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Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

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Page 1: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Dr Liza DasAssociate Professor

Department of Humanities and Social SciencesIndian Institute of Technology Guwahati

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 2: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Definition

“The domain of Cultural Studies covers the social processes involved in the production, transmission and reception of symbolic or cultural forms.”

The Polity Reader In Cultural Theory

Page 3: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Cultural Studies, inasmuch as it focuses on symbolic forms and signifying practices, is distinguished from what is called the study of culture.

Page 4: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

“Why is Agatha Christie not studied in English departments when most people read Christie rather than Thomas Hardy?”

“Who decides that Shakespeare can / must be read but not Christie?”

Pramod K. Nayar, An Introduction to Cultural Studies

Page 5: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (est. 1964)

The University of Birmingham

Richard Hoggart

Stuart Hall

Page 6: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• Cultural Studies has a commitment to an ethical evaluation of modern society and to a radical line of political action.

• It has the objective of understanding culture in

all its complex forms and of analysing the social and political contexts in which culture manifests itself.

Page 7: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Culture

Have you ever asked yourselves: Why do we live the kind of life that we live?

In Cultural Studies this question is framed as “How are we produced as subjects?”

What is culture? Why should we investigate culture? Can it be studied systematically? If yes, what are the tools with which we may

approach such a vast subject?

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 8: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

 

Here we study the life that we live -- and the reasons thereof -- through a variety of lenses, and all the various lenses may not agree with each other.

Such is the difficulty of studying the lives that we live, our beliefs, our choices and our loves and our despairs.

 

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 9: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Stuart Hall

By culture I mean the actual grounded terrain of practices, representations, languages and customs of any specific society.

I also mean the contradictory forms of common sense which have taken root in and helped to shape popular life

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 10: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

E. Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1871

Page 11: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Culture is the webs of significance* spun by man that he is suspended in.

C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973

* or of meaning and value

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 12: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

In how many different ways can you study yourself as a cultural being?

Interdisciplinary scope:

Philosophy: How do we understand reality? Kant: Noumenon and phenomenon. How do we attribute meaning to our existence through our value and belief systems?

Language: How does language construct our perception of reality?

Economics: How does wealth and distribution determine our lives?

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 13: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Sociology: Why do we have the social systems and arrangements that we do?

Psychology: Why do we think in certain ways? What does it mean to be a cognitive agent?

Science and Technology: How does technology affect our way of life?

Literature, media: Why are the media and literature so powerful as cultural products?

History: How has culture evolved and change thorough different times?

Page 14: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Areas:

1. Science: Human Evolution and the beginnings of culture

2. Psychology: Theory of Memetics

3. Political Economy: Marxism

4. Modernism and Postmodernism

5. Technology: Posthuman culture

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Page 15: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Key concepts and guiding statements of the course:

1.Culture is not a given. It is constructed and hence can be studied systematically.

2. Culture is not absolute or static but changing and dynamic.

3. There are reasons and forces (eg. political economy) behind cultural changes.

4. Power is the chief arbiter of the kind of lives we lead.

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 16: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Theory: considerations

How do we theorise culture? Theory is an intellectual activity in which people interpret, critique and draw generalisations about how and why the social world spins the economic, cultural, political and institutional webs.

Theory has the ability to make sense of all levels of our everyday lives.

Cultural practices are always underlined by theoretical assumptions and perspectives. The theory constructed is not merely a system but an instrument for change.

Practice: Not theory vs practice; theory as practice.

Epistemology: Theory of knowledge, its origins, sources, assumptions and limits.

How do we have knowledge and what are its means? Problematisation of knowledge

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Page 17: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

THEORY

• A general idea that explains a large set of factual patterns.

• A comprehensive explanation of a given set of data that has been repeatedly confirmed by observation and experimentation and has gained general acceptance within the academic community.

• A statement or set of statements used to explain a phenomenon. A theory is generally accepted as valid due to having survived repeated testing.

• A scientific theory is an established and experimentally verified fact or collection of facts about the world. Unlike the everyday use of the word theory, it is not an unproved idea, or just some theoretical speculation. The latter meaning of a 'theory' in science is called a hypothesis.

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Page 18: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

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•Several related propositions that explain some domain of inquiry. Also called a school or paradigm.

•A statement or set of statements designed to explain a phenomenon or class of phenomena. For example, Social Learning Theory describes how human behavior is a product of environmental, social and personal factors.

•An organized set of ideas that serves as a framework for interpreting facts and findings and a guide for research.

Page 19: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Theory and PracticeCultural Studies is a body of theory generated

by thinkers who regard the production of theoretical knowledge as a political practice.

Knowledge is never a neutral or objective phenomenon but a matter of positionality, of the place from which one speaks, to whom, and for what purposes.

E.g., an anti-casteism theorist builds her discourse with a view to bringing about change in caste consciousness and actual caste practices.

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Page 20: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Cultural Universals

 Communicating with a verbal language

consisting of a limited set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences

Using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior citizen, woman, man)

Classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships and having kinship terms to refer to them (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin)

Raising children in some sort of family setting

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Page 21: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

 

• Having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work versus women's work)

• Having a concept of privacy • Having rules to regulate sexual behavior •Distinguishing between good and bad behavior   QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 22: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• Having some sort of body ornamentation • Making jokes and playing games • Having art

• Having some sort of leadership roles for the implementation of community decisions   

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Page 23: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 24: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 25: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

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Page 26: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

KEY FEATURES OF DARWIN’S THEORYVariation: There is Variation in Every Population.

Competition: Organisms Compete for limited resources.

Offspring: Organisms produce more Offspring than can

survive.

Genetics: Organisms pass Genetic traits on to their

offspring.

Natural Selection: Those organisms with the Most Beneficial

Traits are more likely to Survive and Reproduce.

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Page 27: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

VARIATION

Darwin suggests that the

source of variation is in

"reproductive elements prior

to conception“

Variation is random and

heritable.

Variation in domestic

varieties is different than in

wild populations. QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 28: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

COMPETITION

• The lack of resources to nourish the reproduced individuals places pressure on the size of the species population, and this means increased competition and as a consequence, some organisms do not survive.

• The organisms who die as a consequence of this competition are not totally random, Darwin found that those organisms more suited to their environment were more likely to survive.

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Page 29: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

OFFSPRING• One of the prime motives for all species is to reproduce and survive, passing on the genetic information of the species from generation to generation.

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Page 30: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• Differential reproduction- If an organism lives half as long as others of its species, but has twice as many offspring survive upto adulthood, its genes will become more common in the adult population of the next generation.

• If the variations are inherited, then differential reproductive success will lead to a progressive evolution of particular populations of a species, and populations that evolve to be sufficiently different might eventually become different species.

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Page 31: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

GENETICS

• Genetics is the study of the function and behavior of genes.

• Offspring receive a mixture of genetic information from both parents. This process contributes to the great variation of traits

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Page 32: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

DARWIN'S HYPOHTESIS

”…principle by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved”

• If the variations are inherited, then differential reproductive success will lead to a progressive evolution of particular populations of a species, and populations that evolve to be sufficiently different might eventually become different species

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Page 33: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

DARWIN'S THEORY

Darwin came to understand that any population consists of individuals that are all slightly different from one another, those individuals having a variation that gives them an advantage in staying alive long enough to successfully reproduce are the ones that pass on their traits more frequently to the next generation.

Subsequently, their traits become more common and the population evolves.

Darwin called this “descent with modification”.

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Page 34: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

TELL-TALE SIGNS OF EVOLUTION

Our emotional behavior follows the pattern that arealready visible in lower animals.

The curling of lips into a sneer maybe a relic of the snarling action designed to show the teeth to an enemy when the teeth were still used as weapons.

Our lives are still dominated by functions imposedon us as a result of our animal ancestors.

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Page 35: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Our moral sense is a product of interactionbetween social instincts and developing intelligence .

in many ‘primitive’ tribes, the willingness to co-operate with each other is confined to the tribal group-outsiders don’t count as a moral universe.

This is consistent with the view that the social instincts were built up for the benefit of the group.

As the size of our societies have increased wehave inevitably been learn to generalize the moral theoriesdesigned to convince us that respect for others is anabsolute good.

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Page 36: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Adaptation explains why our ancestors had evolved characters that separated them from apes. The apes have remained apes because they have retained their ancestor lifestyle in trees, their forelimbs have thus continued to be adapted for grasping branches. Our own ancestors moved out of the trees, stood upright as means of getting about in open plains.

This in turn freed their hands for exploring the environment and for using sticks and stones as primitive tools. Therefore our intelligence is a byproduct of unique shift in lifestyle by our ancestors. In their new way of life, something called natural selection favored those individuals who walked upright and in turn promoted the increase of intelligence within a population that now had better opportunity to exploit that faculty.

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Page 37: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

TYPES OF SELECTION1.Natural selection 2.Man-made selection3.Sexual selection 

SEXUAL SELECTION Vs NATURAL SELECTION: it depends not on a struggle for existence, but on struggle between males for the possession of females. The result is not death to the unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring. Therefore it is less vigorous then natural selection.  

MAN-MADE SELECTION Vs NATURAL SELECTION: N.S powers on all ages and both sexes. Man can act only on external and visible characters. Nature cares nothing for appearances, except in so far as they may be useful to any being. It can act on every internal organ, on every shade, on whole machinery of life. Man selects only for his own good, nature only for that of the being for which it tends.

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Page 38: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

NATURAL SELECTION

Daily and hourly scrutinising; throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good ; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.

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Page 39: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Natural selection can act only by preservation and accumulation of infinitesimally small inherited modifications, each profitable to preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection, if it be a true principle, banish the belief of continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modifications in their structures.

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Page 40: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY

The purpose of evolutionary psychology is toidentify evolved emotional and cognitiveadaptations that represent "humanpsychological nature.

" Evolutionary Psychology is not a single theorybut a large set of hypotheses" and a term which "has also come to refer to a particular way ofapplying evolutionary theory to the mind, with an emphasis on adaptation, gene-levelselection, and modularity.” - Steven Pinker

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Page 41: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Evolutionary PsychologyEvolutionary psychology borrows particular themes fromevolutionary biology (outlined above), and adds these fundamental assumptions:

Existence of discrete psychological traits: Psychologicalaspects of humans (e.g. "spatial ability", "anxiety levels") arediscrete traits,

Heritability of psychological traits: These traits have a genetic basis, they are inherited, and at some point in theevolutionary past have been components of genetic variation,

Adaptation: These traits have been exposed to selection,and currently represent adaptations to some previousenvironment.

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Page 42: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Principles of evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology is a hybrid discipline that drawsinsights from modern evolutionary theory, biology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, economics, Computer science, and paleoarchaeology.

Premises:

1) Manifest behavior depends on underlying psychological mechanisms, information processing devices housed in

the brain, in conjunction with the external and internal inputs that trigger their activation.

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Page 43: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

1) Evolution by selection is the only known causal process capable of creating such complex organic mechanisms.

2) Evolved psychological mechanisms are functionally specialized to solve adaptive problems that recurred for humans over deep evolutionary time.

3) Selection designed the information processing of many evolved psychological mechanisms to be adaptively influenced by specific classes of information from the environment.

4) Human psychology consists of a large number of functionally specialized evolved mechanisms, each sensitive to particular forms of contextual input, that get combined, coordinated, and integrated with each other to produce manifest behavior.

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Page 44: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Culture and evolutionary psychology

The mind is a system of neuro-cognitive information processing modules designed by natural selection to solve the adaptive problems of our distant ancestors.

The diversity of forms that human cultures take are constrained by innate information processing mechanisms underlying our behavior.QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 45: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Language acquisition modulesIncest avoidance mechanismsCheater detection mechanismsIntelligence and sex-specific mating preferencesForaging mechanismsAlliance-tracking mechanismsAgent detection mechanismsFear and protection mechanisms (survival mechanisms)

These mechanisms are theorized to be the psychological

foundations of culture. In order to fully understand culture

we must understand its biological conditions of possibility.

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Page 46: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

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Page 47: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• There was a rapid increase in size of brain during the various evolutionary stages

• The rapid increase in cerebral volume was concentrated mainly in the association cortex( dealing with complex calculations), hippocampus (dealing with memory) and cerebellum (dealing with posture and balance).

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Page 48: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• Another significant change was a second expansion of the brain and the descent of the larynx in the wind pipe.

• An important event was the evolution of laryngeal nerves which connects the brain to the larynx and allows us to speak. This feature is also found in some reptiles and amphibians but is vestigial in them.

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Page 49: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• One of the main differences between the apes and our ancestors was that the memory of apes was episodic.

•While our ancestors, on the other hand, could retrieve their memories as and when they wanted.

•This meant that our ancestors had access to wide repertoire of memories which allowed them to remember the body representations of various activities and hence in turn allowing them to perfect them and even improvise on them.

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Page 50: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• As the whole body became a tool for communication new social territories began opening up: complex games, extended competition, pedagogy through direct imitation, a more complex repertoire of facial expressions and intentional group displays of aggression, solidarity, joy, fear and sorrow forming the basis of the first hominid cultures.

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Page 51: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• The social, cultural, anatomical changes surrounding the hominids paved the way for lexicon invention.

• The language was an offshoot of the lexicon invention which enabled our ancestors to enable relationship between words and the imposition of metalinguistic skills the govern the uses of these words

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Page 52: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• Language gradually assumed a dominant and an important role the human culture but never eliminating the mimetic skills learned earlier on.

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Page 53: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• This resulted in the well known phrase “survival of the fittest”, where the organisms most suited to their environment had more chance of survival if the species falls upon hard times.

• Those organisms who are better suited to their environment exhibit desirable characteristics, which is a consequence of their genome being more suitable to begin with.

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Page 54: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

ANATOMICAL IMPLICATIONS OF DARWIN’S THEORY

Right Handedness BipedalismQIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 55: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

RIGHT HAND SPECIFICITY IN HIGHER HOMINIDS

Handedness is an attribute of human beings defined by their unequal distribution of fine motor skill between the left and right hands

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Page 56: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

HANDEDNESS

Most humans (say 70 percent to 95 percent) are right-handed, a minority (say 5 percent to 30 percent) are left-handed, This appears to be universally true for all human populations anywhere in the world. There is evidence for genetic influence for handedness although it can be influenced (and changed) by social and cultural mechanisms. - It is not unusual for individual animals to show a preferential use of one hand over the other, to develop an individual hand preference. But there is no consensus among researchers that any non-human species shows the same species-level handedness found in humans.

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Page 57: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

HANDEDNESS

What is the cause of handedness and why the handedness is majorly dominant in humans and Not animals as such…?

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Page 58: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Experiment • US university scientists were able to synthesize a drug that could generate similar dillusional environment that existed in the times when major anatomical transformations were occuring among previous hominids .

•When this drug was administered to apes it was found that those showed greater endurance to that drug that had greater right hand specificity.

• Thus experiment revealed that right handedness gradually grew during the phase of evolution of prehominids into later developed hominids representing this property grew as a result of cultural and anatomical human development which is now visible in existence of species level handedness in humans

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Page 59: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

ORIGIN OF BIPEDALISM

As the successive homonids generations were advancing in cultural and neural fields it demanded more efficient energy management, therefore bipedalism was one the most significant anatomical transformations of the era. QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 60: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• Anthropologists theorized that early humans began walking on two legs as a way to reduce locomotor energy costs.

• To examine this theory among humans and adult chimpanzees, researchers have found that human walking is around 75 percent less costly, in terms of energy and caloric expenditure, than quadrupedal knucklewalking in chimpanzees.

• That energy savings could have provided early hominids with an evolutionary advantage over other apes by reducing the cost of foraging for food. QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 61: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

•The thermoregulatory model (Wheeler Labs) views the increased heat loss, increased cooling, reduced heat gain and reduced water requirements conferred by a bipedal stance in a hot, tropical climate as the selective pressure leading to bipedalism.

• Sleeping on back is possible anatomically only in bipedals and research shows sleeping on back is least expensive way as far as energy is concerned. QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

Page 62: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND

INHERITANCE over the period of evolution,the humans which were once a mere food gatherers and hunters have evolved not only anatomically but also culturally as well as technologically.This vast sea of knowledge which has been accumulated over the period of time is not just a 1 generation process but gradually developed as the fruits of inheritance.

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Page 63: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

INHERITANCE

• This property of passing on valued knowledge as well as skills to the successors called inheritance which has ultimately played important role in the development of human culture as we see today.

• As humans developed anatomically majorly in the neural area, the basic human efforts became more and more thoughtful as the thinking processes had begun

• The era of language development dawned upon and soon man was making long strides in the cultural expansion and knowledge.

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Page 64: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

• Humans started resorting to external memories to better organise the complex structure of their lives which is evident in the large number engravings ,ancient texts, and sculptures. • This era marked not only the acquisition of knowledge but also their preservation which could be rightfully transferrred to next generations which further developed and consolidated them .

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Page 65: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Marxism Karl Marx

1818-1883

Friedrich Engels

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1820-1895

Page 66: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

InfluencesHegel FeuerbachMax StirnerMoses HessLewis Morgan A mere property career is not the final

destiny of mankind ...

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A Basic Question…“Why do we live the kind of life that we

live?”

Marxism is a cultural theory which seeks to give a historical and materialist explanation for the kind of lives we live.

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Metaphors of Understanding Society

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FunctionalismFunctionalism

“Society Is Like”: A Human Body

Characteristics of human body…

Characteristics of society…

Each part of the body works in harmony with all other parts

Each part of society works in harmony with all other parts

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“Society Is Like”: A Play

Characteristics of a play Characteristics of society

A play has actors who play their individual roles

Society consists of individual actors who play a variety of roles

InteractionismInteractionism

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Post-ModernismPost-Modernism“Society Is Like”: A Theme

ParkCharacteristics of theme

parkCharacteristics of

society

A theme park has numerous different rides

Society is characterised by a multiplicity of choices (work, education, leisure, etc.)

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IdealismThis school of thought looks upon nature and

history as a reflection of ideas or spirit. The theory that men and women and every material thing was created by a divine Spirit, is a basic concept of idealism.

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History is explained as a history of thought. People's actions are seen as resulting from

abstract thoughts, and not from their material needs.

Hegel turned thoughts into an independent "Idea" existing outside of the brain and independent of the material world. The latter was merely a reflection of this Idea.

Religion is part and parcel of philosophical idealism.

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Hegelian DialecticsMarx a “Young Hegelian”Dialectics is the science of the general laws

of motion and development of nature, human society and thought.

Dialectics deals not only with facts, but with facts in their connection, i.e. processes, not only with isolated ideas, but with laws, not only with the particular, but with the general.

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Dialectics "A development that seemingly repeats the

stages already passed, but repeats them differently, on a higher basis a development, so to speak, in spirals, not in a straight line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, revolutions; breaks in continuity…”

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Hegel’s dialectic is often characterized as a three step process of

It is the way how one can explain formation of every society past and present.

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HEGEL

Thesis Antithesis Synthesis

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Hegel“What experience

and history teach is this – that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.”

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Hegel brilliantly posed the problem, but was prevented from solving it by his idealist preconceptions.

It was, in Engels' words "a colossal miscarriage".

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Dialectical MaterialismMaintains that the material world is real

and that nature or matter is primary.

The mind or ideas are a product of the brain. The brain, and therefore ideas, arose at a certain stage in the development of living matter.

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Marx explained, on the contrary, thoughts and ideas were simply the reflection of the material world. So Hegelian dialectics was fused with modern materialism to produce the higher understanding of dialectical materialism

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Marxist philosophyThe driving force of history is neither "Great

Men" nor the super-natural, but stems from the development of the productive forces (industry, science, technique, etc.) themselves.

It is economics, in the last analysis, that determines the conditions of life, the

habits and consciousness of human beings.

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In all societies, the provision and social organisation of such things as food, clothing and shelter is a fundamental social necessity and it involves devising some means whereby such things are:

Produced by a population.Distributed to people Exchanged in some way.

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In addition, it is important to note that the production, distribution and exchange of such things as food and shelter is a communal activity - people have to co-operate in some way to produce these things.

In order to produce, therefore, people enter, willingly or unwillingly into a variety of social relationships.

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Marx argued that, throughout human history, the way in which people "co-operated" - or organised themselves - to produce the "means of their social existence" has been different.

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Marx"In the social production which men carry on, they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production.

The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society - the real foundations, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness."

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Historical Materialism Men make their own history, but they do not

make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

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History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

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Practice

To transform both the world and man’s consciousness of it

To achieve the state of Communism:From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

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“Society" is not a something that exists over and above people.

“Society" is the product of people's behaviour. If people create the social structures within which behaviour is ordered then, of course, they are perfectly capable of changing the social order

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The relationship between social classes is basically:

UnequalExploitativeFounded on a conflict of interest

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To expose the political and economic contradictions inherent in Capitalism (for example, the fact that while people co-operate to produce goods, a Capitalist class appropriates these goods for its private profit).

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All exploiting classes attempt to morally justify their class rule by portraying them, as the highest, most natural form of social development, deliberately concealing the system of exploitation by disguising and distorting the truth.

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Society / social systems are in a constant - inevitable - state of conflict. Social order exists not because it is:

a. The "natural" state of things or,b. Because everyone is in basic agreement about

how order should be maintained and so forth.

But order exists because powerful social groups (or classes) are able to impose a sense of order, permanence and stability upon all other classes in society.

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Therefore, those who dominate the economic sphere in any society will also dominate politically and ideologically - and, in this respect, an important idea is that the ideology of the ruling class is the dominant ideology in society.

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PowerThe possession of power gives you:1. Economic powerWealthStatus.2. Political powerControl over political institutions (government,

the State).3. Ideological powerControl over the way in which people are able to

visualise and interpret the social world. This is carried-out through various forms of socialisation through the mass media, the workplace, the family, the education system

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“The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and intellectual processes of life.”

“It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence; it is on the contrary their social existence which determines their consciousness.”

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ConsciousnessIt is our socio-economic reality that gives

shape to our way of thinking and not the other way around.

The economic reality in which we find ourselves determines our culture and our consciousness.

There is no absolute knowledge and at any given time, the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling CLASS.

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Base and SuperstructureMarx argued that these two basic types of

social relationships represented two parts of the overall nature of relationships within capitalist society:

1. Economic relationships - the "infrastructure" or "economic base" of society.

2. Political / ideological relationships - the "superstructure" of society.

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Although superstructural relationships are important, they ultimately rest upon the economic base of society.

According to Marxists, these kinds of relationships are dependent upon - and reflect - the nature of economic relationships in society. Thus, if economic relationships are fundamentally unequal, then political and ideological relationships will both reflect - and help to reinforce - inequality.

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SuperstructureConsciousness

ReligionMorality

EducationFamily

Mass MediaLegal System

Workplace Ethics

BaseRelations of Production

Forces of Production

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EducationFor Marx education performs two main

functions in capitalist society:-1. It reproduces the inequalities and

social relations of production of Capitalist Society.

2. It serves to legitimate these inequalities under the guise of Meritocracy.

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Revolutionary changes in society take place because the “the forces of production” come into conflict with the “relations of production”

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Historical MaterialismPrimitive Communism – Based on cooperation Emergence of surplus and private property

The historic defeat of womenSlave SocietyFeudalismAbsolute MonarchyCapitalist Revolution Competition ImperialismSocialismCommunism – Cooperation

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According to Marx, different historical periods have different dominant means of production (which, in turn, produces different types of society).

In Feudal society, land was the most important means of production.

In Capitalist society, land is still significant, but the most important means of production are things like factories, machines and so forth.

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FeudalismDifferent societies at different times in their

historical development involve some or all of the above as part of the general production process.

For example, in Britain in the Middle Ages, the forces of production would have involved:

Land - since this was basically an agricultural society.

Raw materials - basically anything that could be grown...

Tools - but not machines, as such.Knowledge - but not particularly "scientific" as we

might understand the term.People - the "labour power" of peasants, for

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CapitalismThe relationship to the means of

production objectively determines our social class and, if we accept this idea for a moment, it follows that he initially identified two great classes in Capitalist society:

1. The Bourgeoisie (Upper or Ruling class).

Those people (a minority) who owned the means of production.

2. The Proletariat (Lower or Working class).

Those people (the majority) who did not own the means of production.

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Marx argued that all societies involved conflict - sometimes open but more usually submerged beneath the surface of everyday life - that was based upon fundamental inequalities and different economic and political interests

The history of all societies is the history of Class conflict

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The basis of this conflict lies in the fact that although wealth is created by the Proletariat (the working class), it is appropriated (that is "taken away") privately - by the Bourgeoisie - in the form of profits.

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The proletariat have no one beneath them to exploit so the only path they can take to freedom is to set up a classless society in which no one is exploited. This, they thought, would happen after a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and after an in-between period called the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

Class

Society

the proletariat (or working class)

own nothing but their labour power

the bourgeoisie (or capitalists)

own the means of production

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The Bourgeoisie in any Capitalist society resolve it through somehow making the Proletariat believe that the economic system is based upon freedom, fairness and equality.

This is where the concepts of both "power" and "ideology" come into the equation.

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Consensual Values???Though it appears that people in any society

do share fundamental values, but Marx argued that this "consensus over basic values" (which Functionalists, for example, tend to take for granted) was by no means the whole story.

In effect, Marx argued that the Bourgeoisie are able to use the power that comes from economic ownership to "control" the way in which people think about and "see" the nature of the social world.

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Manufactured Consent Marxists see this consensus as being

manufactured by the Bourgeoisie (through the primary and secondary socialisation process and cultural institutions such as religion, education and the mass media).

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Hegemony Leadership with the consent of the led

There are two ways in which a ruling class can consolidate its hegemony over other classes:

a. Through the use of force (the police and army, for example).

Althusser called these "Repressive State Apparatus" (RSAs)

b. Through the use of ideology / socialisation (the mass media, social workers, teachers and the like - a form of "soft policing")

Althusser called these "Ideological State Apparatus" (ISAs)

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Alienation

Alienation is used to refer to the way in which Capitalist society degrades both the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat.

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The Bourgeoisie are alienated from their fellow human beings because of their exploitation and oppression of the rest of society. This condition of alienation is used to explain why such things as crime occurs in society - the social bonds that should tie people together are fatally weakened by the exploitative relationship between Capital and Labour.

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The Proletariat are alienated from society because although they are responsible for producing goods co-operatively (for the potential benefit of society as a whole), the fruits of their labour are appropriated by the Bourgeoisie (in the form of profit) for their private use.

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The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is, to CHANGE it.

Communism is a political philosophy which argues that men should have equal rights to wealth.

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The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

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The Communist ManifestoAbolition of private property Abolition of all rights of inheritance. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies,

especially for agriculture. Free education for all children in

public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in

its present form. Combination of education with

industrial production QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

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In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

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Capitalism effects the ideology of people as it:Destroys important human values,

replacing even religious belief with naked exploitation.

Undermines an individual’s sense of personal value in one’s work.

Undermines human relationships; all relationships are based on cash.

Destroys human freedom. The only freedom it protects is free trade.

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From Communist Manifesto“The bourgeoisie … has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life…. The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together… railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers.”

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Factors responsible for the fall of imperialism Capitalism creates huge factories, workers

become concentrated and begin to organize for legal reforms (higher wages/better working conditions). Their effort fails. Fierce competition between capitalists leads to new technologies, which leads to lower costs. In the competition, some capitalists go bankrupt & have to become workers, and many workers lose their jobs as new technology replaces them

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Greater numbers of people permanently unemployed. Misery widespread.

Fewer people can afford the products of capitalists, so fewer companies survive.

The proletariat, having nothing to lose but their chains, so they rise up.

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The Vision of the SocialistsSocialist Revolution will eliminate private

property. No longer will man have the means of exploiting another man.

Bourgeoisie will fight, so revolution will be violent.

A dictatorship of the proletariat will follow to weed out remaining capitalist elements.

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In the end, a classless society with no more oppression or internal contradictions.

People will be free to choose how they labor, and can be creatively productive. They will be able to live to their fullest potential.

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Its description in Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1845:

“In communist society, …nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes,… to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, … without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”

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The Socio-economic Conditions that favored rise of socialism : The increase in the number of workers in

the industrializing nations was one important factor. The concentration of industries during the so-called second industrial revolution that occurred during the last two decades of the nineteenth century brought together workers in unprecedented numbers. Rapid industrialization also accelerated the tendency of the general population to move from the countryside into urban centers. Cities proved to be favorable environments for socialist organizations—which demanded a fairly sophisticated social/cultural infrastructure in order to thrive.

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The rise of literacy also redounded to the benefit of the socialists: as more and more workers learned to read they were able to imbibe socialist ideas in the form of pamphlets, books, and the press.

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The "democratization" of the ballot box also helped the socialists in that the extension of the franchise brought more workers into the political arena thus making it possible to get socialist deputies elected to parliament. All of these factors created the basis for a "proletarian" mentality or consciousness. By the late 1880s workers were joining clubs and trade unions, electing their own representatives, and subscribing to their own publications. And though this is not to say that all workers were necessarily socialist, it did mean that the principal vehicles for propagating and sustaining socialism were now anchored in the framework of modern industrial society.QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

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The Paris Commune The prevalent socio-economic conditions and

the post-war conditions made the working class restless and on March 18th 1871 , a socialist form of government called the “Paris Commune” took over Paris and denied subjugation to France Imperialist government . But was brutally suppressed by the Capitalist regime in about 2 months.

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A barricade in the Paris Commune, March 18, 1871

Destruction of the Vendôme Colonne during the Paris Commune.

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SOCIALISMSocialism refers to a broad array of doctrines

or political movements that visualize a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. This control may be either direct—exercised through popular collectives such as workers' councils — or indirect—exercised on behalf of the people by the state. As an economic system , socialism is often characterized by socialized (state or community) ownership of the means of production .

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In a socialist society the means of producing and distributing wealth—factories, farms, mines, docks, offices, transport—will belong to the whole community. Common ownership will do away with the need for exchange, so that money will have no use.

Production in socialism will be determined by people on the basis of social need, not profit. At the moment people may need wealth but, unless they can afford to buy it, they must go without. Production is geared to sale with a view to profit. Socialism means production solely for use: bread to eat, houses to live in, clothes to wear.QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

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What will be the incentive to work in a socialist society?

There will be no wages, for in a classless society no person will have the right to buy another person's ability to work for a price. Work in socialist society will depend on cooperation and the voluntary decisions of men and women to contribute to society in order to keep it going. Just as an individual could not survive if he or she did not eat, drink or take basic health care, so a socialist society would not survive unless the people in it acted cooperatively in a spirit of mutuality.

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Page 137: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

One basic question : why should those who provide the money (capital) receive all the profits, and those who provide the labor receive none of the profits?

It is labor, after all, that turns raw materials (including cash) into something with greater value.

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Page 138: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Socialism could be summed up in this way:

“All social wealth, the land with all its natural resources hidden in its bowels and on the surface, and all factories and works must be taken out of the hands of the exploiters and taken into common property of the people. The first duty of a real workers' government is to declare by means of a series of decrees the most important means of production to be national property and place them under the control of society.”

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Page 139: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

In other words, the resources should be in the hands of the workforce, not the few rich people there are. The true duty of the government is to place the ‘national property’ under the control of the “common” person.

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An explanation of Socialism…

Page 140: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

The Great Socialists

LENIN

Engels

Robert Owen

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LABOURLabour begins with the

making of tools. With these tools, humans

change their surrounding to meet their needs.

The essential distinction between Man and other animals :

"The animal merely uses its environment," says Engels, "and brings about changes in it simply by his presence;

Man by his changes makes it serve his ends, masters it.

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Page 142: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Stone Age : Nomadic LifeHumans, were very rare

animals, and they roamed around in groups in search of food. This nomadic life was completely dominated with food gathering.

Everything that was made, collected, or produced was considered common property.

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Page 143: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

BarbarismBetween 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, a new

higher period emerged known as the new stone age or Barbarism.

Instead of roaming for food, advances were made in cultivating crops and domesticating animals.

Stable tribes and communities arose at this time.

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MATRIARCHAL SocietyIn the stage of primitive communism (savagery and

barbarism) no private property, classes, privileged elites, police or special coercive apparatus (the state) existed.

The tribes were divided into social units called clans or gentes (singular gens).

These were very large family groups, which traced their descent from the female line alone.

It was forbidden for a man to cohabit with a woman from his own clan or gens, thus the tribes were made up from a coalition of clans.

At certain times, a form of group marriage existed between the clans themselves.

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Page 145: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

The PATRIARCHAL SocietyCommon tribal property came under growing

strain from the development with the private family, with private houses growing up alongside the communal dwellings.

Common Land became later divided up to form the collective property of each family. The Matriarchal family gave way to the Patriarchal (male dominated) form, which became essential to the maintenance of the collective property.

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Ownership of Private ProperyWith the growth of new means of

production, particularly in agriculture, the question arose “who should own them”?

With the further development of the productive forces, inequality began to appear within society.

For the first time, men and women were able to produce a surplus above and beyond his own needs, resulting in a revolutionary leap forward for humanity.

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Build Up to the Slave SocietyIn the past, where war broke out between two tribes, it was uneconomic to take captives as slaves.

After all, a captive would only have been able to produce sufficient food for himself. No surplus was produced.

The only use for a captive, given the shortage of food, was as a source of meat. This was the economic foundation of cannibalism.

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Build UpBut once a surplus was produced, it

became economically viable to keep a slave who was forced to work for his master.

The surplus obtained from a growing number of slaves was then appropriated by the new class of slave owners.

Problem : How were the slaves to be controlled and forced to work? The old tribes had no police force or means of coercion.

Solution : Every individual was free and was a warrior.

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The Society DividesThe production of a surplus product

smashed the old forms of society, enabling classes to crystallise.

Rich and poor, landowner and tenant, creditor and debtor all made their appearance in society.

The clans which were social units of originally blood relations, began to disintegrate. The rich of different clans had more in common with each other than they had with the poor of their own clan.

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Shift in the RoleFor the first time since humans evolved from the ape, a section of society was freed from the labour of eking out an existence

Those who were freed from work could now devote their time to science, philosophy and culture.

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Shift in the RoleWith the growth of the city-

states, the increase in the division of labour greatly accelerated new crafts sprung up together with a growing band of artists catering for the tastes and culture of the upper class

Function of the new ruling class was to develop the productive forces and take society forward. It was at this stage that civilisation first emerged

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Rise of Feudalism

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850-1000 AD

A New Type of Government For a New Situation

Page 153: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Origin of Feudalism

Roman Empire outstretched itself to increase the slave population though continuous wars.

As a result many peasants – “The best soldiers” died bringing the cheap slave and the slave empires to an end.

The Great Migrations, the flooding of the Roman Empire by the swarms of savage Germans,

The conquest of The Barbarians marked the end of a civilization. They were uncivilized European tribes who had no respect for art and education.

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Rise of Feudalism

Barbarians destroyed productive forces: agriculture, industry and trade. The rural and urban population had decreased.

In their conquest of territories they proceeded to ransack the towns and settle down in the countryside. There they lived by means of primitive agriculture.

The need for social security, political order and economic growth gave rise to

Feudalism

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Feudalism

Etymology:The term "feudalism" came from the German fief. "Fief" simply meant "something of value." In the agricultural world of the time, "something of value" was usually land.

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Definitions of Feudalism

Feudalism was the system of loyalties and protections during the Middle Ages.

Feudalism is a political system of power dispersed and balanced between king and nobles.

Feudalism is a decentralized organization that arises when central authority cannot perform its functions and when it cannot prevent the rise of local powers.

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Feudalism - in its primitive form

During the Middle Ages, peasants could no longer count on the Roman army to protect them. German, Viking and Magyar tribes overran homes and farms throughout Europe. The peasants turned to the landowners, often called lords, to protect them.

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Feudalism - in its primitive form

The barbarians hence formed small communities with elected village chiefs.

Gradually, the chiefs were chosen from the same family through succession.

Villages were at constant war resulting in conquered land being divided up with the greater share to the chief.

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The chief guaranteed protection to those under him, in turn the villagers owed fidelity and homage to the lord.

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Crystallization of Feudal RelationsThe authority of the village lords

extended into the surrounding countryside.

The lords or barons and their men-at-arms formed a new social hierarchy sustained by labour provided by their vassals.

The barons carried out continual warfare among themselves in order to enlarge their territories.

The vanquished became vassals of the conqueror.

Stronger Barons won and became potent feudatories and established feudal courts which petty barons in vassalage were bound to attend.

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Lords/Barons + Men at arms

Villagers/Vassals

This was the hierarchy

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Maturity in Feudal RelationsMajority of farmland

became divided into areas known as manors, each manor possessing its own lord/Baron and officials.

The arable land was divided into two parts, about a third belonged to the lord, while the rest divided amongst his vassals.

The vassals share of land was further divided up into separate strips scattered throughout the fields which meant a massive drain on productivity.

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Maturity in Feudal Relations

The social structure that developed under feudalism gave rise to new classes and groups. The social framework represented a pyramid structure headed by the king, aristocracy, the great church men and bishops. Under the privileged were barons, dukes, counts & knights. On the bottom rungs of social order were freeman, serfs and slaves.

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Feudal Hierarchy

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Feudal Hierarchy

Role of the King

The King was in complete control under the Feudal System. He owned all the land in the country and decided who he would lease land to.

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Role of the Baron

The men who leased land from the King were known as Barons, they were wealthy, powerful and had complete control of the land they leased from the King. They established their own system of justice.

Page 164: Dr Liza Das Associate Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

Feudal Hierarchy

Role of the Knights

Knights were given land by a Baron in return for military service when demanded by the King.

They had to protect the Baron and his family, as well as the Manor, from attack.

The Knights kept as much of the land as they wished for their own personal use and distributed the rest to villeins(serfs).

Although not as rich as Barons, Knights were quite wealthy

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Feudal Hierarchy

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Role of the Serfs/Vassals/Peasants

First kind: Borders, Cotters, Villeins• Serfs were given land by Knights. • Serfs were bound to the land.• They had to provide the Knight with free labour,

food & service whenever demanded.• They had no rights and had to pay taxes to the

king.• They were poor.• They were not allowed to leave the Manor and

had to ask their lords permission even for marrying.

• Serfs would often have to work three or four days a week for the lord as rent. They would spend the rest of their week growing crops to feed their families.

• Life for a serf was not much better than the life of a slave. The only difference was that a serf could not be sold to another manor.

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Feudal Hierarchy

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Role of the Serfs/Vassals/Peasants

Second kind:Other serfs worked as Sharecroppers. A sharecropper would be required to turn over most of what he grew in order to be able to live on the land.

Other kind of serfs were free. They owned the lands they worked on and did not have to pay for them.

Third kind: Freemen

•They could be sold to other manors.•They owned nothing.•They owed nothing to the king unlike the serfs who were the tenants.

Fourth kind: Slaves

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Feudal System

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Unlike today, where the main body of wealth is created in the factories, “the land” produced almost all of the social requirement.

The more land one held the more powerful one became.

The ruling class rued by their virtual monopoly of land to which the serfs were tied.

The lord’s needs came first.

This new organization of society based on landed property gave rise to a further development of the productive forces. This time the surplus value created by the serf’s labor was appropriated by the Aristocratic lay and ecclesiastical ruling class.

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New Crystallization in the Feudal System

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The church became more and more powerful.

Pope became more powerful thank the king or emperor with church lands extending to between a third and a half of the land in Christendom.

The new morality and ideology that arose from these forms made the church more and more important.Feudalism was a total socio-economic political

system based upon land ownership or control

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Feudalism - Socially

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Headed by Absolute Church

CourtsCathedral buildingPatriarchal SocietyClosed caste system

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Feudalism Economically

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Largely AgrarianGeneralizationClosed Economy theory

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Feudalism Politically

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Divine Right MonarchyParliament

• House of Lords

• Great Council

• CabinetMilitary-subsystem of

political• King

• Great Nobles

• Lesser Nobles

• Freemen

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Rise of Absolute Monarchy

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In general the feudal state was weak until the rise of absolute monarchies in the 16th century

The Baronial wars took place when the robber Barons built up power and prestige to attack the central monarchy.

The struggle of central monarch to subdue the regions – was the characteristic feature of the period.

These wars helped trade to develop to a higher level.

•Trade was at low level•Land produced practically everything.•It was natural economy geared towards self sufficiency.

•New needs aroused due to crusades. •Merchants sold at high prices•This merchant arouse clashed with the traditional standards and restrict- ions of the feudal societyBefore

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This lead to the decline of Feudalism

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•Trade was at low level•Land produced practically everything.•It was natural economy geared towards self sufficiency.

•New needs aroused due to crusades. •Merchants sold at high prices•This merchant arouse clashed with the traditional standards and restrict- ions of the feudal societyBefore

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Decline of Feudalism

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Factors: Crusades Plagues Increased trade Capitalism Absolute Monarchy St. Thomas Aquinas

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Decline of Feudalism

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The Black Death:

• Killed at least 1/3 of Europe’s population

• Caused huge social upheaval!

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Decline of Feudalism

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The Black Death: It occurred in the

mid 14th century. Killed at least 1/3 of

Europe’s population

• Caused huge social upheaval!

• The Great Plague also occurred at the same time.

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Transformations due to Trade

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As trade grew, a new class of rich merchants developed

Growth of towns The merchant class that

arose clashed with the traditional standards and restrictions of feudalism

Towns began to demand their freedom and independence

Gradually, town charters were conceded , by agreement or by force

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Transformations due to Trade

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• No longer was the land the soul source of power and privilege , as money acquired in trading assumed much greater importance.

Small scale individual production was controlled and regulated through guild system

With further division of labour, Craft guilds were established comprising- master, apprentices and journeymen

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Transformations due to Trade

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As more & more wealth accumulated, guild masters came into conflict with journeymen, & hence unions were created

The rigid feudal system started losing its hold on the society,

as trade flourished across and beyond Europe

Money economy was introduced

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Decline of Feudalism

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Other Factors: The Peasants Revolt - Peasants realised their worth and

demanded changes. Charters were granted but ignored by nobles

Peasants moved away from the country into towns they were eventually allowed to buy their freedom

Land was rented and the rights of lords over labour decreased

The Feudal Levy was unpopular and as time went by Nobles preferred to pay the King rather than to fight and raise troops

A centralised government was established

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Thus the conclusion of a dying civilization and the formation of the basis for a new upswing of

civilization.

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Under feudalism the King was answerable to the Pope. At the end of the Middle Ages King Henry VIII clashed with the Pope and England subsequently broke with the Catholic church of Rome and the power of the Pope. This led to the establishment of the Church of England and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was the final 'nail in the coffin' of the Medieval Feudal System, feudalism, in England.

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The capitalism came into existence by revolution, in which the "bourgeoise" class displaced the land-lord class

as the economically dominant class, with or against the national monarchs as the case might be. These capitalist

revolutions began roughly in the 1600's, and in some parts of the world, they continue today. As Marx and Engels

observed, this new capitalist system has often been very dynamic, increasing the productivity of labor at

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unprecedented rates. Yet the two most characteristic feature of capitalism have also been sources of tension that sometimes seemed destined to replace capitalism with some other system, either gradually or in a further revolution. One of those features is the new division of society into two classes: employers and employees, or, in Marxist terms, capitalists and workers or "proletarians." The other is the key role of the national state, which has sometimes been the rival of the capitalist employer class as the directing force in the economy. QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

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The most immediate way in which the Reformation(especially of calvinist variety) aided the capitalist was by removing the stigma which the Catholic church had traditionally attached to money-lending.

Calvinism positively encouraged the purposeful investment of money, by presenting luxury and self-indulgence as vices and thrift as a virtue. It even subtly contrives to suggest that wealth may itself be a sign of virtue.

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•Capitalism started to emerge during the 17th Century. At first the merchants, or “buyer uppers”, as they became known, were a link between the consumer and producer. However, gradually, they began to dominate the latter, first by placing orders and paying in advance, then by supplying the raw materials, and paying a wage for the work done in producing finished•goods.

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The concept of a waged worker signalled a crucial stage in thedevelopment of capitalism. Its introduction was the final stage in the “buyer uppers” transition from merchant, (making money from trade), to capitalist (deriving wealth from the ownership and control of the means of production). The first stage of capitalism had come into being. This stage saw one new class, the primitive capitalists,exerting power over another new class, the waged workers.Early capitalism also engendered new methods of production.

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The earliest was the ‘cottage industry’, which saw individual homes become mini-factories, with production directed by the capitalist. The cottage industry model became so widespread in the woollen textile industry that it became a method of mass production. In turn, the wool trade became Britain’s most important industry by the end of the 17th Century.

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It began with a split in the ruling class viz. aristocracy and the parliament.

The king and his ministers clashed over a scheme to avoid state bankruptcy, with the parliament.

The parliament enjoyed a huge support among the masses which broke out into deadly riots.

George Rude: The revolt of the nobility was a curtain raiser rather than a revolution.

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Between 1789 and 1793 the old feudal regime and the aristocracy had been completely swept away.

The regime was headed by the revolutionary political middle class the Jacobins supported by the plebeians(wage earners and small craftsmen).

Political shift to right occurred in 1794 with the government of directory coming to power.

The old order had been broken, but the new bourgeois property rights were conserved.

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By the early 1770s, the economic and social conditions were inplace for the industrial revolution to explode on to the world’seconomies. Powered by a number of new inventions, the primitivefactory system was transformed, as machine power drove productivityto unprecedented levels. With the factories transformed by the newmachinery, the cottage industries could not possibly compete andsoon collapsed. Between the 1770s and the 1830s, there was aboom in factory production with all manner of buildings beingconverted into factories and the majority of waged labor taking placewithin factory buildings.

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It is important to note that ownership of the ‘means of production’ at this stage in the development of industrial capitalism meant not only the ownership of factories, machinery and the power to invest or withhold capital, but also the means of the production of knowledge. Capitalists who owned newspapers, for example, could exert great political influence to protect their own interests. Ownership of a newspaper meant not only the direct control of print workers, distributors and sellers, but control over the transmission of information. This could, for instance, extend to direct or indirect political influence through specific politicians or parties. It might also extend and protect capitalist interests by the spread of ideology and, less subtly, blatant propaganda.

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1)The establishment of capitalism was a time of upheaval and bitter struggles between new and old power-brokers. 2)The mass of the population were dragged unwillingly into an increasingly violent conditioning process. 3)The new capitalists needed to be able to exert ever more pressure on their producers to produce more for less, so that the capitalists could maintain trading prices and increase profits.

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4)They looked to the state to ensure pressure was brought to bear on workers who, for the first time, were being forced to sell their labor in an increasingly competitive work environment, which was itself aggravated by the swollen ranks of the new landless an unemployed.

5)Laws were passed setting a rate for the maximum wage payable to peasants.

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6)The aim of all this brutal legislation was to turn the dispossessed into a disciplined obedient class of wage workers who, for a pittance, would offer up their labor to the new capitalism.

7) The problem of creating a disciplined and regimented workforce should not be underestimated.

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Capitalists and state bureaucrats copied the ‘success’ of industrialization across the western world, as they sought to cash in on the huge wealth enjoyed by the new British ruling class. The capitalist system, based on the exploitation of the working class, soon spread to Europe, and as we will see, to the rest of the world.

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Presently, capitalism, alongside its essential partner institutions of sexism, racism and homophobia, dominates the global economy, continuing to inform and maintain the social relations within it. The now-familiar pattern of economic success being measured by which country or capitalist can extract the most profit from the workers under their control has its origins in the transition of Britain from a feudal society.

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Posthumanism

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Science will never achieve its aim of comprehending the ultimate nature of reality.

The universe will always be more complex than we will ever know.

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Posthumanism abandons the search for the ultimate nature of the universe and its origin.

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The post human realises that the ultimate questions about existence and being do not require answers. The answer to the question “why are we here?” is that there is no answer.

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To know the ultimate nature of the universe would require knowing everything about universe, everything that has happened and everything that will happen. if one thing were not known it would imply that all knowledge of the universe is partial, potentially incomplete and therefore not ultimate.

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No scientific model will ever be complete, but will always be partial and contingent.

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The post human accepts that humans have a finite capacity to understand and control nature.

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Logic that seems consistent at the human scale cannot necessarily be applied to microcosmic or the macrocosmic scale.

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All origins are ends and all ends are origins

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Our knowledge about the universe is constrained by the level of resolution with which we are able to view it. Knowledge is contingent on data----data varies with resolution.

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Nature is neither essentially ordered or disordered.

The appearance of order or disorder implies more about the way in which we process the information than the intrinsic presence of order or disorder in nature.

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Science work on the basis of intrinsic universal order but posthumanism accepts that laws are not things that are intrinsic to nature, nor are they things which arise purely in mind and are imposed on nature; as this would reinforce the division between the mind and reality which has already been abandoned. The order as well as disorder that is perceived around us is not a function exclusively of either the universe or our consciousness, but a combination of both as they cannot really be separated.

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Everything that exists anywhere is energy.

It manifests in infinite variety of ways.

It perpetually transforms itself.

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The appearance of matter is an illusion generated by interactions among energetic systems at the human level of resolution.

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Humans and the environment are different expressions of energy; the only difference between them is the form that energy takes.

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The post human is entirely open to ideas of ‘paranormality’, ‘immateriality’, the ‘supernatural’, and the ‘occult’. The posthuman does not accept that the faith in scientific method is superior to faith in other belief systems.

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Statements on Statements on uncertaintyuncertainty

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The humanist era was characterized by certainty about the operation of the universe and the place of humans within it. The posthuman era is characterized by uncertainty about the operation of the universe and about what is to be human.

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• The Posthuman era , the age of uncertainty , was born in the period leading up to first world war since it was the time the quantum mechanics and cubism were developed.

“…There are no things, just probabilities…”

--Heisenberg

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Definition of CyborgsA cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid

machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. A Cyborg adds to or enhances its abilities by using technology and it combines the natural and the artificial into one form.

Term coined by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in 1960 to describe a lab rat with an osmotic pump programmed to dispense chemicals

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Cyborgs as we imagine them…A complete cyborg in a popular anime series.. ghost in the shell…

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Fictional cyborgs are frequently portrayed with a fine granularity mixture of organic and mechanical (synthetic) parts, such as the BORG in the Star Trek franchise

QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10 BORG in Star Trek

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From one perspective, a cyborg world is about the final imposition of a grid of control on the planet, about the final abstraction embodied in a Star Wars apocalypse waged in the name of defense, about the final appropriation of women’s bodies in a masculinity orgy of war

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From another perspective, a cyborg world might be about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints.

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A Cyborg in the real world

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Subjectivity as a Cyborg

MEANING OF SUBJECTIVITY It is a condition of being a person and process by

which we become a person. How we are constituted as subjects both

biologically and culturally and how do we experience ourselves

SUBJECTIVITY AS A CYBORG It basically means posing the question “what is a

Cyborg?”QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

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Identity in the Cybernetic age These days we are very busy construction something called a

technological Imaginary. Now this imaginary is driven by the exciting probability of mastery of human beings over all the physical, sociological and moral constraints that define our cultural lives.

Identities thus become recomposable, self-designed in a mix and match fashion, i.e. the constraints of the real world and the fleshy body are overcome in the artificial domain

The excitement of virtual existence comes from the sense of release and liberation from the material world. In a world spoiled over-development, over-population and environmental poisons, it is comforting for the human mind to think that it can exist in cyber space untouched by by these physical decays and corruption

So basically, the cybernetics age marks the end of identity

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Who/What is a Cyborg?do you wear a prosthesis? e.g., do you wear

contact lenses or eyeglasses?do you take any medications? have you ever had an immunization?do you depend upon any form of technology for

transportation?how would your life be affected if the power grid

was shut off permanently?do you ever eat food or drink water that has been

processed?in short, how intimately tied are you to

technology?QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati 2009-10

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If your answer to any of the above questions is

YES Then you are a cyborg………

This is the broadest possible definition of a Cyborg

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Bio-medical CyborgsCyborg technologies used to replace lost or

impaired biological functionsPacemakersArtificial hips and other jointsProsthetic limbsCochlear implantsArtificial skin and other organs

‘The elderly in society are becoming the first cyborgs’

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Bio-medical Cyborgshumans/animals born as a result of

reproductive technologies including genetic engineering

pharmacological cyborgs - drugs used to optimise or enhance normal biological functionseg. sports medicine

Cosmetic surgery

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Examples of CyborgsCyborg technologies used to amplify and

extend human capacities

For example, the kinds of melding of machine and human that we see in VR technologies (eg fighter pilot training)

Telepresence technologies

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The Cyborg and the Post humanCyborg discourses are linked with the concept

of the posthuman.

Our cyborg technologies are giving us the capacity to intervene in our own evolution both through technological augmentation and genetic engineering.

The re-design of the human is leading us into the realms of the posthuman and its associated unstable boundaries and shifting identities.

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What theorists sayMarshall McLuhan

"All media are extensions of some human faculty - physic or physical.”

McHugh (quoted in Gray reading)"Soon perhaps, it will be impossible to tell where human ends and machines begin."

Donna Haraway

"We are all cyborgs."

Figuratively, we are "living through a movement from an organic, industrial society to [society as] an ...information system".

[i.e. humans are being re-crafted by biological and communications technologies.]

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Futurologist Alvin Toffler:

“…soon, miniaturised computers "will not only be implanted to compensate for some physical defect but eventually will be implanted to enhance human capability. The line between human and computer at some point will become completely blurred.”

N. Katherine HaylesAccording to Hayles we are moving from the human-machine hyphen where the human is connected to the machine, to the human/machine splice where the human and the machine extend into each other and there is no clearly distinguishable boundary between them

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Steve Mann Steve Mann has been working on wearable computing technologies since the 1970s

Developed Wear Comp and Wear Cam technologies

Worked at MIT from 1991. Now works at University of Toronto.

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Kevin Warwick

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Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, UK, has implanted computer chips into his arm allowing him to communicate with a computer.

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Cyborgs in art: Stelarcperformance artist Stelarc has used

technology in a variety of ways to amplify and extend his physical body

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“The Third Hand”

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Stelarc

It is no longer a matter of perpetuating the human species by reproduction but of enhancing the individual by redesigning. Male female intercourse is replaced by human machine interface...We are at the end of human physiology.

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Stelarc“It is time the question whether a bipedal [two legged],

breathing body with binocular vision and a 1400 cc brain us an adequate biological form. It cannot cope with the...information it has accumulated. The most significant planetary pressure is no longer the gravitational pull but the information thrust. Gravity has moulded the evolved body in shape and structure and contained it on the planet. Information [technology] propels the body beyond itself and its biosphere. Information fashions the form and function of the post evolutionary body”

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Stelarc...altering the architecture of the body

[allows it to be] amplified and accelerated, attaining planetary escape velocity. It becomes a post-evolutionary projectile.

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Stelarc - Movatar

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Stelarc - Extra Ear

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Stelarc - Prosthetic Head

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LOGIC

Logic is an idealised self-referential system developed by human imagination.

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There are a few things that are less logical in behaviour than humans.

There are a few things that work on only logic.

eg: Machines.

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MACHINES

These machines will never display human charecteristics.

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Machines use logic. And they are restricted to using only logic.

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As an example…

The posthuman era begins in full when the output of computers is unpredictable.

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Computers use logic. Currently the output of the computers is predictable.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.AI is the creation of synthetic persons and

intelligences

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There were attempts to build synthetic humans and intelligence out of machines starting in the 17th century. The term A.I. was coined

by Prof. John McCarthy, now at Stanford, in 1956.

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Now A.I. seems to a dusty, meandering subject, with important milestones few and far between.

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A recent milestone was a chess computer that could beat that top chess master regularly in 1996.

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They are only sensitive to a finite number of stimuli and the quotient of randomness intruding upon them is relatively small.

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Most artificial intelligence machines are hermetically sealed. They are limitted by the complexity of the calculations our machines can perform.

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Human thought is not a hermetic linear system.

Mind, body and environment cannot be separated.

We cannot rule out the impact of any environmental stimuli on the thought process, no matter how minute it might be. QIP CD Cell Project IIT Guwahati

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The mind receives a continuous input of random stimuli from the environment.

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The compulsion to assert order in the face of random stimuli contributes to our sence of being.

It has evolved to absorb the unexpected-the discontinuous stimulus.

This is absent in the case of synthetic beings.

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Therefore if we are to create any synthetic intelligence that has a sence of being like that we recognize in ourselves, it must be sensitive to the same level of random interruption as humans.

It should also be able to adapt to and take advantage of the creative possibilities offered by non-linear stimuli.

It must have a compulsion to reassert meaning in the face of both stable and unstable input.

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SYNTHETIC INTELLIGENCE WITH CREATIVITY:

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If we wish to produce a synthetic intelligence that displays creativity, then we need to be able to establish connections between its thoughts in a discontinuous way.

This will be achieved by making it perpetually sensitive to random stimuli.

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If we wish to produce a synthetic intelligence that displays aesthetic appreciation then it should be able to sense continuity and discontinuity simultaneously.

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This would cause excitement in the machine it is yet to be determined to what extent it would be pleasurable.

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Technology has always been an integral part of mans  conceptualization of the world.

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Yet previously technology has been finite in its ability to control itself.

But now we have brought technology to a level where it can now be a  synthetic mirror of a human being. Therefore it must be considered and  worked into philosophical calculations.

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The synthetic mirror does not only mean robots or clones or cyborgs - it also  consists of the mirroring of basic acts that humans have done for centuries.

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Such as food-harvesting or growing… The taking away of such things frees man  to do other things which have not been considered 'integral to life'.

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This will be based on the premise that man is now evolving past the Technological Age, and instead, is now moving to the Synthetic Age.

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Synthetic technology is steadily surpassing the  importance of a single human being.

Most philosophy has been based on the  significance of 'a single human being' or 'the relationship between single  human beings'.

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This points to a necessary adjustment in philosophical  thought, to consider not just the direct interplay between human beings, but,  instead, to make it a three dimensional model involving:

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A single human - A single Human - Synthetic Human (Technology).

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STATEMENTS ON STATEMENTS ON (DIS)ORDER(DIS)ORDER&&(DIS)CONTINUITY(DIS)CONTINUITY

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Meaning of order

In this present perspective order means state of being carefully and neatly arranged

Order and disorder are relative, not absolute, qualities.

One cannot define disorder without order or vice versa

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Creationists see structured beauty created by an intelligent designer. Scientists see the product of the natural forces due to wind, turbulence and friction.

The perception of order and disorder is something is The perception of order and disorder is something is contingent on the level of resolution from which it is viewedcontingent on the level of resolution from which it is viewed

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Perception of order and disorder is often culturally determined for ex:religious conflicts arise due to this perception

Logicians explain disorder in mathematical ways by using terms like entropy and complexity –ways independent of human subjectivity

These definitions may be useful in certain applications but they remain open to relativistic interpretation

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In Post-Human terms, the apparent distinctions between things are not the result of innate divisions within the structure of the Universe, but a product of:

the way in which the sensual processes in living entities operate .the variety of ways in which energy is

manifested in the universe.

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Energy manifestations perceived by an observer can always be described with two simple qualities - continuity and discontinuity.

Continuity is non-interruption of space-time. Discontinuity is a rupture in space-time.Both are experienced simultaneously Energetic states will appear as either

continuous or discontinuous to an observer depending upon their viewing position.

Both are understandable, recognizable in all events depending on how they are viewed

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The quality of discontinuity is context sensitive.

Things are distinguished from each other due to perceived discontinuity which they display.

The difference in manifestations of energy between things allows us to distinguish them

The difference between a two elements is due to arrangement of atoms in them possessing different energies

A human eye perceive different things due to difference of energy reception by retina

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Post human ideology of order and disorderThere is no intrinsic differences between thingsan organism will perceive differences since

energy is manifested in different ways and an organism is sensitive to different levels of energy.

varying manifestations of energy can be perceived as either continuous or discontinuous, these qualities being entirely relative to each other.

The existence of order or disorder is, therefore, a function of both the perceptual apparatus and the expression of energy. Order does not exist separately from its perception.

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The level of complexity in a system cannot be defined in objective (that is absolute) terms.

Complexity is a function of Human cognition, not an intrinsic property of anything we might look at.

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Questions arise in the post human era that would have not troubled us in the humanist era –what is a human? Is there such a thing ?how should we perceive it?

Can we use different energy manifestations to describe the word human. This is what we have think in post human era where uncertainty creeps.

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Texts:1. Chris Barker, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, Sage, 2003.2. Andrew Edgar and Peter Sedgwick, eds, Key Concepts in Cultural Theory, Routledge, 2004.

References:1. P. Brooker, A Glossary of Cultural Theory, Arnold, 2000.2. E. Hallman, ed, Cultural Encounters, Routledge, 2000. 3. M. G.Durham and D. M. Kellner, eds, Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works, Blackwell, 2001.

Acknowledgments:

Google images, wikipedia, All Students of HS 214, IIT Guwahati

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