Existentialism Seminar Paper

I feel like I covered existentialism pretty well in my seminar paper so... here it is. Mostly a summary of The Outsider by Albert Camus but I think that's a pretty decent place to start.

Existentialism is, in my limited experience, very difficult to understand. I wasn’t entirely sure I understood it when we looked at it last semester, but now whilst undeniably not an expert I at least feel confident to discuss it. My seminar paper is going to have a brief overview of the history of existentialism and then an attempt at a more in depth look at Albert Camus’ The Outsider which I believe has given me a much better grasp of existentialism than any textbook could. Existentialism as a movement is far more modern than the majority of philosophy we have studied so far. The great existentialist thinkers were people like Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. Thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche however could be seen as the forerunners to existential thinking, a way of thinking that begins with the human subject, the actual human individual and not just the thinking subject like most other philosophies. The first use of the word existentialism in this context was by French philosopher Gabriel Marcel in the 1940s, it was then picked up by Sartre in a talk on his own existentialist position which was later turned into a book which did much to promote existential thought. It seems to me that the majority of existential thinkers were and perhaps still are French. I’m not necessarily sure what this means, but Sartre, Camus, Simone de Beauvoir amongst others all pioneered existential thought and were all French.

The book The Outsider by Albert Camus was an interesting read, I can’t say it was necessarily an enjoyable one but perhaps that’s the point. It’s purely objective that I didn’t like the book but it was because I didn’t like the main character and that is where I think the book has succeeded. Meursault is a strange character and difficult to like, which was the author’s point I think in making him the outsider. At first look he is an outsider through the things he does, or doesn’t do, for example, not crying at his mother’s funeral. This is an example of pure existentialism in his confusion and disorientation when faced with an apparently pointless and absurd world. It’s even more an example of nihilism, which is the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless. The character goes through the book not really conforming to society in any way because he cannot see the point of anything. Early on in the book when Marie is asking him to marry her and whether he loves her, his response is unusual but always the same, “I didn’t mind and we could do if she wanted to” and “I replied as I had done once already, that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t.” Possibly not the sort of things a girl would want to hear after a marriage proposal. But this is an example of absurdism in existentialism, nothing matters in the world beyond the meaning we give it, and since Meursault doesn’t seem to give anything meaning, nothing matters.

When Meursault is finally tried for his crime the prosecution in its final summing up accuses him of not having a soul, saying that he: “had no access to humanity nor to any of the moral principles which protect the human heart.” This is of course another example of nihilism and more specifically moral nihilism in the novel; one of the principles of this particular branch of nihilism being an assertion that morality does not exist inherently and that any moral values that are established are mere abstract contrivances. You could also argue that nihilism is the cause of the crime Meursault commits. As an existential nihilist he would most likely argue that life is without meaning or intrinsic value. It is this final point that makes the most impact, if Meursault believes life has no intrinsic value it would give him a motive for killing the Arab on the beach. The prosecution continues to argue in the novel that it was premeditated in order to help a man of ‘doubtful morality’, Raymond, but the novel establishes that Meursault does not think like that at all. The thing that I struggled with most is why Meursault would kill the man; he has absolutely nothing to gain from it, he doesn’t want to help Raymond, the man isn’t after him, he has a reasonable life and a future with Marie but when life is without purpose or meaning, losing it doesn’t bother him in the same way losing his mother didn’t. Losing his mother and not displaying any emotion for it is used as one of the most important pieces of evidence in his prosecution. The prosecution lawyer bases almost all of his case on it, referring back to it throughout and even the witnesses called in his defence can do nothing, finding it hard to explain that a man who simply does not care for anything, even Marie, didn’t kill the man in cold blood.

It is strange that once Meursault is found guilty of the murder and is judged on further extenuating circumstances, (his mother, the business with Raymond and his mistress), he finds himself in prison briefly wishing for a way to escape. It is strange that Camus has decided to give Meursault that brief slip into ‘normality’ whatever that is. It is not long however before Meursault is back in ‘the mechanism’ and waiting patiently and without emotion for his inevitable end. At the start of the book I didn’t really care for Meursault. He was a strange character, ‘The Stranger’ in fact, or ‘The Outsider’ but even though he is guilty, towards the end of the book I began to feel truly sorry for him and realised that the only reason he was really an outsider was because he never lied. We all lie on an almost daily basis just to make life simpler but Meursault doesn’t want to make life simpler, he says exactly what he is refusing to hide any of his feelings and society is threatened by this. When he is asked to say that he regrets his crime and all that he has done he replies simply that he feels more annoyance than true regret; it is this fine distinction which eventually condemns him. I think the reason I don’t particularly identify with him is because often I feel I can see the point of things, whether I can is neither here nor there. It could simply be just my own way of coping with reality whereas Meursault copes with it by seeing that there is no point and so here at least I can understand him, even though there is still no point.

Meursault talks long and hard about how dying now would not matter to him, he admits that it will be sooner than everybody else but when ‘everybody knows that life isn’t worth living’ what is the issue. Living another twenty years would still end in the same way with his death. But Meursault cannot hide that another twenty years gives him a jolt in his heart that can only be stifled when he thinks of what he’d be thinking in those twenty years when he’d have the same situation to face anyway. “Given that you’ve got to die, it obviously doesn’t matter exactly how or when.” It is almost noble the way Meursault approaches his death, that is, until the chaplain comes in and spends his time talking of God to a man who clearly has no need or want of that particular brand of comfort. He flies into a rage at the chaplain, the first time Meursault has shown emotion and it’s quite interesting that when Camus finally gives his main character an emotion it is anger he shows, or maybe it’s still annoyance; annoyance as he tries to explain that we are all condemned, not just Meursault in his prison cell. Even at the very end though, Meursault claims he is still happy and the novel ends quite powerfully as Meursault explains his last wish, “that there should be a crowd of spectators at my execution and that they should greet me with cries of hatred.” Camus sums it up best himself by saying The Outsider is the story of a man prepared to die for the truth, a truth that is negative but born of living and feeling and without which no triumph over the self or over the world will be possible.

Well that's that.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

WINOL Blog - Week 1 and 2 as a reporter

Holy mother of Moses this week was a stressful one. And alright, it may have actually been a week of relatively little stress followed by a pocket, a pouch maybe, of pure stress but that doesn't make me feel better about the whole debacle. It all started on our first week back, a debrief without a WINOL to either de or brief and a chance to vaguely meet the MAs who would be working with us for the next month and a bit. I'm WINOLs latest attempt at a transport and environment reporter, so of course my first story was about a university lecturer who also writes films. Seems logical. Well either way I was going to do this story justice and I think I did. Sadly whilst the film was shortlisted for an Oscar and a Bafta, it wasn't actually nominated and so the big story I totally unearthed and didn't just use a university press release became a slightly smaller story. Still, I was able to borrow the film from him, (pre any DVD release) and give it a watch. I'd give it a solid 86 popcorns. The interview went really well and I was pleased with what I did but I still had another week to get a story so more on my patch, I went for a story about housing in Cromwell Road in Stanmore which almost didn't work. I struggled on the monday for a story but managed on the Tuesday to organise two interviews with people relevant to the story that would give the story balance. I managed to get an interview with Councillor Ian Tait and Labour representative and former candidate Patrick Davies. The day was an exercise though in how difficult it is to secure interviews with people as they are almost all very busy and often not able to work to our deadlines.

The most difficult part was the organisation of the interviews for me because on Wednesday morning I went to the road to get some GVs of the road and also do my piece to camera. The shot on the piece to camera wasn't perfect and in the end I had what can only be called a guilty lampost shot. All in all, I was very happy with my first week on WINOL as a reporter but my work on housing set me up as essentially a housing reporter because my second week on WINOL ended with a housing story too. I learnt a lot from the Monday as my story I had prepared completely fell through. I intended to do a story on the Wi-Fi that was being added to the Blue Star bus that took commuters to Southampton unfortunately, Tom our news editor informed me that another reporter already had an interview and permission to film on the buses so that story went out the window. This meant I then had about an hour to try and set up another story which I'll be the first to admit I couldn't do. It meant I crashed and burned in the news conference even though Tom knew I didn't really have anything because he'd been trying to help me find stories and knew it was getting desperate. I went in on Tuesday then assuming I was just filming a lot of OOVs but this wasn't the case as another housing story broke and I was instructed to pretty much put it together in a few hours. Fortunately I managed to get in touch with a relevant local councillor and the interview was very easy to do but I struggled long into the night to get balance. Eventually on the Wednesday I spoke on the phone to someone who would give me balance, but they couldn't be interviewed as they weren't in Winchester and I had no way and no time to get to him, I instead quoted him in quite a long piece to camera as I didn't want my story to be dropped. It is a good example though of how important balance is to a story, without it, the story makes no sense, is legally suspect and really should be dropped.

I'd like to write more but with WINOL being what it is my mind is really focused on the next one so maybe I'll come back to this, but more likely I'll be distracted by the grind of what does feel like a job at times.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.

P.S. The first WINOL was removed due to unforseen technical issues but you can watch the second one right here on this very blog. Aren't I good to you?

Living in a Tabloid Nation - Bart, King and Cuddlip

Our first lecture of the new semester was a return to our look at the history of newspapers and in particular the tabloids. The main theme of the lecture was, or at least seemed to be "the baby boomers are arseholes." During this we whizzed through the history of the printing press, again, and arrived at the genesis of the modern tabloid newspaper. The history of newspapers is in some ways an example of technological determinism, the flatbed Guttenberg press was invented to print bibles and so when the steam driven rotary press was invented in the 19th century, it created the necessary condition for the press industry. In the America, the wild west and the gold rush spawned news empires like William Randolph Hearst who for us was personified in what, to me was a semi biographical film, Citizen Kane. The New York Circulation wars followed with 'The Yellow Press', the battle between Heart and Pulitzer for dominance in the newspaper industry. In England, we had Rothermore and Northcliffe fighting a similar battle as the tabloid nation began. Finally, before the lecture properly began, we looked over photography and the genius of Harry Guy Bartholomew and Hannan Swaffer. What I am really interested in today is the period from the 1920s up until almost the present day, the invention of radio and arrival of the cinema, the influence of men like Cecil King and the Daily Mirror, finally arriving at Murdoch.

Before all that though, "baby boomers are arseholes." Why? Well the Daily Mirror was, and I stress was, the most successful tabloid in the country, possibly the world. The baby boomers changed all this though as the Mirror ignores the boomers to focus on the 'hero' parents, back from the war. The death of the newspapers is going to happen though as the tabloids still remain the most popular of all the papers, and even their readers will only read them when there's no telly to watch, (on the train, on the loo). Papers are already almost dead in America and that's because television has taken over there. Here, television and newspapers have coexisted for a long time but Sky television is American television, like Fox and so the inevitable demise of newspapers really is inevitable. Murdoch once said "Modernisation is Americanisation" and that certainly seems the case in the world of newspapers. Until the ITV came along only the BBC were in opposition to the newspapers but they were aiming at very different audiences, so whilst the BBC were making news and television in general for people who didn't really read tabloids so the tabloids were able to have a monopoly on the working classes and those who didn't read the broadsheets. The Daily Mirror was in the early days the most successful of these.

In America, the Daily News did something that directly changed the way tabloid journalists in this country operate. They published a picture on their front page of a woman on an electric chair, Ruth Snyder to be exact; they published this with the headline "Dead!" Simple but effective. The circulation of the Daily News increased by 300,000 off the back of that issue and Harry Guy Bartholomew as editorial director of the Daily Mirror, wanted to emulate this success. The way in which he planned to do this was by turning the focus of the then failing Mirror to human interest stories. He employed Basil Nicholson as features editor but immediately wanted to fire him so employed a young man named Hugh Cuddlip as deputy features editor, purely so he could fire Nicholson and replace him in the most humiliating way possible. Cuddlip was a very successful features editor, ensuring letters were answered, changing working conditions of secretaries and sowing the seeds for Page 3 but even this angered Bart who moved him to the failing Sunday Pictorial. Bart was even angrier when Cuddlip managed to make the Pictorial nearly as big a success as the Mirror in far less time. During World War Two, Cuddlip was conscripted and made the Army paper, Union Jack, a huge success, later being commended with an OBE for his work. Back home in Blighty the Mirror was making a nuisance of itself, being accused of sympathising with the Nazi's in a cartoon when it was one of the few papers who had called for intervention in Hitler's plans whilst papers like the Daily Mail kept a well documented relationship with the Nazi party. In all of this, Cecil Harmsworth King was planning something of a coup. Bart had become chairman of the newspaper and was running roughshod over his editors so King managed to talk round Bart's board of directors after Bart fired Cuddlip from the Pictorial to remove Bart from office and put King himself in his place. King immediately brought back Cuddlip and the Mirror went from strength to strength. Cuddlip became the editorial director at the Mirror and brought in an old friend Jack Nener as editor of the Mirror. Nener was allowed free reign but it was still very much Cuddlip's paper as evidenced by the SHOCK ISSUES regularly published by the Mirror under Cuddlip's direction.

Cecil King meanwhile is building an empire, a magazine empire as well as a newspaper one. Having bought up various magazine presses in the country he forms the IPC as the parent company to run these subsidiaries creating what he always wanted, a media empire as large if not larger than his famous uncle Lord Rothermere. But empires always fall and when King had to accept the money sapping Daily Herald into his empire, even a name change to The Sun and a relaunch of the paper couldn't save him. When it was discovered he had tried to orchestrate a government coup in order to place Lord Mountbatten at its head and after an article was published in the paper under his name titled "Enough is Enough" about the Wilson government, it didn't take long for IPC to make the unanimous decision to dismiss him. Cuddlip took over in his place but never really had the same flair for that side of the business, his biggest mistake, underestimating the new kid on the block, Richard Murdoch (that sort of rhymed...). Cuddlip mistook Murdoch for his father really, a man of the old guard of newspapers and not something to be feared but instead Murdoch came in and bought the News of the World and The Sun without too much trouble, employed Mirror reject Larry Lamb for The Sun and out tabloided the tabloids. Whilst this went on Cudlipp was trying to style the Mirror as the first quality tabloid but how do you define quality anyway? If you were in my seminar you'll know we agonised over that point for some time. The Mirror magazine was the way forward in Cuddlip's view but that failed, and when that failed where was the plan B? The Mirror has never really recovered in a way and The Sun still shines brightest (lame pun) in the tabloid world. How long this will continue though is anyone's guess.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.