Hegel and Marx on Webphil!

To start, I would like to say that I really like the updates on WebPhil!  I feel like it is a much more friendly/welcoming format than it has been in the past.


WebPhil Critique from Hegel:



 

 

Principle: Change comes about because everything has a thesis and an antithesis and because of the conflict between the two, moves to a new synthesis of the two.  This cycle repeats itself. 

When applied to WebPhil...

Thesis: Draw people in to read our critiques and become interested in what we are trying to do.

Antithesis: Push people away by an awkward placement of the "Thinkers" section. The placement right now feels awkward.  They seem like a side thought instead of a main point on the front page.

New Synthesis: Place the "Thinkers" section above or below the "Critiques" section so that the flow feels a little more natural.  

 WebPhil Critique from Marx:

Principle: A worker should never be alienated from their work.  They should understand the bigger vision and purpose of their work so that the work can become apart of them and their values and person should be enhanced in it. 

When applied to WebPhil...

I honestly feel that in light of Marx's idea of alienation, WebPhil is doing a really good job.  What I mean is that with our front page we really portray the bigger vision of what we are doing which will make sure users don't become alienated as they go through the site.  With the bigger vision in mind, they will interact and dive into the site and be able to really fully participate and appreciate it.  Hopefully this will allow them to become connected with the site, instead of alienated.  Users aren't necessarily creating something as they use the site, but their "work" when moving through the site will be to connect our writing and videos to their websites.  This "work" will largely reflect their own values about social websites.  So then, by the time they leave the site the applications they take away will be a mixture of the bigger vision (what we provide) and their already held values. 

Hegel & Marx on Webphil

Hegel: The world is always changing and progressing (as a group). 

Webphil has been evolving and continues to evolve as new viewpoints (new philosophers, antitheses) are added to the mix. Along with this, he would be happy to hear us debating over certain aspects of the website. Conflict is positive and provides opportunity for growth.

He might propose the idea of an open forum where visitors of Webphil are encouraged to critique the site and propose new ideas. There could be push back from other viewers as they seek to find a synthesis of their ideas. There should also be encouragement for opposition and debate in the analysis of websites that are up for critique.

A key for Webphil is to emphasize the culture. Businesses are currently expending a lot of money and energy into setting and maintaining a strong culture. In fact, some firms have even named a chief culture officer to aid in these efforts. A key part of Webphil's culture should be the idea of straight talk - don't get offended if someone disagrees with you and don't be afraid to be honest with others.

Marx: Everything that is done should be pushing toward meaningful work.

So far, the Webphil certified critics have all (well, almost all) been engaged and have learned about philosophers outside of the ones they are assigned to. Even though each critic has a specific task, they are informed of outside viewpoints and have an idea of what the website will consist of as a whole.

Website visitors should have a similar experience; though they may be particularly interested in a single philosopher or topic, they should still be exposed to others so they understand where their task fits in with the whole.

They should feel that they are accountable and responsible for how the whole site turns out. Though the visitors and critics may have a specific task, they should be like the difference between assembly line and kaizen manufacturing. They need to understand the vision and growth of the project.

Hegel and Marx Critique of Webphil

Ipso facto, or by the very fact, that we are critiquing our own website, shows that we are working in a very Hegelian fashion, in a dialectic. Having it as it is, each critiquing it, and then synthesizing our ideas to form a better site to which we start our critique the next times is the idea of the historical dialectic, the progress of history, and the progress of a social website.

But, to bring in Marx, there is a limit to our power as students to critique; both the website and the class. There is the teacher and his henchmen, the TA, who have power over the curriculum, power over our grades, and power over our experience with the class, to an extent.

This class has been completely different than I expected and I have had to adjust and be proactive in changing my own attitude towards it. I tried speaking up, or providing an antithesis, early on, but that didn't go too far. The class structure seemed pretty fixed then, though it's getting a little better now.

In part, this fixedness has been good, because I have learned things that I probably never would have, had the class been the way I expected it to be. But, I still feel alienated much of the time and maybe there is a way for us, as students, to have more input in the goals of the class.

Hegel and Marx on Social Websites

Hegel and Marx Intro

Hegel is sometimes called the beginning of postmodernism.  Marx was also a postmodern philosopher.  A really, quick, messy way to talk about modernism vs. postmodernism would be to say that the moderns believed in a fixed reality or laws of perfection, while the postmoderns believed in unfixed reality with changing laws of perfection. 

Modernism =



(Standard of perfection to measure worm against!)

Postmodernism =


(This worm is free for interpretation!)

What they Might Say About Social Websites (according to me):

 
Hegel: "There is no ideal social website with which to measure ! With each newly designed social website, there is always a thesis and an antithesis.  A thesis is the main point, and the antithesis is the anti-point! The makers should be aware of both so they can form a new synthesis or another draft out of these two contradicting points.  These drafts will continue on further and further, each time becoming something new, changing toward a new synthesis.  The idea of perfection is always changing."


Marx:  "Workers in any area should never be doing alienated, meaningless work like they might in a factory line. If the users are workers, they should always understand the bigger vision of the site and then with that inspiration be motivated to dive in and contribute and interact!"

CORRECT: Explain what alienation: if not alienated, then yourself and your values are enhanced in the thing you make. The primary form of alienation here is between the object and the human.  If not alienated, you feel connected. 
Separate what they originally said from what they would say about social websites. 

Overview: Marx and Hegel

 

Marx was Post-Hegelian, who was Post-Kantian, who was Post-Humian, who was Post- ...you get the picture.

Each of them built off the ideas of their predecessors and to an extent, through this process, verified one of Hegel's main points - the historical dialectic  -which gave birth to one of Marx's main points - historical materialism.

The historical dialectic is when an idea is presented and then refuted. Out of the refutation, and  conflict between the thesis and the anti-thesis, comes a beautiful synthesis - a merging of both ideas better than either on their own. History progressed like this up until Hegel, so he thought, who had achieved the end of rationality, unable to be refuted, negated, or anti-thesized. (Is that even a word?)

Marx on the other hand did not agree. HE ANTI-THESIZED THE UN-ANTITHESIZABLE!!! (Now I know that that ones not a word). He thought this dialectic wasn't between ideas, but between the material means one possessed or did not possess. The battle between the have's and have not's. Bourgeois vs. Proletariat. 

But, how do these two theories play out in social media?

One way is you could say that social media is a platform for these two different types of dialectics to engage.

1. For Hegel, ideas are shared, refuted, and synthesized through all forms of posting, commenting, liking, sharing, etc. You could say that social media is accelerates the process of history by making it easy for everyone to be involved in the collective conversation. A good social website, according to Hegel, would engage in this process.
2. For Marx, one way to look at it could be that some businesses use social media to advertize and those with more money can sponsor adds and become even more successful than those without money for advertizing, which would be a critique of Marx. But, a pro that Marx could see is that even those without money can still create pages and accounts for free, thus equalizing the playing field. A good social website would have both a free and a paid version.

These are two points from Marx and Hegel about what a good social website would do.

• Provide a place for people to engage in the collective and historical dialectic.
• Offer both a free and a paid version thus helping to level the playing field between have's and have not's.

 Comment below if you can think of any other ways.

Greg

Hegel & Marx

Hegel

Hegel is often thought of as the first of the post-modern philosophers. His ideas contrasted with those of his predecessors in that he argued that the world was not fixed but moving! He believed that the entire world moved together as a group in the following manner:

Thesis -> Antithesis Emerges -> Synthesis

This process repeats itself and demonstrates the importance of conflict or opposition in order to progress. Hegel also thought highly of the way that Jesus maintained His composure amidst intense trial and believed that many people emulate this in the lives they live.

Hegel would say today that there should always be something playing a role of antithesis and pushing back on the status quo or popular ideas. This could be visible on a website through forums where users debate certain ideas. There could also be a page on the website that opens it up for users to critique and criticize. This would allow the website to get better or at least for the creators to be more informed.

Marx

Marx agreed with most of Hegel's ideas and added on applications to labor. He believed that labor should not be alienating, instead it should foster individual development and encourage individuals to flourish. Everything that is done should be pushing toward meaningful work.

Even when workers are specialized, they should still know about other tasks and understand the role they place in the creation of something.

Marx would argue that users of a website should be informed as to all aspects of the website, not just they pages they frequent. They should also be able to contribute and, if they are specialized, be trained in areas not crucial for their tasks in order to better understand the role they play as part of the whole.

LDS.NET and Plato, Aristotle, Hume and Kant

Plato:

1. Unifying theme

The website does have an overall unifying theme, but it is really confusing in the way it is set up, so everything feels detached and a little bit unrelated.

2. Inclusion of everyone

The website mostly friendly to a Mormon viewer, but this might be okay since the Mormon viewer is the target audience.  It is important to be welcoming to lots of Mormons though, and the sites wide variety of content allows for this. If the tabs were more organized, this would allow people to be able to see up front that there is content that interests them individually.

3.  Enticing opportunity for open discussion

You can contribute by clicking the "contribute" button, but the placement of this button feels random and disorganized, and so I don't really have a desire to click it and am slightly confused already.  Also for whatever reason, people do not feel enticed to comment on articles, and this should really be looked at and worked on.

4.  Easy to understand

Like mentioned above, the website is very confusing and disorganized.  I would not want to revisit that website after my first impression of it. 

Aristotle:

1.  The actualization of potentialities brings happiness.  
 
The website has amazing potentialities which are in their case forums for connecting and talking.  They look well thought out and intriguing.  The main potentiality that is not being used is the comment section under articles.  Somehow that needs to pull people in.

2.  Ethos, pathos and logos help create persuasiveness for a website, which will bring users.

They use ethos well by displaying all of their followers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. They use pathos well by allowing for real people to open up and talk about passionate topics.  BUT unfortunately, they do not use logos very well.  I believe they do not use logos well because the layout of their sight is pretty confusing.  This is a big turn off to me, and I am sure to other users as well. I feel if they could get the logical flow of their website down, they would have a lot more users.

Hume/Kant:

1.  The first type of beauty is contributed by the experts or the site creators (Hume)

The experts (web designers, user experience designers and programmers) create the base beauty.  The base beauty of this site is not friendly to the user, so it really did not achieve what it really should.  It does not allow for the next form of beauty as well as it should, which is when users interact and consider the site beautiful themselves. 

2. The most important form of beauty is achieved only when the user finds it beautiful and contributes to the beauty (Kant) 
 
To critique the site as Kant would, I decided to dive in and pretend to be a user (since for him beauty is in the eye of the beholder), and see what beauty I could find in the site and its services.  I went through the site again, and explored some of their pages and articles.  They have a lot of interesting material, and I found myself reading multiple articles without intending to.  A large reason I read those articles was because they were right there on the top of the front page, with gripping titles.  I did find myself wondering which tabs to select--the ones on the top or the ones on the side, since I could tell that some of them were the same but not all.  So that was confusing and definitely not a design that I could appreciate or find value in as a user.  I also found the order of the drop down menus somewhat illogical.  I wonder if there is a way for the site creators to track which tabs are clicked on most and have those be at the top of the drop down menus.