During the end of the semester, I read the book of “Thus Spoken Zarathustra” by Nietzsche, which impressed me again because I have read the Chinese edition few years ago. Honestly, it was still not an easy task to fully understand the meaning of the book and somehow feel confuse about the book’s idea, though Nietzsche was undoubtedly an outstanding philosopher. Even nowadays, his philosophical thoughts (spirit) maintain the leading place in the philosophical realm, and continuously affecting our daily lives. Unlike other traditional philosophical books like Kant’s “Groundwork of the metaphysic of moral” or G.W.F.Hegel’s logic, the way Nietzsche express his masterpiece is more likely close to poems and verses. As a result, it takes the readers more time to fully understand the implications behind the words. In the field of philosophy, there’s a proverb saying that whoever wants to get closer to philosophy, you have to study the work of Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche together. However, here I only try to understand and express my idea through researching the writing of Nietzsche and Plato.

Nietzsche’s earth.

In the book “Thus Spoken Zarathustra,” Nietzsche states his idea about the human and world. “I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe whose speak to you of extraterrestrial hopes! They are mixers of poisons whether they know it or not… Now to desecrate the earth is the most terrible thing, and to esteem the bowels of the unfathomable higher than the meaning of the earth.” (Nietzsche, p16) Zarathustra told the residents when he found so many people gathered to see the rope walking. Every words from Zarathustra have profound implications, so that we will miss so many meanings of his words. He feels pathetic with human because they use all the entertainments that they can in order to forget their misery lives. At the same time, there’s an idea created by some religious people who believe in God, which is there existed another perfect world that human can live happily and heathy. However, in the belief of Zarathustra, the perfect world is illusions created by the people who have no faith in lives and have not conquer their own fears. Like what he said, no God will be there to lead us to a perfect world when we die since the saviors of life is ourselves. It is not a sacrilege in believing the inexistency of god. Indeed, it is a progress to self-recognition because only mankind can make a difference in their lives.

What the Zarathustra said reflect to the philosophy of Nietzsche- as known as “The will power. “The will to power” is about life and will; it begin with life and also end in life.” God is dead” (Part 1) “I teach you the superman. Man is something to be surpass. What have you done to surpass man?” (Part 3). What the God is dead is not meaning god is really dead. Nietzsche don’t believe the god theory back that time, he thinks God is just created by people who are unhappy with their lives and fear of death. In order for particular persons to rule the society and make people obey to the ruler, they created a god to bring people together with something in common. Moreover, Nietzsche disagreed with the theory of values and ethical that God make. He viewed religious and gods are only religious, because God is only existing in life and happiness is only resist in your praying. The god’s theory that people need perfect world is a behavior of ignorance and false, it only brings fear, fear of the unknown future. For human being, they are unknown animals, they need to learn “superman,” the superman is whom can recognize the reality that the current places that we are living in is the real world. We don’t pray or hope to transfer to another perfect world after died. Superman believes god does not exist. “All creatures so far created something beyond themselves,” (part 1) furthermore, mankind need over ourselves, make their better values and standards today’s life.  Zarathustra’s speech embodies Nietzsche’ idea about the “will to power”.  He believes even there is not god, but there is a “will to power” can make human being surpass the past, ignorant, and blindness and overcome themselves. In short, trust yourself rather than blindly follow the belief of the other perfect world and god.

Plato’s “Theory of the Forms”

Discussing mainly on the Plato’s writings, he also have a view of world that called “Theory of Forms.” The forms are courage, the good and beauty or something that people can sense but intangible. For example, we all know they are horses whenever the horses are small, have brown hair or white hair. The reason we know they are all horses is because we have a sub consciousness mind or “form” that telling us how a horse should be looked like, rather than sensing the appearance of horses.

There is a forms world. All forms are exist in a pure land created by god, before we born, we all live in this pure land. It means what men sense in this world it is not real, the form world is.

Both Plato and Nietzsche view worldly truth and truthfulness ethically, that is they view the measure and value of truth and truthful as a matter of our truth judgement make to life. Plato believes there are a perfect form world and it is the only true world, so he thinks people don’t learn from the living world, instead we learn the forms world. Meanwhile, he claims that the perfect form world is only learned go thought the senses and all our knowledge are also come from the perfect world, it so called recollection. “Theory of form” is an idea of a perfect world. It is a really good idea for the people who suffer in the living world. The ethical, eternal and perfect, they sound like a perfect ideal world. However, there are many weakness of the theory. According to the “Theory of The Forms” by Plato, a behavior of justice is moral, that because there is a moral behavior in the form world. Forms exist and do not rely on something else. However in our world, what is the justice? Justice is a behavior that must base on a policy or a behavior. What we want to see in the form world is not the behaviors of the justice, it just justice itself. So as the developing of the society, we know the theory is lack of common sense and principles.

Comparing to Plato and Nietzsche, I tend to agree with Nietzsche’s philosophies since he has more similarities on their theories. Base on Nietzsche’s words: “Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and overman-a rope over an abyss,” this is a most significant about his logic of philosophy. Firstly, the ideal about the overman. The greatest thing of mankind is they are a bridge, not a destination. Our lives are a process that never stop and it is unpredictable. However, human being can overcome themselves by self-affirmation and hardworking, then surpass the past and walk into a future. Secondly, there is not a so called god. The only god is the earth-ourselves. The system of the life values is not created by god, we created it by our own. Thus, we need to respect life, the best ways to grate it is use will to overcome ourselves and make the life more meaningful.  Finally, another aspect that I learn from Nietzsche is the faith. Faith is blind, so a blink man will not believe light, because he knows there is unnecessary. Plato describes a wonderful world that people dream for in his books, but it is not about who we are now, it about we just keep the faith to the another world and maybe god. Basically, they all say god is the faith. Not for Nietzsche. He wants human being has an own ethical standard and beyond the standards, human can be brave, be create and be strong. Human can make a different because they want, not just because god wants.

Words Cited

Nietzsche, F. W., & Kaufmann, W. (1995). Thus spoke Zarathustra: A book for all and none. New York: Modern Library.

What is language? According to Weber dictionary, language is “the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way”. For me, it is a method to express humans’ emotion and ideas. Thus, it plays a significant and extraordinary sign in the silent pantomime. It makes people think about what we really need in our society.

In the movie “Modern Times” there are two scenes that language presents and impresses people. One is the supervisor in factory gives orders to his employees thought monitors. Another one is when Chaplin sings in the restaurant. In the first scene, it embodies the industry revolution. The factory and its supervisor are side of capitalism, the language (orders) that the supervisor gives to another side of society- proletariat, it presents a dominate relationship. The supervisor sits in his comfortable office wears a suit and doing nothing except monitors his employees. His voice and tone are full of unrespect and arrogance, Thus, the scene of language makes people feel unpleased and anxiety, just like what people feel about the machines in the factory. Also the pace when workers are working seems inhumane and unreasonable. Here, in this time of the machinery and technology, human resources are like machines in the industry for capitalism. The only value of them is creating the benefit. In the second language scene, it was the first time that people heard Chaplin’s voice. In the first, Chaplin works as a waiter and prepares to sing to customers, but he keep forgets the lyrics. At the end, Chaplin just made up a nonsense song. The song that Charlie sang was absolutely not fit the melody but it sounded so joyous and romantic, so nobody even cared and noticed what if the lyrics were right. Chaplin was so confidence when he sang and danced in front of the customers. That was the life should be look like, being confident and happy.

In this silence pantomime, the language is no long the factor to show us about the reality of the society, on the contrary, the silence is. The machines in the factory, the workers on strike, or the family on the starving all relate and reflect the unfair relationship of the classes in our society. The industry evolution is supposed to make humans’ life more comfortable and joyful, but it isn’t. Based on that, human beings need to rethink about the revolution.

Dadaism and Surrealism are artistic and intellectual movements in the early 20^th century. They both fundamental define and sharp Modernism with their direct reaction and illogical performances.

The 1924 year vision of “Ballet Mécanique” is quite amazing me. I feel it more likes a phycology performance of art rather than just an artist piece of film. First, the file opens and ends with an animated feature which I assume it is artist Charlie Chaplin. With the machines and the industrial produce, it makes me concerned and feel anxious. Second, the cubist images stimulate my eyes and also reflect to my brain; makes me think about something which relates to my life and society. I even can’t express what my feeling is. Then the visual juxtaposition of features play a significant role. They simulate my visual sense then develop anther feeling into my mind. Overall, for me, the film embodies many values of the surrealist, which are irrational and ant- idealistic.

“Un Chien Andalou” is a short movie that really confuses me, perhaps it is a silence movie so that I cannot connect to all the scenes. There are many unreasonable transaction scenes that trouble me. In the opening of the file, the sense of a razor cuts an eye makes me scared. but it jumps quickly to a totally different scene that a man rides a bicycle in the street. The two transactions are irrational and confusing. Even on the other scenes, they all have an unrealistic connection. In other word, the film uses an illogical narration to describe the transactions and put them as a story. However, it makes the story unrecognized and chaotic, at least from my perspective they do. I believe the director deliberately narratives the story to the audiences and try to connect them with a comma sense.

Both files are perform an unreasonable, non-logical and unrealistic sense of feeling, meanwhile they also react with a physiological thinking for audiences.

In order to more understand about Expressionism, let look over what impressionism is first.Impressionism can be considered the first distinctly modern movement in painting. Developing in Paris in the 1860s. Impressionism is generally considered to be a spontaneous method of painting in which an artist attempts to capture the impression of light in a scene. The Impressionists broke from the traditional painting methods of their day and applied paint in small touches of pure color rather than mix the paint and apply it in broad strokes using a painting knife or a brush.

After then, the society changed a lot. The new movements,  especially the French Revolution changed people’s mind to think what freedom and society should be.  Inspired by these ideas and capture the Impressionism expression style, numerous writing and painting arts were created to express their inside emotions.

In that point (19^th century), as more and more significant activities occurred and enlighten in Europe, some artists began to use a typical skill to express their art pieces, which we called them expressionists later days. he Expressionist emphasis on individual perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism and other artistic styles such as Naturalism and Impressionism. The skill was used in the modern sense as early as 1850 and it traced to paintings exhibited in 1901 in Paris by artist Julien Auguste Herve.

After then, so many Germany philosophers stated to think and question the religious, one of the famous was Friedrich Nietzsche. In his so famous book” Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, the Zarathustra claimed that “God is dead” and its ours, killed god.

As influenced by such these irregular thoughts and criticizes, many and many artistes joined this movement of expressionism.   In 1905, a group of four German artists, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, formed Die Brücke(the Bridge) in the city of Dresden

In 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich.

Until 1913, the movement initially and most predominant in painting, poetry and the theatre,Thus, German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s.  In this movement most precursors of the movement were not German.There have been expressionist writers of prose fiction, as well as non-German speaking expressionist writers.

The movement effect on many artist areas, there were subsequent expressionist works.

1: Dance 2: Sculpture 3: Cinema 4: Literature 5: Music 6: Architecture 7: Visual Arts

The most recognized one were visual and literature. In literature, expressionism is often considered a revolt against realism and naturalism and seeking to achieve a psychological or spiritual reality rather than record external events in logical sequence. For instance, the in prose, the early stories and novels of Alfred Döblinwere influenced by Expressionism andFranz Kafka is sometimes labelled an Expressionist. There are some writers and works of Expressionist :

• Franz Kafka(1883–1924): “The Metamorphosis” (1915), The Trial(1925), The Castle (1926)
• Alfred Döblin(1857–1957): Berlin Alexanderplatz(1929)
• Wyndham Lewis(1882–1957)[
• Djuna Barnes(1892–1982): Nightwood(1936)
• Malcolm Lowry(1909–57): Under the Volcano(1947)
• Ernest Hemingway
• Patrick White(1912–90)

In visual art filed, Paris as a reaction to the more passive style of Impressionism.  The heart of the expressionism lies the idea that one conveys emotional experience over physical reality.

 

Expressionist visual artists list:

• Armenia: Martiros Saryan
• Australia: Sidney Nolan, Charles Blackman, John Perceval, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester
• France: Georges Rouault, Georges Gimel, Gen Paul, Bernard Buffet and Chaim Soutine
• Germany: Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Fritz Bleyl, Heinrich Campendonk, Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Carl Hofer, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz,
• Italy: Emilio Giuseppe Dossena
• Mexico: Mathias Goeritz (German émigré to Mexico), Rufino Tamayo
• Netherlands: Charles Eyck, Willem Hofhuizen, Herman Kruyder, Jaap Min, Jan Sluyters, Vincent van Gogh, Jan Wiegers and Hendrik Werkman
• Norway: Edvard Munch, Kai Fjell
• Poland: Henryk Gotlib
• Portugal: Mário Eloy, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso
• Russia: Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Alexej von Jawlensky, Natalia Goncharova, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and Marianne von Werefkin
• South Africa: Maggie Laubser, Irma Stern
• Sweden: Axel Törneman
• Switzerland: Carl Eugen Keel, Cuno Amiet, Paul Klee
• Ukraine: Alexis Gritchenko (Ukraine-born, most active in France), Vadim Meller
• United Kingdom: Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Lucian Freud, Patrick Heron
• USA: Ivan Albright, Milton Avery, George Biddle, Hyman Bloom, Peter Blume, Charles Burchfield, David Burliuk, Stuart Davis, Lyonel Feininger, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Beauford Delaney, Arthur G. Dove, Norris Embry, Philip Evergood, Kahlil 
• …

 

In Kafka’s “The Judgement”, the Major character Georg Bendemann is a young merchant who takes over his father’s business after his mother passed away. Under his leading, the business goes success and profitable. The more successful thing is he meets a lovely girl called Frieda and decides to marry her. Thus, he wants to share this wonderful news with his best friend, a man who lives far away in Russian and recently lives in a bad circumstance. He wants to tell his best friend about his engagement, but considering his friends situation,  the news might makes him feels coerce and aggrieve. To do or not to do, it puts Georg a situation of hesitation However, his fiancée suggests he should tell his friend about the news, in case the friend will hear the wedding news from other people.

“But I have a right to get know all your friends” Georg’s fiancée Frieda first seems curious about why this special friend will not come to their wedding after Georg confirms that he does not invite his friend. Georg tries to express his concerning how this news will hurt his friend. For Frieda, this such concerning mostly come from the care of his friend, not the joy of engagement. She feels a bit disappoint, but she insists. “But wouldn’t he discover our marriage in some other way”? However, Georg still rejects her insistence and it complicates Frieda’s feelings. “Yes, we both to blame for that, but I would not have wanted it any differently”.  Frieda cannot believes the words come from her future husband. The most enjoyable and felicific marriage of them is not his future husband’s purpose, instead, this friend is. “If you have such a friend, Georg, you should not have gotten engaged at all”, the feeling mixes with anger and jealous and it erupts to show Frieda’s determination. The curious of his husband mystery friend makes Frieda feeling exhausting. She used to happy for his husband has such a good friend and want to meet him, but from his husband perspective, this friend belongs to him only, no one can share with him, even his fiancée. The friend accepts all of Georg’s, so Georg wants his Frieda do the same thing for him. But as the closest people in Georg’s life, Frieda feels she have never been accepted into his future husband’s life.  This offends her feelings as well as her esteem and respect.

Nowadays, many human rights such as the right for free speech, religion choice and a right to education for every child seem normal and commonly understood by us. However, back to the 18th century, these regularly protected as legal rights today were just been discussed which caused society abruption. If we looked into our history, our society was rebuilt through the blood of many revolutions and the battles for fighting the human rights. The most significant one was the French Revolution.

The French revolution was a revolutionary movement that shook France between 1787 and 1799. It was a movement that people demanded to abolish privilege of the aristocracy and established the individual human rights for man and French citizens. Whereas, it also provoked arguments for social reforms. Intellectuals whose writings to inspired to these arguments were certainly influenced the west countries, but they came to very difference conclusions.  There are the two most important perspectives about the French revolution.

Edmund Burke, one of the most famous British intellectuals accused the French revolution of being an irrational uprising that would end disastrously. His argument of the revolution that is was based on the “digest of anarchy.” He believed the revolution’s fervor would destroy the French society in the end. He thought the tradition of the society should be maintaining on its way, which means the absolute monarchic system of France. He worried that the French revolution would result in a huge impact on England and changed England more or less. Unlike Burke, Percy Bysshe Shelley has absorbed the thoughts of French evolutional deeply. He disputed the feudal system and advocated the French revolution. He saw the revolution was a change of a better world, which beginning from the rights that people pursuing in the French revolution.  The main opposite of them opinion was based on the reasons and the tradition. Burke believed the traditions had their reason to keep common people obeying, because that was the basic processing step of our society. The monarchy is the correct way to rule the society, which Shelley doubted and hold a verse view.

In spite of Burke and Shelley have difference opinions on the French revolution, but there also has similarities between them. Both they were valuing the existing meanings and spirits of human life, such as friendship, love and emotion. The abstract and philosophical ideas they wrote embodied and emphasized the rational human virtue.

During the 18^TH century, there was an evolution that shocked and remarked thought human history, yet it still continue influencing our civilization—French Evolution. In 1789, in order to rebuild a better and fair structure of society, every stage of oppressions in French were joined to fight the absolute monarchy. Finally, the angry and oppressed people executed their extravagant spending king and made a declaration of the rights of man of the citizen. This success of the uprising inspired people around the world. The evolution enlightened people about freedom, independence and better future.

The enlightenment of French evolution not only affected varies of social structures, but also inspired the processing of the western literature; poetry was one of extreme examples. Before the French revolution, the poetry was typically written about the superiors and aristocrats. After then, the evolution brought the light of a better future that charged many writers’ minds about what life was. The writers began changing their subject from the upper class to the working class. Percy Bysshe Shelly was one of the most influential writer back in that time, along with other famous Romantic poet creators, such as William Wordsworth and John Keats, they all felt sympathy for the people living in the oppression by unfair rules and believed the French Evolution was a point of an upcoming new world.

“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds” According to the “A defense of Poetry,” Shelly defined his new idea about what poetry should be and It should be about humanity. The happiest things happened to every single human being. Poetry was a universal sense, which combined the color and images in our interlunation of lives. As a response to modern poetry after the evolution, Shelly also idealized what anther meaning was to poetry. It was “the most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution.” Poetry in the past was dependent on the unsuitable principles so that writers sometimes had to compromise to authorities in most of their works. Instead of the unwilling thoughts, real poetry should be about free thinking and opinions.

Additionally, “Poetry are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” As Shelly indicated, poetry are unacknowledged legislators which nobody can defined what poetry should be like. The really poetry in the new times is about humanity, freedom, the world, and everything.

Women are often been seen as a mystery and sensuous creature, from their emotions express or their behalves. In the work of The Sensuous Women by Ihara Saikaku, the author indicated female’s sensuousness and how they used it as an advantage and then intend to control over men.

When I readed the article, I was surprised by some ideas that the author tried to imply and express. Firstly, I think this article was a reflection of a view of a woman’s fate in a general Japanese society. This woman desired to be love and wanted to give her love, however, there were hundreds of reasons can stop her being a dreamer so that she could live a life she wanted. The biggest issue was the gender. Secondly, this story not only tried to indicate women’ irrational treatments in old time because of their gender, it also gave a different perspective about men were being more powerful than women through two men’s argument, which was interesting, because all kinds of power these two men discussed were depended on gender also. A most important thing was the article embodied the new idealism. It made we think about our society and prejudices even today.

In Asia, as well as many other places.  Women’s position in society were often seen lower than men. Male here are always consider female as their property. However, in this article, it was not about what the woman’s position in society, it about the awareness of enlightenment of women rights in the upcoming new world. Women can purchase what their want to do and to love like men does. When we are defining what powers are, it should base on people’s abilities and personalities and how these effect and benefit the society, not their gender