Ben goes on about persevering through all things, even illness….Adorno reference to the infatiguability (?) device!
We will be talking about Fasolt today, three questions on the board at the start of class:
1. Why divide past and present?
2. What does history have to d with freedom?
3. What makes all this dangerous?
Essays are due on Friday. Make them look nice, and keep in mind who your audience will be! Name, date, and title should be on the top of the paper, do NOT have “External writing #3” as a title! You can use Chicago style footnotes if you know how, otherwise use MLA. Essays must brought to class as a HARD COPY on Thursday. Ben will read, annotate, and write down what scores he thinks we deserve. He will then bring the papers back on Tuesday, with a self-evaluation for each of us to fill out. We must grade ourselves. Ben will meet with each of us, and we will figure out the scores. It’s a collaborative grading assignment. Come with good arguments to defend the paper. We signed up in class today, for which days we can meet with Ben (next week).
Emails to Ben are due Thursday night, mentioning the members of our final projects groups, and our basic ideas on what we want to do.
Now lets talk about Fasolt…
Why divide the past and the present?
Maryka (?)- We want to begin with a clean slate. We don’t want to be “tied” to the past. On the first page of Fasolt, it says, “our knowledge of the past seems to sadly incomplete”. It doesn’t make sense to be angry about things in the past, because it may or not even be true. Everyone has a different truth.
Ben- look at page 39, middle paragraph
Ben used me as an example to illustrate this point. I (Elissa) write with authority, because I am the only one writing a Protokoll today. Other people can say what they heard, but it wasn’t written, so it is not as legitimate. There is a representation of the class, but people are going to have different opinions on what actually happened. “You can not speak for me, you don’t have that experience!” But that is what history is. One problem is, is that we don’t have all the evidence. Fasolt agrees that there is a problem with not having all the evidence, but there is a deeper problem!
Brittney- segue into question two. Page 7
The past is what has already happened, but with present and future, there is a chance to not let what happened in the past, happen again.
Ahmed has a problem with the clean slate. What happens in the past, that is what the present and the future are based upon. For example, the problem with racism. One cannot just write off the past and say that it didn’t happen.
Hallie mentioned the idea of personal histories of people in society. There is a danger of just taking into account written history.
Ben explains Konjunkiv II. Fasolt uses it in the paper, and this has potential to cause confusion. He (Fasolt) doesn’t neccesarily BELIEVE things himself, but because of the English translation of the German Konjunktiv II, it can come across that way.
Anyways…there is a danger of saying “the past is over”.
Kate talked about how things that happen even a few minutes ago are a sort of “history”. Written sources are not the only valid point, are they?
Ben talks about legitimating of history. A lot of blogs talked about how history can be anything, and on a level, this is true. But on another level, not so much. Legitimate history takes very specific forms for very specific reasons.
Fasolt writes a bit about the history of history…Humanists! The medieval conception of history talked about the four world empires, and we are in the last period of history. This started at year zero, and the birth of Christ. The world would end with the coming of Christ. We still measure our years in relation to Christ (2011= 2011 years after the birth of JC). But the humanists brought in the modern view of history. It still starts in the year zero, but it extends into “forever”.
“Historical revolt”: past/present/future or ancient/medieval/modern.
Fasolt says that history is a fundamentally political act.
Rachel- page 19: the pope and emperor (Holy Roman Empire: the “entirety” of the Christian world) claimed to rule until the end of the world, but the humanists destroyed this view.
Ben- pg 7
Difference between freedom in time and freedom in space?
Freedom in time: one can make a clean break, revolt, or make a different choice than in the past. This stands in opposition to the medieval view of history: the same era, united under the same pope in the same empire.
Freedom in space: we don’t have to conform to the “limits” of the HRE. One can go establish a nation or pursue a destiny outside the church. The future is OPEN! This is a very different idea compared to medieval thought.
American conduct manuals in the 1850s- we don’t pick them up and believe that we have to do what the book says. It is no longer “legitimate” knowledge. However, we pick up the Bible (Christians) but view it as legitimate?? The Bible has a sort of authority.
Culture wars have a lot to do with religion and its legitimacy. Many moderns don’t believe the Bible is legitimate. But many still believe in its legitimacy!
Mandi talked about how the Bible has aged a little bit- we don’t go along with EVERYTHING in it any more. Should the Bible be taken literally?
Brittney- page 8 “unlike history and nature…”
Many believe that the Bible was/is outside of time.
Ben talks about how history is inherently political because it was used as a weapon in a political battle. Used as a weapon by kings, princes, and territorial rulers AGAINST the pope/empire. “These texts you (pope and emperor) are using are not legitimate because they took place in the past”. But there was a CHANGE- the battle of Jena, where Napoleon DESTORYED the HRE! There is no one to fight with anymore.
Brittney
Pg,. 26 middle of page- “…history became objective in a novel sense. “
History became the new sovereign.
Pg. 27- bottom of the page
There is a new mentalite.
Ben
There isn’t a war any more, after the HRE was destroyed. History was no longer the tool used to advance the cause of the HRE… (middle of page. 27). There is a BREAK in the past.
Why is this understanding of history dangerous???
START OF DIFFICULTATION
We all numbered off as ones and twos. My group is playing the role of the Junker, the other group plays the role of Hegel. Junker describes why Hegels view of history is dangerous, Hegel describes how the Junker describes the role of history and why it is dangerous.
Junker against Hegel
In our group, we talked about how Hegel believes that we are progressing. Why is it dangerous? It moves away from the bindings of the church. But this ultimately becomes a political tool used by authorities.
Hegel against Junker (Brittney)
There is no progression in the Junker’s view of history, rather, there is a stagnation. The medieval people are always “stuck” in the end times (a Christian idea of the end of the world). It can’t be a sovereign state if there is no way to move past. They can’t enlighten themselves if they are bound by tradition and there is no chance to change.
Junker against Hegel (Sophie)
Under the HRE, people are unified, and to give the individual power would take away from the unity. There is an abandonment of the authority of God.
We will continue to talk about this during next class. Each group will come up with a sort of response to the other group’s accusations. Ben says to look over the Fasolt stuff and be ready to keep talking about it for Thursday.
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