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Definition
| – Guns, Germs and Steel – Cargo deals with material goods. Why do we accumulate so much of it and what does it all mean? Does having more material goods than another make you more advanced? This brings back up the question of what is the true meaning of progress? |
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| – Marx – flaw of capitalism – find new raw materials or get stuck with the excess (glut). Each time, it is harder to recover and get rid of glut; there are fewer new markets each time. Make machines more efficient (can only do this so much… limited by technology). Drop wages to maintain profits; you can only drop wages so far as to bring them down to the subsistence wage. Ultimately leads to the collapse of capitalism |
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Term
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| – Nietzsche - antiquarian history, a form of history aimed at creating a feeling of connection to one's history.- one of his 3 forms of history for active man – This history is for the active man that preserves and admires the past. Antiquarian history also has its pros and cons. It is the history of the man who wants to know himself, and looks at what is small and limited of everyday life. ADV: nationalist history, all people identify with great past, roots, pride. DISADV: alters the past, does not distinguish good from bad, veneration of old leads to rejection of new, does not generate new life |
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Term
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Definition
| – Niles Eldredge … – it is the widespread, ongoing mass extinction of species during the modern Holocene epoch (current period). The large number of extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods; a sizeable fraction of these extinctions are occurring in the rainforests. This extinction event is sometimes referred to as the sixth extinction following the previous five extinction events. Between 1500 and 2006 CE, 784 extinctions have been documented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.[1] However, since most extinctions are likely to go undocumented, scientists estimate that during the 20th century, between 20,000 and two million species became extinct, but the precise total cannot be determined more accurately within the limits of present knowledge. We are destroying the planet. Agriculture started it all. Pollution and global warming etc... |
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Definition
| – Marx - the causes of all social changes and political revolutions are not to be found in the minds of men, in notions of eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the mode of production and exchange, in the economics of the period. |
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Term
| timidly disguised universal men |
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Definition
| – Neitzsche - "how much that is different must be overlooked, how ruthlessly must the individuality of the past be forced into a general form …" Monumental history is inspirational. It advises us that greatness is once more possible if we imitate past greatness. Monumental history thus produces a script, forcing out all specificity. It is nothing but lifeless mimesis, producing "nothing but timidly disguised universal men." |
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| a world after its own image |
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Definition
| – Marx: All old industry either was revolutionized or destroyed, dislodged by new industries. Demand for products meant increased trade across the world and universal interdependence of nations. This is the world the bourgeoisie created: one of imperialism and colonialism. |
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Term
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Definition
| – Guns, Germs and Steel- The Fertile Crescent is a region in the Near East, incorporating the Levant and Mesopotamia, and often extended to Egypt. Mesopotamia is considered the Cradle of civilization and saw the development of the earliest human civilizations and is the birthplace of writing and the wheel. The fertile crescent disappeared for a few reasons. The environment was too dry and too fragile to handle heavy farming. Because the land became unable to farm, people were forced to leave the Fertile Crescent because, ironically, it wasn’t so fertile any more. |
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Definition
| – DuBois – speech by Booker T Washington. In the Atlanta Compromise, he asked other races in America to ensure fair treatment to the African American race. Moreover he also demanded better jobs for African Americans for them to have a sound and strong financial base. Apart from that, he also appealed to his fellow African Americans to concentrate upon ameliorating the standard of their lives and accept segregation. In addition to that, he also asked the African Americans not to demand equal treatment. |
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Definition
| - Engels - Engels wrote about monogamous marriage in his book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Engels describes monogamous marriage as a social institution designed for two main functions. First, monogamous marriage ensured wealth was passed down to biologically related offspring. Second, monogamous marriage trapped women in a life of unpaid domestic and childrearing labor. Engels believed the communist revolution would undermine both of these functions. A communist society would no longer allow wealth to be passed down to biological offspring, and a communist society would socialize the work of raising children. Monogamous marriage would no longer serve any purpose in communist society. Eventually monogamous marriage would fade away. |
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Term
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Definition
| – Merchants of Cool – people who search for “cool” -- Coolhunting is a term coined in the early 1990s referring to a new breed of marketing professionals, called coolhunters. It is their job to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends. The word derives from the aesthetic of "cool". |
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Term
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Definition
| – DuBois - The term is used to describe an individual whose identity is divided into several facets. This is basically the idea that a black person will look at themselves through their own eyes and then, through the eyes of a white man and scrutinize themselves accordingly. It is essentially an awareness of one's self as well as an awareness of how others perceive that person. |
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Term
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Definition
| – Marx – Make miserable, impoverish. This refers to the creation of the working class and the locking of them into their lower places in society. The immiseration of the workers—wages below levels needed to survive and thrive. The notion that all “progress” achieved through capitalism does not benefit the worker, but is achieved at the expense of the worker. The gulf between capitalists and workers grows ever greater. The middle class shrinks and eventually falls into the working class. |
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Term
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Definition
| – Darwin – Life grows on the order as a tree; not like a ladder. New forms and species are no greater than others, they are simply differently adapted. This comes from the idea of divergence of character. |
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Term
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Definition
| – Marx (more detail needed??) – Replaced the feudal system -- Divides workers and capitalists. People no longer are specialized workers; production is streamlined. Class struggle is created between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. Contains shortcomings: The inherent flaw—the crises of overproduction, overcome through reducing the cost of production (workers’ wages) and through expanded markets. |
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Term
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Definition
| – Marx – Surplus labor - Marxian economics regards surplus labor as the ultimate source of capitalist profits. It means labor performed in excess of the labor necessary to produce the means. This labor usually goes by unpaid. This unpaid labor creates surplus value and thus serves as the basis for capital accumulation |
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Term
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Definition
| – Darwin – Thomas Malthus was famous for his theory on population. This theory stipulated that overpopulation leads to disease and depletion of resources. Darwin was provoked by Malthus’ work to explore this idea and offer a reasoning behind which species survive in these types of environments and why. |
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Term
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Definition
| – Marx – Monetary exchange between worker and employer. Relationship is now impersonal |
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Term
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Definition
| – Nietzsche – one of the 3 ways active man needs history – Critical history is needed because he suffers and seeks liberation. This is history required for a quick, in the moment decision. The advantages are that critical history offers a critique of power structure, discusses inequality, and can lead to change in present. The disadvantages are History based on human violence and injustice—we are product and must condemn ourselves; we invent history to accommodate ourselves |
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Term
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Definition
| – Marx - private property, which he said caused humans to work only for themselves, not for the good of their species. In his papers of this period, published as Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, he elaborated on the idea that alienation had an economic base. He called for a communist society to overcome the dehumanizing effect of private property. |
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Term
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Definition
| – Merchants of cool – The mook is created to capitalize on the testotsterine driven male adolescents. The mook is loud, obnoxious and dumb. Jackass is a perfect example of the mook in action. The midriff is a collection of sexual cliché’s targeted at women. The midriff’s best example is Pamela Anderson in Baywatch. Lots of skin, big and sexy. It provokes women in society to exploit themselves in a way. The danger of these two images is that when teens are exposed to media containing them enough, real life and TV start to blur together. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Guns, Germs and Steel) Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. However, when humans overwork the land and deplete the nutrients from the soil, that land can no longer be cultivated. The society that developed must then leave or migrate to another region where they can continue to cultivate the land and flourish. In addition, when climatic changes occur that make regions more arid, civilization can no longer prosper. They must also migrate to new territories. This is happened to the ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescant. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels) The epoch of the bourgeoisie has one distinctive feature: It has simplified the class antagonisms (bourgeoisie vs. proletariat). The previous feudal system of industry, monopolized by closed guilds, could not produce the commodities quickly enough to keep pace with demand. Feudal system of industry was replaced by manufacturing system. Guildmasters were replaced by manufacturing middle class. Once the bourgeoisie established control over the mode of production (modern industry) and opened up the world market, it then moved to assert itself as the new political power. It took the power from the old landed aristocracy, and any remaining royalty became the figurehead for modern bourgeois interests |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Nietzsche)- Nietzsche defines modern “objectivity” as the practice of judging the past through the lens of popular, commonly accepted contemporary opinion. This form of history is useless and repetitive in its meaningless generalizations; it offers nothing new, no new insights, no profound new perspective from which to gain new meaning. Nietzsche believes that “justice” is a rare virtue. Justice requires not only the ability to perceive objectively, to evaluate events from a distance, but also that the individual act on that perception, enact judgment and recognize his own implicit complicity in what he condemns. To judge requires the strength to act on that judgment, and to act means to live unhistorically. As judge, the individual is also human and therefore flawed, unjust in his very subjectivity. |
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Term
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Definition
| -(Darwin)- Varieties are species in the process of formation (incipient species). They are the prototypes and parents of future well-marked species. The early differences between varieties become more and more distinct as specific varieties breed amongst themselves over an extended period of time. Those varieties that may be considered inferior with intermediate characteristics will tend to have been neglected and eventually disappear. “We see in man’s productions the action of what may be called the principle of divergence, causing differences, at first barely appreciable, steadily to increase, and the breeds to diverge in character both from each other and from their common parent” |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Du Bois)- This system set going a system of free labor, established a beginning of peasant proprietorship, secured the recognition of black freedmen before courts of law, and founded the free common school in the South. On the other hand, it failed to begin the establishment of goodwill between ex-masters and freedman, to guard its work from paternalistic methods and to provide the freedmen with land. The South came to ignore all the good deeds of the Bureau because of prejudice and hatred. As a result, the system failed, but it brought about the birth of the fifteenth amendment. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin) - Inuktitut for “large freshwater fish”; Tiktaalik is the intermediate between fish and primitive land-living animals. All fish prior to the Tiktaalik have a set of bones that attach the skull to the shoulder, so that every time the animal bent its body, it also bent its head. The Tiktaalik’s head is completely free of the shoulder. This arrangement is shared with amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. |
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Term
| indigestible knowledge stones |
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Definition
| - (Nietzsche)- The idea that history is weighing us down, making us sick and not helping us. We are being fed knowledge and we are accumulating facts, but we are not given the opportunity to bring about change. This excess of knowledge doesn’t give us the energy to act—it is not serving life, it is just a mere possession of knowledge not used productively. |
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Term
| function of the university |
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Definition
| - (Du Bois)- “The function of the university is not simply to teach bread-winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre of polite society; it is above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, and adjustment which forms the secret of civilization.” |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Darwin) The earth was created in 6 days and God rested on the 7th day. Earth is 6,000 years old. The world is fixed, static and immutable because it was created by God and therefore is perfect. Man is created in God’s image, “homo duplex,” given charge of and supremacy over the earth and all things on it. |
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Definition
| - (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea) With the discovery of DNA came new support for the theory of evolution. You can monitor changes in the DNA to see how it has evolved over time. As new mutations arose and species evolved, new proteins were coded for. Mutations occur at more or less constant rates. Thus, you can monitor the mutations between species to estimate how long ago they diverged (became two species instead of one). The fact that this measure of time between divergences generally matches fossil records and morphology supports evolution. |
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Term
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Definition
| -(“For Richer” by Krugman)- The new gilded age is today’s society as compared to the old gilded age of the robber barons. The intermediate period—America during the 1950s and 1960s—was a middle-class society where the vast income and wealth inequalities of the old gilded age had disappeared. Today, the concentration of income is contained within a small percentage at the top. Additionally, politics has shifted in favor of this small percentage in order to gain support for political campaigning. |
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Term
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Definition
| -Simon Head, “Inside the Leviathan”- Walmart |
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Definition
| -(Marx and Engels)- The Proletariat vs. the Bourgeoisie. Ever increasing oppression of the workers means that instead of benefiting from progress of industry, the workers become more and more exploited and impoverished. The lower strata of the middle class gradually sink into the proletariat. The divide becomes greater and greater. The Proletariat forms the majority of society. The workers begin to band together to form trade unions as a defense against the bourgeoisie. Their concentration in the cities facilitates this process of unionization. Also, improved communications created by modern industry facilitates communication of workers around the world. It becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea) with HIV infections, so many new forms—so many viral mutants—arise that many cannot be eliminated with medication. The immune system then "selects" those mutants that escape elimination—favoring the survival of the fittest viral mutants at the expense of their human host. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Du Bois)-Du Bois uses this term to refer to man’s belief of dollars as the “be-all and end-all of life”. He fears that the ideals of the Negro people will be in danger. Once searching for another and a juster world, the Negro people will begin sink to a question of cash and a lust for gold. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Darwin) All species overproduce. Limited resources in space. Limited resources in time. All organisms compete for finite resources. “Struggle” is a metaphor for this competition for finite resources and includes interdependence of species, success in leaving progeny, and survival during times of adverse climate conditions. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Nietzsche)- We are living in a culture full of facts. These facts are only facts in and of themselves. We talk about our culture and our history but we don’t use this information productively and we therefore stifle our creativity. Individuals are educated not to develop to their fullest, ripest potential for action, but to engage in “common, maximally useful labour”. Overwhelmed with the excess of historical culture, the individual is not allowed to mature intellectually, his sensibility is dulled, he is filled with apathy and disgust, the student learns method and technique but not the value of life itself. Knowledge without purpose leads to indifference and the belief that existence is meaningless. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Darwin) The biblical notion that the world is fixed, static and immutable because it was created by God and therefore is perfect. Species, as they exist today, are in their permanent and unalterable form because that is the way in which God created them. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Nietzsche) An excess of history produces a contrast of or split into man’s inside and outside and results in a weakened personality. Man’s inside is a chaotic inner world that he refers to as his unique “inwardness”. A flood of chaotic knowledge overwhelms and dominates him and he cannot act, live. Thus weakened, man becomes a spectator rather than a participant in culture and life. He is incapable of effecting change, of action. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Video: Ethic Notions)- The coon caricature is one of the most insulting of all anti-Black caricatures. The name itself, an abbreviation of raccoon, is dehumanizing. As with Sambo, the coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon. The coon differed from the Sambo in subtle but important ways. Sambo was portrayed as a loyal and contented servant. The coon, although he often worked as a servant, was not happy with his status. He was, simply, too lazy or too cynical to attempt to change his lowly position. |
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Term
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Definition
| - (Your Inner Fish by Shubin) - The swellings and indentations seen on a developing human embryo; they resemble the gill slits in the throat regions of fish and sharks. Every head on every animal from a shark to a human shares four of these arches in development. These indentations normally seal over. We can manipulate the identity of the gill arches almost at will, by changing the activity of the genes inside. |
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Term
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Definition
| -(The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels) - With developments in machinery and the division of labor, all skilled labor was rendered unnecessary. The unskilled worker simply became an “appendage of the machine”; he was dehumanized. The value of the worker declined, and the supply of unskilled labor was unlimited. |
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Term
| blindness of preconceived opinion |
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Definition
| - (Darwin)- Darwin states in the conclusion of his paper that people who choose to attach more weight to unexplainable concepts, such as creationism, rather than to an explanation with many supporting facts (evolution) will never support his theory. Their existing opinions prevent them from accepting new and more accurate theories. He places his faith in the youth of future generations to accept his ideas because they haven’t been biased by preconceived opinions. |
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Term
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Definition
| -employee output. Employers (aka bourgeoisie) want this to be as high as possible, so they will take advantage of employees with low wages, poor working conditions, long/illegal hours, child labor, etc… anything to make the profit margin greater. |
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Term
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Definition
| -The philosophical base for Marxism. Combines the dialectic of Hegel and the Materialism of Freud. Culminates in the quote “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Cause of social change lies in the mode of production and exchange in the economy. |
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Term
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Definition
| -the consciousness that can live in the moment with no guilt, remorse, memory, or conscience: immediately forget the past, can live happily, easily. Examples are animals, small children. Men are /not/ an example of this. |
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Term
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Definition
| -Evidence of past life in the geologic time scale. Though the fossil record did not support Darwin’s theory because it does not show intermediate links, Darwin argued that the fossil record was imperfect, which it is, and that fossils may have been decayed, weathered/worn, and covered by the sea. |
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Term
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Definition
| -1.) blacks, conscious of their position in society could become “bitter” and “vindictive” and begin to use religion to complain and curse. Or 2.) the “keener” religious groups saw the strength in the anti-black movement an opportunity: forgetting about ethics, they knew how to get their own way from the oppressor. |
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Term
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Definition
| -the tendency of teens to mirror the media’s actions and images, while the media (claims to) mirror the teens’ actions and images leads to a giant positive feedback loop which only reinforces the idea in teens’ minds that the images on TV and in movies are what they need to be. |
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Term
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Definition
the distinguishing feature of communism is abolition of private property
destruction of bourgeoisie culture: freedom, laws, philosophy, religion – all of these simply reinforce bourgeoisie culture.
Destruction of bourgeoisie marriage and family
Abolition of countries and nationality |
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Term
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Definition
-Arises as a result of Booker T. Washington’s ideology:
he is fighting to make African Americans artisans, business men, and private property owners, but they cannot do so without the right to suffrage.
he preaches “thrift and self-respect” but also preaches “civic inferiority” and “silent submission.” These two ideas disagree.
Advocates for common-school and industrial training, and depreciates the value of institutions of higher learning, but the common-schools and industrial schools would not be able to run without teachers from the “Negro” institutions of higher learning. |
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Term
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Definition
| -humans control the animals instead of following the animals around dependent on them. Domestic animals allow for milk and protein as well as provide beasts of burden: ie plow. The reason for the explosion of civilization in Europe, North Africa, and Asia is that almost all of the 14 domesticated animals in the world come from these areas. |
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Term
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Definition
| -Capitalism, due to the boom/bust cycle which periodically overproduces, requires new markets. This leads to imperialism which, in essence, is globalization in that it is one culture extending all over other parts of the world. Globalization leads to lack of individuality and loss of differing cultures throughout the world. |
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Term
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Definition
| -the process in which organisms better adapted to the environment tend to survive and produce offspring, therefore passing on their favorable traits. |
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Term
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Definition
| -one of Darwin’s leading opponents. Contributions to paleontology include the distinction between homologous and analogous body parts. Believed that the structure of all vertebrates could be derived from a common archtype. |
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Term
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Definition
| -The problem of the twentieth century according to Du Bois. Black people not treated equally. Establishments, like the Freedman’s Bureau, try to recognize the rights of blacks as human beings, but prejudices and preconceived notions and the “veil” stand in the way. |
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Term
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Definition
| -Growing of food allowing a group of people to remain in a single place. Since not everyone is needed to grow the food, as everyone was needed in hunting and gathering food, people can specialize and begin to develop aspects of culture. |
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Term
| descent with modification |
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Definition
| -the idea of progressionism: lower level to higher level + idea of continuity with slow change + time. Mutability of species + time = evolution. |
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Term
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Definition
| -not the goal of evolution, though Darwin mentions it a couple of times to appease the readers of the day. The real goal of evolution is better adaptability, not perfection. |
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Term
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Definition
| -working class: sell their labor to the capitalists – subject to laws of supply and demand. Developments in technology and machines made skilled labor unnecessary and the worker became an “appendage of the machine.” Supply of unskilled labor = unlimited. Labor costs to capitalists = bare minimum to keep workers alive and well enough to procreate more workers. Formed: resistance against bourgeoisie began with attacks against machinery that was replacing them. As competition between individuals for jobs increase, there is horizontal conflice between laborers, instead of between the laborers and the capitalists. Workers band together. Unionization. Bourgeoisie created own weapon against itself. Proletariat “will be” the first majority to overthrow a minority instead of a minority overthrowing a minority. |
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Term
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Definition
| -the process of a group of organisms dying out, having no living members. Darwin’s idea which was revolutionary because people of his day did not believe in such a thing. Justified the reasons why the “intermediate links” were not living and visible. As organisms became better adapted, their parents forms became extinct because they were not as well suited to the environment. |
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Term
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Definition
| -myth in which a huntress would only marry a man who could beat her in a foot race. She was beaten when a suitor threw down three golden apples and she stopped to pick them up. Symbolic for greed lust… aka greed material things. The drive for wealth can lead to power to a certain extent, but with out education there is no progress and no substantial change. Golden apples = seduction and passion, not love; loss of all ideals. Basic society metaphor that we are seduced by wealth. Mammonism: material wealth is the be all and end all of life. Society translates progress into wealth but progress should really be working toward the ideals of the goals upon which the nation was founded (equality). This is an underhanded critique of Washington’s schools. Argues that education is not an accumulation of knowledge but how it is used. |
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Term
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Definition
| -for action and striving toward the future. Advantages include hope and faith in possibility. Disadvantages include leveling effect, true causes of events lost, and history distorted. The art example: if one only accepts great art of old as great, present art is stifled. Same in life. “dead bury the living.” |
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Term
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Definition
1.workers alienated from the product of their labor
2.workers alienated from labor process: the labor does not satisfy the worker, the worker must do the work to survive.
3.Workers alienated from their bodies and their physical capacity is limited
4.Workers are alienated from other workers: no bonding, no working together, even though man is a naturally social creature. |
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Term
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Definition
| there is 1/10th of the population, who, given the opportunity, would seek out and be able to handle higher education: important because these people are/would be the leaders and educators of the black community. Deny opportunity though, and they begin to believe that they can’t anger and violence. |
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