Seminar based on Dreyfus and J'accuse

The final seminar of semester 2 and indeed year 1 of the History and Context of Journalism course was based around the Dreyfus affair and J'accuse written by Emile Zola. During the seminar there were two seminar papers which were read to the group both containing well contructed opinions of the affair.The papers sparked a very long discussion about racism and how people who have different religious beliefs can be targeted as the Dreyfus affair shows as he was blamed for the scandal because he was Jewish. The group decided that this kind of racism continued after the affair with Hitler and the Nazi party targeting Jews during the First World War. One of the main areas of debate during the seminar was to what extent did journalism play a part in uncovering the Dreyfus affair and the response by the French public to Zola's article. Journalism had a major role as reporters gathered stories from the courts, the army and the public and wrote articles which were published in a number of  French newspapers and also newspapers all across Europe. This level of press coverage had an affect on the public as during the affair they began to take sides with the left wing accusing Dreyfus and the right wing supporting him and this was not only happening in France but throughout Europe.

The Dreyfus Affair

The final lecture of semester 2 was based around The Dreyfus affair and J’ Accuse written by Emile Zola written in 1898. This affair can be seen as one of the most crucial events in history and had a huge impact on journalism. In order to fully understand the affair in its context we must look at the history of France during the 19^th century.

In 1871 the French army was defeated by the Prussian army during the Franco Prussian War and Paris was under siege. There was a severe shortage of food and the Parisians were forced to eat animals from the zoo and the rich merchants fled.  France was absolutely ruined as a country and the King, Napoleon III was forced to abdicate and a new provisional government was formed. The rich merchants returned to Paris and demanded rent with interest from the workers which they had no means to pay as they had just been freed from siege. In March of that year, the poor started a revolution whereby they took control of the state and the Paris Commune was set up to introduce new social reforms that would benefit the people such as improved working conditions. At the end of May, the French army stormed into the city and destroyed the commune executing nearly 30,000 people.

Alfred Dreyfus
9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935

The Dreyfus affair began in 1874 when secret documents were found in a rubbish bin at the German Embassy giving important information about the French army. The government immediately began looking for the culprit and Alfred Dreyfus was accused of supplying documents to the Germans. Dreyfus was a captain in the French army and was fully educated at a military school. He grew up in the town of Alsace which was German controlled and was raised by his parents as a Jew. During his trial in front of French army officers he was humiliated and his war medals were torn off his uniform and his sword was snapped in half.  He was judged to be guilty and was sent to Devil’s Island where he was imprisoned, had little exercise and awful food.  Following his exile a fellow French journalist, Emile Zola published an article named J’ Accuse in a newspaper claiming that Dreyfus was innocent and he named the corrupt officers who had actually been spying. The documents were found to be written by Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy who was a known spy. After much uproar he was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay huge fines.

When the French government changed, Dreyfus was brought back from Devil’s Island but he was a weak shadow of his former self. He was weak and could barely talk and his name was in ruins. It was ordered that he should face yet another trial and amazingly he was found to be guilty yet again with “extenuating circumstances”. This was one of the biggest trials in Europe and journalists came to France from all over Europe to report on events. Before the trail began his barrister was shot but police refused to help and he was robbed of all his possessions. He was eventually pardoned in 1899 but the events had caused a great divide throughout Europe between the left and right wing parties.

Seminar based on Rural Rides

The seminar this week was based around Rural Rides written by William Cobbett in 1830 which is essentially a collection of articles which were written throughout Cobbett's journeys across England. He wanted to witness the situation in the countryside for himself as the Industrial Revolution was having a massive impact on agriculture and trade and get opinions from the people whose lives it was affecting first hand. During the seminar three people presented a paper offering various interpretations and opinions of Rural Rides with one paper containing a set of questions which members of the group answered. I thought this was a good idea as it meant we had a clearer understanding of Cobbett and the context in which the book was produced. Overall, for me personally the seminar added further knowledge to my understanding of Rural Rides which will hopefully be important for the exam at the end of May.

William Cobbett lecture

During the 19^th century England was experiencing a period of great change which would lead to one of the biggest revolutions in history- the industrial revolution. Agriculture began to decline leading to mass famine and new cities such as Birmingham and Manchester were emerging as the industrial centres.  This change marked the transition from the 17^th and 18^th centuries when there was focus upon science and how this affected the world in which we live to the paradigm of change and how nature played an important part in society not just mechanics.  Philosophers began to interpret and understand the world through change such as Darwin’s theory of evolution in 1859.  He believed that all species evolved from natural selection and that only the best members of a species survive and reproduce to continue the process. Chemistry and geology were seen as important sciences as they were able to explain the development of the Earth through chemical change and not just science.  As the British Empire began to industrialise and develop it came into contact with the Eastern world and countries such as India. It became heavily influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism as these non Ibrahamic religions believed in a constant cycle of life and death whereby life was an endless process.

During the revolution nearly all traces of agriculture and farming were destroyed. The army known as the “Red Coats” destroyed the land all across Britain so that farmers were unable to produce crops or use the land for grazing. Scotland was particularly affected as it relied heavily on agriculture for wool production and hunting and when this industry was destroyed Scotland was left helpless and unable to export any goods. Many Scottish farmers were forced to migrate to the inner cities or to other countries such as Canada and the USA.  The few remaining farms that were not destroyed by the Army became large industrial farms under the Act of Enclosure passed in 1878.

William Cobbett
9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835

William Cobbett who was an English Journalist produced a series of articles relating to this change which were published in his 1830 book “Rural Rides”.  He travelled around many areas of Southern England documenting the conditions of these areas from the point of view of a farmer and a social reformer.  He believed that parliament should only enforce a law to help agriculture if members have witnessed conditions first hand. He witness tens of thousands of landless peasants who were struggling to survive and had no option but to migrate to the cities to find factory work.  In 1844 a law was introduced whereby people were forced to find work in cities otherwise they would be placed in a workhouse where they would eventually starve and die.

The Communist Manifesto Seminar

This seminar was based around the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 which presented and analysed the problems of a capatalist state. During this seminar three members of the group presented a seminar paper giving different interpretations of the manifesto. All three of the papers were highly informative and this led to a fairly intense group discussion where we were all able to share our opinions of Marx's ideas. The general feeling amongst the group was that even though Marx did not intend to create a plan for a new communist society it has been interpreted and adapted by dictators all over the world and used to suppress the masses in many countries such as Russia and China. This shows that a document which originally set out to solve the problems of capitalism within a country has been used in a much more brutal and controlling manner throughout the course of the 20th century until Communism's collapse in 1989.

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx
May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883

Karl Marx was one of the key philosophers of the 19th century and his ideas of creating a new state where everyone was regarded as equal has been adapted and used all across the world in many Eastern European countries such as Russia. He was born in 1818  in Germany to Jewish parents and he studied Law, Philosophy and Revolution but during his time at the University of Berlin he bacame increasingly fascinated by the works of Hegel. After he graduated he focused upon Revelation and radical journalism and his ideas were very controversial within society at the time so he was forced to flee from Germany and other countries before settling in London where he lived until his death in 1883.

In 1844, Marx met Fredrich Engles who published his works including the Communist Manifesto and in 1848 when revolution was spreading around Europe he pledged his full support. He wanted to change the world and move away from capitalism towards a new ideology where everybody is equal and working for the common good. The state would be destroyed and there would be no personal possessions, religion and countries would all unite for the sake of Communism. He believed we can explain everything in society by analysing economics and our society was economically determined. He took a very scientific approach into proving the world was economically dependant by studying tax records and commodity prices every day for several years. He thought that humans had the power to trigger a revolution as they were the most dominant species as they had the ability to produce tools in order to survive.

In order for a revolution to begin and trigger a change, the prolatariat who were the working class had to rise up against the borgoisie who were the elite class. Marx believed this would happen over time as the proletariat had nothing to lose as they had no property or wealth but everything to gain as if his theories worked the proletariat would have more wealth. Capitalism alienates people as we value some things over others and this causes a degree of inequality.

Marx thought humans have three needs within themselves, a natural self where humans need to eat, drink and sleep in order to live, an alienated self where the natural self is perverted for example sex is perverted as we live in a male dominated society and finally species self where everybody is part of one another and this self turned out to be one of the most important characteristics of Communism. He stated that humans are stuck in the alienated self as we do not get job satisfaction as we can see our collegues in higher positions and work in general causes an alienation of our self as it does not develop the mind or body.

Marx used Hegel's model of Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis to explain how a new society would form. The Thesis was the dominance of the Bourgoisie, free market Capitalism, a liberal state and individual rights and this would be opposed to by the Proletariat and Socialism would be the result or Synthesis. This change would be inevitable no matter how hard states tried to stop it and a revolution by the proletariat was imminent.

Kant and Hegel Seminar

The seminar was based around the ideas of Emmanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the seminar paper was read by myself and Asha and this gave the group a very good introduction to the discussion. We had a long discussion as a group about how influential Hegel's ideas were on other philosophers such as Karl Marx with his belief that history can be divided up into three stages, Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis and these stages allow human being to have self knowledge and understanding. A thesis is a proposition such as a fact or belief that a human believes and an antithesis allows the proposition to be contradicted or agreed up. The synthesis is the end product where either the thesis or antithesis is combined to create a belief. When humans have full knowledge of the world around them via this process known as a dialectic then they have full knowledge and Hegel thought that this is the point where history ends as there is no more to be discovered.