, interpret it, and explain why you chose this scene.

Quote

“Although both companies claim they lost control of operations during the Nazi regime both companies still retained legal control throughout the Nazi era and benefited from the profits of these companies during and after the war without ever being asked to pay anything in reparations, the U.S government actually paid them after the war to repair damages to their facilities.”

Interpretation

                The Quote is basically saying that during world war two, Ford and General Motor owned production plants in Germany. These production plants produced trucks and other products for the Nazi regime. Ford and General Motors insisted that they lost control over the plants, but they did profit from the products that were produced. Having made profit at an unjust cost they did not make any payments to the countries that were at war with Germany. And the quote ends by saying that after the war the company got money to rebuild their companies from the government.     

why you chose the quote

                I want to start with saying that I had no idea that General Motor and Ford benefited from the war. Never have I ever heard anyone mentioned such a thing. Most of the time when we hear discussion about world war two we always here the fact that so many Jews died, and the fact that it was a “world war” (meaning spread out to so many continent, America, Asia, Europe and Africa), however I never heard any one mentioned that Ford and General Motor companies benefited. Not to say that the killing of a race should not be discussed about, but we should know the whole story of what happened not just one aspect. After reading this it make me think that if they benefited from the war then there had to be other companies that benefited from the war. This also makes me think and wonder who is making money from the wars that are going on right now. I don’t know, but I hope General motors and Ford made a lot of donations to people that were affected by the war. The things that makes me really mad is that first they say they lost control, but they still take all the profit and not pay any reparations and  then they get money from uncle Sam. That is ridicules because if you think about it those trucks that were produced transported material and war products to the Germany army and in turn those war material were used to kill US troops and then you hear that a US company took the profits its out of my scope to understand how they were allowed to do that.    

Assignment 8 The Weimer Republic

Assignment: I am providing a link to the actual text of the Weimar Constitution. Please choose TWO sections, one from the first part on the structure of government, and a second from the section on rights. Please write out the passages, interpret the meaning of them and explain why you chose these passages.

Article 48If a state (8) does not fulfil the obligations laid upon it by the Reich constitution or the Reich laws, the Reich President may use armed force to cause it to oblige.
In case public safety is seriously threatened or disturbed, the Reich President may take the measures necessary to reestablish law and order, if necessary using armed force. In the pursuit of this aim he may suspend the civil rights described in articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 154, partially or entirely.
The Reich President has to inform Reichstag immediately about all measures undertaken which are based on paragraphs 1 and 2 of this article. The measures have to be suspended immediately if Reichstag demands so.
If danger is imminent, the state government may, for their specific territory, implement steps as described in paragraph 2. These steps have to be suspended if so demanded by the Reich President or the Reichstag. Further details are provided by Reich law.
Article 51 (9)In case the Reich President is unavailable, he is briefly substituted by the Reich Chancellor. Is it a presumably longer lasting situation, his substitution has to be regulated by a Reich law.
The same applies in case a presidency ends prematurely, until the next election is held
Article 114The rights of the individual are inviolable. Limitation or deprivation of individual liberty is admissible only if based on laws.
Persons deprived of their liberty have to be notified, at the next day on the latest, by which authority and based on which reasons the deprivation of their liberty has been ordered; immediately they have to be given the opportunity to protest against the deprivation of liberty.

            Throughout my life I have always heard over and over again of the fact that there was World War 2, but I was never fully informed of the ground work and the environment that made world war possible, In other words brought Hitler to power. But after reading the essay by Rose Luxemburg “The Junius Pamphlet” and The Weimer Republic Constitution I can understand exactly how it was possible for Hitler to come to power.

            The Constitution itself as a whole was a well designed and compressive Constitution as stated by the professor. There a lot of similarities between the US Constitution and the Weimer Republic Constitution. For example, the government is divided in to Federal (Reich) and State (States) government and their relationship to the courts are similar. The senate (Reichstag), the President (Reich President) and the House of Representative (Reichsrat) are set up very similar way in both Constitutions.

            So the three passages that I chose are Article 48, 51, 114. Article 48 is the most interesting Article from the constitution because It allows the president to peaty much throw the construction in the trash in time where if feel that the state is not following the law and at time when it feel its citizens are in danger. And when those situations are president all the rights of citizens are lost and as the teacher explained the country is in a “state of Emergency” and the president could do whatever it wants. Now going on to Article 51, this is basically stating that in case the president is not able or not there to attend to his office the next person in line to take the role of president is the Chancellor. The last Article as I mention is Article 114. This and some other article after this article are basically giving rights and then saying, you have that right until the federal government take if away in certain situations.

            The reason I chose these articles are because they are the loop holes that Hitler used to come in to power and do what he was able to do. He came to power because the president at that time Died and Hitler was the chancellor and he end up becoming the president. Going back to the main theme of the class Nihilism, we can relate the fact that the currents party of that time did not do anything to use its power as stated in the Constitution to over throw the government by a 2/3 of a vote to replace the Chancellor.

            So I want to end by saying that, I guess it does not matter how good of a constitution you construct, if there are people elected that are bad, they will twist the constitution is a bad way and used it for the wrong reasons.     

Assignment 7 The German Revolution of 1918-1919

Assignment 7 The German Revolution of 1918-1919

“The world war today is demonstrably not only murder on a grand scale; it is also suicide of the working classes of Europe. The soldiers of socialism, the proletarians of England, France, Germany, Russia, and Belgium have for months been killing one another at the behest of capital”

            The passage above means that the World War (the first one) is only destroying the “Proletarians” (or the working class). It does not matter who win or loses the war, the real losers are the working class. The author Rosa Luxemburg goes on to explain that it is just the not proletarian of Germany that are losing, but all the Proletarian form all the countries are losing and the winner of the war are the bourgeoisie (the rich class or the class with power). The author blames that money, capital and imperialist values for the bourgeoisies are what the World War came to be, and the defense of the people of the each country as they expressed.

                The reason that I choose this passage is because this states the main point of the author. The author starts of with blaming the SPD (Social Democratic Party) for the reason Germany was able to engage in the world war. Then the author explains how the SPD had betrayed the working class, because they were supposed to be standing representing the working class. But instead they kept the working class in the dark, by not telling the real situation and voting for the war credit and persuaded the working class that they are being attacked and they must defend their father land.

                One thing that surprised me was that Marx had prophesized about the world War and event with that prophesize the working class was not able to doge the bullet. Another thing that surprise is that in essence they all knew that there would be a world war because they had been building their armies and navy and they the (both sides) did not do anything major to stop the war or restrict the built up of the armies and navy, so that there would not be such a loose of human life.