Protocol from 4/21, and a cool movie I watched!

No one who is writing protocol is here, and my protocol from Tuesday was late, so I volunteered to do today’s as penance for being late. Mandy is here! Ben feels like shit. Ahmed suggests we ajourn class. But Ben will persevere, since he has charismatic authority and will continue on. Is Mandy ready to talk about finance? In a second. Finance has been revived. We had a Marxist analysis on Tuesday. External writings #2 will be done soon, they are about half done. Shukri is here now. Really good things in external writings. Biggest mistake is that people aren’t following the assignment. Read it, and do what Ben says. Ben likes how we bring out our own voices in our writing. We shouldn’t lose that for external writing #3. Ben will show a paper written by someone in the class for a different class about history and sexuality. Ben is trying to get it up, but he is not the best with technology. The paper is an example of what NOT to do. Ben finally got the projector to work. “Sexualities Change, Class Stays the Same”. What are some issues? Paige says there are too many ideas and run-on sentences. It shows a lack of focus. Ahmed says that the writer needs to be more clear about the focus. Kate says that this is an example of what she tells her 18 eyar old brother when she proofreads his papers. Instead of using big, fancy soudning words, use words that sound like you. Alyssa says that it needs to be more to the point in terms of word usage and not try to sound “more intelligent”. Ben says it is everything that is wrong with the way that writing is taught in high schools. There is information that doesn’t relate, it is too vague. Ben shows us the actual writer of the paper, and it is……. Ben! He wrote it when he was an undergrad. Start the paper, be clear, and be yourself. Ben is kind of old, but doesn’t seem like it, says the protocol writer. Mandy, a finance major, will now tell us all about finance! Ben: This presentation is both a primary source and a secondary source. It is a primary source because it is embodied in Mandy, a living, breathing finance major.

If you miss work, you are down $3. Accountants don’t recognize this, but finance people do. If you buy some candy, you are down $2 more dollars. So you are now down $5 total. But if you had invested that $5 instead, you could be making more money. Opportunity cost is what you could have made, and what you could have additionally made with that initial amount. Net present value: value of the company presently, and how it will benefit the company right away. In the business world and in everyday life, you constantly make decisions of how things will benefit you now, as well as in the long term. A non-money example could be choosing classes. You have certain electives in your major that you get to chose from, and you have to

The protocol writer says, “isn’t this related to money as well, since you have to pay for credits, and you would choose between classes based on which ones you would be more likely to pass?” Mandy says, “but all credits cost the same.” The writer says, “We are still trapped in the iron cage of capitalism even within the relm of choosing classes.” Ben says, “hold that thought.”

Mandy continues: There are risks involved in finance, which sometimes scares her, but these are necessary parts of finance. You can make a lot of money, or it can go “POOF!”. Words of wisdom from Mandy: DON’T TAKE OUT CREDIT CARDS!! We don’t know enough about personal finances, so they take advantage of us. We must educate ourselves and take control of our personal finances. Finance can work for you, if you are knowlegable. Do research. “If it acts like a used car salesman, and sounds like a used car salesman, it’s probably a scam”. Building credit is good, but pay it off every month. Emily: build credit now, and be smart about it, because you need to have good credit. Marika says that the market is cheap for buying houses right now. So, maybe it is not a good time in our personal lives to buy a home, but it is good in market terms. So that is a decision that we have to make, which is exactly what this presentation is about!

Ben: TANSTAAFL. Time value of money. Money value of time. “Free lunch” last week from the green energy people did not cost us money, but through looking at opportunity cost, we see that it is not actually free. In a pre-capitalist mentalité, there is no opportunity cost, and there is nothing lost. In our capitalist mentalité, any money or time lost is a bad thing. Ben Franklin: “remember that time is money”. If you have the opportunity to earn 5 shillings, and you don’t take that opportunity, it is the same as throwing it into the sea. But what if you only have the opportunity to work half the day? Mandy says you could get a second job. But what if you can’t get another job, the job market sucks these days? Well…

Alyssa quotes Weber on page 18. It’s a reversal. Money being the master versus man being the master. Mandy works more for not only money, but for experience. Mandy is taking an internship solely to increase knowledge.

The writer says that you are actually increasing your marketability to increase your capital value, and perhaps vice versa.

At General Mills, they don’t take people if they haven’t had at least 2 internships and really good grades. Nowadays, you have to fight for these jobs with a lot of other people who are also doing really well.

Jordan: Internship is not only a way to get experience, it is almost like an interview.

Kolhaas could do his business before without any bureaucratic legitimation, nowadays he would have to go to business school. A bureaucratic truth is a charismatic truth that has caught on. M-C-M’-C-M”. Ben wants to move on to Hegel, but we are stalling because we don’t want to. Paige references Franklin vis-à-vis Weber – live according to your means.

Grab Hegel (as slowly as possible):

What do we need to talk about in the next half hour? What is important? How does it relate to what we just talked about?

Sophie: subjectivity. Protestantism is the principle of individual subjectivity.

Luther vs. Catholicism (414) – indulgences.

Lindsay: Holy Roman Empire/Charles V

Heidi: p. 416, individualism , objectivity, truth,

Mandy: p. 422, objective vs. subjective will. Luther gets married, eats meat on Fridays. Helped to understand reformation more. He pretty much started a revolution against the Catholic Church. Only answer to G-d, not church (or state?)

Marika: Went to a really bad church play. And they were in her pocket the whole time!

Ahmed: p. 427-28. Sounded like he was in favor of a non-Monarchical system. In a monarchy, the royal family has sovereign power. Opposed to Hegel’s ideas of individualism and not one person having complete authority (other than God).

Tam: Blind obedience

Shukri: spirit ß -> Christ. How can you be free when there are classes, etc, tying you down?

Kate: Reformation: man is destined to be free. Freedom=thinking.

German (/European) exceptionalism – us vs. them (414)

Salvation through secular world

French revolution: freedom of will vs. existing right (law) (446)

Sophie: Hegel ALMOST has a feminist moment! Faust (who sold his soul to the devil to have knowledge), women were seen as having “the devil within them”Also, Hegel has a big fat crush on Fredrich II. Hegel is mad racist, but you can also read him as a feminist. You can read him in oh so many ways.

The protocol writer reads a passage (page 199), in which Hegel alludes to his belief that the Egyptian people are “half-brute, half-human”.

In Weber’s understanding, Luther plays the role of the beginning into our descent into the iron cage.

In Hegel’s understanding, Luther is the liberator. He brought us into the light! He opposed the Catholic Church, which became exactly what Marika was talking about (taking a lot of money from people). Luther said that none of the other stuff mattered, only your spiritual freedom mattered and your relationship with God alone. What comes out of that is the notion of individual subjectivity. Luther dissociates the spirit (God) from the church. He performs the act that allows the individual to be free.

“Uncle Adolf” comes back in. The Nazis loved Hegel, loved Kolhaas, but definitely not Weber. The Lords loved this idea of freedom and the formation of one’s own destiny. The Protestant religion does not admit two kinds of conciousness. For Weber, this is a coercive thing. But for Hegel, this is fantastic. It means the “world spirit” is with you. There is not a difference, in the Luther sense, between following God and freedom. If you have a state that adheres to that, you must be loyal to it. If you have a state that does not adhere to that, you must rise up, as Kolhaas did.

Freedom=thinking, thought=freedom.

History has to be progressing.

The end of history was reached when the French learned the ideas of Kolhaas, overthrew their government, and embodied the ideas of Hegel: freedom of will, truth, and subjectivity.

Also, on a seperate note, I wanted to tell people about a movie that I watched this week called "The One Percent". It was incredibly fascinating, and incredibly tied to what we are talking about right now. It was just screaming "the spirit of capitalism and the protestant ethic!" The guy who made the film is an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, so he had access to many things that other filmmakers would not have had. Also, our dear friend Milton Friedman is in it, and I totally wanted to punch him in the face the entire time, even though he looks like a cute little old man.

the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV34oF2EEvA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Percent