POLS 1000 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Verb, Tricky Stewart, The Past Film
12 Oct 2018
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Department
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POLS 1000
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
September 12, 2018
POLS 1000 Introduction to Politics – Lecture Week 1
Introduction: Why Must We Think Critically?
Lecture Notes
• What does critically mean?
o The term critical is often associated with negativity.
▪ E.g. movie gets a bad review, we can call it a critical review. These people who
do these reviews are called film critics. They can write a good review and still be
called a critic.
o The term critical does not refer to the conclusion that one arises at.
o Definition: Criticism and being critical refers to a thinking process that aims at
evaluating.
o When thinking critically, you bring in a variety of factors that allow u to reach a
judgment/evaluation
o When thinking critically you must also think historically. History allows us to evaluate.
o History is only one element to critical thinking, we can bring logic, observation, context,
point of coherence/lack there of idea, action.
o Film critics are often compelled to bring history and context in an evaluation of a film.
o This thinking process we call critical thinking it is a skill, not something you are born
with or naturally better at.
▪ Like any other skill, it can be developed through practice.
▪ These exercises will shape your critical skills.
o Evaluations:
▪ Did you learn anything in this class? – examinations
▪ Sharpening your critical skills.
• Why should we think critically? Why not take things at face value?
o Critical thinking skills are quite important, for they are useful elsewhere other than in a
classroom.
o Critical thinking skills are an intellectual method that allows you to protect yourself.
▪ With these skills, you will be able to engage in intellectual self-defense.
o These Fundamental in order to fight against phenomenon that is plating contemporary
society, this phenomenon is called stupidity.
o Allows you to engage in abstract thought.
o Even if you use these skills, you might not arrive with the right answers/decisions.
▪ E.g. Obama Whitehouse
• Notion of Stupidity/Importance of Abstraction of Thought
o Politics and literature has a commonality; share a bond which is the desire for
immortality.
▪ They both permit a person to go beyond their human nature.
▪ They leave traces of their existence
▪ Lasting and painful consequence of death; to be forgotten.
• Milan Kundera
o Born 1929, in the Jerusalem, Czech Republic
o IDEA 1: Distinction between ignorance and stupidity
▪ Literary non-fiction books; Unbearable lightness of beings, Laughable loves
▪ Art of the Novel (essays); The Novel in Europe
▪ Immediate context of this text: Milan was awarded Jerusalem prize for his body
of work.
▪ Had to give speech when accepting his award, his speech was called The Novel
in Europe.
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September 12, 2018
• Sets out to understand the great contributions of certain novelists.
• French novelist; Gustave Flawbert. Novel: Madame Bouvary
o About the provincial live in France
• Flawbert also wrote: Dictionary of Received Ideas
o Collects all clichés, stereotypes, received/fixed ideas that were
considered to be very thoughtful, considered to be what
intelligent people thought of other things
• 19th Century: Reign of the Bourgeois
o Directly related to the French revolution, which began in 1789.
The poor people of Paris storm the royal prison.
o The revolution within which the Bourgeoisie replace the
Aristocracy as the ruling class in France.
o Old Regime; the king of France and aristocracy ruled France.
o The French aristocracy as a ruling class was weak and broke and
ready to collapse; rule no longer sustainable.
o Bourgeoisie will join forces with the urban poor and peasants
and they will strip the aristocracy of power and they will take
their place as the new ruling class in France.
o It will take over 100 years for the revolution to end; truly ends in
1914 (WW1).
o The 19th century is the consolidation of the bourgeoisie’s power
• Bourgeois:
o Word itself derives from the fact that the merchant class
(people selling things/make things for selling) in the latter part of
the middle ages, will sell on the outskirts of the medieval towns.
o Second half of the middle ages, merchants would set up shop
outside the city walls. The outside of these walls was called a
faubourg.
o Term bourgeois comes from the faubourg. BOURG; people
settling on the outskirts of town
o Eois; suffix meaning people
o The term bourgeois mean: member of the rising merchant class.
• The bourgeois become the foundation of modern western society.
• This ever expanding merchant class will create institutions we still live
with today; representative government, free markets etc.
o We still live in bourgeois society.
• Merchants aim: to make money.
o Contemporary society expands this aim to making money to
almost all sources of existence.
▪ End of the 19th century, 1880, the Aristocrats were truly replaced by the
Bourgeois.
o Bourgeois Values
▪ With this consolidation of political power, a new set of dominant values will
come into play.
• First value: merit, this idea that if you’ve earned it, it is yours.
• Second value: work, the source of all value and merit.
o Work will allocate both resources (money, goods) but also social
prestige.
• Third Value: new found emphasis on reason/common sense.
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