This week the theme has been Critical Media Studies with the assignment to read The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity by Walter Benjamin as well as Dialectic of Enlightenment by Adorno and Horkheimer. I found these texts more easy to understand compared to the texts written by Kant and Plato since Benjamin and Adorno and Horkheimer were a bit more concrete in their reasonings. A lesson learned from last theme, for me, was to try to include the historical context in which the texts were written when I read them. I did not think about that during the previous theme but of course that has a major impact of the texts. The lecturer, Henrik Åhman, also stated the importance of including the historical context in which the texts were written and dedicated most part of the lecture describing this. I really appreciated the lecture for that reason but must say that the lecture did not resulted in me understanding the two texts more than before the lecture. However, the seminar did. By discussing the questions in class and listening to Henrik Åhman explaining the concepts in more depth gave me some “aha”-moments. I realized that I had only touched the surface of many of the questions. This week I did not had the time to discuss the questions with other students before the lecture or seminar, which I think was one of the reason why I got the “aha”-moments on the seminar. I think the key of gaining more depth in the understanding of the concepts we are talking about in this course is to discuss them with other people since it opens up to new perspectives.
I found that nominalism was a concept I had not completely grasped before the seminar. During the seminar we discussed how the nominalism sees every object as individual objects. Different objects can share same characteristics, universals, but the objects are not the same. For example, all trees are called trees even though they are all different. The nominalistic view would be that every tree is a different object. Henrik Åhman stated the questions What is swedish? and Are there specific characteristics that determine if we are swedish or not?. The nominalistic answer would be No, we are all individuals, which I think is a really good answer, especially today concerning the refugee-situation. I can see why nominalism was first seen as a liberating movement since it questioned for example the hierarchy in the society. Why should there be any differences between a poor and a rich person? They both have two arms and two legs, there are no biological differences between the poor and the rich. However, what Adorno and Horkheimer describes is that nominalism turned out to be a movement that just confirmed status quo and rather than working against the nature, nominalism only observe and repeat what is. For example, the fox kills the rabbit. It is just the way things are, it is nature. As mentioned before, instead of working against the nature, nominalism accepts things as they are by nature.
I got really fascinated by the concept nominalism, as you might understand since I dedicated half of this reflection to the concept. But it got me start thinking of what our world would look like if this view dominated the world. Would there be anything to strive for?
Hi,
SvaraRaderaI agree with you that putting the themes of the week into historical contexts made them more understandable. Wish you would've explained or at least mentioned some of the aha-moments you got during the seminar.
As I perceive it, nominalism seems to be one of them. I never thought of putting nominalism in a modern context but after reading your blog I can see how nominalism can be a useful perspective in today's refugee crisis. I think nominalism is necessary to some extent in order to create moral, humane society. However, as you mention it puts the society in a status quo, and in order to strive for progress I believe there needs to be some sort of structure that motivates people in order to achieve development and improvement.
As the comment above I agree that putting the text into the historical context is very important, something I as well did more this week than with the theme before. I agree with you that the lecture was very interesting and gave a better perspective on the history, however it didn't really help me understand the text better either, but the seminar did!
SvaraRaderaI also thing nominalism was a very interesting concept, and it was completely new ot me. It would be interesting to examine what the world might look like with nominalism dominating, if we stop trying to change the world, would the world just stop and stay still, or would it naturally change anyway?
Hi,
SvaraRaderayes, I was also confused by the concept of nominalism and especially when we were asked about its importance in the works of A&H (as far as I remember, "nominalism" itself wasn't mentioned in the text). But after the seminar I understood what it meant, and your explanation here is perfect. I want to add just one "historical" thing: the acceptance of statement that Jews were worse than nazi Germans, that their art and culture was worth nothing was another example of nominalism supporting "status quo".
Hi!
SvaraRaderaI really enjoyed reading your reflection and it seems that you learned a lot!
I like the link that you make with the refugees crisis, as by calling them refugees we are already categorizing them as being different from the citizens of that country. I also wonder how the world would look like if we didn’t categorize everything, but would just leave it as it is, but I don’t see that happening. As categorizing is a way for people to understand the world around us, just like we categorize certain habits as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, if this distinction would not have been made, we might not have known this, as we don’t understand this.
The historical aspect also helped me, especially with Benjamin that pre-second world war criticised fascism. Nominalism is indeed interesting as a concept to discuss. Another question is whether there is any meaning of life if you apply nominalism, and would there be any overlap with buddhism where you want to remove the "meaning of life" or other ideologies/religions.
SvaraRaderaThe refugee link made me think of how human beings like to organize stuff into categories. When it happens with human beings, it rarely leads to anything good - take the second world war as example.
To recommend improvements, I think you could have added some more structure to your text. Tell them what you are going to tell them in the introduction, then tell them (body) and tell them what you told them (conclusion). Other than that, nice reflection points.
Hi, I totally agree with you that it is a must to put the text in the historical decade that it was written to and of course, have in mind all the main historical events when trying to comprehend text ideas in more depth. Same like you, I was really fascinated by the concept of nominalism. It is quite interesting how it neglects all the structures and hierarchies of society and makes us all individuals, all different as we are. However, I believe nominalism is in a connection of myths, and dilemma is that we tend to take myths for granted, which results into not perceiving an objective truth. Your question at the end provokes even deeper questioning and discussion. Thanks for a great text!
SvaraRaderaJust like you the concept of Nominalism was as well for me (next to the aura concept) one of the most interesting discussion topics. I also thought about how our world would look like if we all would not think and see things in “groups”, like humans, trees or books, but as individuals. The grouping of things often lead to stereotypes and narrow-mindedness.
SvaraRaderaWhat I ask myself is if we are even able to understand the world in just individualistic things. If we wouldn’t have groupings, wouldn’t that make understanding of facts and building of theories really difficult? We built theories generalize processes and built constructs that are applicable to a whole group of people and not just individuals. Wouldn’t a nominalistic world somehow lead to a world without theories?
Nominalism was considered to be a new and fascinating approach in the human society is pretty understandable. The idea to be a liberating movement during that period was revolutionary and as to seeing every object as unique. We need to categorize in some extent in our society to avoid chaos. It is fascinating to apply old concepts on crisis and events of today. But even if the intention of an idea is good, there are always ways to misinterpret it or misuse it.
SvaraRaderaYour posts really made an impact – I got some "aha"-experiences myself by reading your thoughts! Thank you for that. :) I don't mind you dedicating this reflection post almost entirely for nominalism since you brought up some relevant questions to that. The cliffhanger – the question ending the post – especially caused an interesting chain of thoughts in my mind. When applying a nominalistic view, it's indeed relevant whether it sort of takes the ground off from everything. Like you said, is there anything to strive for? I can not say that I'm certain we understood the concept in the same way or if I perceived your thoughts as you meant them, but I started thinking to what extend categorizing is a "basic need" for a humans in order to live their lives and would nominalism be better applied to this scenery. There's a fine line: on the other hand extreme categorization leads to narrow-minded thinking that leans towards stereotypes, while on the other hand extreme nominalism makes some fundamental concepts disappear. And to what extend can humans justify their actions by saying "nature is what it is"?
SvaraRaderaThese are interesting things to discuss! And like you said yourself, it's definitely more delightening to discuss with co-students about these themes. :)